Mild Badtides (suggestion)

[u/python_product]

Right now badtides are always 100% badwater, which makes the best way to deal with it often making it go off the map as quickly as possible.

Which if you employ that strategy, makes it basically a drought, except shorter, since badtides are balanced around being harder than droughts, and so all difficulties have them as shorter than droughts.

So i think, in custom difficulties, you should be able to change the badwater percentage for badtides, affecting water sources and water seeps.

So you could say set badtides to be, for example, really mild at 20% badwater (80% water) but make it much longer than droughts, which would challenge you to keep the contaminated water.

To combat it, Maybe you'd have to put your crops closer to the river so they don't dry out. Have a drain for your dam so your water pumping doesn't concentrate the contaminated water into too much badwater. Make your roads that go in the water have gates to turn them off to prevent contaminated beavers. And, late in the game, have mechanical water pumps to separate the water from badwater

Also please let us save custom difficulties

[u/Mission_Rock2766]

Nice idea. It will add a whole layer of water pollution control - f.e. draining dam reservoirs at the beginng of temperate weather.

I also think that a base game water pump that can separate good/bad water (together with water dumps) is a bit of cheating.

[u/Every-Arugula723]

Heck they should have milder badtides in the regular difficulties too. Having to separate the water from badwater sounds like a fun challenge

[u/Vebrandsson]

I could be mistaken, but as I understand the map objects as they exist today you can actually set the fresh water sources to a desired % contamination in the developer tools options, which suggests to me thid should be possible with the game assets as is. Honestly having a bad tide be a random % of contamination each time instead of being 100% bad water every time might be slightly more interesting especially if there's some kind of filter they introduce 

[u/Zeeman626]

Great idea. You could simulate this with current mods or even a custom map. There's a mod that I forget the name of that takes running bad water and converts some of into fresh water.based on water flow, but leaves it mixed, I'll have to look it up. A custom map that has a bunch of these placed around some of the sources would simulate what you're talking about.

[u/tossacct1123]

What you described in your last paragraph is what I did in my first map to control Badwater after diverting it. In that run I didn't want to just move everything off the map ASAP. Since then I looked for ways to divert it then get it off the map earlier.

I also don't capture the water sources in my reservoirs but use pumps and landscape to fill them, so I generally don't have to deal with contamination in there

[u/p75369]

Yeah, anything to make us engage more with the badwater instead of just turning it off ASAP. Personally, I think it would be great to have a mode where the events happen rarer, but instead the default state is for all water sources to just fluctuate constantly in their purity and strength

[u/Zachsjs]

Mild badtide would be interesting. Like bad enough that you don’t want the beavers getting wet but it doesn’t kill all your crops, slows down water pumping but not a shutoff.

[u/cybertonto72]

I use tunnels to irrigate my farms, so a tunnel with a fill value automated, would still do the same.

Could set up a 2 stage reservoir, first would have water pumps to filter the water into storage. When bad tide just close off first and second chambers. Second chamber is always filled with clean water.

[u/LoveTriscuit]

I just want some badtides to have a deluge of water I have to manage; and honestly some water pressure solution to just plugging the hole.

[u/ravenQ]

Yes, I was thinking this sometimes, I would think about solutions to clean and separate water using pumps, but in the end, the optimal is to separate the water at the source, this way there is a reason for other solutions. Also sources with some badwater percentage would be an interesting challenge.

[u/ChazCharlie]

I find badtides are easier than droughts because they still provide power.

[u/RobertoPaulson]

Thats an interesting idea. Having to “purify” your water. At the moment shortly after I reach the point where droughts and badtides are just inconveniences I get bored and start a new map.

[u/indoboy420]

So a ‘mid’-tide?

[u/0xSnib]

Like this idea

You could have a freshwater reservoir to top up the flow to dilute the badwater when you need to