Waterwheels underpowered

[akelex]

Anyone else feel the same way? I mean windmills only need- what some basic mechanical parts and flax fibers? waterwheels need iron, like twice as much resin, and a verry specific source of water? the nearest one I found was 2000 blocks from my base!

It feels like there's just not a good reason to make a waterwheel when windmills work anywhere and cheaper.

[Rainbow Fresh]

The point of waterwheels is to be consistent. And when smithing with a helve hammer, I can see the value of not having to worry about the wind giving out halfway through a batch of iron blooms or plates. Beyond that though yes, the windmill will still not be overtaken as primary source for mechanical power.

[Dilan Rona]

Water wheels is King. Wind power is too inconsistent to be of any good use, when you are knee deep in cleaning up iron bloom or blister steel.

[Michael Gates]

Waterwheels have one huge advantage over windmills: they're not ugly. A *lot* of the people who play this game make "I want a pretty little village" their primary goal in life, and the program supports those folks in a lot of ways (notably chiseling, but other stuff as well). But a functional windmill sticks SIXTY BLOCKS into the air, and looks hideous.

I've done a lot of strange things in the past to try to make them look okay, but it's a fifteen-story tower! You have to turn it into some kind of monumental whatsis, and none of those fit with the "pretty little village" aesthetic at all. If I cared about this stuff my approach these days would be to mine out an iron ore disc, build a lousy windmill, spend three days up there slammin' out ingots and pulverizing baux, and then burn that fucker down because making it not suck would be THAT. MUCH. WORK.

Or.. I could just build a lovely bucolic watermill.

[Zaph42nd]

9 hours ago, akelex said:

Anyone else feel the same way? I mean windmills only need- what some basic mechanical parts and flax fibers? waterwheels need iron, like twice as much resin, and a verry specific source of water? the nearest one I found was 2000 blocks from my base!

It feels like there's just not a good reason to make a waterwheel when windmills work anywhere and cheaper.

I think aside from aesthetics, waterwheels have the distinct advantage of being effective at any height and don't have a major de-buff for close-distance between each other (where windmills are less effective if clustered). Not a major thing for most people but I find it allows me to build in more places which feels nice. I think when rivers do eventually get implemented, waterwheels will definitely be significantly more common

[EnbyKaiju]

As someone who prefers consistency over efficiency I'm a real fan of the waterwheel's speed. It's not fast, but being a consistent & reliable source of power more than makes up for the relatively slow speed compared to a full-power windmill.

A water wheel, on its own, is enough to do all the fiddly work of smithing plates or hammering ingots with only a minimal amount of manual handling, and for it to keep the forge going without stopping. Anything more feels unnecessary. And as others have said, there's the aesthetic value to them, as well as offering up a great way to build smaller & less in your face. I'm well into the steel age in my current run, and a single water wheel has been more than enough to make sure I'm never short of plates, iron & steel. I didn't even bother with a windmill as it doesn't fit what I'm doing, so I consider the current implementation a total win.

[akelex]

ima be honest, I dident even know windmills have inconstant power, thats how negatable it is.
Though I can understand the appearance sorta thing, honestly I would be alot more understanding twords the defence of waterwheel's if its sources were just allitle more common, several biomes away seems allitle excessive, honestly just that and I could totally see these things being viable outside of looks.

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums! 

On 7/25/2026 at 12:47 PM, akelex said:

It feels like there's just not a good reason to make a waterwheel when windmills work anywhere and cheaper.

Echoing what others here have already said, but...windmills only work when the wind is actually blowing, and even then it needs to be a wind strong enough to run the machines at a decent speed. Windmills will also interfere with each other via turbulence if placed too close to each other, and they will also break if the sails collide with another block. 

Watermills, on the other hand, provide a consistent source of power, and don't take nearly as much space. The tradeoff to such benefits though is that they're a bit more expensive to build than a basic windmill, and you need to build them at very specific spots.

[ArgentLuna]

On 7/26/2026 at 10:55 AM, Michael Gates said:

Waterwheels have one huge advantage over windmills: they're not ugly. A *lot* of the people who play this game make "I want a pretty little village" their primary goal in life, and the program supports those folks in a lot of ways (notably chiseling, but other stuff as well). But a functional windmill sticks SIXTY BLOCKS into the air, and looks hideous.

I've done a lot of strange things in the past to try to make them look okay, but it's a fifteen-story tower! You have to turn it into some kind of monumental whatsis, and none of those fit with the "pretty little village" aesthetic at all. If I cared about this stuff my approach these days would be to mine out an iron ore disc, build a lousy windmill, spend three days up there slammin' out ingots and pulverizing baux, and then burn that fucker down because making it not suck would be THAT. MUCH. WORK.

Or.. I could just build a lovely bucolic watermill.

You are getting Min maxed windmills confused with Functional Windmills, i have three functional windmills that both work well and look good ~ two are turned off unless i need them and the other runs the quern constantly because its a good gauge of the wind strength and isn't noisy like the helve hammer is. 

[akelex]

also as an update to this, just found out these flowing water sources dont spawn in hot or cold climates only temperate, really feels like it should atleast accept player created watersources even if it runs at like a quarter the amount of power just so its atleast functional across more then 20% of the map.
or just make the spawns more common even in area's it doesent normaly spawn- or make it cheaper I honestly have no clue what it needs but I still feel like it needs something.

[Demoncyborg]

20 hours ago, akelex said:

ima be honest, I dident even know windmills have inconstant power, thats how negatable it is.

you must be VERY lucky, even building mine above the height for the flat power increase, i'd still have days where I had to wait a few in game hours for the wind to return, and that's even with windmills with minimal to no extra parts drawing power (not a 'min maxxed' windmill, but i still have problems with those too). i'd say it's not negligible if my wind power is only 1% and i have stacks of grain i now have to hand-turn until it comes back! 

[MKMoose]

51 minutes ago, akelex said:

just found out these flowing water sources dont spawn in hot or cold climates only temperate

They should be able to spawn everywhere, albeit most commonly in cold and temperate climates. In warm and hot climates rivulets spawn less frequently on the whole, and in icy climates they might also not spawn quite as often due to a large portion of the world being covered with ice. Source: source code. If they are actually unable to spawn in some climates for you, that would more likely be a mod issue or a bug.