poor water physics

[matheus_cmla]

Is there any hope to expect improvemens in this area? I will list things that bothers me in order of importance:
1. Rivers are ugly and unrealistic, they are more like skinny lakes spawning from nowhere than rivers comming downstream from a mountain.
2. Almost impossible to build on it when the whater becomes too deep, there should be a way to at least build a proper dock for big ships.
3. This one seems harder to implement, but would be awesome if water had a realistic phisics on the whay that it flows, being capable to build dams, for example.

[Hiryukaen]

The first issue could be solved with some tweaks to world gen.

As far as dev response to the remaining 2, they're a no go.
No plans to add diving, at least as far as we've been told in the reddit AMA's.
It's a hard pass on water physics, as far as we've been told, since they said they'd have to recode that from the start.

[jonnin]

1) I agree that most rivers should start on higher ground and flow downward to the sea.

2) it would be a very, very unusual place to be unable to build a dock between raising the underwater terrain a little (or a lot, a very good dock for any size boat can be made from simply editing the terrain and adding like stairs to get in from the water or some cosmetics) or hacking up the shore a bit. Couple that to long running horizontal ironwood beams and what can you not do dock-wise? If you have a sheer drop-off into deep water, that is difficult, but again, its also quite rare, most land has a 1 viking tall shore out for 10M or so. Maybe it depends on how you define 'proper' dock. All I want is a ship sized area of land that is just barely deep enough to walk in during calm weather -- i will build the ship here and break it apart here, with no risk of losing mats because its shallow. That is beside a raised area that is out of the water a few clicks (typically a long thin strip) so I can jump on and off the boat to shore. And as said I tend to run stone stairs into the water so i can get up there if I fall in or something, and after that its all cosmetics.

3) yea this is a do-over of all water in the game, from what I can estimate.

[Marcus Astronomius]

It's probably a limitation due to how the game is designed. Water level is "global" and can't be changed locally, so the river/lake altitude is always sea level. I agree it isn't great, but there it is. Many games do it like this. As for building on deep water, the only thing you can do is try to raise the riverbed/ocean floor with stone. I was able to create an partially enclosed dock for my ships off the coast so they were less susceptible to attacks, but because the waves go through solid objects, it doesn't mellow out the water inside. Thankfully the ships aren't shifted around except vertically.

You can benefit from keeping all that stone you find and storing it in piles.

[WingT74]

geez, water physics in this game are outstanding....weird.

[FissionChips]

This isn't earth, it's valheim - why should you expect them to have the same water physics?

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by matheus_cmla:

Is there any hope to expect improvemens in this area?

2. Almost impossible to build on it when the whater becomes too deep, there should be a way to at least build a proper dock for big ships.

the tc.
me just yesterday :

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2922611039

[Sono]

they really should fix the seams between biomes in the water, its pretty noticable when the texture changes, some kind of blend effect or somth

[Le'Stranger Wuv'Bottom]

Water physics improvements would be nice.

There are mods that let you use tools/weapons in water and dive.

[Ghevd]

A trick i picked up as a newb for building docks is build it entirely on land then bring the water to it.

[Chiller]

Originally posted by Marcus Astronomius:

It's probably a limitation due to how the game is designed. Water level is "global" and can't be changed locally, so the river/lake altitude is always sea level. I agree it isn't great, but there it is. Many games do it like this. As for building on deep water, the only thing you can do is try to raise the riverbed/ocean floor with stone. I was able to create an partially enclosed dock for my ships off the coast so they were less susceptible to attacks, but because the waves go through solid objects, it doesn't mellow out the water inside. Thankfully the ships aren't shifted around except vertically.

You can benefit from keeping all that stone you find and storing it in piles.

Except, we already have tar liquid which spawns on higher altitudes already and can "flow" to lower heights if a player digs to acquire the loot. Water could be possibly programmed the same way.

[Hiryukaen]

Originally posted by Angrybeard:

Originally posted by Marcus Astronomius:

It's probably a limitation due to how the game is designed. Water level is "global" and can't be changed locally, so the river/lake altitude is always sea level. I agree it isn't great, but there it is. Many games do it like this. As for building on deep water, the only thing you can do is try to raise the riverbed/ocean floor with stone. I was able to create an partially enclosed dock for my ships off the coast so they were less susceptible to attacks, but because the waves go through solid objects, it doesn't mellow out the water inside. Thankfully the ships aren't shifted around except vertically.

You can benefit from keeping all that stone you find and storing it in piles.

Except, we already have tar liquid which spawns on higher altitudes already and can "flow" to lower heights if a player digs to acquire the loot. Water could be possibly programmed the same way.

Could be, but it would have to be re-coded from scratch. That's a lot of work and it would have unknown performance issues. Adding that much extra physics to a game that already isn't optimized and may not become very optimized could make it unplayable for the vast majority of people who already paid for it.

[Chiller]

Originally posted by Hiryukaen:

Originally posted by Angrybeard:

Except, we already have tar liquid which spawns on higher altitudes already and can "flow" to lower heights if a player digs to acquire the loot. Water could be possibly programmed the same way.

Could be, but it would have to be re-coded from scratch. That's a lot of work and it would have unknown performance issues. Adding that much extra physics to a game that already isn't optimized and may not become very optimized could make it unplayable for the vast majority of people who already paid for it.

What im saying is that it's already coded in the game. but with different color (black). I don't think we can get a fully realistic stream of water, but having small lakes or creeks on elevated positions (above sea level) is already done, just need to retexture tar.

[FissionChips]

POI water features are really not the major overhall OP proposed.

[BingusDingus]

Originally posted by Angrybeard:

Originally posted by Hiryukaen:

Could be, but it would have to be re-coded from scratch. That's a lot of work and it would have unknown performance issues. Adding that much extra physics to a game that already isn't optimized and may not become very optimized could make it unplayable for the vast majority of people who already paid for it.

What im saying is that it's already coded in the game. but with different color (black). I don't think we can get a fully realistic stream of water, but having small lakes or creeks on elevated positions (above sea level) is already done, just need to retexture tar.

The problem with this, is that there isn't really a reason to add inland lakes, as most of the games map is sea. it wouldn't be as simple as just a retexture as the gimmick of tar pits is that the tar disappears if it reaches a lower elevation, that wouldn't make sense for water. Water creates paths as it moves and moves to follow paths, to add actual water physics, water that can flow according to the terrain, would require a crap ton of computation. Additively to make realistically flowing rivers that go from the mountains to the sea would require a tremendous amount of coding and would massively overcomplicate world-gen, so it really isn't worth the payoff.
I suppose i could see an argument for little inland ponds, if there's a crop added that is required to be submerged is freshwater to grow, like rice for example. But other than that I don't see a point.

EDIT: The closest thing we'll probably see to an inland lake is a frozen lake in the Deep North biome.

[Tanyon]

Weird I literally love all the water in the game and find it beautiful and fascinating still every-time I see it. I think they did a great job and see no need for any changes with it.