A bleed valve (dam block under levees) for regulating deep reservoirs.
A lot of people have asked about this feature in one way or another. Some ask for the ability to put levees on top of dam-blocks. Some ask for ways to stack floodgates for a 6 levee deep water reservoir.
I've made a mock-up of a "reverse dam"-piece, a bleed valve, capable of being put under levees. It occupies a 3x1x1 volume and the center block is solid.
The idea is that this block allows you to drain water from the BOTTOM of a dam.
I assume it will be possible to do this with the same in-engine features as the pump station and dump site (water buildings).
The flow through one of these can be Q = (p1-p2) * C * S
-where p1 and p2 are the water depth on back-side and front-side of valve,
and C is a constant set by developers after testing,
and S is the setting of the slider where the player adjusts the flow of the water.
I think it's a good idea to allow the player to fully close the valve, because one can not block the valve on either side.
Thank you for your consideration.
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15 Jan, '22
Sven MergedHighlighted comment
In general what it comes down to for biber water management. On hard difficulty i discovered you cant build smth like a dam with a valve and a normal levee on top. What i like to accomplish is to build a huge natural stored water tank. With the easiest let a controled waterflow just for the water pumps.
For the nature biber this valve could be a element to feed an aqueduct via pipe or so and tech biber something to create power as advanced building or addon to the dam element.
Another nice addition would be biber houses only flood when there entrance is flooded. so we could use biberhouses to build the leeve biberstyle. -
18 Sep, '21
Sam Barkes Merged---- mod edit ----
marked 'done' with release of U6
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1062090/view/4617965876718311948
comment used due to character limitations on parent
---- mod edit ----
With taps you could build massive water towers then, in the dry season let water out of the bottom using a tap -
19 Sep, '21
Dusty MergedBigger and better water storage is, in general, missing. I've resorted to making reservoirs.
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07 Oct, '21
Ben Blackburn MergedI need a valve that can go at the bottom of a dam or levee and meter water flow, giving a steady flow as long as there is water in the reservoir.
Since you are able to model water flow through deleted dam blocks, and floodgates, this shouldn't be too difficult? Lol
Fine control would be nice, units of water per minute or something so it can feed irrigation canals, or water wheels.
Also, please please enable raised aqueducts with the ability to path under it.
What seems simple is allowing levee blocks to be built on top of platforms, but if that's hard, maybe adding a "tunnel block" or something, so you dynamite a ditch, build a tunnel, and then the game engine treats it as "ground"?
Since water flow mechanics are hard, can you create dedicated hauler routes between a specific pump, and dump or irrigation tower? To separate drinking from irrigation.
Combined, these would allow dams higher than 3 bananas to be useful, and "automate" water handling by creating separate haul rout -
08 Oct, '21
Gin Fuyou Admin Merged> What seems simple is allowing levee blocks to be built on top of platforms, but if that's hard, maybe adding a "tunnel block" or something, so you dynamite a ditch, build a tunnel, and then the game engine treats it as "ground"?
That is not the problem, water at the moment can't pass above where could be another water level, it's single-layer only. Read the aqueducts suggestion comments please for more info and ideas. -
09 Oct, '21
Stephen MergedIf you know how much water is flowing over a given dam tile you could effectively teleport this water between the start and end of an aquaduct and just have a flowing water animation along the length. The water doesn't really need to flow along the length in the same way if it's a closed system
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14 Oct, '21
Sebastian MergedIt would be nice to have something like closeable culverts: I imagine something like a levee, but with a pipe through it which can be opened or closed by the user.
These kind of pieces could be used for constructing reservoirs with a height greater than the highest floodgate, so that the reservoir can be emptied "from the bottom" -
29 Oct, '21
Ben Blackburn MergedI had to wait for this to get approved before commenting this, but as Stephen says, is it easier to simulate it, so the game treats the outlet of the system as a Water Source, and the "inlet" is simply a monitoring block.
In other words, a "valve" in the bottom of a dam would simply look to see if there was any water above it on the uphill side, and if there was, it would produce water at the set rate.
And at the same time, the system would remove water from the reservoir at the same rate, through whatever means you already have, by increasing evaporation, or whatever.
Same with a viaduct.
The inlet measures how much water flow there would be if it were a floodgate, and then the outlet produces that much water.
In between you can just make an animated texture that looks like water is flowing, but isn't actually doing anything.
I have read the other suggestions, and watched the live stream where he talks about it, so I appreciate the current difficulty, so I am asking for a workaround -
02 Nov, '21
Jaco3011Q=S*v (flow=cross-section area * velocity)
as p=1/2 *d*v^2 (dynamic pressure = 1/2*density*velocity squared)
p=d*g*(h1-h2) (difference of hydrostatic pressures=density*g*height difference)
so, 1/2 *d*v^2=d*g*(h1-h2)
therefore v=sqrt(2*g*(h1-h2))
Q=S*sqrt(2*g*(h1-h2))
2*g is const
Q=S*sqrt(C*(h1-h2))
But S can be adjusted in non-linear way, eg. setting it from 0->1->2->3 could be actually 0->1->4->9, so this would feel more linear.
Good idea, have an upvote. -
02 Nov, '21
AfterCrowMore pictures:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2644250628 -
03 Nov, '21
hhaazzeeyyI was thinking about this as well and that it probably could fit within the current water physics. For the 3x1 block, block 1 acts like a pump but underwater, block 2 is your levee as stated, and block 3 acts as a water dump. Not sure if the water dump code will allow it to add water if not above the water layer though (there would also need to be a consideration for the water level not being higher on the output side). Additionally it would be great to have a late game version of this that could generate power where the power output was related to how much water was "flowing" through it as well . Maybe a 4x2x2 tile set like so? https://imgur.com/a/U7alMK3 . This would really help with hard mode power generation.
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04 Nov, '21
AfterCrowReplying to hhaazzeeyy:
I have considered the water level in the equation in the original post. If this is a negative number, the flow reverses.
As for power generation, this can easily be done by adding a water-wheel or two downstream of the valve. -
05 Nov, '21
Oliver MergedIt would be nice to have more possibilities to construct the dam, for example:
- Lock Gates (a solid structure that can be built into the dam, which can be opened or closed if necessary)
- stable plattforms (on which dams can be placed,to be able to build dams that don't just go straight up)
- water turbines which can be placed in a dam and power lines which are hidden in structures -
05 Nov, '21
Gin Fuyou System"Dam upgrades" (suggested by Oliver on 2021-11-05), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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20 Nov, '21
Gin Fuyou System"Water valves and ability to go below watercourse." (suggested by Ben Blackburn on 2021-10-07), including upvotes (4) and comments (3), was merged into this suggestion.
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13 Dec, '21
Shurlan MergedHaving something other than overtopping to control water flow would be nice.
I can guess that the current water system can't deal with holes in structures (seems like some form of 2D simulation) but adding a block acting as a hole should be easy enough:
Get waterhead difference, consume on higher side (pumps do that), produce on the other (water sources do that). (Maybe add hysteresis to prevent oscillation.)
Feature wise they could be quite versatile:
fixed max throughflow,
head dependent throughflow,
one way flow,
conditional flow (e.g. no flow if lower side has a water head of more than 1),
ground only.
You could have a selection of the above player selectable or not. -
14 Dec, '21
latyper MergedIt should be possible to build sluice gates like the ones depicted here:
https://i1.wp.com/civiconcepts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Types-of-dams.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1
This would allow players to release water from the bottom of a dam instead of over the top of it with a flood gate. This would allow for more creative and interesting dam designs.
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15 Dec, '21
Gin Fuyou Admin MergedIt's not currently possible due to technical limitations, please see workaround suggestions
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15 Dec, '21
Gin Fuyou System"Taps" (suggested by Sam Barkes on 2021-09-18), including upvotes (4) and comments (1), was merged into this suggestion.
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15 Dec, '21
Gin Fuyou System"Sluice Gates" (suggested by latyper on 2021-12-14), including upvotes (1) and comments (1), was merged into this suggestion.
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15 Jan, '22
Gin Fuyou System"Advanced Biber dams" (suggested by Sven on 2022-01-15), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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05 Feb, '22
Kaguya MergedTo let water flow below wood blocks or make a tunnel. Now blocks cannot build upon something can let water pass like dam and platforms.Maybe this limit can be cancelled or add a new under water dam or tube.
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08 Feb, '22
Gin Fuyou System"Open a hole under dams" (suggested by Kaguya on 2022-02-05), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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10 Feb, '22
dantaeusb MergedThis is also should very useful to make power from water wheels consistent during droughts, and prevent floods which happen because of water being weird sometimes when you close-open gates.
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19 Feb, '22
Martin TheobaldI tried around how to implement this with as little effort as possible and the pump does exactly this just as a solid block and a way to set the supplied |energy| input it moves water from one side to the other just fine without breaking game mechanics and it works like a charm for exactly this purpose if put into a solid cube.
This item should even be similarly priced like the pump just without using power but the input as a slider to adjust flow. i would say a big amount of metal and planks is worth to spend on this. also maybe some pine tar to waterproof it. just to make it a nice end game item. -
20 Feb, '22
Martititi Merged@dantaeusb as someone who studied how water flows in canals, I actually find the water mechanics quite believable. Idk how they programmed it so efficiently (like it doesn't lag on my machine ; then again I am more on the high end...), but it's quite good.
What part of the water mechanics do you find weird? -
21 Feb, '22
Gin Fuyou System"Adding an Outlet Block" (suggested by Shurlan on 2021-12-13), including upvotes (3) and comments (2), was merged into this suggestion.
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18 Apr, '22
Andara MergedI encountered some annoying restrictions in the current game: Currently there is no meaning in creating tall high damns, as the max hight is 3 blocks for floodgates.
My main issue is, that the is no possibility to control how much water I release OVER TIME from a big dam (even if that is the reason for a big reservoir to begin with)
If i have a 30 days drought and a giant ass pool of water, I can only manually delete levees all the way to the bottom ever 5 minutes, there is no way to just "set and forget" a giant flood gate that adjusts itself to the hight of the water.
Would be nice to allow a floodgate to be set to a "wanted output mass" and it opens more and more until this wanted mass of output is reached.
thanks for considering =) -
19 Apr, '22
Gin Fuyou System"Slowly discharge water from damn over time" (suggested by Andara on 2022-04-18), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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29 Aug, '22
Ian PottingerReusing mechanics already existing in the game, this feature could be implemented as a 1x1 block with two holes on opposite sides. One hole acts as a "map edge water drain," destroying water as if it was flowing off the edge of the map. The opposite hole acts as a water generation block. The two holes are linked in that the amount of water generated on one side matches the amount destroyed on the other.
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19 Mar, '23
Kyr> It's not currently possible due to technical limitations, please see workaround suggestions
I read this thread 3 times. Found no workaround for players.
Dead developers. Water - is essentially the heart of your game. You must make it right. If you strip all fluff, you have only one goal in your game - build the biggest coolest dam. And you can not.
Why have a cool spilling engine, if you can not control how you drain your reservoirs?
Why have a nice drying engine, if you can not build a bottomless pit?
All other features (pump, pipes, aqueducts) are cool. But they only provide things, that you can do anyway. But prettier and taking less space.
Getting water from the bottom of your reservoirs - is why humanity created them in the first place.
Sorry, for the tone. But I am passionate. The game loses replayable value without go-nuts-scale in water management. -
19 Mar, '23
Gin Fuyou AdminKyr, that is the comment from merged thread, likely about placing dam piece under levees or something like that. Doing that requires complete rewrite of water mechanics, which is already most complicated part of the game. It may happen, but it's a lot of work.
*This* suggestion is the work-around suggestion, but it also proved to have issues. Plausible implementation now is considered to be something like this https://timberborn.featureupvote.com/suggestions/309783/zefnolys-stackable-floodgatebleedgate-system
Workaround for *players* is mechanical pumps cascade, so following your logic, your statement is also false - you can do it, just not so pretty and with more effort. -
25 Apr, '23
Kyrs/dead/dear/
> mechanical pumps cascade
It will not work. Because it requires more power than this dumb can generate. Many YouTubers tried to do it. Failed. Which is actually good, otherwise you breaking 2nd thermodynamic law. -
30 Apr, '23
RussellHow about make an uber floodgate that can go up 10 blocks high, and is "smart," allowing it to control release over time with set parameters. Either that or create a deep water pump that extends to the bottom of wherever you put it, allowing you to pump water at controlled rates out of a large body of water.
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11 Oct, '23
shawni think as a controllable valve this would be to powerful and completely remove the need for flood gates. maybe have it as a a late game object requiring metal and not controllable. always allowing a constant flow.
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16 Oct, '23
JUSTIN MergedDams can't have levees on top of them, and it seems like it's realistically possible to create a dam structure that is tall but has water flow from the bottom or near-bottom. So the idea is more advanced dams that can solve the issue of creating a large reserve of water that flows from the bottom and doesn't require the use of floodgates. These might be larger buildings (example 2x3) and be mid-game or end-game. The top can be built upon to extend the wall upward.
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17 Oct, '23
Gin Fuyou Admin MergedThat's not technically possible at the moment, see suggested workarounds
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18 Oct, '23
Gin Fuyou Admin MergedMost known and initially trying to address tech limitations I can name are:
https://timberborn.featureupvote.com/suggestions/309783/zefnolys-stackable-floodgatebleedgate-system-alternative-bottom-dam-valve-outlet
https://timberborn.featureupvote.com/suggestions/229773/a-bleed-valve-dam-block-under-levees-for-regulating-deep-reservoirs -
20 Oct, '23
Jcheung System"Advanced forms of dams and levees that don't require floodgates" (suggested by JUSTIN on 2023-10-16), including upvotes (1) and comments (4), was merged into this suggestion.
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05 Jun, '24
Martyn MergedI love this idea, I'm surprised that it's not got more votes. This would be such a good update to the game because mega-dams would be ideal, especially in longer droughts.
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08 Jun, '24
Jcheung System"Add closable culverts" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2021-10-14), including upvotes (10) and comments (1), was merged into this suggestion.
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01 Aug, '24
werehamster999Given that sluice gates now exist in the game (and can be stacked), would it be easy to implement a reversed version of it, where upstream height determined if the sluice opens (rather than downstream) ?
I think it would be rather fun to watch gates working like airlocks and dealing with the “slosh” effects and inevitable backups when downstream areas are already overwhelmed :-) -
09 Dec, '24
MorganI would *LOVE* to have upstream depth dictate what the sluice does! I would like to be able to toggle AND/OR functions for the three current settings as well (If the water is above/below contamination level x% AND/OR Water Height is Y, then the gate is open (or closed). It would be nice to make those determinations for upstream as well. I have been playing with the sluices and having some issues with upstream flooding, especially as droughts end and the water sources start flowing again.
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12 Dec, '24
Jcheung Adminthat is not what sluices do. sluices are inlet control, use floodgates for outlet control.
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12 May, '25
AllanIs there any way to throttle water flow from a reservoir? I'm looking for something to set a flow rate such that I can drain slowly and consistently during droughts. At present, as soon as a sluice or floodgate opens, the water almost immediately drains to that level.
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06 Mar
fishladThe sluice did this. I often used it to let water out into fields etc. using downflow height control. The sluice is now dead, and automation is taking over supposedly but for me is much later game and needs more real estate and planning than a simple sluice. But i agree the sluice was always too complex for its main usage - being able to set water type passage and maintain output based on downward flow height.
If they won't bring it back i'd upvote this (bleed valve) as a temp fix if you consider a simpler water type control - open on any contamination, or close on any contamination is all 98% of people need. This needs to be mid game accessible tech wise though, after floodgates. Automation is just so late game for me now in the way I used sluices before its almost unreachable in certain hard conditions on more challenging maps.
A lot of people argue that the sluice was over powerful - but I think it was actually over complicated. I do not agree that it is now redundant though.
