Sea Level water flow at map edges

[1st.Gunnery]

Hi all,
i'm trying to build a map with proper water flow. My problem is that my river got multiple entry/exit points, but i could't get the stream flowing in from one site and exiting by multiple other ends.

I ended up placing water sources at the exiting points with level set to the lowest. Now entering sea water is sucked in by the water source but it looks a bit awkward:D

Is there a way to get sea water entering and exiting properly to get water flow?

Thank u in advance.

greeting
killy

[grapplehoeker]

Always set your water sources at the source, never at the estuary point. That will cause the water current to flow upstream and then it will become a contest between the downstream flow and the upstream flow. That may take a long time to resolve and I can tell you from experience, playing on a map with a situation like that is no fun when your sewage starts to change direction and chase your water pumps upstream!
You can place a water source that will act as a drain far out to sea though, far enough away that it will have no influence on the river outflow. That is rarely necessary though.
Copy nature. Set the water sources at the source and regulate the flow from there. Trust in gravity. Be patient, it can take hours for your river to stabilise sometimes. Always make sure the water is stable before publishing your map.
The water dynamics takes time to learn and master, but is very rewarding when it all works properly. When you can master the water, you can create truly awesome maps ;)

[1st.Gunnery]

i think i figured out a lot by trying and error but its not the problem with water sources used for rivers, i get a nice flow by leveling the terrain and let the water naturally flow (by the way, the "more gamespeed mod" is helping alot) but i'm trying to figure out how to control the sea water flow. If you have multiple enter/exit locations on sea level the water is always flowing into the map... but i want to have it entering on one site and exiting on another site. I don't want to use water sources for this, just the sea water.

thnx for your fast replay!

[grapplehoeker]

Ah do you mean a channel? A waterway where the sea enters at one end and the water course travels through the terrain to meet the sea at the other side? Please provide a screenshot.
If this is the case, it's not really a river. It's a channel. As such it wouldn't naturally have a flow, but I guess you could give it one. You could make an artificial flow by creating a raised water source at one end and a lowered water source to act as the drain at the other end. Then with careful carving of the waterway to provide a shallow gradient (sloping down in the desired direction) these 2 factors could create a current.
It's not something I've tried yet and sounds like an interesting exercise. I love playing with water. Keep at it and let me know how it works out ;)

[1st.Gunnery]

hope you can get it :p
http://picload.org/image/ioiadoc/flow.png

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by k!||y:

hope you can get it :p
http://picload.org/image/ioiadoc/flow.png

That's a very ambitious map lol
You are going to have to sacrifice many of those narrow waterways. You're simply not going to be able to create them to that scale unfortunately.
I'm assuming that the river flows out and to the west naturally? If so then I'd advise you to follow nature.
Where is this by the way?

[1st.Gunnery]

:D all water ways are actually available and water are supposed to flow east wards coming from the west, north sea flowing down trough Hamburg (river is called Elbe).
Its my home town and my second attempt after the patch crashed my almost finished map :p

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by k!||y:

:D all water ways are actually available and water are supposed to flow east wards coming from the west, north sea flowing down trough Hamburg (river is called Elbe).
Its my home town and my second attempt after the patch crashed my almost finished map :p

Ah ok, well there are already 6 or 7 Hamburg maps made in the Workshop. You could or should test them to see which ones water works best and then either use the best one or learn how they did it to improve your own map.

[1st.Gunnery]

well non of them got the quality i'd like to play on (slopes with 60m height and so on...) :p that's why i created my own one. I guess i keep trying. thanks a lot for your input, i will post the map when i think its playable :p

maybe there will be more ideas i a couple of days.

[wa4mat]

Killy, if you want the water to flow then give it the natural reason which is a high elevation connected to a lower one.

Use your terraform tools to create the high and low elevations. Example, first lower you sea level to 0 meters over the entire map. That will let you see the floor of your water basins.

Then, use the terrain tool to raise the floor on your high end to whatever height you want the map to be. Remember the high side basin floor must still be lower than your land mass.

Next, adjust the low side water basin to some value that is lower than the high side basin. This provides a natural elevation difference from which your water will flow.

The flow will only happen if you engineer a connection between your high basin to your low basin. Just like it happens in nature. From the way you described how you wanted the water to flow, I picture two separate bodies of water with a land mass between the two. Design the map elevations such that the land mass is the highest elevation. High basin floor is always less than the lowest land mass elevation. Finally, the low basin floor must be even lower than the high basin floor.

Again remember to always have you land mass the highest of all three elevations.
Lets say your lowest land mass is 200 meters. The floor of the high basin could be set at say 120 meters. The low basin could be set at say 60 meters or lower. By constructing a connecting path, (river or stream), between the two basins, water will flow provided the connecting path elevation at the high end is lower than say in this example 120 meters and higher than 60 meters on the low basin end of the path.

In between I like to create a nice gradual slope from the high end of the path to the low end.

The very last two things to do is place the water source some where in your high basin. It will flow first to fill the high basin, then start flowing down the connecting path and finally into the low basin area.

Last, reset the sea level to some value less than the lowest land mass which will allow the water level to fill both basins and up the your shore line but not over onto the land.

Note: Speed of water flow can be controlled by how many sources you place and how great the difference is between high and low elevation.

Have fun, enjoy!

[1st.Gunnery]

hey ya thnx for your ideas, i'll try this basin stuff. I start up a empty map and try different approaches :D
If i find a solution i'll keep you updated :D cya