Factorio Forums

Infinity water is not realistic, and very simple for gameplay. 2x2 water tile can provide a big base, and will never dry out. I propose to make water a more valuable resource, the extraction of which must be planned:
1. The water tile has a capacity and a low replenishment rate.
2. Water hole (as oil), having a high rate of replenishment.
3. Rain collectors.

More terraforming for fun!

Infinite water isn't realistic, but neither is consuming water without condensing/recirculating it like power plants and refineries do in the real world. So it balances out.

The main character can walk around with a bunch of trains and tanks in his pocket.

Realism in any game like this is selective and subjective.

That said, water could be a resource that gets used up. It's not even hard to integrate if you're already "mining" fluid. Just make the pump work like a mine, and the water tile have an amount.

The only thing that would need work would be drying up a water tile next to a big ocean, you might need to "average" it out like the fluid tanks do (e.g. treat each tile like a fluid tank connected to the others near it).

And water pollution should also be a thing. You should have to get rid of the steam somehow, and doing that pollutes the water. But I've already said that there should be boats, water-aliens, bridges, etc.

Maybe in an expansion.

lol the main character have train in the pocket

Hellatze wrote:lol the main character have train in the pocket

You're telling me you don't carry a train in your pocket on the normal?

Why stop at just a train, take a tank and some shells as well as a massive laser turret or 50...

don't forget the nuclear plants, stacksize 50 ...

Back onto topic, I feel infinite water is definitely a balance choice that is needed for the game. It would be way to frustrating if it wasn't infinite

Mehve wrote:Infinite water isn't realistic, but neither is consuming water without condensing/recirculating it like power plants and refineries do in the real world. So it balances out.

is that done? i know we store steam which I do not agree with as a game mechanic but i have not heard of a way water is getting recooled? i thought it just goes away?

No, my point is that the game gives us too much water, BUT since we can't recycle water/steam like we do in real life, things balance out.

If you wanted, you could probably simulate "The Water Cycle", but it would be a lot of effort for little gain.

Water gets sucked up out of water sources. Water sources shrink, slowly.

Water gets released when steam engines run, as water vapor.
Water gets released from chemical plants as steam??? Unless actually combined chemmically.

Steam increases water in clouds.

Clouds cause rain, expands water sources.


Its simply not worth the effort, but I suppose you could write a mod to do it.

The world in game is very boring and monotonous. Rivers, riverbeds, weather effects, would make it a bit little diverse.

FactorMan wrote:The world in game is very boring and monotonous. Rivers, riverbeds, weather effects, would make it a bit little diverse.

Like others who posted here, I think it would add very little in terms of gameplay, while potentially ruining UPS/FPS (weather effects do notably tend to cause this in games).

I do like what happens with water when you're running Bob's and RSO. The normal water is still infinite, but rarer and can only be used with the offshore pumps. It adds in groundwater that you can place upgrade-able wells on that act like oil wells, giving you greater water volume and convenience at the cost of the well gradually depleting. This causes a sort of cost/benefit analysis of where to put water-consuming structures and makes it a lot more fun in my opinion.

gothroach wrote:I do like what happens with water when you're running Bob's and RSO. The normal water is still infinite, but rarer and can only be used with the offshore pumps. It adds in groundwater that you can place upgrade-able wells on that act like oil wells, giving you greater water volume and convenience at the cost of the well gradually depleting. This causes a sort of cost/benefit analysis of where to put water-consuming structures and makes it a lot more fun in my opinion.

Yes, yes, water needs more tasks!

I too think water, being the most essential fluid in life and industry needs some care.

- Inverse landfill, i.e., a technology for creating water titles. (Sand should be an floor option too)
- New kind of aliens that can fly or cross water.
- Boats, ships, oil extraction at water, hovercraft...

With this, you could shape the land the way you like and get the feeling of water being drained and other perfumistics for the sandboxing aspect of the game.

Or the other way around, maybe... Not treating water as a land title, but as another commodity of the game, extinguishable.

Something must be done with the water...

Developers, since you have started reworking the surface tiles, please look at this topic!

curwen wrote:I too think water, being the most essential fluid in life and industry needs some care.

- Inverse landfill, i.e., a technology for creating water titles. (Sand should be an floor option too)
- New kind of aliens that can fly or cross water.
- Boats, ships, oil extraction at water, hovercraft...

With this, you could shape the land the way you like and get the feeling of water being drained and other perfumistics for the sandboxing aspect of the game.

Or the other way around, maybe... Not treating water as a land title, but as another commodity of the game, extinguishable.

Something must be done with the water...

A few things: the devs have said they won't add a way to add water, largely because it would make biters pointless. They could add biters which can fly or swim, but they seem to have little interest in doing so. Other than that, if they added all the ideas the community thought they should (many of which are good ideas, I'm not saying yours are bad) they wouldn't be done in the next 50 years.

There are also a few other factors, such as making it so the game isn't too complex for new players and optimizing for UPS.

Jap2.0 wrote:A few things: the devs have said they won't add a way to add water, largely because it would make biters pointless. They could add biters which can fly or swim, but they seem to have little interest in doing so. Other than that, if they added all the ideas the community thought they should (many of which are good ideas, I'm not saying yours are bad) they wouldn't be done in the next 50 years.

There are also a few other factors, such as making it so the game isn't too complex for new players and optimizing for UPS.

Well, you wouldn't necessarily need to add biter blocking water. You could implement canals. And if that suggested fluidbox change is implemented(the one that supposedly merges entire pipe sections into one fluidbox), you could even use canals as massive, inconvenient pipes.

Suggested Canal Features:

• Canal tiles should be built out of standard building materials, since they are an approximation of anti-landfill.
• Automatic culvert tiles would be nice if you place brick/concrete on the same tile as a canal tile. (Removing brick/concrete would revert to open canal; and removing canal would revert to brick/concrete tile.) (Culvert tiles should have zero capacity(no free underground tanks), the ability to be built upon, and still be able to flow whatever is in the adjacent canal tiles.)
• Substantially slows, but does not block any form of movement (biter or player/vehicle). i.e. canals are shallow; and biters should be reasonably assumed to be able to wade through (with larger biters having more terrain resistance resistance.) The biters would prefer paths to unblocked culverts though.
• Canal tiles should have a significantly larger capacity of fluid flow than piping, and fields of canal tiles could be used as a vast storage pond. (You would need to use a powered offshore pump at every intake and output.)
• Offshore pumps should be able to pump fluids in either direction, and have a circuit connection similar to miners (i.e. the pumps may read the used capacity of the entire connected canal segment.)
• May accept barges and shipping (hopefully in a later version of Factorio), but these transports shall not cross culverts or differing canals of fluids (since fluids should not mix, and there should always be a winner in the fluid wars.)

This is just what i thought up in the last hour or so... it probably has problems. But having a factory utilizing Land, Sea, and Air would be pretty amazing. Along with the canals themselves being able to long-haul "fluid busses" via sticking culverts beneath your actual beltways. It would be expensive, but logistically worth it. All of this out of a single added tile... the "Canal Tile".

Does that mean sulfuric acid canals and ponds? Sign me up! The one thing Factorio was missing