I was thinking the game needs a thirst system to balance out the hunger system to make it more realistic.
-Build a water pump on a well (spawned on map)
-Water pump fills up drinking jug
-Pawns drink from jug
-Water pump connects to tables for production
-Water grid set up like power grid
basically like prison architect's set up but adding thirst as a real factor
would make the desert levels extra rough
Anyway just a suggestion i was thinking of, there would be many ways to tackle thirst
So a long while back I remember reading a quote (I think from Twitter?) from @tynan saying that he didn't want to make drinking a thing....
I'd like to make a pitch for the implementation of drinking... I think it would solve a major problem, add an interesting new wrinkle to base design, and make different Biomes more distinct.
First off there should be three water types: Fresh,Salt, and Contaminated.
Fresh- Drinkable water.
Salt - Needs to be desalinated to be drinkable.
Contaminated- Needs to be purified to be drinkable. Earlier techs allow purification at the base, later techs allow the water to be cleaned.
Water could be stored in barrels (new build-able object) and with higher techs could be piped in.
Plants would need water to grow (rain would count) making hunting more important even later in the game. Animals would need water too.
The extra cost of building barrels in the early game, pipes, irrigation, etc. in the later game will help use up all those extra resources that keep crowding up the base. No more storerooms of silver - you're going to need that if you want to make your base self-sufficient.
Deserts suddenly are a lot less hospitable - choosing a base-site now requires more thought because you want a large water source nearby.
Finally, Caravans will need to either carry water with them or stop periodically to find it. This makes long distance treks more of a challenge.
Moderators - could someone be so kind as to move this to the Suggestions board. Thanks :)
I've made arguments for water as well. I want a water need, but I understand that it would be a hard system to design and balance in such a way that it doesn't become annoying.
Pawns are already pretty inefficient in their day-to-day lives, and this game demands performance from the few people you have at your disposal. A water need would have them stopping to drink water at least twice per day. It doesn't sound like much at first, but it adds up pretty fast given how the AI tends to behave.
Still, maybe one day...
I do like the idea and that it would make things pretty realistic in a survivalist sort of way. I can understand why Tynan does not want to implement it due to the limitations it might introduce.
In order to factor in water, we'd have to have several other things introduced to accommodate it. Water tanks to hold water when it rains perhaps, diggable wells, flowing rivers (which A17 has given us incidentally), and perhaps filtration systems to process the water.
I think water is going to win the hearts of a lot of people with A17, and the new aesthetic. I love the way water looks right now.
I don't think all of those things
have to be added. I just really think it would add a lot of
potential to the game.
I mean...
- Rain, as a weather event of sorts, would have true meaning and feelings associated with it.
- Droughts, as a potential storyteller event, could strike just as much fear as a toxic fallout would.
- Rivers (although recently implemented) could offer some serious benefits and increase that sense of immersion.
- Growing/cultivating plants could be made so much more interesting with the need for plant care with water.
- Dehydration, as a consequence of water deficiency, would more than likely be a thing.
But, it's not like any of these things haven't been said already...
I'll definitely be building moats around my castles/fortresses with how pretty water is now :D
As of right now, I agree with O Negative on Pawns not having any more daily needs than eating or sleeping (bathroom needs come up often as well, in these threads).
Although, to touch on your idea, I think water for plants would be an interesting mechanic: they would need rain to enrich the soil every few days, and in the absence of rain you would need to dig wells to irrigate from groundwater or pull water from a river/ocean.
I also have been fond of the idea of incorporating bridges as good bottleneck points/ to access unreachable parts of water-heavy maps, or water mills as alternate power ideas, or fishing in the shallows.
Tl:dr I would actually like to see water play a more direct role in this game, but not as a consumable.
For pawns' daily needs, water could simply be an additional ingredient in meals to simulate the satisfaction of both food and water needs. It would be the sourcing of water and water's impact on the environment and crops that would create the added gameplay depth.
Quote from: Aerial on May 08, 2017, 03:27:56 PM
For pawns' daily needs, water could simply be an additional ingredient in meals to simulate the satisfaction of both food and water needs. It would be the sourcing of water and water's impact on the environment and crops that would create the added gameplay depth.
Yes!
I'd even be okay with food having its own hydration factor depending on how much water it needs to grow in its life.
Not that its entirely necessary to have a water need. My food requiring water is enough for me to suspend disbelief. But, still...
This would give food two values:
1) Nutrition
2) Hydration
Wild berries in forest biomes, cacti in desert biomes, and wild animal meat in just about every biome would all be viable.
I can understand why ice-sheet players wouldn't appreciate this mechanic very much, though ;)
Perhaps an industrial (tech-level) method of food preservation that keeps the food nutritious but drains it entirely of its hydration value.
I think this would be a good intermediary. But, again, I'll live without it if it never happens. These are just thoughts :)
cooking is already one of the most time-intensive activities in the game. adding an additional ingredient will significantly slow down an already time-consuming, tedious activity.
Quote from: Limdood on May 08, 2017, 07:46:18 PM
cooking is already one of the most time-intensive activities in the game. adding an additional ingredient will significantly slow down an already time-consuming, tedious activity.
Not talking about adding an ingredient. Talking about water going into the plants you grow.
Growers and cookers aren't always the same people.
Instead of including it as a food ingredient, I was thinking something a little simpler.
One recent thought I had is that each character could have a "Canteen" that they can carry water in. Canteens carry up to 3? days worth of water (more if you build better canteens at higher tech levels - This has the bonus effect of making water management less of a chore at later stages of a game) and characters would automatically refill them unless instructed to (similar to eating) manually.
As long as there is water in the canteen, the character is good to go.
The Canteen could automatically drain over the course of a day while the character is not sleeping.
If the Canteen becomes empty the character might become unhappy and get sick after 2? days. After 4? days they pass out and die in 5?.
That runs along the same lines as pawns carrying meals on their person. Having a "need" which is so dynamically different might not be such a great idea, as creative as it is. I have no arguments against water canteens being an option if a basic water need was implemented though. It would take away from the argument of pawns wasting time going back to base for water :)
Well it's not really radically different. I'd assume Tynan would implement something like this by adding a water "need" just like other needs. As long as the character has a Canteen with water, the need stays full. I suppose you could change it slightly to allow them to not have a canteen and simply drink and allow canteens as an option like you suggest, but that seems like a whole lot of extra work for almost no gain - Most players will simply craft canteens for everyone as soon as possible.
I've been playing Rimworld a lot lately and thinking about water.
I think water (and bodily needs) could be done quite elegantly without going all The Sims™ about it where pawns spend half a day in toilet or under a bush.
First, "hydration" need. It should be quite general bar for liquids and span over 2 or 3 game days. While water is critical to humans, you can go few days without drinking, especially if you get your H2O from food and don't work hard.
Second, hydration should be pretty automatic. There's high amount of water sources in game world, all we need is characters to go to closest one whenever they feel thirsty or their canteen/water skin/whatever goes low-ish. Rainfalls. Snow. Water on temperate maps. Morning dew on plants. Perhaps water vines or something similar in tropic biomes? How about puddles after rain that last for some time?
Water collection would also introduce containers, such as wooden barrel to collect rainwater or whatever. Containers would greatly simplify logistics for water collection as they do in real life.
Third, meals should work more as daily (water) rations, a simple/lavish/fine meal should have water content enough for character to fully re-hydrate.
Water would also fight heavy imbalance during heat waves which tend to kill my colonies off before I even could gather enough components to build coolers. Consuming water should decrease effects of heat wave and fight off heatstrokes.
As for watering the plants, I'd rather see it as a bonus, some kind of watering system, to boost crop growth, not essential for plants to grow.
Of course, this could be taken further by restricting crop types to biomes (no rice on arid biome or whatever) and you could "cheat" by building watering systems to enable those crops in any biome.
There's all sorts of fun ideas water could introduce: Moats around your colony against raids, washing and pollution, piping and sewage, etc.
At this point, Rimworld needs concept of water.
Also, we have insanely extended systems for drugs and brewing and cannibalism and whatnot. Could be such basic thing as water "too much"?
Quote from: O Negative on May 05, 2017, 08:21:33 PM
I've made arguments for water as well. I want a water need, but I understand that it would be a hard system to design and balance in such a way that it doesn't become annoying.
Pawns are already pretty inefficient in their day-to-day lives, and this game demands performance from the few people you have at your disposal. A water need would have them stopping to drink water at least twice per day. It doesn't sound like much at first, but it adds up pretty fast given how the AI tends to behave.
Still, maybe one day...
Well, nothing stands in the way of adding another element while retaining the efficiency. In my mind it is pretty simple (correct me if I'm wrong).
Lets say that pawn can output X amount of work (walking, carrying, crafting, whatever) per day. If you want to add another need that pawns have to take care of, while retaining the amount of work they can do, you can
simply... give them more time.
Se lets say that adding drinking would make pawns need to do 1,2*X work per day to remain as efficient as before adding it.
Then lets just make days 1,2 times longer and other needs drop 1,2 times slower. Now pawns have more time overall, but need to do more things per day.
The balance remains the same, but you have another element which can potentially add depth to the game. Which then breeds tons of scenarios in which those mechanics cross each other creating unique experience.
I think the biggest hurdle as for now is the fact that hauling/building AI is too dumb to be able to efficiently do tasks. Adding another one will make it even worse, so before anything can be ever done in terms of adding other needs/tasks that pawns need to do in order to survive, these systems needs to be vastly improved.
EDIT:
QuoteFirst, "hydration" need. It should be quite general bar for liquids and span over 2 or 3 game days. While water is critical to humans, you can go few days without drinking, especially if you get your H2O from food and don't work hard.
It is actually the other way around. You can easily not eat for 2-3 days (you can survive for around 1-2 month(s) without eating, depending on your health). Not drinking for 2-3 days will exhaust you greatly. Not drinking for about 7 days will most likely kill you, no matter what.
I *did* say "few days".
Sure, but you seem to be suggesting it should be less important than eating, which pawns have to do around twice a day.
From what I'm reading, it takes around 3 days for pawn to die from malnutrition (from 100 nutrition to death). Making it few days (lets make it 2) would mean they will be half way to death from malnutrition, but only will slowly begin to get dehydrated. :-@
On the other hand, making it more severe than malnutrition would make it extremely dangerous (and therefore random and annoying).
We, of course, don't have to be realistic here and go with any approach we want, since there are bunch other things that are nowhere near realistic (power generation, heating and so on).
It's just a matter of balance. Need for food right now is a bit overestimated, even though pawns do hard work.
Starvation should be just longer process, and that's it. In real life, if you don't eat for 2 days, you do get weakness, shaky hands, hunger and whatnot.
You just don't die. Also, Rimworld doesn't run in real time - a season is 15 game days long, not 90. Perhaps adjusting this would make needs more manageable. Although it would take forever then to grow crops.
But who really knows how long days are on mysterious planet or how long do potatoes grow there?
I'm also thinking that water would give more use to beer and milk, and perhaps introduce fruit trees (crop you don't have to resow!) and juice making.
Beer is actually dehydrating your body... :P Altho, others are nice touches.
Personally, I play combat-lite games of RW, so I really like having more variety of non-combat stuff in the game. I'd really enjoy a water mechanic (I think), and as others have pointed out, it would fit in well with other existing systems/products.
Quote from: Perq on May 10, 2017, 05:48:26 AM
Beer is actually dehydrating your body... :P Altho, others are nice touches.
That's also arguable. Depends how strong beer is and how much do you consume. A bottle of light beer or two, (which is 95-96% water) can hydrate a person very well.
Six or ten or whatever bottles of beer work vice versa, body gets too busy pounding out alcohol (by losing water), which leads to kidneys overworking etc. So problem rises when blood alcohol content gets too high.
Of course, that doesn't apply to stronger liquor.
I love the water, and I want this.
To imagine
A system of tubes similar to that of the electricity... water pumps to make circular.
Sprinklers for the irrigation garden of potatos?
Water masses under the ground? waiting to be extracted also and is loaded when it rains?
Containers of water and wells...
It is now very easy to cultivate, with this it should be more interesting... and we all know that when the water touches a device on what happens. The need to drink adds another point.
I'm all for adding water to irrigate crops and possibly even for hygiene purposes, but don't think adding hydration as a separate need from food is a good idea. Most people have a drink with their meals anyway, so as long as colonists are getting food they should be getting water. Add some glasses to the cafeteria tray graphics and I'd say it's good. Lol
But irrigation would add a whole new aspect to the game. New research, new stuff to build (wells, pumps, water pipe, irrigation ditches, etc.), and rain and the new rivers would become an important part of the game.
Quote from: InCreator on May 10, 2017, 12:23:38 PM
That's also arguable. Depends how strong beer is and how much do you consume. A bottle of light beer or two, (which is 95-96% water) can hydrate a person very well.
Six or ten or whatever bottles of beer work vice versa, body gets too busy pounding out alcohol (by losing water), which leads to kidneys overworking etc. So problem rises when blood alcohol content gets too high.
Of course, that doesn't apply to stronger liquor.
Quite sure (which doesn't mean absolutely sure, tho) the amount of water needed to get rid of the alcohol (even those 5%) is higher than the amount of water that beer provides. :P
Quote from: O Negative on May 08, 2017, 12:59:34 AM
I think water is going to win the hearts of a lot of people with A17, and the new aesthetic. I love the way water looks right now.
I don't think all of those things have to be added. I just really think it would add a lot of potential to the game.
I mean...
- Rain, as a weather event of sorts, would have true meaning and feelings associated with it.
- Droughts, as a potential storyteller event, could strike just as much fear as a toxic fallout would.
- Rivers (although recently implemented) could offer some serious benefits and increase that sense of immersion.
- Growing/cultivating plants could be made so much more interesting with the need for plant care with water.
- Dehydration, as a consequence of water deficiency, would more than likely be a thing.
+1 to everything said here.
I like the addition of rivers. It's great to see the game evolving with each new Alpha. Maybe this is the start of something bigger? If we're lucky we can look forward to see it implemented in future versions.
Quote from: Perq on May 11, 2017, 03:05:30 AM
Quite sure (which doesn't mean absolutely sure, tho) the amount of water needed to get rid of the alcohol (even those 5%) is higher than the amount of water that beer provides. :P
Yup. Same goes for coffee & most teas/juices/sodas/etc. But I'd still love water to be a thing in RimWorld. ;)
By what I mean drinkable water I mean that the chareters would need to drink water multiple times per day just like eating food. I Believe that would make a extra layer of realty to the game for alpha 18 or 19 I'm I the only one who thinks or would that be to hard? also soory if my gramer is bad English is my second languenge
Add a way to make it so caravan pawns don't die of dehydration in 4 minutes and still be able to carry stuff to sell.
And add a no weight solution to allow pawns to carry water on their person while wandering maps.
Honestly I'm not against this or sanitation mods. But it's already annoying as is to keep pawns fed and happy.
I feel like adding more needs on top of what we already have is ranging into the Sims territory. It's better to keep it simple rather than spending hours each day fulfilling needs.