What is up with my sluice gates?

[Zarkawi]

I don't understand why my sluice gate setup is not working. On the meander map, I am letting the water flow through the initial waterfall with a row of 5 sluice gates, this is sufficient to drain all of the water from the total 10 water sources that feed into it without it overflowing, this part makes sense. I then set up another row of 8 sluice gates within the riverbed just before where the badwater would usually join up with it (though by this point I've capped it). And then further down I have a dammed off where the water can go off the map to try and completely fill the riverbed with water.

My understanding of the sluice gate is that by being unidirectional, you can create a situation where the side the water is coming from is at a lower water level than the water on the other side. However, this isn't happening. Despite having MORE sluice gates in the riverbed to allow water through than at the top of the waterfall, they seemingly don't let all of that water through, making my industrial zone flood.

I've tried multiple different ways of putting the gates in, even stacking them up so there's 2 sluices on top of each other, it still just floods, no difference.

[Rekkaba]

A sluice gate will not feed water from a lower level to a higher level unless the lower level is under pressure. A sluice gate is not a pump and therefore can't break the laws of physics. Water will always take the path of least resistance.

[Ɲøƈ]

Right. An open sluice merely acts as if there was nothing there at all, minus the backflow blocking feature. But to be honest I'm not even sure sluices do in fact stop backflow when they're open. I've never had a situation come up that would've allowed for testing that, because I use sluices primarily for slow-draining reservoirs.

That said, it sounds like floodgates further downstream could be the solution to your issue. Do remember that you can always build floodgates on top of sluices and just set them to closed or auto, so that you have a way to open the flow a bit without changing the level significantly or demolishing anything. This can also help with high-throughput situations where barely lifting a floodgate backs up the entire stream way above where you set the floodgates to.

I made a custom map where I have a total water source power of something like 18-21, depending on whether badwater is capped, and the tiniest obstruction on the river bed will back up the entire thing and flood the map. Open sluices below my floodgates are critical for that one.