Feedback on badwater
I've been playing Timberborn excessively for a very long time and understand the considerations to add gameplay depth with this new fluid. I was curious and worried at the same time about how it would impact the gameplay.
The way that pumps can selectively pump either fluid was a very good key idea. I now build big filtration systems to do just that, and keeping colonies alive hasn't been made much harder.
Overall, I'd say that the new gameplay in the experimental version is the best first draft it could have been. I'm enjoying it thoroughly and hope that the new system will mostly be retained as it is!
A friend pointed out that it would be good to be able to automate floodgates a little, e.g. to close when the water is too dirty. I agree that that would be a good possible extension but don't deem it essential at the moment.
Keep up the good work!
Comments: 6
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09 Oct, '23
Gin Fuyou AdminThanks for playing on the behalf of the dev team!
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09 Oct, '23
Igor612Speaking of bad water.
I didn't like the current concept. In my opinion, the source of contamination must initially be dry. The beavers must wet it and then collect the dirty water.
Bad tides can only occur when there is rain and flooding. After the rain stops, there is some chance that the water sources on the map border will produce bad water.
Sources in the center of the map should not be affected. New type of water source: spring. Small production volume (for 2-3 pumps), checks the water level above itself (no more than 1.5).
If you want to map the flow of dirty water, simply place the source of the pollution in the path of the water.
And yes, I don't like the dynamite recipe at the factory. Let there be paper and concentrate. And double and triple dynamite - two or three units of dynamite resource. -
09 Oct, '23
KrufarI only play experimental branch. So now there's bad water, which is pretty good! Though some problems I ran into:
Problem 1: Bad water sources keep flowing even when there is dry seasons.
This made me run all power from bad water rivers, and there is now no incentive to use windmills, gravity battery's etcetera! Which is a real shame, and problematic I would say, as windmills and gravity battery's are such a nice addition to the game. Making them obsolete is a waste of your effort to design these.
Possible solutions: Make bad water sources dry up aswell. Make bad water have a different season.
Problem 2: Water behaviour is still really weird sometimes. In the map Waterfalls for example. If you make a triple floodgate with every step down, the water flow starts oscilating heavily. This really makes for weird game interactions. The animation of water even seems to stand still sometimes in the vertical stream. Is your water programmed too viscous? (sticky). -
10 Oct, '23
FloddyI have tried the badwater update on maps diorama, waterfall, canyon and the game has for me effectively changed from rushing to build, overcome and automise droughts, to building a huge levee structure around the watersource and sluice ALL the badwater right off the map. (With a bit of luck you can fit waterwheels in there too to give power regardless of good or bad water)
While this works in essence, I feel like we kind of missed the point of making maps no longer automatable after 5 cycles.
The badtides has effectively turned into just another version of drought, since we have additional badwater sources to set up the extract product line with rather than just collecting from badtides. Plus, all badsources are now just waterwheel territory, which is rewarding too.
Now I must say I never thought of filtering all that water, which is really smart! But it is also costly in space to do on small maps (Especially diorama).
My suggestion is to change the badsource or adjustthe badtide. -
12 Oct, '23
Bolo NikeSome aspects of this reinforce a different suggestion (Beaver automators - logic triggers (control dams floodgates automatically)).
Now that some building are set to auto close at contamination notice and the stream gauge can read the contamination level it would be neat to have a contamination trigger if we pair the floodgates with the gauge. (possibly combine the move adjacent floodgate functionality with the contamination sensor ((assuming this does not spaghetti code too badly)))
Otherwise its an interesting challenge but i have noticed that the badtides don't always alternate like i thought they were supposed to. I've gotten 3 badtides in a row playing on the lakes map (potentially just rolled them that often). and the mix of how to deal with them is interesting. The cleaning rate when you get freshwater feels about right so i think yall nailed that part. -
12 Oct, '23
Bolo NikeApologies for double post but i thought i would add input on what Igor612's commented above. You might look into Creeper World (4?). They have a building/entity that makes the creeper stronger as it flows over it. If yall go the route of having some/all of the bad water come from a source like that it would be a good visual example of what it may look like/how it could function.
Admittedly when yall first announced the badwater/badtides being added i kinda had a thought of player-created maps that had creeper world-esque missions/playthroughs where you have to build quickly and get to where you can shunt/control the badtides before they overflow and contaminate all the map (or else get to bots REALLY quick).
Its interesting work, please keep this up. I look forward to seeing where this goes.
