Water Pump Flow

[TheShotte]

So I've just spent an absurd amount of time trying to troubleshoot my cities waterworks. I could not for the life of me, figure out how a Big Water Treatment plant, with 3 outputs, was supplying a maximum flow of around ~45 m³. For the life of me I could not figure it out. According to the information available to me, I was doing everything right.

However, there was a crucial piece of information that is unavailable to anyone playing the game;

Maximum Pump Water Flow

Big Water Pump: 150 m³
Small Water Pump: 50 m³

Could you PLEASE add the flow information for pumps to the menu tooltips? This should not be a mystery.

[MG83]

Originally posted by TheShotte:

Maximum Pump Water Flow

oh yeah its not written :D that was the first things i tested . to compare small vs big one.
i also tested how much max water a single waiter point can supply to buildings. to find optimal amounts.

[TheShotte]

I thought that because it's not specified, the pump is limited by it's source.

[MG83]

well my perspective was like ;" ok other one costs double . lets see if its pump more than double" :>

[moa]

The pump does all it can to fill the pipe. And that pipe rating is in the tooltip (~25/50/125).
If it goes uphill (or tower) its less obviously. And it is NOT more if you go downhill, still the maximum as the rating of the pipe indicates.
Water and sewage is all about elevation. So put your treatment plant uphill or build lots of pumps, switches and pipes.

[TheShotte]

Originally posted by moa:

The pump does all it can to fill the pipe. And that pipe rating is in the tooltip (~25/50/125).
If it goes uphill (or tower) its less obviously. And it is NOT more if you go downhill, still the maximum as the rating of the pipe indicates.
Water and sewage is all about elevation. So put your treatment plant uphill or build lots of pumps, switches and pipes.

What? No. Read the previous responses. Small Water Pump has a Water Flow of 50 m³, whilst the Big Water Pump has a max flow of 150 m³. So if you use a small pump on a big pipe, you're wasting money, because you're only going to get a max flow ~50 m³.

[moa]

Originally posted by TheShotte:

...Read...

You mean your own response to your post? Or do you mean the edited opening post? They are stating different things.

Originally posted by TheShotte:

I thought that because it's not specified, the pump is limited by it's source.

Yep thats right, almost at least. Source building is one of many things that effect the flowrate.

Originally posted by TheShotte:

... Small Water Pump has a Water Flow of 50 m³...

Nope thats wrong.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2876625708
Note the empty beaker of the 0m elevation pump. It indicates a bottleneck at its input (source), so it can not fill the big pipe at its output, the input cant deliver fast enough.
The -6m pump is also not at its peak, the beaker is draining.

flow rate is not fixed, all depends on elevation, source building, target and pipe. You can call it a design choice or a bug, that's how it is currently. One can even get to the max flow rate of a big pipe with a small pump if the pump and the target is at the correct elevation. But then the pump is nearly useless anyway. So are you suggesting to put the maximum flowrate of a big pipe in the tooltip of the small pump? Because thats the maximum it can do, a bit more actually if you put in a switch as well.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2876560602
Without the switch its at 125 ish and the beaker is full indicating a bottleneck at the output.

I understand the intention of your post, but there is no value you can put in the tooltip that covers all applications of a pump. Maybe power consumption per bar as this value is constant, but who cares about that.

Originally posted by TheShotte:

... troubleshoot ... flow information ... This should not be a mystery.

The real mystery is the tank position and tank height of different buildings. Towers, wells, treatment plants, even the pumps and switches have a tank that has an effect on flowrate and is opaque to the player. And that value is constant and can be used for planing.

For instance the big tower has a 9m tall tank starting at 62m height. The underground reservoir has a 6m tall tank starting at -3m. Big Treatment plant has I belief the tallest tank starting hundreds of meters below ground, never actually measured it. Makes it difficult to get water out of without pumps, but its doable using switches and a decent elevation drop So first attached storage should be underground reservoir to get more outputs and a shorter tank. About 15m drop from treatment to reservoir nets you a whooping .05 bar and 60m is .5 bar or 1 bar if you use some trickery with switches (doubling pipe diameter). So I assume the tank of treatment plant starts somewhere at -500m. In case you are intrigued about gravity use google translate on that:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/784150/discussions/5/3416557016548074370/#c3416557114744194782

I think the intention of the tall treatment tank is to get players to use at least one pump or more likely to have an incentive to put the water production on a hill or mountain.

[TheShotte]

Ok, so gravity does effect water supply. Cool. Sure, you can use gravity to feed your water pipes, but how many times will you actually use that in practice? My point stands - small pump has a PUMPING WATER FLOW of 50m³, whilst the large one has 150m³.

[MG83]

Originally posted by TheShotte:

Ok, so gravity does effect water supply. Cool. Sure, you can use gravity to feed your water pipes, but how many times will you actually use that in practice? My point stands - small pump has a PUMPING WATER FLOW of 50m³, whilst the large one has 150m³.

i also agree flow info or atleast "approx" flow info should be added :>

[Kham]

Ok, this should be in the tooltip. I've been using the large pumps with 3 large inputs and outputs wondering why the heck my water supply was insufficient for the usage. I just assumed small pump could handle 1x large water pipe and large pump could handle upto 3x large water pipes... Time to go rework my entire network.

[TheShotte]

Yup, been there done that. Used to think both pumps just use the pipe max. They added pipe flow and pump flow and just made things unnecessarily complicated, especially since they didn't make the pump values apparent.

[Kham]

Yeah, like you, I assumed that because it said nothing that there weren't limits on the pumps. Live and learn I guess.

[mon2]

please add this to ingame description

[Cpt_Beefheart]

Originally posted by TheShotte:

Ok, so gravity does effect water supply. Cool. Sure, you can use gravity to feed your water pipes, but how many times will you actually use that in practice? My point stands - small pump has a PUMPING WATER FLOW of 50m³, whilst the large one has 150m³.

Such a bizarre question, this is the primary point of water towers in the real world, why would it not be in an artificial one?

Edit: Furthermore, your point doesn't stand as it has been explained to that the flow rate is relative to a few factors. Did you not even look at the very informative and helpful pictures Moa posted? I'm assuming their nearest wall has a head sized dent in it now.

[esbenmf]

Then again, the 50 and 150 rating holds for flat ground, so it does carry some meaning. Tooltip suggestion: Small pump rated at max 50m3 at flat ground.

[Cpt_Beefheart]

Originally posted by esbenmf:

Then again, the 50 and 150 rating holds for flat ground, so it does carry some meaning. Tooltip suggestion: Small pump rated at max 50m3 at flat ground.

Good one, that is much better. It's like acknowledging that due to gravity, velocity and direction of the motion of a ball is relative to the incline of the surface it is on.

Having said that, if I build on your tooltip, it would probably help if it says something like- a pump has a baseline pump volume of Xm3 when its source and destination are the same elevation as the pump. Variations in elevation of either of these affect the max flow of the pump accordingly.