Dirty Water

[Lav]

Different liquids don't mix well at the moment, potentially creating all kinds of havoc unless they're kept strictly separated. And if a mistake is made, player is forced to deconstruct his entire pipe setup to get rid of fractional liquid remnants.

Suggestion: introduce new liquid - dirty water, and change the way water interacts with other liquids.

Two basic rules:

1. X clean/dirty water + Y other liquid = X+Y dirty water, for as long as X > Y.
2. When amount of clean/dirty water in pipes, containers, wagons or buildings is < 1 it evaporates, leaving them clean.

This will allow the player to "flush" his liquid networks and wagons with water, making them available for other uses.

Additionally, the game will need a way to get rid of dirty water:

3. Dirty water can be dumped, creating considerable amount of pollution.
4. A new building: water purifier. Consumes small amounts of coal and converts dirty water to clean water, producing some pollution as side effect.

For bonus points, water purifier building should cost lots of Uranium and have a Jefferson statue inside.

[urza99814]

+1

I was thinking something similar recently. Although I would say use any two fluids, not only if one of them is water. Since water is the only fluid in Factorio that ISN'T an oil product, any two mixed fluids could be called mixed oil or something, which I was thinking could be turned into solid fuel at a very poor ratio... or just dumped as you suggest.

Not allowing fluids to mix or even exert pressure on each other results in some very strange and unintuitive designs. For example, there's a point in my latest base where I have oil in one pipe, water in another, and a pump connected directly between the two. The best way I could come up with to PREVENT the two fluids from sharing a pipe was to directly pump one into the other... figure that one out!

Of course... If the dirty fluid can't mix either it doesn't necessarily solve that problem, although it might help. Dirty water could mix, but my mixed oil couldn't -- otherwise you could create homeopathic fuel... Make some dirty oil then keep pumping in more water for infinite energy! Real accurate fluid mixing would be awesome but I don't think that can be added...

[Factory Lobster]

Just posting to applaud homeopathic fuel joke.