How to irrigate

[pat]

I'm a little confused about irrigating land with a trough of water. Is there some sort of formula?

e.g., If I want to irrigate a large arid field, I can send a single-width stream down the middle. That will irrigate the land up to a specific distance away (6 sectors maybe?). But I want to irrigate further. Does it make more sense to place additional 1-wide streams, or should I widen my initial stream? Also, should I be dynamiting all elevated land to bring it down to the height of the irrigation stream? I could install a mechanical pump to raise the water up there, but that's a lot of expense and power necessary.

[Alcator]

You need "3 wide" to irrigate the maximum possible distance from the trough.

So, for a circular irrigated area, you will want to make a 3x3 pool (either surrounded by levees, or soil, or some mixture of both), and fill it with water.

[Yinan]

Originally posted by Alcator:

You need "3 wide" to irrigate the maximum possible distance from the trough.

So, for a circular irrigated area, you will want to make a 3x3 pool (either surrounded by levees, or soil, or some mixture of both), and fill it with water.

... has that always been the case that the reach is further with a wider irrigation channel? I Thought it was always the same distance from the "block" that contained water...

[Alcator]

Originally posted by Yinan:

Originally posted by Alcator:

You need "3 wide" to irrigate the maximum possible distance from the trough.

So, for a circular irrigated area, you will want to make a 3x3 pool (either surrounded by levees, or soil, or some mixture of both), and fill it with water.

... has that always been the case that the reach is further with a wider irrigation channel? I Thought it was always the same distance from the "block" that contained water...

No, this is a semi-recent addition. In the past, you could do it with a 1x1 square, but now each water tile counts how many neighboring water tiles (up to a maximum of 2) it has in a direct line, and that informs the distance to which it irrigates. A 1x1 will only irrigate ~4 tiles, but 3x3 will irrigates ~13 or so.

[Yinan]

Ah ok, good to know. Just started a new game recently and doing a 1x1 water hole might have been an early thing I would have done... now I know to do a 3x3 one ^^
Thanks for the info :)

[jonnin]

yes early game a 1x1 would irrigate half the map, it was nuts.

It does not have to be 3x3. It can be a rectangle or whatnot and even a 3x2 will wet down a fairly good bit of land. Experiment with it... you can also still use natural walls and levees to make puddles, but you can't use ONLY levees, it must have at least some natural part of the wall.

What I recommend is that you blast out some holes in strategic locations (read: far from badwater aggravations) that let you do water-plant farming, lido/pool/showers, and similar double-purpose puddles that will keep the land fertile while making use of the lost chunk where you dug the hole. You can also platform over water holes and get much of it back, putting in a warehouse or a farmhouse etc on it.

Note: water dump on a stair/platform won't turn off automatically. The dump must be AT the high-water level you want to auto regulate the puddle depth, else you will flood the pool.

[pat]

Ok, so a 1x1 pool is worthless now? I recently made this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3273671464
Not really sure I needed that last little bit irrigated, so I don't know that I'd gain much by trenching out a larger pond.

Thanks for the good info, btw.

[jonnin]

yes, a 1x1 and any pool made entirely of levees don't do anything for irrigation. Depth does not make it work either, so a 1x1x5 or something still doesn't do the trick.

[Alcator]

Originally posted by jonnin:

yes, a 1x1 and any pool made entirely of levees don't do anything for irrigation. Depth does not make it work either, so a 1x1x5 or something still doesn't do the trick.

'Don't do anything for irrigation' -- I think this needs a clarification, because the way you phrased it makes it sound as if surrounding it fully with levees will prevent irrigation; this would ONLY apply if also the bottom of the 'pool' was made of levees.

You were technically right, but for an uninitiated reader, it might be confusing.