Hydroelectric Dams and Rivers

[olafthecat]

These would be two really cool things to add to the game.
The dam could be another clean source of electricity, like solar!
Will add more later!

[wpirobotbuilder]

What do hydroelectric dams add, functionally, to the game?

The downside of fuel-steam power is that it takes a lot of logistics to extract and move the fuel there, plus it produces tons of pollution. The upside is that you get controllable power output in a relatively small space.

If you don't want the pollution and logistics investment you can build solar power, however you must build vast fields of solar panels and accumulators in order to provide large amounts of power.

If you want to get lots of power out of a small space, you can now build nuclear power stations, but this requires you to build complex logistics to reprocess spent fuel cells and balance U-235 and U-238 production.

What problem would hydro power solve, and what tradeoff would a player have to make?

[JohnyDL]

and factorio doesn't have elevation so how would you determine where the rivers flow?

[burner]

This is nothing to do with game but I must say that this hurts my eyes "The dam could be another clean source of electricity, like solar!" Hydrogen power is far far way of clean in real life. So if it ever got implemented I think it should not be clean energy. It need to make serious pollution and its benefit for coal is that you do not need feed mining products to it. You just install it and it will do 24/7 electricity and pollution.
Anyway as JohnyDL say, there is no elevation so will it need wait elevation feature first or just work with flat water?

[Koub]

Hydrogen power is far far way of clean in real life.

Hydrogen <> hydroelectric

[olafthecat]

TOO MUCH HATE!

You could easily make rivers flow, you don't need elevation.
They would just be very long lakes with a river animation.
As for the dam, once placed, it would flood the surrounding area, creating a lake for your steam power.
It would also connect directly to your network.
More later!

[Trudel]

... it would flood the surrounding area...

And where does the flooding stop if there is no elevation?

Seriously, one look a the game and you can see how the idea is either impossible or way too time-consuming to impement.

I like it though, generally, maybe it's something for a sequel?

[Engimage]

In the current implementation of the game rivers, floods, dams - all have no place in the game. This is just so obvious. You are just looking at the wrong game for it.
Maybe in Factorio 2.0 which would be 3D and have terrain elevation this would make sense but not here.

[eradicator]

22966

[olafthecat]

That could work!
I am, however, going to defend my idea to the death!

And where does the flooding stop if there is no elevation?

This is easily done, just base it on the width of the river.
The dam would be made of concrete, motors(to open and close the turbine ports) and steel.
You could utilise seasons where the river changes width and even freezes over in winter, you could do that with lakes as well.
Thinking about it, this could add a whole new level of gameplay, as you would need to either add chemicals to the water or heat it using excess steam from your nuclear reactor or steam engines.
If you don't heat the river water, it will freeze and cause the dam to break apart, creating a massive flood.
You could have extreme weather as well!

[Engimage]

I am, however, going to defend my idea to the death!

Have to disappoint you but...
No conceptually new features are going to be introduced to the game until release. Tweaks, optimizations, balancing etc - yes. These changes - no.
Making landscape really 3d with elevation and dynamic floods etc will most likely not happen in this game. Not until something like 2.0
Also this will not bring any value to the game, only complications. This will open up waaaay to many potential flaws.
If you want something unorthodox feel free to implement it as a mod to the game and if it becomes really popular on mod portal devs may consider implementing it into vanilla.

[JohnyDL]

I'm just wondering how I could use the flooding dynamic to my advantage, I want a water source at X put a dam through a lake flood a huge area place pump remove dam and flood zone instant awesome

Or how it might be used for trolling put dam across ocean flood entire map strand other players in places they can't feasibly get to the dam to remove it put second dam in the zone that's now been flooded which by definition is bigger than the 'river' of the first dam

Does water flooding kill bitters/wash away buildings?

[ItsDarthChaos]

That could work!
I am, however, going to defend my idea to the death!

And where does the flooding stop if there is no elevation?

This is easily done, just base it on the width of the river.
The dam would be made of concrete, motors(to open and close the turbine ports) and steel.
You could utilise seasons where the river changes width and even freezes over in winter, you could do that with lakes as well.
Thinking about it, this could add a whole new level of gameplay, as you would need to either add chemicals to the water or heat it using excess steam from your nuclear reactor or steam engines.
If you don't heat the river water, it will freeze and cause the dam to break apart, creating a massive flood.
You could have extreme weather as well!

Forgive me for laughing... but hahahhahahah....... aaaaahahahaha... EASILY DONE. Tell you what. Why don't you go and learn how to make your idea into a mod. Then come back and tell us how easy it really was. The only difference between mods and the core game is that mods aren't made by the developers, and therefore aren't officially part of the game. So, claiming that creating a whole system on a 2D grid to simulate 3D water flow, current, and resevoir flooding, would be easy... I'll believe it when I see it.

[olafthecat]

Forgive me for laughing... but hahahhahahah....... aaaaahahahaha... EASILY DONE. Tell you what. Why don't you go and learn how to make your idea into a mod. Then come back and tell us how easy it really was. The only difference between mods and the core game is that mods aren't made by the developers, and therefore aren't officially part of the game. So, claiming that creating a whole system on a 2D grid to simulate 3D water flow, current, and resevoir flooding, would be easy... I'll believe it when I see it.

I could, but I can't code for my life!

[n7m6e7]

Forgive me for laughing... but hahahhahahah....... aaaaahahahaha... EASILY DONE. Tell you what. Why don't you go and learn how to make your idea into a mod. Then come back and tell us how easy it really was. The only difference between mods and the core game is that mods aren't made by the developers, and therefore aren't officially part of the game. So, claiming that creating a whole system on a 2D grid to simulate 3D water flow, current, and resevoir flooding, would be easy... I'll believe it when I see it.

I could, but I can't code for my life!

You should read through the Friday facts to see all the in-depth systems that are stacked on each other. In concept, creating a river or waterfall on a grid is indeed easy. You got tiles, add animation, name it a river, tell the dam to generate power when on a river. Bingo, done.

Only you have to integrate this with all the existing systems. Such as the map generator, and run a whole new water simulation layer to determine if and when water overflows it's banks, to create "flood tiles" (imagine if rain caused every tile adjacent to water to update at once... We are talking some serious lag, and months of optimizations to fix...dealing in the complex low level coding, not the high level "place tile here" logic) and because of how in depth this game seems to be, it's not just going to generate power when it's in the right spot, it'll take into account the pressure of the water behind it. One more thing to add to river simulation layer.


All of this, to add an extra power source that would be restricted to specific tiles. That downside alone makes it not worth it, as steam is more convenient near water, but you can extend the system out as far as you like, plopping down hundreds of engines, or if you'd like to save UPS, you can plop down thousands of solar panels anywhere. Meanwhile, you may get like...10 or so dams? As irl you can't just put dam after dam after dam along a river, unless it's going steeply down hill.

Also "I will defend my idea to the death" is the absolute worst argument. To me that says "it doesn't matter what criticism is thrown my way, constructive or otherwise I'm just going to ignore it"

[eradicator]

Minecraft has a few mods that do a simple "are there x water tiles in y direction" checks. Ofc that's not a realistic simulation but for a mod it should suffice. And it doesn't require any sort of high-cost simulation either. Only a placement check. And even base factorio doesn't update water-pumps if you later landfill them. So, as a mod-idea it might still be viable.

-----------------------

Also "I will defend my idea to the death" is the absolute worst argument. To me that says "it doesn't matter what criticism is thrown my way, constructive or otherwise I'm just going to ignore it"

You just quoted the guy who said himself that he could easily implement his idea himself, except he's totally uncapable of doing so... That level of self-contradiction suggests he either has serious brain malfunctions or he's a troll. Don't bother to waste your breath ...

[Trudel]

Also "I will defend my idea to the death" is the absolute worst argument. To me that says "it doesn't matter what criticism is thrown my way, constructive or otherwise I'm just going to ignore it"

You just quoted the guy who said himself that he could easily implement his idea himself, except he's totally uncapable of doing so... That level of self-contradiction suggests he either has serious brain malfunctions or he's a troll. Don't bother to waste your breath ...

Or... you might just have misssed him joking around a bit. Don't take everything so seriously.

[eradicator]

Also "I will defend my idea to the death" is the absolute worst argument. To me that says "it doesn't matter what criticism is thrown my way, constructive or otherwise I'm just going to ignore it"

You just quoted the guy who said himself that he could easily implement his idea himself, except he's totally uncapable of doing so... That level of self-contradiction suggests he either has serious brain malfunctions or he's a troll. Don't bother to waste your breath ...

Or... you might just have misssed him joking around a bit. Don't take everything so seriously.

Or...you might have not read enough posts by that guy to know that he's probably not.

[Koub]

[Koub] I'm watching guys the discussion drifts towards personal opinions on people. Please get back discussing the idea described in the OP.

[Trudel]

Also "I will defend my idea to the death" is the absolute worst argument. To me that says "it doesn't matter what criticism is thrown my way, constructive or otherwise I'm just going to ignore it"

You just quoted the guy who said himself that he could easily implement his idea himself, except he's totally uncapable of doing so... That level of self-contradiction suggests he either has serious brain malfunctions or he's a troll. Don't bother to waste your breath ...

Or... you might just have misssed him joking around a bit. Don't take everything so seriously.

Or...you might have not read enough posts by that guy to know that he's probably not.

Point taken.

@Koub Sorry.

As I've said, I really like the idea. It should be a feature in Factorio 2, if it ever gets made.