Watermills, does anyone use them ?

[Canute]

With B19 these new way to generate power got introduced, so i thought i give it a try and settle next to a river.
But after i was able to build these mill's i notice, it is a totaly waste of time.
They are to clumsy and without terraforming they wouldn't fit at these spot you would like to have them.
And the power output for that since is pretty bad either.

If you are lucky and got a pretty straight river at your map, you might could build enough of them to have enough power for your base.
But then they are all over the map, and a nightmare for the defence.

From the technical side, i don't see why they are soo big. Woodfired/chemfuel generators are just 2x2 (1 tile generator, 1 tile fueltank, 2x1 burnroom).
So i think the watermill just should be 3x3, (3x1 wheel, 1 tile axis, 3x1 axis and generator) with the option to add another wheel to increase the power output.

[RemingtonRyder]

They work fine for me. It's all-day power without needing any fuel. But, like you said, they're quite situational. If you don't have a straight-ish river then they're not as good.

I've not had any problems defending them. Mostly because there's only one crossing and also, massed firepower in the right place spells death for anything trying to cross a river.

[zizard]

Build a wall and make the raiders pay

[Maverik]

I use them, Watermills are an amazing early source of power

[5thHorseman]

They blow the other early power sources out of the (heh heh) water, IMO, for two reasons: They need no fuel and always deliver the exact same amount of power.

Solar panels only generate during the day.
Windmills only generate when there's wind, which seems to be generated by a random number separate from all other game states (calm thunderstorms are my favorite).
Wood generators need constant refueling of a potentially scarce resource.

So yes, on any map with rivers, I use them everywhere I can and try to get geothermal before I need solar or wind to supplement them. I try to never ever use wood powered generators, though I can't really say why.

[Limdood]

you can surround them with walls....including the water tiles (use bridges).

Then connect the water mill wall pods with walls, make doors in the walls with bridges between them on each side of the river and you've got a great place to meet raiders.  Sapper raids head right to the walled river and allow you to take them out easily and most other raids go around, giving you easier to defend angles on your base, as well as trap locations.

[mvargus]

I find that if I use walls on the land side of the watermill most raiders don't bother with it.  They don't want to stand in the water just to bash on a power source.

As for useful.  1100 power that won't go up and down like solar and is steady unlike wind is heavenly.  It's not geothermal, but its not that hard to find a place to put a watermill and having multiple ones isn't that much harder.

It not perfect and the material cost is a pain, but I like them and use them whenever I can.

[Broken Reality]

Well you should have a good idea of what the river will be like before you settle the map just from looking at it's path on the world map. Settle vertical or horizontal river maps for more luck with placement spots.

[Jan2607]

I don't like to use batteries, so I'm happy about every power source that delivers a steady amount of power.
In the first years my colony depends on water mills and geothermals. Now I use them to power up my reactors and turbines from the Rimatomic mod
I'm using two seperate power nets for this.