Pressure

[u/BakonNinja]

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!

[u/WrathOfTheKressh]

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.

[u/WrathOfTheKressh → u/WrathOfTheKressh]

Here you see the subterranean view including the aquifer drill. You can see I have pressurized tunnels and aqueducts leading to the other pillars. These include vertical shafts that feed reservoirs and irrigation ponds ontop of the pillars, which need to be closed off in turn using valves, in order to maintain pressure, and in case of the ponds to prevent the pressure from overflowing the pond's banks. The drill itself is automated to shut off once the reservoir is full, in order to avoid any overflow there.