Water dispensers

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

During my full negative traits apoc run I had to find a way to circumvent making rain barrels since leveling up carpentry has proven difficult if you are illiterate and can't read exp multipliers. (Still level 3 lol )

What I want to point out is that the office water dispensers are just too light (5 Kg?) , they offer 250 water (refillable like a rain barrel so just grab a few and throw them into your base)

This doesn't nullify the need for carpentry but 250/250 water from an item that you can pluck several from a building and place them into your base when rain crates only give you (was it 140 or 160?)

TL:DR Water dispensers seem like they provide too much water, at least I don't think a 5 gal jug should be 250 water when a large rain crate catcher is 100 units less.

I think they should provide maybe 50-75 units of water and weigh at least 20 Kg

[Λ E O N]

Agree, the weight of the water dispensers is so low that this opens a wide open list of easily exploitable ways to play, for example: carrying a water dispenser into your backpack, deploying it wherever you want whenever you need, 250 units of water in each water dispenser... you have so much water that you can forget about it for a couple of weeks just by keeping one with you while just keep moving around. not to mention that you can fit 4 of these in a passenger seat.

Once you start accumulating four, five, six or more water dispensers that by the way, can be stored into the most ridiculously small containers (even a small shelf fits two) this makes water barrels, rain catchers and the struggle to find a viable and sustainable source to collect water totally irrelevant. In my case Im playing in winter, never used rain collectors nor even water barrels because you just simply can replace all of that by hoarding like 5-10 water dispensers full of 2500 units of water.

I think the problem is that, the game defines the space that any object occupies by "weight" and not by volume, I take as reference the space occupied by a red gasoline can ( empty 0.5) or (full 5.0) and comparing this with the size of the water dispenser which is four times or even more voluminous, if you put several red gasoline cans on top of each other and compare the space they occupy compared to a water dispenser, you realize why a water dispenser just taking 5 space is so wrong. Makes more sense to me if the dispenser can be around 15-20 size.

What is really confusing and wrong is the way PZ calculates the space that an object occupies, which is simply by weight, a great example to see this is by refering to the game Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead:

there is a big difference between volume and weight. The logic is simple:
you have a gallon jug in your backpack that occupies 5 of volume, but it weighs almost nothing because it is just an empty plastic container, if you fill that gallon jug with any liquid, it still occupies exactly the same space in your backpack because it is a plastic rigid container a non-malleable object and no matter if empty or full still taking the same tridimensional space aka volume, even if the gallon jug is completely full of water or fuel, it still occupies 5 volume in your backpack, although this time the weight of the liquid inside is added, which is calculated independently, the weight that the player can carry is relative to the player strenght. Right the opposite is a backpack made of cloth or a a plastic bag, when empty those can be rolled up, squeezed and changed its shape, stored in another place, the volume they occupy when they are empty is not the same as when they have objects inside.

That makes much more sense and fits with the way it works in real life.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by ☯ SkyBreach ☯:

Agree, the weight of the water dispensers is so low that this opens a wide open list of easily exploitable ways to play, for example: carrying a water dispenser into your backpack, deploying it wherever you want whenever you need, 250 units of water in each water dispenser... you have so much water that you can forget about it for a couple of weeks just by keeping one with you while just keep moving around. not to mention that you can fit 4 of these in a passenger seat.

Once you start accumulating four, five, six or more water dispensers that by the way, can be stored into the most ridiculously small containers (even a small shelf fits two) this makes water barrels, rain catchers and the struggle to find a viable and sustainable source to collect water totally irrelevant. In my case Im playing in winter, never used rain collectors nor even water barrels because you just simply can replace all of that by hoarding like 5-10 water dispensers full of 2500 units of water.

I think the problem is that, the game defines the space that any object occupies by "weight" and not by volume, I take as reference the space occupied by a red gasoline can ( empty 0.5) or (full 5.0) and comparing this with the size of the water dispenser which is four times or even more voluminous, if you put several red gasoline cans on top of each other and compare the space they occupy compared to a water dispenser, you realize why a water dispenser just taking 5 space is so wrong. Makes more sense to me if the dispenser can be around 15-20 size.

What is really confusing and wrong is the way PZ calculates the space that an object occupies, which is simply by weight, a great example to see this is by refering to the game Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead:

there is a big difference between volume and weight. The logic is simple:
you have a gallon jug in your backpack that occupies 5 of volume, but it weighs almost nothing because it is just an empty plastic container, if you fill that gallon jug with any liquid, it still occupies exactly the same space in your backpack because it is a plastic rigid container a non-malleable object and no matter if empty or full still taking the same tridimensional space aka volume, even if the gallon jug is completely full of water or fuel, it still occupies 5 volume in your backpack, although this time the weight of the liquid inside is added, which is calculated independently, the weight that the player can carry is relative to the player strenght. Right the opposite is a backpack made of cloth or a a plastic bag, when empty those can be rolled up, squeezed and changed its shape, stored in another place, the volume they occupy when they are empty is not the same as when they have objects inside.

That makes much more sense and fits with the way it works in real life.

I think what's also not being taken into account is that 1 gallon of gasoline and 1 gallon of water will not weigh the same either.

Gas is 6 pounds per gallon and water is 8.4 pounds per gallon. That's a pretty big difference.

IIRC the empty containers are 0.3 and not 0.5, sometimes a tiny bit of gas is left over and that could be where the extra weight is coming from.

Good explanation why this could have been easily overlooked and was not a conscious decision but rather something the game itself amalgamated.

[Λ E O N]

it doesn't really matter if empty containers weights 0.3 or 0.5, the difference is negligible, I was using a number easier to round. What doesn't make any sense to me is the fact that I can store 20 empty gasoline jugs inside my backpack but at the moment that they are full of liquid they magically take up 10 times more space... Call me crazy, but I don't think that a gasoline jug shrinks when its empty like an dry sponge, or that suddenly when containing liquid it swells disproportionately occupying ten times more three-dimensional space like an sponge completely soaked. it doesn't make any sense.

And it doesn't make sense because the game is interpreting the load capacity by weight and not by volume that an object occupies, and that is why the water dispensers feel so wrong and hilarious to see that you can store two of these over a tiny wooden shelf or two water dispensers into a nightstand with one ridiculously small drawer, it feels completely unreal.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by ☯ SkyBreach ☯:

it doesn't really matter if empty containers weights 0.3 or 0.5, the difference is negligible, I was using a number easier to round. What doesn't make any sense to me is the fact that I can store 20 empty gasoline jugs inside my backpack but at the moment that they are full of liquid they magically take up 10 times more space... Call me crazy, but I don't think that a gasoline jug shrinks when its empty like an dry sponge, or that suddenly when containing liquid it swells disproportionately occupying ten times more three-dimensional space like an sponge completely soaked. it doesn't make any sense.

And it doesn't make sense because the game is interpreting the load capacity by weight and not by volume that an object occupies, and that is why the water dispensers feel so wrong and hilarious to see that you can store two of these over a tiny wooden shelf or two water dispensers into a nightstand with one ridiculously small drawer, it feels completely unreal.

Yea it is weird.

I think its supposed to simulate not that "Space" is the issue, but the weight is too much for your character to handle, but then again you can fit 3 water dispensers in a backpack.

[Λ E O N]

I think that the way PZ calculates space is wrong, and that both the weight and the volume of the objects should be considered, especially the weight when the player or vehicles are carrying objects.

Anyway, the problem with water dispensers right now is:
1) they weight little and many can be stored in ridiculously small spaces, the player can carry many at once without any real issue at all. This added to the fact that one water dispenser holds the crazy amount of 250 units of water, it completely brokes the entire survival aspect of the game and difficulty to find a sustainable source of water and a good way to store it, making the whole challenge a triviality.

2) water dispensers completely nullify rain collectors and wooden barrels due the amount of water they can store at once, also due to the fact that the water dispensers are very light and easy to move, best alternative and more convenient, you don't have to craft these and can be easily found in many places.

3) you don't need any kind of skills to be able to use water dispensers, you don't have to grind your carpentry skill to level 4-7, this just makes the wooden barrels and rain collectors completely irrelevant and the worst choice not worth the investment of effort, time and materials. You don't even need a vehicle to carry multiple water dispensers, just a small backpack and you're ready to go.

It feels completely unbalanced, cheesy and broken exploitable object.

I guess the issue can be solved tweaking some values like:
> Weight may be around 15-20 .
> Water capacity around 40-80 units or even less, 40-60 units. This to compensate the rain collector barrel capacity (80 units) to make them relevant and useful again, same applies for the water barrels that can store 200 units of water.

[Radiosity]

Wait, they're refillable? I thought they were balanced by NOT being refillable, hence they're useless when empty. Unless that was changed at some point and I didn't notice.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by Radiosity:

Wait, they're refillable? I thought they were balanced by NOT being refillable, hence they're useless when empty. Unless that was changed at some point and I didn't notice.

Yep, they're refillable.

[Shady Allie]

I can put a shotgun in a tiny bag in game world KY.
I can put my boots on first, then my socks, but my socks will be on my feet and not over my boots.

CRAAAZY MAAAGIC

Realistic water things:

Water bottle. How much does it hold? A liter? Pretend it does for now.
How many game UNITS fills that bottle?

Water dispenser: Is it a 5 gallon jug? I don't know. Pretend it is.

Now we can math up how may bottles fills a dispenser.

In real life a full 5 US gallon jug can fill up about 18.93 liter bottles. Right?
So, how many GAME UNITS = a liter? Multiply that by 18.93

There is the units a water dispenser should hold based on 1 liter bottle and a five gallon dispenser.

Now discuss and accept how many gallons is a rain barrel. Math that up to find its game water UNITS.

Those numbers would be undisputed by real life earth math.

Tricky part: Converting actual weights and volumes into the system of encumbrance the zomboid code uses. That will be subject to dispute.

So I would adjust your water UNITS on each item to real life equivalents first. No one will be able to dispute those numbers. Should a dispenser be 250 units? 60? 80? 800?
Real life math will tell you if you know what the earth volumes that the devs used.

DEVS? Is a water bottle a liter? Is a water dispenser 5 gallons?

After adjusting the undisputed volumes converted to the games "UNITS", you will need to fight over the game "weight" and decide if you can really put a water dispenser inside a back pack no matter if it "weighs" 5 or 20. You just can't do it. I pulled a dumbell out of a school locker and stuffed it into my bag. I'm not kidding, it fit.

I will still be able to put my boots on first and then my socks next and still have my boots on the outside.

At the end of the day, its just a game. If you think a water dispenser shouldn't fit in a drawer, then don't put one there even if the game lets you.

I think the best you can get is to adjust the game files Water Units as close as you can get it to real life volumes, then use role play judgment on that encumbrance stuff, and for where you are going to store them.

I could role play socks first, shoes second, but I won't.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by Shady Allie:

I can put a shotgun in a tiny bag in game world KY.
I can put my boots on first, then my socks, but my socks will be on my feet and not over my boots.

CRAAAZY MAAAGIC

Realistic water things:

Water bottle. How much does it hold? A liter? Pretend it does for now.
How many game UNITS fills that bottle?

Water dispenser: Is it a 5 gallon jug? I don't know. Pretend it is.

Now we can math up how may bottles fills a dispenser.

In real life a full 5 US gallon jug can fill up about 18.93 liter bottles. Right?
So, how many GAME UNITS = a liter? Multiply that by 18.93

There is the units a water dispenser should hold based on 1 liter bottle and a five gallon dispenser.

Now discuss and accept how many gallons is a rain barrel. Math that up to find its game water UNITS.

Those numbers would be undisputed by real life earth math.

Tricky part: Converting actual weights and volumes into the system of encumbrance the zomboid code uses. That will be subject to dispute.

So I would adjust your water UNITS on each item to real life equivalents first. No one will be able to dispute those numbers. Should a dispenser be 250 units? 60? 80? 800?
Real life math will tell you if you know what the earth volumes that the devs used.

DEVS? Is a water bottle a liter? Is a water dispenser 5 gallons?

After adjusting the undisputed volumes converted to the games "UNITS", you will need to fight over the game "weight" and decide if you can really put a water dispenser inside a back pack no matter if it "weighs" 5 or 20. You just can't do it. I pulled a dumbell out of a school locker and stuffed it into my bag. I'm not kidding, it fit.

I will still be able to put my boots on first and then my socks next and still have my boots on the outside.

At the end of the day, its just a game. If you think a water dispenser shouldn't fit in a drawer, then don't put one there even if the game lets you.

I think the best you can get is to adjust the game files Water Units as close as you can get it to real life volumes, then use role play judgment on that encumbrance stuff, and for where you are going to store them.

I could role play socks first, shoes second, but I won't.

Thats a lot of very good information and exudes a clear logic. Thank you for your reply.

My biggest concern however is if this is an oversight that causes a massive exploit for players to abuse, such as you can skip a lot of grinding for carpentry by using these easy-to-find and lightweight dispensers of water and mass horde them eliminating one of the first major meta game events, Water Shutting off.

[a three-colored carp]

I like it when games let you skip grinding though. Grinding is something that a lot of people don't like. If you can skip weeks of dismantling queen sized beds and spending the first 10 days religiously watching TV to get skill points, so be it.

I get what you're saying that water dispensers are powerful, but I find it very disappointing when games nerf powerful strats

[Harvaturri]

I have never realized water dispensers could be so useful at the moment.

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic but does a water dispenser also clean polluted water? Like the way you can "plumb" rain barrels. For example if you first fill a water dispenser with polluted water from a lake and then try to fill your water bottle from a water dispenser? Will the water be clean, unpolluted water?

[Equil]

Originally posted by a three-colored carp:

I like it when games let you skip grinding though. Grinding is something that a lot of people don't like. If you can skip weeks of dismantling queen sized beds and spending the first 10 days religiously watching TV to get skill points, so be it.

I get what you're saying that water dispensers are powerful, but I find it very disappointing when games nerf powerful strats

That's all well and good to a point, atleast imo. When it starts becoming a detriment to other game mechanics, in this case making water barrels basically redundant, I think that's an issue worth addressing. Especially in the context of a survival game where water is supposed to be a very important resource, when it's trivialised to get you're starting to defeat the purpose of a survival game.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by a three-colored carp:

I like it when games let you skip grinding though. Grinding is something that a lot of people don't like. If you can skip weeks of dismantling queen sized beds and spending the first 10 days religiously watching TV to get skill points, so be it.

I get what you're saying that water dispensers are powerful, but I find it very disappointing when games nerf powerful strats

With the first two books of carpentry you can get to level 4 fairly quickly, youd be amazed how fast you can level the first few levels simply by sawing logs. Hell ive been doing it without the books since my character is illiterate and shes level 3, it only took dismantling a couple houses, certainly not weeks worth of grinding.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by Tamm:

I'm using them for my garden 🌼, cause nerfing myself with 0.5 exp gained and cant grind to 7 in time. Not fitting them in the bag for realism purpose, however: to fill one with river water you have to spend a lot of time near a river. Want to purify it? Good luck grinding that water.

Another: in real life, one carrot does not take full water bucked to be watered, and I don't have to spend half of 7 lvl carpentry barrel to water 6 cabbages, but in the game, the garden takes an enormous amount of water., and to maintain "slow grow" settings garden you need like 10 high lvl barrels.

Well, I'am also driving to the riverside to fish, cause looting 15kg fish in a smol pound is unrealistic.

Something I'd like to point out to you about refillable water containers.

Use rain, and cooking pots/sauce pans, (Just drop them outside and let nature do the rest) after you've found at least 4 of those you're pretty much set, traveling back and forth between a river is unnecessary due to how frequently is rains in the game.

Low on water in your dispensers or in-door rain barrel/catchers? Is it raining? If you methodically use those pots to collect water, boil, add rinse-->repeat you don't need to worry about using river water (which is also tainted)

I only use river/bucket/outside barrel/catchers water to wash my clothing and body

Empty buckets can also serve as a small rain catcher, though I usually don't find more than 1-2 looting through several warehouses and homes, but they're nice to have. Oddly enough they weigh more when filled (Than the cooking pot), but add less water than cooking pots.
You can also never sterilize water inside them if you try to cook them in any type of cooking application.

By winter you should have plenty of rain water sterilized and placed in a rain catcher/barrel/dispenser [placed inside your home, and they never become tainted if you fill them with sterilized water) and other containers to last you through the dry period.

Preemptively it is also a good idea if you are anticipating the water shut off meta event by filling all of your containers with the unlimited tap water before its shut off.

[Shady Allie]

Originally posted by Harvaturri:

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic but does a water dispenser also clean polluted water?

I have never tried but I bet it would be really easy for you test this yourself in game.
Let us know what you discover.

Originally posted by a three-colored carp:

I like it when games let you skip grinding though. Grinding is something that a lot of people don't like. If you can skip weeks of dismantling queen sized beds and spending the first 10 days religiously watching TV to get skill points, so be it.

I get what you're saying that water dispensers are powerful, but I find it very disappointing when games nerf powerful strats

Game grind is a distasteful mechanic for me 100%. When I pick up an MMO and start to feel the burn from grinding, I usually quit playing. If I paid for a sub, I still won't play because of the insane grinding. I would rather let the sub run out, and not grind than to do that stupid thing over and over over and over for a 2% chance for the material drop to start the grind to make the armor. Bah.

three colored carp, I used to forgo the work in favor of watching tv shows...but soon found I would rather play other parts of the game than babysit my watch and run to a tv for those show xp. Plus the game has built in xp multipliers, and many toggles and settings to nerf or buff your own game how you want, anybody can set up their own personal difficulty. OR mod the game if the sandbox settings don't make the grade for their wanted experience.

I have 2 water dispensers in my home right now, I live by a river and I also have a rain barrel in my garden. I still need to carpenter grind to do other stuff I want for this base. I can wash my clothes in the river, but I am still going to hook up rain barrels later (when I level up to open stair building) so I can bring a washer and a dryer over from town. In a future build, gasoline will have limits so if you live long enough, it will be back to the river to wash up and fill my barrels and dispensers. (I seriously doubt I will ever play a save long enough to run out of fuel though)