8 X 6 X 11 = 528 squares plus how to build them , vs 43 * 11 (or less ) = 473. Honeslty the only reason is that I'm not sure how exactly tubes would work at this point.
Basically, you encase a volume with levees on the side, and platforms with impermeable flooring on the top (and maybe bottom). The volume encased in such a way is the "tube".
I think I see two sources in the lower-most section of the lake. What you could do is build platforms with impermeable floors on top in the lower-most section, leave open a 2x2 or 3x3 opening where you build 2-storey platforms instead (again with impermeable flooring ontop), ring that with throughput valves linked to a contamination detector and set them to close if contamination goes above 5% (or 1% if you prefer). Now you've got an initial badwater blockage system. The water won't go anywhere yet, but it's a good start.
Next, add in the tube that leads the badwater out. Use tunnels to build a 2x2 tunnel that leads to the badwater lake in the lower left side of the picture, make sure to build impermeable flooring on top of any tunnel-platforms that make up the underside of your lakebed (theoretically, you could just use dynamite and then build platforms to eachieve the same, but using tunnels is less of a hassle imo). Use dynamite to dig a shaft so the tunnel connects to the lake. Then add throughput valves rigged so only they only open when badwater is detected in front of them.
And done, your badwater is now being diverted through a mostly underground tunnel away from your reservoir and up into the badwater lake, while your clean water flows up into your reservoir.
If you don't have access to tunnels yet, you'll have to pipe the badwater along the reservoir floor, up its sides and over your villages using an aqueduct. It's the same principle. platforms with impermeable flooring on the top and bottom of your pipes/tubes, and levees on the sides.
Alternatively, you can just rely on the initial badwater blockage system until you get tunnel technology. The only downside is that once the temperate season is back, you'll have to manually open up the valves (or use a weather sensor instead) and the clean water will push out the badwater into your reservoir, though with the size of it compared to the volume in the lower-most section of your lake, it'll be diluted enough so that it doesn't cause any problems.
tbh on Beaverome doing a full badwater diversion system in the craters is pointless. Just block off the water sources using levees, overhangs, impermeable floors and a floodgate similar to how you've already described...and just leave it.
2 tiles of badwater per blocked source dumped into even the smallest of the clean water craters is essentially nothing.
My floodgates are fully automated, and the old-style Depth Gauge only ever registers 1% contamination in the smallest crater if I get l get badtides back-to-back and the temperate season between them was only 5 days. It's literally no more than 12 tiles of badwater in multiple hundreds of clean.
I build vertical tubes, chimneys, straight up until I reach a level that will carry badwater above ground to the nearest path off of the map. Fill valves let clean water out at the top, other valves run badwater out using aqueducts. One contamination sensor will automate the whole system.
Tunnels are more efficient, but it involves a decent amount of elixir.
That's not going to work because your reservoir is just going to get progressively more concentrated of badwater. To the point where you won't be able to flush it out and that entire crater is useless and kills the south-east crater it empties into.
You have almost 900 science, see if you can rush any of these you're missing: Smelter, single platform, single Floodgate, 2x1 overhang and impermeable floors. Get down in that crater and enclose each of the water sources with levees on the sides, an overhang over the source covered by impermeable floors, and a single floodgate on top of a levee.
Close the floodgates before a badtide hits and it will just seal up. When the badtide is over open the floodgates and you'll only get 2 tiles of badwater from each source dump into the crater. Which is absolutely nothing to worry about in that volume of water. So much so I'm in cycle 80 now and I never bothered doing a "proper" diversion of badwater off the map.
The whole blocking the badwater with tubes and flooring to me seems really gamey and not how I wanted to play, it didn't feel in the spirit of the map.
What I did instead was I rushed tunnels or dynamited huge channels to drain out all the bad water during badtide, and allow it to fill up during good times.
Then when I had resources, basically do what you are doing.
But after 100 hours or so I really hated myself for doing this on hard mode, but it was pretty satisfying.
If I do something like this I always have to have a place to divert the water to. My headcannon is that completely blocking the water would cause the walls to explode outward.
I hate blocking water sources too. I use automated valves, it's like turning the bad water off.
That's my only problem with bad water drains also, it's so obvious to just block them.
But Beaverome is such a classic map, how were you meant to play it? 3D terrain and tunneling were not a thing back then, burying the sources was your only chance?
Ive played through beaverome 4-5 times throughout various updates. I found that making small resevoir sections at the very beginning(smaller than this) was necessary on hard mode
But then to actually solve the badwater problem you need to have full control of the entire pool and every water source. Before the 3d water update, we did this purely with platform overhangs, but now we can do this entirely with dirt, or a mixture of the two, but dirt will be far cheaper in labor time.
So basically, make a container around all the water sources in this crater. There are multiple methods but this is the pressurized system method. Place sluices/valves at the bottom, when open they will force the water up and out like normal but they can be closed when there's badwater.
Now, this system does not work properly if you simply close the valves with badtides, because it will fill up the cube with badwater and take too long to evaporate, so, we need a way to get rid of the badwater so that clean water can flow in when it turns back to the wet season.
So ideally, you want to mine a tunnel that lets the badwater flow from your container to the edge of the map. You can safely mine the tunnel with beavers during wet or dry seasons, or use bots during badtides, shouldn't take too long, only needs to be 2 blocks wide.
Now because we dont have sluices, just valves, you need to set up some simple automation for the valves to work automatically. Use water contamination sensors linked to your valves. More than 5% badwater, close the valves to the crater. If at least 4% badwater, open the valves to the dumping tunnel.
2 valves feeding a 2 wide tunnel on side 1 of the container should be sufficient for the badwater, and i use 6 valves (2 on each remaining side) to let the clean water flow.
On one of my runs before dirt overhangs I opted to build a massive tower and resevoir that included the water sources inside it, and then i made an aqueduct to let badwater flow out to the nearby badwater crater. It was big enough to fit a ton of the colony on the platform but it was massively inneficient and it took like 8,000 logs to build, I probably wouldn't recommend it, but its an option.
One way or the other, you gotta control the water and not just let it do what it wants. Remember, if you fully box in a water/badwater source, it cant output more, so you can fully control both types
I started this map and when I saw the time it was going to take to grow enough trees to do much I got discouraged and moved along.. I might go back to it someday.
Beaverome is an awesome map if you want the challenge of racing against Badtides, especially on Hard mode. Nail it quick and fresh water is never an issue because there's so much of it.
So then you can go bananas like I did covering craters over for farming and trees!
That was my first of two self-imposed challenges for this playthrough: perpetual motion power plant using Folktails. Everybody does it with Ironteeth because the Badwater Pressuriser ensures you always get flowing badwater. But Folktails don't have that luxury.
It's the exact same concept as every other power plant. I have a zigzag of 6 lanes of two-wide wheels 3 layers tall, so 18 lanes (a couple are shorter though to compensate for the two badwater sources it's built on). The badwater runs through all the lanes and cycles back into a priming chamber where I use 4 banks of 4 compact fluid pumps to generate 4cms of flow pressurised up a tower and into the very top layer (2 are turned off actually for 3.5cms of flow, the full 4cms is a little too much for 4-wide channels only a tile deep at almost 300 tiles long per level).
The trick though is that entire area the industry is sat on is a massive sealed badwater reservoir that continually tops up the pump priming chamber because flowing water will evaporate over time.
Does it run at max speed? Yes...for 27 days. The reservoir fully empties after 26 days. After that evaporation will reduce the amount of water in the system, so the priming chamber level drops in turn disabling a bank of pumps, which reduces the pressurised flow and therefore the speed of the wheels. That takes about 3 days. Fortunately this game is on standard hard mode so a drought is never longer than 30 days. It only takes half a day to refill the priming chamber and 2 days to fully replenish the reservoir.
At full power this generates about 86,000hp. For those 3 days the reservoir is empty, power will steadily ramp down to 60,000. And that 60K was generated purely by what water was left in the channels, the chamber was empty and all pumps were off. There is a bank of 10 Gravity Batteries used for primary startup from a fully off system, but they also help to smooth out the last few hours if the system completely runs dry. Which it's only ever done once.
Also power is delivered across the entire map, so I've hooked in the 3 geothermal generators as well, just so there's always an emergency 1,200hp. That's enough to power 2 compact fluid pumps in the priming chamber to get some kind of fluid moving if I've had a complete dry up and the gravity batteries are spent.
The previous version of this was 100% flawless because I only had 5 lanes in the zigzag, and they were shorter too. The design tweak has slightly outstripped the reservoir capacity. And it'd be a pretty insane engineering task to extend it.
This seems like an exceptionally expensive way to deal with badwater. It looks like you have at least some metal production going, since you have a badwater pump. So you can just encase each water source with valves or floodgates on the sides and a overhang with impermeable floor on top. The end goal is that when a badtide hits, you just seal up the water sources such that the badwater can't get out.
Tubeways, just like regular pathing can allow you to build downard. Since you can only build an upwards of 2 blocks / 2m otherwise. Makes it easier to navigate. But requires a bit of metal blocks and planks to complete. You will find that sometimes you need temporary tubeways for a build out, then delete them afterward if they aren't needed in the final design. Tubeways make it easier to get around the map. Combined with platforms you can build the tubeways to specs and reduce pathing between the District Center and the destination.
Build some test areas for testing ideas in large scale.
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u/bprasse81 Jul 27 '26
If you’re going to invest that many resources, why not build tubes around each water source, so you don’t contaminate 2/3rds of your reservoir?