Cold ground is the white frost the game paints where the surface heat is low. On top of the base-game penalty (an outdoor power consumer standing on it draws up to +100% power and can freeze), the mod adds three upsides for buildings that run better cold.
| On cold ground | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Solar Panel, Wind Turbine | +20% power. Neither building is cold-sensitive, so they never freeze; this is a clean upside. |
| Research Lab, Hawking Institute (inside a dome whose centre is on cold ground) | +20% research, applied across the dome. Labs built into a cold dome later pick it up automatically. |
| Every building | -20% dust. Covers slow passive dust, Dust Storms and Dust Devils alike, and stacks after every other dust effect. |
A building is "on cold ground" when the heat under it is below 210, the same threshold the game uses to apply the cold penalty to outdoor consumers. A building is tested at its own position; a dome is tested at its centre point, so a dome only partly over a cold patch counts as cold only if its centre is.
Heat is not fixed: Cold Waves chill the whole map, Subsurface Heaters and terraforming warm the ground, so a tile can turn cold or warm mid-game. The power and research bonuses are re-checked every game hour and switched on or off with the current heat. The dust reduction is always exactly current for wherever the building stands.
The base-game cold penalty is untouched: an outdoor power consumer on cold ground still draws its extra power and still freezes if it loses power. Solar Panels and Wind Turbines are power producers, not consumers, and are not cold-sensitive, so they were never penalized and are not at risk of freezing. This feature only adds their upside.
Applies live to whatever is on the map, so it works on a new colony and on an existing save alike, with no setup needed.
Part of the Survive the Storm mod.