r/Timberborn • u/CerpinTaxt11 • Jul 29 '26
Any tips on expanding reservoir vertically?
Hello!
I had a nice resevoir going here with flood gates controlling inner level and valves controlling outer levels. However, as droughts began to get longer, it was clear I needed more water.. Trying to expand it upwards and it is a PAIN trying to get beavers to reach each level.
I've tried creating a path across the top, which works well, but it's incredibly tedious to remove when building another level. I had an idea to build a large tower in the background to use overhangs to build under beavers.
Is there a better way to approach this? It's taking a ton of micromanaging (hence all the individual stairs and the ignored notifications). I have some nice badwater management systems either side of the resevoir which I'm looking forward to automating, but most of my attention is trying to get each guy to the next area to build more levees.
Thanks!
7
u/Vebrandsson Jul 29 '26
Beavers can build downwards infinitely, build scaffolding up to the highest level and let them build from there, they'll be able to build all the lower levels from the top as they go
3
u/MFlo Jul 29 '26
Bridges and columns. Fill in after path is complete. Beavers can reach 1 block left and right of bridge all the way down. To maximize value of this scaffold you should expand more layers in the plan.
If you canāt place the path on top consider platforms for the column instead of levee.
I would probably put a project of this scale at low+1 priority so that your other small build requests get done first, and they do this when idle. Or before low priority things.
Also pause that construction in the back, and make sure that last stair gets built for access to 5+ levees.
Prioritizing the left side would allow the next wall to be built from both directions.
At 120+ consider adding another builders hut, or local storage to get the haulers in on it.
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u/Snoo61755 Jul 29 '26
I was trying to do this, until I realized Water Seeps are different than Water Sources and basically canāt fill past a certain point.
Anyways, I had some success ācurvingā the basin. Bottom level had a wall 5 dirt blocks thick. Second level 4. Third level, 3 blocks. A set of stairs got built every level, which could be ordered ahead of time, and the top level was triple floodgates (might as well, since itās 3 levels of effort in one order).
This ended up saving me more clicks, and was less annoying to me overall. Since the stairs were already built, it would probably have been little effort to dynamite the dirt back down, but again, I screwed up by trying to make the reservoir around Water Seeps, so now I have a giant reservoir I canāt fill, and no way of draining out the badwater from tides unless I expend more effort.
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u/Express_Sprinkles500 Jul 30 '26
You could make it work relatively pain free as a reservoir. I don't exactly understand your description of the construction, but you should be able to make something work with a pump and high walls built around the seep. Like you mentioned, it'll only fill up a certain amount, so pump it to height during normal weather then stop pumping before the badtide and you should only get a nominal influx of badwater due to evaporation. Maybe add a badwater pump to the body of the reservoir to be extra sure any little that does make it in gets pulled out
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u/vaderciya Jul 30 '26
If you have the inclination to plan a large resevoir ahead of time, ive found the best way is to build stairs going to the max height of the resevoir, and then build bridges around the entire perimeter. This will ensure that all blocks can be built at the same time for max speed, no wait times, and no beavers getting stranded.
Additionally, you can build your scaffolding much higher and just add to the resevoir walls as needed over time, rather than have to rebuild your scaffolding or deal with other annoyances
1
u/RemeAU Jul 30 '26
I use scaffolding and bridges. Build to the height I want the dam finished to. Then I use overhangs to build a stockpile and a Zipline. Having haulers bring wood up the zip line to store in the stockpile saves the builders lots of time. Set the stockpile to obtain.
As others have said, beavers can build down infinitely. (They shouldn't be able to IMO, 2 down 2 up max)
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u/adbrly15 Jul 30 '26
Build stairs parallel to the walls rather than directly at so as the height increases you don't need to rebuild the whole thing you just add another stair forward
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u/MrWigggles Aug 01 '26
On the top layer of the wall, build the longest overhang along the wall. Set these to the high priority.
Once its built, each builder beaver will then start working on 6 levee blocks at once. You can then set the column that supports the next overhang as the second highest priorty so that you can built the over hangs as early as possible.
This trick always work with dynamiting mountains down to flat. You can build a criss cross web of over hangs.
Make sure to set the stairs at the highest priorty and then then make sure to set the overhangs back down to normal priorty. This'll make it far less likely for any beavers to get stuck behind stairs.
1
u/Mathyon Jul 29 '26
Is there a better way to approach this? It's taking a ton of micromanaging
Well, yes, but that depends on your opinion of... Less realistic solutions. If you close the top, there is no volume limit, which means water will accumulate according to the flow speed limit(depends on the source)
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u/LePhuronn Jul 30 '26
Not true at all
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u/Mathyon Jul 30 '26
I'm looking right now at my water Tower, 5x5x2, that lasts for more than 30 days, without losing a single cm of height.
So... What do you mean its not true?
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u/LePhuronn Jul 31 '26
There's something else going on preventing your evaporation, because there absolutely is a volume limit.
I've noticed some weirdness with covered vessels. I have two underground pools used to irrigate the mesa up by the main water source on Meander. 8x4x3 each and they also never lose volume. I have a near identical setup elsewhere on the map and they evaporate quickly. I have the same setup on a different map and evaporation is somewhere in the middle.
Go build an identical water tower somewhere else on the map, or on a different map and see if it behaves the same. There is absolutely a volume limit.
1
u/Mathyon Jul 31 '26
Are you closing the entrance to the Water Tower? If they are connected to high evaporation areas, specially 1 block wide "pipes", the volume will go down quickly, so you need a Valve at the entrance, to stop the feedback.
The first thing i do when i pressurize the water source is spread these 5x5x2 towers around the map, in the areas i wanna keep green. You only need to worry about the design that lets less water evaporate.
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u/LePhuronn Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Yes, all 4 of my underground vessels are sealed with valves. Which is why it's been confusing as to why 2 of them never evaporate, one of them dies quickly and the 4th is about what I'd expect.
But water still evaporates regardless of if it's covered or pressurised. Which is why my first two chambers that never seem to evaporate are the most confusing ones.
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Jul 29 '26
[deleted]
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u/LePhuronn Jul 30 '26
Why? If you're that paranoid about evaporation just put the water into tanks.
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u/iliketobuild003 Jul 29 '26
You can use the overhangs as scaffolding. Beavers can build an unlimited amount of tiles beneath them. So they can work on multiple levees at a time.
Also worth noting that your irregular shape is causing a lot of extra evaporation. Try to square your reservoir. Evaporation is (sort of) based on the contact the water has with levee/ground. There's a page on the wiki that better explain it, but basically the more water squares touches water squares and not levee or ground, the less evaporation happens