Water is life and its broken

[ZombieHunter]

First let me say I really like this game. The beautfiul colors and scenery and the overall art design is excellent in my opinion. I love the concept and all of the variables it tracks and that your actions actually affect the world. So many games miss this. All glitz and glamour but no substance and no emergent gameplay.

However the other night I tried to create a canal and realized the water or more importantly the flow and propagation of it is broken. But in a game like Eco if water doesn't work and flow correctly then how do the other systems work and how can I trust them? I know rain water and soil moisture is controlled by some background mechanic that has rain although as of yet it is never visually represented. I'm ok with that.

I'm not ok with digging a canal and having the water just stop 6 blocks in. This means that the soil moisture on the blocks that are not receiving water is incorrect which means all dependent variables are also incorrect which means the overarching life simulation is incorrect.

I find it extremely odd to create a game about life and environment and yet not have water working from the word go. Because if water doesn't work and flow then life doesn't exist. You cannot have carbon based life with no water. Early Access or not water should have been the very first thing that worked 100% long before anything else was added. Very very odd.

[coopnt]

https://eco.gamepedia.com/Aqueduct

[ZombieHunter]

Ridiculous. Water doesn't need a special construct to flow.

[LittleBlueDuneBuggy]

Originally posted by ZombieHunter:

Ridiculous. Water doesn't need a special construct to flow.

This is from a guy who routinely reviews games with a "thumbs down", after putting 200+ hours into them......

300hrs - "bad business model"
290hrs - "overpriced"
400hrs - "boring"

lol

[ZombieHunter]

Originally posted by LittleBlueDuneBuggy:

Originally posted by ZombieHunter:

Ridiculous. Water doesn't need a special construct to flow.

This is from a guy who routinely reviews games with a "thumbs down", after putting 200+ hours into them......

300hrs - "bad business model"
290hrs - "overpriced"
400hrs - "boring"

lol

So b/c you can't argue the facts you resort to ad hominem. Classic.

[muck muckerby]

I thought someone answered your question first up ?

like real life, constucts to control water flow had to be used to direct water where needed efficiently, and over a non-pourous substinace, that could also keep the teprature cool to avoid both ground loss and evaporation.

surfice irrigation requires very specific conditions to be successful. just go down to your local creek and dig a canal from it, and see what happens.

I think the game needs some form of limit, other wise the enitre landscape would be flooded from people who just decided to build a rando canal down a hill

[ZombieHunter]

Thanks for your post. I think this is probably why they did it. They know how many 'active' water blocks they need to update based on the special type of brick. But the way Terraria did this is to have a set number of active blocks and once that is exceeded the water just auto settles to stop the algorithm from getting stuck or causing performance issues.

But Portal Knights actually did water quite well for one of the block type building games. And there is no frame rate hit and no special blocks required. So it is possible. The world in Eco is actually rather small so I would think it is quite possible to pull it off. Also b/c you can't necessarily create water from nothing so there is a set number of blocks at the start.

[ebe-a51]

If you want transport water and have it flow long distances from point A to point B - you need to build something it wont be absorbed by as it flows... like an Aqueduct.

Otherwise it does get 'absorbed' over a few blocks and stops.

Water absorption doesnt stop at a single block either, it keeps going. So you dont have 1 surface block hitting 100% mosture content then the water above it flows like its on concrete... it drains through to the blocks below.

So its not that incorrect.

... if anything there needs to be WATER PRESSURE and FLOW RATE so that the volume and mass of the water can drive itself through cannals instead of simply 'flowing'... but then we would also need a water errosion and water-way/body siltation simulation also to take into account the washing away of soil.

Just build a aquaduct.

[GophTheGreat]

We're planning to rework water at a later date to be more realistic.

[Zenthar]

Originally posted by ZombieHunter:

Thanks for your post. I think this is probably why they did it. They know how many 'active' water blocks they need to update based on the special type of brick. But the way Terraria did this is to have a set number of active blocks and once that is exceeded the water just auto settles to stop the algorithm from getting stuck or causing performance issues.

But Portal Knights actually did water quite well for one of the block type building games. And there is no frame rate hit and no special blocks required. So it is possible. The world in Eco is actually rather small so I would think it is quite possible to pull it off. Also b/c you can't necessarily create water from nothing so there is a set number of blocks at the start.

The default single player world is small, however, most servers run significantly larger worlds to account for the much larger player numbers. On the default world you can run a lap around the world in under a minute. Most servers though it can take you quite some time to get all the way around. With these larger worlds there is a lot more to process and having water flow accurate to real life becomes it much more daunting task.

Possible, yes, but one has to question if it's worth it or not.

[ZombieHunter]

Originally posted by GophTheGreat:

We're planning to rework water at a later date to be more realistic.

Good to know. After rethinking it a bit Portal Knights only has its small local world to deal with while Eco would have an enormous amount of water to update so I understand why it might be difficult at the outset. Again Terraria kind of cheats in that it just settles after it reaches a certain limit. Obviously there must be an upper limit. Also I don't know how Terraria determines when a water block is 'settled' per se or when a block no longer transfers any water to neighboring blocks. I've tried a few algorithms in 2D and it they work great but the main issue is knowing when to remove said water blocks from the active list so they are no longer considered 'active' and are instead 'settled' and at that point essentially static. It is possible that you just keep track of the last time water was transferred to a neighbor and if that time is greater than some limit then remove it from the active list.

I look forward to what you guys implement.

[Nodwick]

@Zombie Hunter:
Dwarf Fortress has a quite nice water simulation (in a 3d environment, even), and Toady One released quite a few details about how that works. If you're interested, you should have a look, it's definitely enlightening.

[Emperor_Peter]

I have been looking at buying this game for a while, but looking through everything this thread makes me want to ask another question...for irrigation and such, is there dam building?

Also, I see the waterwheels and steam engines/furnaces and such, but is there electricity? - Build a damn, build powerhouse w/turbines, use electricity to run everything in a more greener, sustainable way than just burning things?

[Oni Kaioh]

First let me say I really like this game. The beautfiul colors and scenery and the overall art design is excellent in my opinion. I love the concept and all of the variables it tracks and that your actions actually affect the world. So many games miss this. All glitz and glamour but no substance and no emergent gameplay.

However the other night I tried to create a canal and realized the water or more importantly the flow and propagation of it is broken. But in a game like Eco if water doesn't work and flow correctly then how do the other systems work and how can I trust them? I know rain water and soil moisture is controlled by some background mechanic that has rain although as of yet it is never visually represented. I'm ok with that.

I'm not ok with digging a canal and having the water just stop 6 blocks in. This means that the soil moisture on the blocks that are not receiving water is incorrect which means all dependent variables are also incorrect which means the overarching life simulation is incorrect.

I find it extremely odd to create a game about life and environment and yet not have water working from the word go. Because if water doesn't work and flow then life doesn't exist. You cannot have carbon based life with no water. Early Access or not water should have been the very first thing that worked 100% long before anything else was added. Very very odd.

[Oni Kaioh]

Originally posted by Emperor_Peter:

I have been looking at buying this game for a while, but looking through everything this thread makes me want to ask another question...for irrigation and such, is there dam building?

Also, I see the waterwheels and steam engines/furnaces and such, but is there electricity? - Build a damn, build powerhouse w/turbines, use electricity to run everything in a more greener, sustainable way than just burning things?

Nah its a great game

[axe.gaijin]

Holy Necro Batman...