I think water should definitely be implemented in the game. It would fit so well with the theme and might also be an interesting mechanic.
Some ideas:
First of all, agriculture should require water. It's an arid environment, your plants should definitely require water.
I dislike the idea of atmospheric condensers, because, frankly, I think they would be pretty uninteresting gameplaywise. They would just stand there, requiring nothing form you. If they would be included, it should be an expensive late-game option with some downsides, like providing only little water. I would find these water sources a lot more interesting:
1. Collecting rain water. It would be inexpensive, safe and requiring little work from the colonists. But it would be unrealiable - rain should be rare in an arid environment like this! Unless you covered massive areas with your rain water collecting equipment, the water shouldn't be enough for large scale agriculture. Though of course the rain itself would take care of your plants.
2. Extracting from cacti and other plants. Reliable, but relatively time-consuming because you need colonists actively extracting the water. Would provide only little water, so it wouldn't be enough for anything but essentials. An interesting option might be farming cacti for water. Maybe extracting water could even kill the plant so if you were too aggressive with extracting from wild cacti, they might go extinct.
3. Rivers, (lakes). These would provide massive amounts of water, making even large scale agriculture very effective. There should be a downside though, so it wouldn't be the only feasible water source: I think these large bodies of water should be located in parts of the map otherwise less desirable. They could always be far from the starting location in areas with little rocks and no metals so players wouldn't always relocate there. Maybe if there was fog of war, players wouldn't immediately find it. What, I believe, would make this very interesting gameplaywise would be the way players got the water from the river to the colony. The colonists could either carry it manually, making it very time consuming and less effective, or they could build water pipes to carry the water to the colony and their fields. If the pipes would have to be long, they would also be very vulnerable. If raiders or some other unfortunate incident would cut the pipe, a colony relying on the river would quickly find themselves to be in trouble.
Some ideas:
First of all, agriculture should require water. It's an arid environment, your plants should definitely require water.
I dislike the idea of atmospheric condensers, because, frankly, I think they would be pretty uninteresting gameplaywise. They would just stand there, requiring nothing form you. If they would be included, it should be an expensive late-game option with some downsides, like providing only little water. I would find these water sources a lot more interesting:
1. Collecting rain water. It would be inexpensive, safe and requiring little work from the colonists. But it would be unrealiable - rain should be rare in an arid environment like this! Unless you covered massive areas with your rain water collecting equipment, the water shouldn't be enough for large scale agriculture. Though of course the rain itself would take care of your plants.
2. Extracting from cacti and other plants. Reliable, but relatively time-consuming because you need colonists actively extracting the water. Would provide only little water, so it wouldn't be enough for anything but essentials. An interesting option might be farming cacti for water. Maybe extracting water could even kill the plant so if you were too aggressive with extracting from wild cacti, they might go extinct.
3. Rivers, (lakes). These would provide massive amounts of water, making even large scale agriculture very effective. There should be a downside though, so it wouldn't be the only feasible water source: I think these large bodies of water should be located in parts of the map otherwise less desirable. They could always be far from the starting location in areas with little rocks and no metals so players wouldn't always relocate there. Maybe if there was fog of war, players wouldn't immediately find it. What, I believe, would make this very interesting gameplaywise would be the way players got the water from the river to the colony. The colonists could either carry it manually, making it very time consuming and less effective, or they could build water pipes to carry the water to the colony and their fields. If the pipes would have to be long, they would also be very vulnerable. If raiders or some other unfortunate incident would cut the pipe, a colony relying on the river would quickly find themselves to be in trouble.