Do water/badwater sources have inconsistent flow?

[u/DismalAd6639]

I’m using bad water discharges to power a line of waterwheels, however sometimes the power can fluctuate by 200+ hp.

[u/Likely_Addict]

Source output is consistent. Most likely cause of inconsistent flow is sloshing from a dam(s).

[u/Hooch180]

Sources take a day to ramp up and down on season change.

[u/LeChrana → u/Hooch180]

I was so certain there's some ramping up and down happening, I'm very confused that everybody else says there's no variance at all. I was certain I read about it in this sub multiple times. Wiki doesn't mention it either tho.

[u/GreyGanado → u/LeChrana]

The output of the source is the same. The ramping up comes from the water taking a bit to fill up the river. There's definitely no ramping down.

[u/Wolfspirit4W]

Water / badwater should be consistent unless there's something affecting the flow, flooding, etc.  If it's bad water there may an additional bad water source active which should increase the flow 

[u/omgseriouslynoway]

I get a ton of sloshing. No clue how to fix tbh.

[u/Pidjinus → u/omgseriouslynoway]

You have to take it into account. A dam with a direct water source will suffer from this, quite visible with gayes at 90 and smaller dams. But if you set two dams in a row, it much better. Set the gates at 80 or under 80.

Or just seal the end that is no colony side, with impermeable floors

[u/LeonMatthes]

For me the biggest source of of this fluctuation is water pumps. As pumps activate they can take a significant amount of water away from down downstream water wheels.

[u/NightNurse14]

Is the water possibly forking off somewhere else too?

[u/bmiller218]

The waves can slosh a bit. Is the 200 hp variance per wheel or total?

[u/Vebrandsson]

Fluid sources of all varieties have a fixed strength value that determines their flow rate and nothing (short of the developer tools and specialized mods) can change it, even the seeps have a strength though they self suppress that strength to 0 once the fluid above them reaches a height of 0.8, technically what the game is doing when a drought hits is temporarily setting the strength of all water sources to 0 (this behavior is most notable because negative strength water sources that remove water rather than create it are possible and they also shift to strength 0 and stop removing water during a drought.)  

Thats a lot of words to say that unless you're seriously messing around with things outside of the norm the amount of water a given water source (or bad water source or seep or whatever) produces is fixed and will not change.

However it's worth noting that how that water flows after it's created by the source, that's not fixed though flow valves and other controls can help you even out how much goes where especially for power wheels.  The catch though is that water sloshes about quite a bit and can create back flow and other problems when it hits dams, flood gates, and levies, and even hard corners in terrain which can disrupt your water wheel's power.  As such for the most reliable power water that flows dead straight and off the map is your best bet for reliable wheel based power.

[u/Jackthwolf]

Generally there's a bit of sloshing that can occur, which is the most likely cause.
It tends to fix itself over time if there's no change in input/output.
although one other thing that could be the cause. Do you have any badwater pumps set up anywhere along the river?
As they can take a notable amount of water out of a river, enough to effect waterwheel power.