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Messages - OneRoomColony

#1
Ideas / Adding Water needs and sanitation
December 17, 2014, 03:36:46 PM
Water is the key to life, and so should it be for the people of Rimworld. Every colonist should have the need to bathe, go to the bathroom and drink water, or else suffer the negative modifiers or possible death.

Water Extraction
Water will work exactly like power. Pumps will act like power sources and pipes will act like power conduits. Pipes can break and must be repaired if you don't want your base flooded. Water can be stored in tanks, exactly like power is stored in batteries. Water tanks must be kept above freezing or else the water in them cannot flow. At first, you can only build a simple, small pump for extracting water, but with research you can build better, more powerful water stations to keep up with your needs. Different biomes will have more or less water naturally, and this creates additional challenges for those places.

Sanitation
When you gotta go, you gotta go. Colonists now have the need to go to bathroom, and this creates problems with waste. Simple and temporary solution is to build an outhouse, a hole in the ground. Make sure to place these far from your water pumps and living quarters, or else receive negative mood modifiers and a much higher chance of infections and illness. Eventually you can build flushing toilets. You must also build the plumbing for their exit point which can simple drain somewhere far from your base, or be connected to a sewage treatment plant (researchable building) which safely cleans the water.

Hygiene
Base building is dirty work, and eventually your people will smell. Bad. This is not a pressing concern at the start of the game but a clean colonist is at much lower risk of disease and infections and will be much happier. They will get negative modifiers for how dirty they get which will get worse and worse until they bathe (unwashed, dirty, filthy, feculent, ect.) To solve this you need showers or baths. You can set up an easy group shower situation, or the more expensive and luxurious bath option for each individual bedroom for bonus positive modifiers. 

Thirst
Last but most importantly is thirst. This could be treated a number of ways but a simple solution is having a water cooler near your kitchen area. Colonists will have to get more creative if water options are not available, drinking from the pools of water on the map, or rainwater when the weather allows. Very dehydrated colonists might need medical treatment, and will eventually die if their thirst isn't satiated. Thirst levels are affected by temperature levels. You could add to this further by requiring crops needing water and such.

Water will add a whole new layer of complexity to the game.