Factorio Forums

early game there is no equivalent for the pump, but in real life, its just a really tall water tank, or a water tank on top of a building, or up a hill, etc. basically gravity adds about 4psi for every 10 feet the water source is above the outflow point. also since the inlet is toward the top, this is a natural "one way" selector to prevent backflow as well. these are your wild west water towers, or modern stand pipes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_tower

i would propose that we add the following:

1. a 2x2 wooden water tower with 1 input and 1 outputs, capacity of 500 and output flow bonus of a small pump.
2. a 3x3 iron water tower with 1 input and 2 outputs, 1000 capacity and the output flow bonus of 2 pumps.
3. a 4x4 steel water tower with 2 inputs and 3 outputs, 1500 capacity and the output flow bonus of 3 pumps.

these offer early game options for the functions of the small pump, but with considerably more space required as well as materials.

But how do you get the water up there? The only place it would realistically work is where there is already pressure, when you don't need it.

With a pump of course.

Sorry. Of course with a wind-powered pump.
I thought a bit about this and I really like that idea: Wind is not constant and powers a mechanical pump to bring water up to the storage.

IMHO that is working just like the current offshore-pump, but just another icon...

Deadly-Bagel wrote:But how do you get the water up there? The only place it would realistically work is where there is already pressure, when you don't need it.

Deadly-Bagel wrote:But how do you get the water up there? The only place it would realistically work is where there is already pressure, when you don't need it.

how does the current offshore pump work?
the answer is there are some basic gameplay elements that we have that we just accept. (belts move and water flows)

in the real world, you manually pump the water into the tank with a standard hand pump. other solutions (like stand pipes) use actual pumps to get the water up, but the pumps themselves are much less pressure than the resulting standpipe because the feed line may only be one inch while the return is 3 inch to get a good flow. (or at some really large tanks, 3 inch feed line and a 10/12 inch return)

for other real world cases, side wells into mountians that collect gravity fed well water, or natural springs or the collections of hill runoff routes are routed into the tanks on elevation, which then gravity feeds down to the lower level where the water is needed. so a water tank is on the hillside above the farm about half way up, with the hill runoff/natural springs/creeks/etc directed into it.