Thinking about if Water could not be Destroyed only moved.

[Emeal]

So I was thinking how these new River is shaping up and how Vintage Story may end up handling water in the future, in the name of realism I considered what the game could do if water had to go somewhere realistically. Lets take these mountains as an example:

1. The Precipitation value of the area means how much Rain comes down, this isn't literal its an area value that tells crops as of right now how much water they get over time
2. The Mountains with Ice layers on top is an area that could be a Water Stream start, so it will likely have one the Stream will carry the area size value + precipitation and will then target the nearest river and make its way over there.
3. A Stream loses water value as it passes over land and also depending of the levels of vegetation of that area.
4. The Stream makes contact with a river which adds the value to the river.
5. A River loses water value as it passes over land and also depending of the levels of vegetation of that area.
6. The River ends in the Ocean which just ends the value calculation OR maybe the River could end that Calculation.

Why would VS do this?
Knowing a value for the Water that comes through a system and how much can change how the systems we make to fight the environment to make it better for us.
Its not that realistic for things the be set up and done and that's it, like windmills there are the wind to consider etc.

• Furrowed Ditches
  For water around your crops, the water value would be consumed by the space in the furrow system and consumed by plants but also too much water value would flood the system and your crops. But also needing run off for excess water in case of flooding.
• Changes to Waterwheels. Waterflow changes with seasons where you are.
• General Dryness / Resistance to Bushfires in general area. Damned be the Lightning Strikes. More waterflow through an area with a Stream = Fire Spread has chance to fail?
• Flooded mines: pump the water out and into the water flow system to remove it.
• Draining a Lake

Anyway, its fun to think about what could be implemented as well as what Gameplay challenges that would arise from solving them.
Thanks for Reading.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

The idea is interesting, but it assumes a level of collective labor and coordination that doesn’t exist in typical gameplay, which would turn survival gameplay into infrastructure management work rather than fun interaction.

Remember, it's a game. And games are supposed to be fun!

[LadyWYT]

9 hours ago, Emeal said:

Furrowed Ditches
For water around your crops, the water value would be consumed by the space in the furrow system and consumed by plants but also too much water value would flood the system and your crops. But also needing run off for excess water in case of flooding.

I like this idea, since it would make crops more interesting if they had different moisture requirements: ie, rice needing flooded fields, or crops like sweet potatoes and millet needing less water in order to thrive. However, I think the system should be kept relatively simple, since the more complex a gameplay loop is the more time the player will need to devote to managing it. And the player will have plenty of other things to manage aside from farming, including needing to set aside blocks of time for long adventures(such as completing story content). They'll want to do that without feeling too pressured to give up on critical things like farming.

 

9 hours ago, Emeal said:

Changes to Waterwheels. Waterflow changes with seasons where you are.

Yes water flow changes somewhat with seasons, but consider this: the main drawbacks of water power currently is the player needs to build next to the source in order to use it, and the water wheel is a bit slower than the basic windmill. The main advantage to water power though is that it's very consistent; the player doesn't need to wait for the wind to blow in order to power machinery, nor do they need to worry about everything grinding to a halt mid-process due to the wind deciding to stop blowing.

If the water flow is able to change like that though, then it's no longer a consistent power source, and players are more likely to start ignoring it entirely in favor of sticking to windmills.

9 hours ago, Emeal said:

General Dryness / Resistance to Bushfires in general area. Damned be the Lightning Strikes. More waterflow through an area with a Stream = Fire Spread has chance to fail?

I think something like this would be more easily calculated based on the average rainfall of the area. If the average rainfall is very high, fire shouldn't be able to spread as easily, but if the average rainfall is low then fire spreads more readily. Of course if it's raining at the time, fire shouldn't spread very well at all.

 

9 hours ago, Emeal said:

Flooded mines: pump the water out and into the water flow system to remove it.

Honestly I don't want to deal with this, and it would make mining a real pain outside of the late game. Once the player starts to move on from the copper tier, they're going to need to go deep mining for ores, but won't have the tech to deal with water pouring in if the mine decides to flood. At best, they're probably only going to be able to make one trip into the mine before it floods and needs draining, and at worst the mine is going to flood too quickly for them to retrieve any ore at all without pumps if they happen to dig in the wrong spot.

 

9 hours ago, Emeal said:

Anyway, its fun to think about what could be implemented as well as what Gameplay challenges that would arise from solving them.

I think overall, I prefer the simpler system we have as opposed to something that strives to be super realistic. Performance concerns aside, I like being able to build decorative water features, so being able to move water via bucket is nice, and the fact that rapids can't be player-created(outside of creative mode) means that those remain balanced as a power source. I don't mind tinkering around with engineering aqueducts and the like, but that's also not something I want to be forced to spend most of my time doing in order to make sure things don't flood. Additionally, if water always has to have somewhere to go, it seems like it would make it very hard to drain lakes and small ponds. 

What I would rather see are puddles after a good rain, and some geysers and better waterfalls. Perhaps some hot springs variants or other natural springs that contain minerals and stuff that's beneficial to the player. Or some bigger waves and a surfboard to ride them on.

[Emeal]

8 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

The idea is interesting, but it assumes a level of collective labor and coordination that doesn’t exist in typical gameplay, which would turn survival gameplay into infrastructure management work rather than fun interaction.

Remember, it's a game. And games are supposed to be fun!

You object to the whole management problem, yeah I can understand that if we compare it to farms right now which are setup and done. Any request for more realism can feel like a creeping force to take away what is good easy and introduce problems which you don't want to deal with, I understand that.

But it is likely some type of setup and forget farms can exist even with a more realistic water structure, with controls of how much water goes in to a furrow ditch system vs. out.

Fun is subjective, I don't think Vintage Story is fun in the traditional way.
The way VS is fun to me is that there are those "uncompromising survival mechanics" which I dealt with, I beat them and I survived despite them.

Which is why it can seem like I'm a madman, deliberately asking Tyron to fuck me over harder or taking away safe systems I rely on for a sense of safety.
But I don't want to ask for unreasonable uncompromise, so my question would be: Isnt the way we make farms fully irrigated a little too safe/secure? My answer is yes.

[Emeal]

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

... Flooded mines: pump the water out and into the water flow system to remove it.

Honestly I don't want to deal with this, and it would make mining a real pain outside of the late game. Once the player starts to move on from the copper tier, they're going to need to go deep mining for ores, but won't have the tech to deal with water pouring in if the mine decides to flood. At best, they're probably only going to be able to make one trip into the mine before it floods and needs draining, and at worst the mine is going to flood too quickly for them to retrieve any ore at all without pumps if they happen to dig in the wrong spot.

I agree it can sound annoying, this all depends on flooding time and other factors implemented into the system. we don't even have a flooding system .... YET! 

I think thinking about a flooding system might be the next thing I think about.

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I think overall, I prefer the simpler system we have as opposed to something that strives to be super realistic. Performance concerns aside, I like being able to build decorative water features, so being able to move water via bucket is nice, and the fact that rapids can't be player-created(outside of creative mode) means that those remain balanced as a power source. I don't mind tinkering around with engineering aqueducts and the like, but that's also not something I want to be forced to spend most of my time doing in order to make sure things don't flood. Additionally, if water always has to have somewhere to go, it seems like it would make it very hard to drain lakes and small ponds. 

Hmm yeah I see that can be a problem. We could dig ditches to get the water there and then undig them right? But then evaporation and surrounding plant life mechanics kind of don't work. I guess the way you would keep these Lakes working would be to control the intake from a river then into the lake and then control the outflow.

We dont have blocks to make to do this right now, but we could get that, infact Im not suggesting we implement a system without the ways to deal with it.

That would be like implementing the sharpening mechanic to flax but not implementing the grinding stone.

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

 What I would rather see are puddles after a good rain, and some geysers and better waterfalls. Perhaps some hot springs variants or other natural springs that contain minerals and stuff that's beneficial to the player. Or some bigger waves and a surfboard to ride them on.

That all sounds amazing, something idd like to see too.

[Mac Mcleod]

There should be an option that allows you to transport water to a hole (5 buckets fills a hole) but not create a new source block.

It completely breaks immersion that you can create a huge lake given one bucket of water.

 

[Emeal]

4 hours ago, Mac Mcleod said:

There should be an option that allows you to transport water to a hole (5 buckets fills a hole) but not create a new source block.

It completely breaks immersion that you can create a huge lake given one bucket of water.

110% Agree. But I also see the need for players such as @LadyWYT I have also made a lake myself, I would like water to be realistic but I would also like the tools to do this easier.

Half way through filling this manually the Server Owner filled the rest.

We need stuff like the Archimedies Screw to work on water and etc.

[Tabbot95]

On 4/10/2026 at 7:35 PM, Teh Pizza Lady said:

The idea is interesting, but it assumes a level of collective labor and coordination that doesn’t exist in typical gameplay, which would turn survival gameplay into infrastructure management work rather than fun interaction.

Remember, it's a game. And games are supposed to be fun!

I find the infrastructure aspects to have the potential to be fun, but it's often got a lot of impediments to it that make it less than fun.

 

Wooden and Clay chutes/pipes.. (moreover clay as like a part of an areas surface soil/subsoil layer even, rather than as a 'ore'), multiple varieties of pump, idk having Aquifers (both heavy and light).. might be interesting if they're done correctly..

Edited April 20 by Tabbot95

[Teh Pizza Lady]

35 minutes ago, Tabbot95 said:

I find the infrastructure aspects to have the potential to be fun, but it's often got a lot of impediments to it that make it less than fun.

 

Wooden and Clay chutes/pipes.. (moreover clay as like a part of an areas surface soil/subsoil layer even, rather than as a 'ore'), multiple varieties of pump, idk having Aquifers (both heavy and light).. might be interesting if they're done correctly..

If you're gaming with friends, projects like that can absolutely be a lot of fun.

[Bruno Willis]

4 hours ago, Tabbot95 said:

Wooden and Clay chutes/pipes.. (moreover clay as like a part of an areas surface soil/subsoil layer even, rather than as a 'ore'), multiple varieties of pump, idk having Aquifers (both heavy and light).. might be interesting if they're done correctly..

These would be great, and clay as a subsoil is an excellent idea. It seems really realistic to have some regions where there is a small layer of topsoil and then clay for 4 or more blocks before you hit stone. I grew up in an area IRL which has about a finger's depth of topsoil, and then clay down for meters, and it's like that for kilometers around.