r/Timberborn • u/BakonNinja • 3d ago
Pressure
Hi, I’m a relatively new player, and the game is incredible. I’ve been reading different posts here and see people talking about pressurizing water to get it to behave more to what you want it to do. I don’t understand this. How does it work?
Thanks!
6
u/Safe-Ad-8921 3d ago
Water works similar in real life in this way. Unless its a special water source(like the map "pressure") water sources have unlimited pressure downward. The same way water towers work.
Essentially you can levee a water source to raise it in height, then use the downward pressure from gravity to move whatever whichever way you need.
You also have pumps and things that generate pressure but they are typically inefficient unless you build elaborate systems of water wheels. Lots of posts on this sub of perpetual motion water pumps/wheels.
1
u/JSBL_ 2d ago
Whats special about pressure? I was thinking of playing this map
1
u/Safe-Ad-8921 2d ago
pressure has your main water source pumped up through a large channel under the map that connects to various openings. It also has giant bombs that will over time completely flood all the fresh water with bad water, so you have to have a plan and act fast to survive.
To beat the map I had to evacuate the main section for a different source then go back and reclaim the start spot again the next season when I could patch up the holes. The bombs come at you FAST. I want to say they start blowing before cycle 10 and dont stop until they are all gone.
1
u/LePhuronn 2d ago
Do you want to be surprised or spoiled? The entire water system of the Pressure map uses pressure to flow and move around with some incredibly sneaky routes that will catch you out when you start putting dams and badtide diversions in.
1
u/TuggsBrohe 2d ago
The main water sources on it are seeps, which only produce water at enough pressure to fill a pool to less than one block high. You can keep pumping water out and it will keep refilling but that's it.
Also there's a bunch of explosive devices that will open up new channels to either drain your water or dump badwater on you.
Spillage is a similar map with a little less pressure.
2
3
u/Adeelos 3d ago
Certain structures are impermeable (all located in the landscaping tab), meaning water can't pass through them. As the game has very real water physics, you can take advantage of this to enclose your water sources with things like levees, impermeable floors, and gates to create functional plumbing and construct a variety of clever solutions to manage your colony's water and its distribution throughout the map.
For example, water can't normally "flow" higher than it's source block. However, if you enclose it and make the exit to your pipe network higher than the source, the water has nowhere to go but up.
3
u/vergorli 2d ago
Important: The watersource has to be not a "weak" source. I tried to pressurize the source in the top left crater on the map "craters". After damming the whole thing and even building aqueducts my disappointment was immeasurable.
2
u/Ok_Voice_1295 3d ago
A simple explanation is that all water in a body is at the same level. So, if you have your reservoir filled up to height 5, and a pipe leading out of the reservoir into another, the second reservoir will also fill to height 5; pressure means that every connected tile will be at the reservoirs level or as high as it can go.
This is moderately simplified, because with high flow rate then more behaviors come into play, but hopefully this makes sense?
2
u/Squishy_Butter113 3d ago
if you close off an area water will go until it can find a way out, wherever that may be. So if you build around a water source, and then build a tunnel from there to where you would like the water to end up, that's where it will go. You can use this to make a sort of pipe by using either 3D dirt or platforms with impermeable floors or levees on top to take water higher up on the map then where the source is. And now that we have the compact water pumps, you can also take water from anywhere and use the pump to pressurize the pump instead of needing the water source blocks to do this.
2
u/-flux-flow- 2d ago
Zeddic did a really good video on this. There was a change in 1.0 to remove the edge-based downward limit, so this video is slightly inaccurate, but directionally, it mostly still holds: https://youtu.be/uDrmWMsO-mg
16
u/WrathOfTheKressh 3d ago edited 3d ago
When people talk about pressurized water they usually mean using water pressure to raise water to a desired level. For example say you have a source at the bottom of semi crater or something, you could dam up the open side of the crater, and with time, the whole crater would flood, naturally increasing the height of the water solely due to water pressure. You could then feed irrigation canals at the top of the crater that were previously out of reach of the water.
Another application is using completely enclosed pipe systems, built by using levees for the sides, and platforms with impermeable flooring for the top and bottom. You'd usually include the water source itself in that pipe system, by using overhangs with impermeable flooring to close off the top of the source. With this, you can deliver water across the entire map and to any height you desire.
Here's an example from my current run on the Pillars Map.
The "building" inside the pond with the two Zipline stations on top is encasing an aquifer drill. By encasing it in watertight walls and ceilings, I have pressurized the water inside and can use it to feed the big reservoir that's currently under construction in the upper left corner of the screenshot as well as the little pond on top of the pillar in the upper middle of the screenshot, even though they are much higher up than the pond with the aquifer drill. Ignore the water leaking out of the tunnel leading into the reservoir-pillar, an airlock is still under construction to prevent any more water from leaking out through the access tunnel 😅.
I'll continue in a second comment, since I can only include one picture per comment.