My thoughts on BadWater. (Outdated)

[brown29knight]

Overall, I really like how this forces us to think about what we are doing, and build dams that can be drained to get rid of the badwater. Some notes:

1. Badwater sources do not stop flowing during a drought, meaning they are the go-to source of infinite powerwheel power. This pretty much trivializes all power needs as soon as you get alongside a badwater stream.

2. You need to store a LOT more drinking water for your beavers. A 3-day badtide is 3+ days (depending on your proximity to the water source) with no pumpable water. For higher populations, reservoirs are a must. This makes maps like Beaver Rome FAR harder, as those huge, deep pools of water suddenly become unusable, and land to build a reservoir is almost non-existent.

3. It is good that the contamination doesn't extend inland as far as the irrigation does, as otherwise a single badtide would kill every forest, blueberry, and crop on the map. Even so, badtides crush your food and lumber production, meaning you also need more food stockpiles than before. Again, a reservoir that lets you keep clean water removed from all flowing water sources becomes needed to keep crops and trees alive and producing. The end-game goal will be to have a way to divert all the badwater from the badtide before it gets to you, making it into just another drought. This may not be possible on maps like Beaver Rome and Craters.

4. Double and triple dynamite are priced in a surprisingly well balanced way. You save on time and overall power by using the extract to make them, at the cost of more workers.

5. Contamination is VERY easy to get, and cannot be cured until you are making metal blocks. The beaver(s) who get it are unable to work, but still use resources. This is an issue when the AI will move beavers into contaminated water without your input. I had a gatherer on the other side of a mangrove field, I paused it's production when the badtide came, and yet a beaver still ran across the water to grab some berries, getting contaminated in the process. This was cycle 4. So to keep from having beavers who will not work, it looks like I'll have to bulldoze the ladders into the water every badtide until I can divert the water upstream.

[Wolfen]

I just hope and pray to the beavergods that you can disable this crap somehow.
I want to get back in the game so badly, but those things spoils it for me and scare me away everytime. I regret i didn't played it more when it was fun.

[Psike]

Originally posted by Wolfen:

I just hope and pray to the beavergods that you can disable this crap somehow.
I want to get back in the game so badly, but those things spoils it for me and scare me away everytime. I regret i didn't played it more when it was fun.

I think they mentioned that in the custom difficulty you can change the settings. While you probably can't remove the badwater sources from maps, you can set the badtide chance to 0% or up the cycles before one would start to some really high value

[Metadigital]

Originally posted by Wolfen:

I just hope and pray to the beavergods that you can disable this crap somehow.
I want to get back in the game so badly, but those things spoils it for me and scare me away everytime. I regret i didn't played it more when it was fun.

You regret you didn't play the game before its experimental branch had a mechanic you didn't like?

I mean, I get not liking a mechanic, but at the moment it's one you literally have to go out of your way to play. If you miss playing without it, then go and play the stable version of the game.

[Pink_Pony]

To add something: I now lost a couple of settlements to the need to flush the badwater (i.e. you have to redesign your locks and gates to have no cul-de-sacs), and to the badwater killing all water and agriculture (you can't flush through your settlement without it killing most crops and contaminating beavers).

I do agree on Contamination being far too easy to get and far too hard to get rid of. Also, the first badflood should be shorter. Currently, it is a harsh difficulty spike.

[Tirosu]

I'm now facing a probable colony collapse with experimental update 5, the main issue being with how badwater kills plants very quickly, necessitating complete replanting, restarting their growth. Two badtides in a row, and I can't get any more very necessary blueberries for ironteeth. I suppose it's on me for not having a massive stockpile of blueberries to keep the tanks going, but I would be limping along with folktails due to not depending on blueberries, whose bushes take a long time to grow. I played on the canyon map on normal, and can prevent any of the badwater getting to the colony during a badtide, but I have to "flush" the badwater reservoir near the source relatively soon after the normal water gets flowing again so the longer-drying crops (blueberries) don't die completely, in short, the time needed to dilute the badwater to safe levels essentially turns badtides into extra-long droughts. You have to plan very far ahead specifically for badtides.

It feels punishing, and not in a very fun way. If I could change how badwater/badtides work, it would be making plants generally more resistant to contamination, so it isn't an instant kill or generally shortening badtides/how quickly it becomes diluted when water flows again. I like the idea, but it needs tweaking.

[brown29knight]

I'm playing ironteeth-hard-plains, and I have to say it seems that there is only one build order that really works for the first 4 cycles now:

You need to get wood, water, and berry gathering up ASAP, then immediately dam the river. By the time the dam is built, the first drought is less than 3 days away. Having dammed the river, you get 2 farms and a massive kohlrabi field up ASAP, and are able to sustain it due to the dam. (without the dam, your first harvest dries up and dies before it is fully grown)

Then you need to get a forester up before you run out of wood, your first breeding pod, and also get AT LEAST 200 water storage and at least 200 berry and 200 kohlrabi storage, preferably closer to 400 of each storage, all by the end of cycle 3. This lets you survive the 3 days of no drinkable water and all your crops dying and needing to be replanted from the 3-day badtide that usually hits come cycle 4. You forester should be planting trees on the fertile land FARTHEST from the water, this way the badtide's pollution does not kill the trees. (and being trees, they will live past the 3-days of no irrigation)

As soon as there is some drinkable water, you can start pumping it, but the crops will need to be replanted and grow before there is more food, so you'll need a lot more food than water stored at this point. (3 days water, but close to 6 days food)

After the first badtide, you can see about expanding more, researching, and starting the process of getting explosives, in order to be able to dam the river upstream and create a divert to prevent future badtides from hurting you, but don't forget to expand your food and water storage: 2 Badtides in a row can happen, and will cripple you unless you can store more.

On the upside, you can get a constant ~100 power per 2 wheels by putting small power wheels in the nearby badwater stream. build it out, and you'll be generating enough power for a decent industrial area without needing to research factories.

[brown29knight]

Little update: By cycle 9, you NEED to have a water reservoir that can be kept from badwater flows. Otherwise the badwater can be long enough that all the berries on the map will die off, some quick from contamination, and some slower from drying out. No crops and no berries for 20+ days is a colony death this early on.

For my plains game, I broke the nearby rubble, and put a floodgate where the rubble was, giving me a little pond I could isolate from the main water flow. That worked well, and as bad seasons got longer, I was able to dynamite it down to hold even more water. With it, survival has been pretty easy, but without it the colony wouldn't have stood a chance.

Cycle 14 I got my divert up and running, since then, I've had no issues with badwater, it is just a drought by another name once the badwater flows off the map instead of by my base.

Meanwhile I deepened the badwater stream near me, filled it with large water wheels, and am now getting constant 2k power without factories. I've also used levees to make a wall that is keeping badwater from the streams away from my colony. This helped because before that, every drought would see the badwater from the streams flow closer to my base and kill some of my oak trees.

The decontamination pods take about 2 days to work, and use 100 power at ALL times. (even without someone using them) So pause them if they are not in use to save power.

[Nyo Raia]

I really like the badwater mechanic. It can make some maps very hard, as many mentioned above, due to long badtides and poor water management.

The biggest change i'd like to see is being able to prevent beaver from going into badwater without having to block path. Beavers should NOT want to go into badwater unless they are near death and the only food/water is in a warehouse/tank on the other side.

[brown29knight]

Originally posted by Nyo Raia:

I really like the badwater mechanic. It can make some maps very hard, as many mentioned above, due to long badtides and poor water management.

The biggest change i'd like to see is being able to prevent beaver from going into badwater without having to block path. Beavers should NOT want to go into badwater unless they are near death and the only food/water is in a warehouse/tank on the other side.

Agreed. The AI is in dire need of tweaking.

[Flutters]

I personally really like the badwater. I've made extensive use of floodgates, something I never bothered with before this update, in order to block off and redirect rivers and streams to or from the colony whenever a badtide hits.

[Eloise B]

Badwater will finish off the game. I hate it

[Fall2YrDoom]

Bad water is ok, but the contaminated garbage is broken.. I think they need to work on that.. Once a game I enjoyed turned into garbage..

[brown29knight]

I wouldn't say it is broken, because it DOES work, but it is over tuned and way too crippling. There needs to be more effective early game solutions. Perhaps beavers should have a slight immunity to toxins that fades quickly when exposed? This way a surprise flood doesn't kill half your colony, but swimming in the stuff will still get you sick?

Or let contamination drop SLOWLY over time, so early game beavers will still have a few work days in them?

[Malekith]

I suggested on discord, but the problem with badwater is that you essentially have to cheese the mechanic to progress because it is so crippling. So you rush to build a dam and redirect the badtides at the start of the game.

Now, you can first stop the cheese by expanding each map by 10 blocks or so with terrain that cannot be touched by the beavers. So, essentially a border. Then you can edit the maps to avoid players being able to cheese the mechanic early by easily redirecting the badtides.

The badtides should always have a % of clean water that can still be filtered. Unlike droughts badtides completely wreck you. Kill your reservoir, kill your crops. So effectively no resource production compared to droughts where you can still maintain resource production for a period of time. Having at least a little bit of resource production will mitigate it's negative impact, especially as having a continual supply of water is better than nothing compared to a drought where your supplies are dwindling.

Badtides in effect should force you to expand away from the waterways for the bulk of your food production. The devs then should focus on systems to introduce irrigation outside of dynamite and levees. The FT irrigation tower is terrible anyway, but a more active irrigation system was suggested on discord such as aqueducts to move clean water around to locations, and from there an irrigation system for crops etc.

So whilst before with droughts, you were fine just daming up the river and continuing food production. Badtides should force the player to expand their colony and build away from the river and create megaprojects to eventually manage and divert the badtides.

Now, for the lategame when you get dynamite etc, with my idea of having map borders, this means the player is then forced to create channels around the colony to divert the badtides to exit points on the map.

In effect, compared to the live version where you build a large reservoir and you win at the start of the game. The way to win would be to focus on building all these huge megastructures and manipulating terrain to get to the point that badtides will be a non issue for your colony, and that would come in the late game thus meaning more engaging gameplay for far longer.

[brown29knight]

Originally posted by Malekith:

The badtides should always have a % of clean water that can still be filtered. Unlike droughts badtides completely wreck you. Kill your reservoir, kill your crops. So effectively no resource production compared to droughts where you can still maintain resource production for a period of time. Having at least a little bit of resource production will mitigate it's negative impact, especially as having a continual supply of water is better than nothing compared to a drought where your supplies are dwindling.

It only kills your reservoir if your reservoir is part of the main waterway. Build an isolated reservoir, either by building out a pond, creating a pond using explosives, using levees to channel water away from the main waterway, or using floodgates to isolate a wide stretch of the main waterway.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3047163576
Building out a pond: This is the plains map, it has a little pond area that I have added a floodgate to to make it separate from the main water source. Using dynamite, you can make one of these just about anywhere, but plenty of maps have them pre-built.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3047163489
Using levees to channel water away from the main waterway. In practice, I'd use a triple floodgate and build up the levee on both sides to 3 height in order to store more water and prevent flooding.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3047163630
Using floodgates to isolate a section of the main waterway. This could be done with just 2 floodgates total, trapping just a 1 tile corner of the river. This is good if you have a narrow area to work with, or need to build it quickly.

Once you do that, badtides are no big deal. You'll lose water production, but if you have enough storage and production during the good water times, that isn't an issue. The isolated reservoir, even if it is only 1 tile in size and right beside the main waterway, will still allow for a massive farm to operate, keeping you in food for the badtide's duration.