Excavation / moat

[JCav]

I would like the ability to excavate dirt for the purpose of creating waterways / moats.

We already have the ability to create the opposite with the landfill, so this would be complimentary.

[Sunnova]

This is not my mod, but seems to work well.

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Riley19280/Waterfill

[Rockstar04]

One reason that most are hesitant to add this is that it can be used to remove the need for defenses since biters cant cross water. When landfill functionality was provided by a mod, there was an entity called the water bomb that allowed you to make a small (2x2) patch of water, but when you tried to place one next to water, it always created a little bridge so you couldn't create a continuous length of water.

I'd like to request an easier/better way to create water.

There's no mod that does this well. Yours is just about the only one that does it at all, but it can't cut off land bridges, because it creates a thin border of land around the water. It also destroys a huge radius.

The bomb is really -cool-, and could still maybe be the best/only way to create water where there was none to begin with... but cutting off a land bridge simply shouldn't be as hard as it is. In real life, you could do it with a shovel. And considering one of the first technologies you get in Factorio, indeed one you start out with even in vanilla, is a machine that digs for you... <.< I mean...

Anyway, this would be a very nice feature, especially since sometimes I make a mistake with my landfill tiles, and create a bridge I didn't mean to, and... that's that. It's permanent. No way to get rid of it, ever.

That's the whole point. It's not meant to be a cheesy way to avoid fighting biters. If you don't want to fight the biters just turn them off (or enable peaceful mode).

source: viewtopic.php?f=91&t=4973&start=120#p139320

[JCav]

I'm aware of the potential to alter the balance of the game. It's up to the developers to implement it fairly or not.

[Rockstar04]

I'm aware of the potential to alter the balance of the game. It's up to the developers to implement it fairly or not.

A side note to that is that the creator of that mod, Rseding91, is now a member of the Factorio dev team, and most likely the person who implemented the current vanilla landfill system.

[JCav]

One thought regarding balance would be that you can only start excavating from a body of water, and the excavation can only be extended a certain number of (sequential) spaces based on the original volume of water.

Since that's a difficult thing to write, consider this example:

Source of water is 10x10 squares. You can only start excavating adjacent to it, and because the total volume of water is 100 squares, perhaps you can only excavate 20 squares worth of additional water. In this example, the balance would be provided by the 20% ratio of the original volume. 20% is merely an example.

Furthermore, the original water volume could decrease as you excavate more squares "off" of it. From the previous example, if you excavated a canal of 20 squares from your (previously 10x10) source, perhaps the source shrinks to only be 7x7 (or less).

[mattj256]

Moats are overpowered unless there are restrictions built in.

How about the cost of digging water is proportional to the square of the total size of the lake?

Example:
Dig one square of water, not next to any other water: 1 stone.
Dig one square of water next to a lake of size 1: 4 stone.
Dig one square of water next to a lake of size 2: 9 stone
Dig one square of water next to a lake of size 3: 16 stone

[ssilk]

Like this. Would effectively prevent from digging away a small land-bridge over a lake that closes the connection to a biter village near your factory.

[bobucles]

There's no nice way to build arbitrary "lake size" rules into the game.

Anyway it's clear that the only reason to build a moat is to have an invincible super wall that biters can't cross. It shouldn't be in the vanilla game as is.

[MeduSalem]

Well actually there were already some ideas on how to handle that problem back in the long forgotten past...

... if lakes would get some interesting weather/seasonal/usage depending mechanic where they might dry up if it's too hot/hasn't rained in a long time/you are sucking it dry with Steam Power, then it would also balance the effect Landfills/Waterfills would have.

In that case you'd be screwed just to rely on water to cover your base. You'd still need a defense in case the lake dries up, or you'd have to get some really really sophisticated canal system going to balance the weather effects, like they had in ancient Angkor... and since that would be time consuming to build it would totally balance the effect.


But yeah, I know the implications of this and why it's probably not going to happen.


Another method to eventually balance the issue out would be to have sea creatures... and they might be as nasty as anything else that comes from land. Would teach those cowardly island builders. Release the Kraken I say.

[Jonathan88]

How about giving enemies the ability to swim? In the early game, they would not have learned yet so those lakes are still protective. However, in the late game, they would be able to slowly traverse water - perhaps smaller biters/spitters swim faster and larger ones slower and maybe spitters wouldn't be able to spit whilst swimming. Also make the water fill very expensive like mattj256 said - maybe in order to fill in deep sea (dark blue), it would have to be filled in to the shallower (lighter) level first.

I wouldn't want to make a moat if it was implemented - just undo my land-fillings if I made a mistake! Moats should just be made much less OP and more expensive so waterfilling is only realistically for undoing previous landfills.

Perhaps a much easier way of implementing it is to only allow you to waterfill bits that have been previously landfilled - maybe make it obvious by giving landfilled ground a different texture (such as slightly waterlogged soil)

[mattj256]

Like this. Would effectively prevent from digging away a small land-bridge over a lake that closes the connection to a biter village near your factory.

Yes, if your base is already mostly surrounded by water it should be either illegal or very very expensive to dig further.

How about giving enemies the ability to swim?

Sounds good to me.

perhaps smaller biters/spitters swim faster and larger ones slower and maybe spitters wouldn't be able to spit whilst swimming

You shouldn't be able to build a moat to prevent spitters from attacking. Other than that, sure.