Has there been Dev mention of an upcoming Water System?

[RawCode]

Long list of needs does not make game more enjoyable, it make game tedious and frustrating for people who not interested to play *sims*.

Water is fun, but, food already cover this aspect of gameplay.

It's just like guns:
require reload - fun
require ammo - fun
require repair - probably fun, as long as repair is not stupid minigame, not fun if each weapon have fixed ammo not used by any other weapon
require oil - not really fun, we already have ammo and repair why oil
require some additional resource or multiple ammo types at same time, like railgun that require both energy cells and slugs - i have lots of X but no Y and can't use gun, wtf?

require spare parts hard to fine, can jam\break at random without any warning and not related to durability - wtf? both repair and this, why? my favorite weapon in perfect condition just broke, wtf?
(real case for RimWorld for some "events")

player must recover cases - why?
player must craft ammo via stupid minigame, resources are grindy - is this korean mmo?
gun is crafted via rare components - there are 40 different components available, everything drop at random and absolutely complete same with only a bit different sprite - why 40 different but same components instead of just one? why?

As you can see, more features and depth, does not means more fun.

[Listen1]

Yep, about that.

Now, let's say we make it like this:

Water can be gathered through a well. (buildable)
Water can be used to recover the hit points of a plant/ give a growth boost. (Growers would water the plants on gravel, making possible grow crops that wouldn't grow in gravel. Toggle option on water crops on the zone)
Cold water can be drinked to refresh the pawn in a hot day (small nutrition, cook will gather water from well.) Also would be picked by teetotaler to relax socially.

For me, this would be fun. It's not obrigatory and can be easily made. But again, that puddle is very shallow.

[b0rsuk]

They'd make the game more enjoyable in the same way that temperature, mood, relationships, etc. make the game more enjoyable. (...)

Honestly, the way Reolos and Flying Rockbass lay it out, I can't see how anyone can enjoy this game at all and not see how these would be an overall improvement.

Things like that add to the game only if they increase diversity of situations and bring something new.

Laying down pipes. Similar to conduits. We already have conduits. In fact, conduits may be more interesting because when a conduit breaks, important things stop working immediately. So if a fire or a raid damages a conduit, turrets stop working, autodoors open slower, heaters stop working which can be an immediate threat in ice sheet, hydroponic tables lose plants, plants may die because they become frozen, lights go out (and it's harder to hit), comms console doesn't work at all and the ship may fly away, nutrient paste dispenser doesn't work, and the more long term devices like cooking stove, machining.

But what happens when a pipe breaks ? Oh, dear, I can't  flush my toilet right now! I need to wait half an hour before the worker fixes it up, my bladder is going to explode! Oh dear, I can't cook, fellow colonists will have to pick up meals from the freezer as usual! It could be worse if floods are added, but that's difficult to do convincingly without Z-levels.

Thirst. Like hunger, but dehydration effects are faster and more severe. So basically an extra structure (water tap) in dining room ? And that's all ? People become thirsty faster than hungry, will that mean colonists will make even more and more frequent trips to the base on distant mining operations ? If they carry canteens with them, then isn't it pointless ?

I'll grant you that it has potential to make biomes more diverse and dromedaries would finally work properly (now they're super hungry), but you've done a very poor job explaining that.

I'm serious. Describe in sentences how each of these water related things would enrich the game. I've just made two counterpoints, please show how in fact water pipes and thirst are interesting, useful and not redundant. I'm not just being an ass, I want Rimworld to acquire only fun features.

Also, "more detailed" doesn't necessarily mean "more realistic" and "more enjoyable". It's just a diffrent level of abstraction. Computer strategy games, if they deal with squads, tanks, armies, usually don't make you manage manually ammo of every single soldier. In real world armies, highest commanders have lower commanders to take care of details. "Combat realism" mod should be called "More Combat Micromanagement". Games often skip details to focus on parts their designers find most interesting. More little details means less time for player to spend on grand scale.

[quxzcover]

+1 for b0rsuk

[keylocke]

They'd make the game more enjoyable in the same way that temperature, mood, relationships, etc. make the game more enjoyable. It's more factors to consider, things to plan for, deal with when problems crop up, and when managed correctly can improve the quality of life of your colonists, and give you additional options to deal with problems that arise.

i agree with this. i think the main problem with the water issue (or the hygiene issue) is that these are additional tasks that pawns need to do each day that would eat up their time to do other things.

but irl, people can eat, drink, bathe, piss, poop, chat, work, have sexy times, etc.. all in a single day.

so the main problem i see is the time scale of each action, the travel speed to reach a destination, and the total amount of time there is in a day to perform these actions.

the main thing that needs to be tweaked is the time scale. and that's gonna take a hefty amount of time to tweak and test.

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edit :

also when extending the time scale of a single day, so that more tasks can be accomplished daily, the fastforward time function should have an option that is way faster than the current 3x speed.

this way, even though the time scale of each day can get intimately long, it's still possible to play a decades long playthrough by using the fastforward. (maybe a 10x speed?)

at 10x fastforward speed. it might be possible to fastforward time to actually see your colonists have grandkids..

[Fimbultul]

Perhaps it should not use a new system, but instead be incorporated into the moodsystem. Finding and building a well that is connected to a faucet in your base gives a big mood bonus relative to the scarcity of water on your map? Could be ratonalised as your colonists managing thirst on their own, but having water in your base makes them feel more secure.

[RawCode]

this is not sims, i don't want to watch how pawns piss and poop 67% of game time.

[Vagabond]

Agree with OP. Don't be discouraged. A lot of the same people against this were against all sorts of stuff that has been implemented. Buncha negative Nancy-types that I've always thought enjoy the game as a arcade-like base builder with the ultimate goal of creating some grotesque "kill box" to deal with massively unrealistic amounts of enemies.

I'm glad the steam release has brought more people who see this as a colony sim. More voices requesting these features can do nothing but good things for this game.

The main issue I see, that works against pretty much every feature being added to the game is the timescale. Once the timescale is hammered out, we can properly simulate the things that are important to a colony simulator. One of those important things, (imo) is water. People need to drink. Later technology levels expect to defecate and urinate in a flushable toilet. All of these add extra layers to the simulation, to the way we play the game. They also provide opportunities, such as those presented, for non-combat events. I love the combat system, and enjoy combat, but it is a crutch. With a fully realized simulation of human behavior, needs, construction, research, ect, the game wouldn't have to rely on combat as the only means of challenging for player and pawns.

borsuk argued that conduits are more important and devastating than water would be, for various reasons. But what could be more important that potable water? That would be way more devastating than losing power. without water you dehydrate. Without water you can't water your crops. Without water people can't clean themselves, which is a health risk. As is having feces and urine floating around.

Power isn't even necessary, or at least shouldn't be. We should be able to fully survive and thrive without it, if the other technology levels were expanded upon.

I'd rank Water right up there with power, temperature, food, and combat as core features. All these things are important and needed to enhance the simulation and deepen the strategy of colony building.

[b0rsuk]

Vagabond, you haven't even responded to any point I made about water or pipes. Water is very similar to food in terms of mechanics, and we already have food. Can you highlight differences ?