Hydration

[schizmo]

It's not about beer having water, it's about alcohol decreasing the body's production of anti-diuretic hormone, which is used by the body to reabsorb water. With less anti-diuretic hormone available, your body loses more fluid than normal through increased urination.

(Part of that sentance is quoted from a result I found on a google search),

[NeverPire]

Yes, so you have 5% of alcohol (in average) reducing the hydration and 95 % boiling water which hydrate you without any risk of disease.

[schizmo]

Except beer's primary function in Rimworld is to get drunk, colonists drink to get hammered, which means colonists will drink themselves into dehydration. Even "one beer a day" doesn't stop colonists with high tolerance from drinking several beers until theyre hammered.

Let's just stick with actual water.

[Lightzy]

Seriously dude though. If there's a hydration meter, beer should definitely replenish it a bit.
It feels good from a gameplay perspective and if it doesn't work like that players will ask why

[SaintD]

"Beer would dehydrate you" is one of those ridiculous myths based on a kernel of truth. ALCOHOL dehydrates you, but beer packages that alcohol with 95% water. If you're cooking up 80% proof bathtub moonshine, you get what you deserve, but brewing beer has been a highly effective and preferable way to make water safe and drinkable for almost as long as freaking agriculture has existed. The idea is that apparently, for much of the history of human civilisation, people have been dehydrating themselves with beer and were too damn stupid to ever notice that fact. Oh sure, they're smart enough to work out intricate metallurgy, build wonders of the world, and philosophize endlessly, but herp derp, only us moderns are super smart enough to realise when they're *more or less thirsty*.

The addition of a water system in the game would obviously come with a change to the brewing recipe to require water, so there'd be zero problem. For God's sake, who on Earth actually thinks Tynan would actually add a whole water and hydration system to the game and go, "Meh, beer doesn't need water to make, it's fine"?

Dehydration from alcohol is a non-issue next to the *other* effects of how much damn alcohol you're drinking to make alcohol dehydration a thing that matters. Like, "my idiot colonist has been hospitalised due to alcohol poisoning" effects. "I need to cut a new liver out of a raider to replace the one in my rampagingly alcoholic colonist" effects.

[Aiven]

"Beer would dehydrate you" is one of those ridiculous myths based on a kernel of truth. ALCOHOL dehydrates you, but beer packages that alcohol with 95% water. If you're cooking up 80% proof bathtub moonshine, you get what you deserve, but brewing beer has been a highly effective and preferable way to make water safe and drinkable for almost as long as freaking agriculture has existed. The idea is that apparently, for much of the history of human civilisation, people have been dehydrating themselves with beer and were too damn stupid to ever notice that fact. Oh sure, they're smart enough to work out intricate metallurgy, build wonders of the world, and philosophize endlessly, but herp derp, only us moderns are super smart enough to realise when they're *more or less thirsty*.

The addition of a water system in the game would obviously come with a change to the brewing recipe to require water, so there'd be zero problem. For God's sake, who on Earth actually thinks Tynan would actually add a whole water and hydration system to the game and go, "Meh, beer doesn't need water to make, it's fine"?

Dehydration from alcohol is a non-issue next to the *other* effects of how much damn alcohol you're drinking to make alcohol dehydration a thing that matters. Like, "my idiot colonist has been hospitalised due to alcohol poisoning" effects. "I need to cut a new liver out of a raider to replace the one in my rampagingly alcoholic colonist" effects.

Thanks for setting this straight, something wasn't adding up!

[Anomaly]

Ill always support water being added to the game. Its the most basic survival need and yet this survival game omits it.

Regarding beer.  In a pre civilization setting, this would be a must. Water kept in containers in those times bred all kinds of nasty bugs. A bit of alcohol in the mix kills those bugs right off.  A low alcohol content Rum, for instance was used on ships, not only because it was clean, it was a nutritious liquid food. 

[schizmo]

I fully disagree and feel you're missing the point. It's never been an argument of whether or not beer contains water, of course it does. The issue is a lack of anti-diuretic hormone in the body when drunk that makes the body retain far less water, and is literally the basis of all hangovers. You can get drunk on beer and piss like a racehorse and you'll still feel it the next morning if you aren't drinking plenty of water during and after being drunk, because whether it's 95% water or not, your body isn't retaining any of it.

If you drink one maybe two beers, sure, you'll get a little hydrated. But in Rimworld it simply isn't meant to be consumed for hydration, and the current colonist AI won't support it. Once they start drinking, they drink until they're drunk, regardless of restrictions set in the drug policy window. That's why alcohol tolerance is such a pain in Rimworld, even "one drink a day" eventually devolves into 3-4 drinks because their tolerance is too high, and they're trying to get drunk. By exposing the colonists to more chances to consume alcohol, you increase the likelihood that you'll get a bad roll and the colonist will wind up with an addiction.

It's a bad idea. It's bad for gameplay, it doesn't make sense with the current way the game is designed, the current way beer is made, the current way colonists handle alcohol. If it's added that's not the issue, the issue is everything else surrounding beer needs to change or you're going to wind up wirh a colony of alcoholics because they're all going to drink Beer for theyr hydration meter. Work will also slow down because they'll be drunk or hungover all the time.

Expand upon current AI to facilitate this PROPERLY or don't do it at all and stick to water. Even then, it will make beer more involved to produce and if it's too difficult to make with little upside and too many downsides people will simply stop trying altogether and at that point why bother including it at all if it's made useless? It's a no win situation.

My goal isn't to be negative but you can't make a suggestion in a vaccuum, proper consideration has to he given to all relevant aspects of gameplay that are affected by a suggestion, and beer as hydration source has too many impacts to blindly say yes to. It would require would require entire reworks in several major areas of the game. Beer as a hydration source would affect colonist AI, drug dependancy, drunkenness, hydration, the production of beer itself would need to be harder, and economic factors would also change as beer would become harder to produce AND more valuable for survival so it would need to cost more.

It's an extra headache on top of a system that doesn't even exist yet. Stick to the basics first