Idea for pond distribution

futurebird · 2019-05-02 16:56:22

Why make a new item like a spring head when you could just put a dry deep well in those locations? The only way to use it is to upgrade, maybe give it a different look as it's a dry deep well from whatever ancient vanished civilization built the monoliths and the nosaj... But you can add blocks to it and build your first pump.

I do like how this mirrors getting oil but is more simple prepares players for it, breaks up the whole settle where ever eve plopped down the kiln and never re-think it mindset...

Wuatduhf · 2019-05-02 16:59:44

I think we're approaching a better solution here, but I do think that resource discrimination (having unique RNG %'s per biome for the primary water sources) should be the more desirable route of implementation.

Having spread-out wells is a problem, as non-zoom players can potentially miss the primary Diesel Engine well of a town and either upgrade other wells to Diesel, use the outdated Newcomen pump, or use a Kerosene newcomen pump rather than the 'best thing'. Maybe that's a problem for players to have to tackle in-game, but this is a constant issue that has been faced since Newcomens came into the game.

Separating wells from ponds sounds good at first, but then this means that Swamps still hold the early-game water source, and that Eve towns need to start there and 'migrate' out to the other biomes. Unless I misunderstood something about this?

Dodge · 2019-05-02 17:04:24

The springheads could use the grid system that you wanted to make for ponds and require higher tech to be able to be used (similar to the oil rig, maybe newcomen pump with steel pipes)

So early game would still be the same looking for a good spot full of ponds, but then you would need to advance in tech enough to be able to find and use the spring, otherwise the village would run out of water and die out

The idea is that you have a limited amount of water to get to a certain level of tech to be able to use the spring water then move to the new area if you fail to advance in tech the ponds are all empty and village dies.

Last edited by Dodge (2019-05-02 17:07:21)

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-02 17:05:31

Wuatduhf, again, what we're talking about here is NOT unique village setups.

We're talking about my current inability to control how hard the late game is, because of a variable number of ponds per village, which means a variable number of wells.

By "hard," I mean: "How much time do you have to produce food before you must advance to next-level tech?"

Currently, the only necessary tech advancement for survival long-term is water tech. But after conducting a VOG survey of villages, I found that even some very old villages were still using shallow wells (because they had so many of them), and almost no one was depending on the higher-tech pump wells.

Early game is hard and feels great (to me). That's because food tech in early game is perfectly timed to almost run out right as you develop the next level tech that saves you. You can screw it up, and your early village will fail.

Late game is easy and feels boring, because there are plateaus in the tech that don't run out fast enough. I need to be able to tweak things in the late game to increase the pressure and reduce these plateaus.

BUT... it's currently impossible for me because of the "variable multiplier" factor. If you have 6 ponds (and thus 6 wells), I can't tweak the parameters on wells to make it hard for you, because I also need to consider the town that only has 3 ponds (and thus 3 wells).

This is kinda true for other resources as well (you may be near lots of iron), but nothing is as central to farming as your water supply, and no tech branch is as well-developed as the water branch. Pond, shallow, deep, Newcomen, kero, diesel. Six well-defined tiers, with the idea being that you need to upgrade to the next when the last runs out.

(And yes, I obviously need to make it so that Newcomen runs out, and make the upper tiers upgradable.... but it doesn't even make sense to do that right now, because so few people are even depending on Newcomen currently.)

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-02 17:24:37

Dodge, that's an interesting idea.... like springs require pumps or something.

So you need to rush steel fab from your pond starter village and then migrate to build the real village.

Deep well already requires steel, so that's good. Actually, shallow wells do too.

Seems like we might as well allow shallow wells only on spring heads. Use swamp ponds to bootstrap your steel production, and then find a spot for the real village.

Expected value of a pond before empty is 20 water.

Just tested, and saw 25 water from one pond and 17 water from another, so that's matching expectation.

Berries and carrots both produce 35 food per water. So using those as an example, one pond produces 700 food before running out.

Naked on green, you use one food every 4.6 seconds. 700 food lasts 3200 seconds. We can round that up to one hour, because people will be near fire sometimes. Obviously, if they rush clothing and fire, they will do even better. Let's estimate 10 seconds per food pip, so 700 food can easily keep one person alive for two hours.

Wuatduhf · 2019-05-02 17:28:18

That's totally fair. There are villages where the amount of ponds has definitely made it very simple to progress up the water tree at a slow and steady pace. I believe reducing the % spawn chance of the goose ponds (and buffing how much uses or the use % chance they have) would be preferable to an evenly-distributed method of correcting the over-abundance of water we've been benefiting from.

I slightly disagree about people not depending on Newcomens. In villages where there were only 3-4 ponds, the deep wells still would dry out after a couple of generations of living, and a Newcomen pump is setup w/ Cisterns to hold its water.

I honestly think that the Newcomens were properly paced to upgrading a town's water supply, but as players started memorizing the steps to efficiently building the Engine, the 17-steel cost to make a Diesel Well became easier to 'rush' right after getting the Oil Pumpjack online. In my last few lives where I've been in Newcomen-tech villages, I've seen plenty of use of the Newcomen pumps, but very few of the Kerosene. I think if anything is to 'run out' it should just be the charcoal-based Newcomen Pump, but the Kerosene/Diesel pumps remain untouched; Oil I think can have an eventual loss of supply, and forcing the town to have to travel farther, or to find other oil wells, to sustain high-tier technology would separate towns from eventually going dry.

Wuatduhf · 2019-05-02 17:42:34

I'd also like to add, if you end up coupling the 'Bigger Biomes' with the Water rebalancing, that distributing variable % chances of pond spawning in other parts of the world (or those Springheads, that sounds interesting if tier'd with Ponds just right) would help push the idea of villages spawning in places other than Grassland-Swamp borders. Sure, the pro for being in the swamp could be having extra water resources around, but the sacrifice is being a long walk away from iron/rubber/rabbit/tree branch sources.

wondible · 2019-05-02 17:45:33

jasonrohrer wrote:

Dodge, that's an interesting idea.... like springs require pumps or something.

I was thinking spring would still have enough water to bootstrap, which might make it possible to start towns in different places than currently. But of course that isn't the problem you were trying to solve right now. Perhaps keeping a distinction between early water and late water would create a new dynamic. (The longest eve line I had was by a little water close to green, but I knew there was a giant swamp not too far away. I wish I know how that town developed.)

CatX · 2019-05-02 18:10:44

If ponds are rare and hard to find, as mentioned earlier in this thread, perhaps they could be surrounded by some plant or flower that would be an indication to experienced players that water is nearby?

Wuatduhf · 2019-05-02 18:44:15

Imagine for a moment if the current Goose ponds we have were modified to look something like the below:

Canada Goose Pond

Number of uses: 5 (No change)
Chance to use: 20% -> 25% (Less probable uses)

Spawn rates

Swamp: 9% (down from 14.08%)
Jungle: 6% (dangerous place to get water from, unless the mosquitos are fought back)
Snow: 3% (generally uninhabitable, so not a big deal to have water available alongside saltwater)
Grassland: 2% (Source of berries/branches/soil. Branches & soil should be diffused to other biomes to reduce Grassland's powerful soil+pond combo)
Prairie: 2%
Badlands: 0.5% (having a water source near your source of late-game material [Iron] should be possible, but very rare)
Desert: 0%

If ponds were able to spawn in more biomes, and had a generally-lower frequency of appearing, the 'jackpot' chance of finding a good clump of ponds is still low, but the possibility of setting up a society in other biomes goes up. You could potentially replace the Goose pond with the 'Springheads' that was proposed just recently, sure, but for dynamic gameplay, maintaining the RNG is my personal bias and what comes to my mind for the topic of making water harder, but also not easily game'd.

futurebird · 2019-05-02 18:49:22

I still don't see why we need spring heads when it functions like a dry deep well. Can we just spawn in dry deep wells in the non-swamp biomes for people discover and upgrade?

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-02 21:24:14

Well, the idea with the spring head is that you need one to build any kind of well at all, even shallow.

And having dry deep wells around violates the "untouched wilderness" thing.

Dark Nosaj and Monoliths non-withstanding.

Booklat1 · 2019-05-02 22:33:29

first things first, thanks for looking back at this and listening to critique

second, I think the entire approach of making water universal late game is flawed. We'll leave swamps for grass, immediately. We might not even farm at all before wells, one good daughter close to fire and delaying farms is completely viable.

Third, Ponds ARE fine if slightly rarer, this already helps transition from deep wells to pumps. To me we should just drop all the crazy ideas, do this as a test and maybe nerfing deep wells directly, since they're where we stop upgrading usually. At least lets test the clusterless (kinda) to see if its enough. I really don't see why we wouldnt try the simple solution before overhauling everything.

Fourth, Im pro alternate water sources but universaly spreading them on a sheet is not adding to variation of gameplay loop, its a cheat solution. Follow the goose seems actually fun as a minigame at first but wont age so well i think. I believe the lack of water in non-swamp is the perfect opportunity to design more water biomes, make arctic useful, but most important, is just a consequence of the bigger problem ( biomes were designed to have their own things but no "expansion" biomes added intersected with base resources -jungle trees couldnt even be cut for wood at first, grass is still the only biome with rope, water is still only in swamps)

Last edited by Booklat1 (2019-05-02 22:38:46)

pein · 2019-05-02 22:38:13

Don't forget that you need to increase population per village to have trade and groups of people fighting . So should be scalable.

Psykout · 2019-05-02 23:02:44

I like the idea of seeing ponds as temporary water sources that can't be upgraded. That once you get a little bit of a food supply going, you should be looking towards wells and relocating the starter camp.

Tarr · 2019-05-02 23:42:55

Nice to see the idea grow and change to something a little less goofy.

Before you launch the update you really need to fix newcomen engine towers as a town will potentially just die if its water source gets completely blocked.

https://edge.onetech.info/2246-Newcomen-Engine-Tower

I feel like people are still going to settle in swamps as long as springs are in grasslands/swamps (even with lowered rates) because at the end of the day why look for any of the other biomes springs unless it's at a mixed biome location?

Alec · 2019-05-03 00:15:12

I love idea of springheads.
But I hate blocks walking items, it's blocks designing beautiful town.

I though any ground can give you water with well.
How about reviving shallow Well by ten stones and shovel at empty ground.
If it dried first, it's no moment.
Or I dont care it's deep.

Grim_Arbiter · 2019-05-03 00:15:18

Tarr wrote:

I feel like people are still going to settle in swamps as long as springs are in grasslands/swamps (even with lowered rates) because at the end of the day why look for any of the other biomes springs unless it's at a mixed biome location?

Agreed.

Make ponds have the same spawn characteristics of springs too and you'll see a better result.

Tarr · 2019-05-03 03:09:51

Also probably need to disable the ability to upgrade the shallow/deep well into a diesel well and instead move it so you can upgrade off the pump wells.

It's very possible to produce the pump valve before you naturally run out of water and that would just be another death knell for a town if someone turned the only water source into an unusable well.

Of course I guess you could also make it so you can pull a useless pump valve out of the well to prevent this as too.

Spoonwood · 2019-05-03 04:19:38

Tarr wrote:

Also probably need to disable the ability to upgrade the shallow/deep well into a diesel well and instead move it so you can upgrade off the pump wells.
It's very possible to produce the pump valve before you naturally run out of water and that would just be another death knell for a town if someone turned the only water source into an unusable well.
Of course I guess you could also make it so you can pull a useless pump valve out of the well to prevent this as too.

The issue here almost entirely concerns shallow wells. The deep well has to be dry in order for the pump valve to remove the stanchion kit, so putting in the pump valve only kills off the 2 hour water regeneration period (or whatever it becomes).

pein · 2019-05-03 06:03:13

so you had a snapshot of towns and you think you knew them?
i was in 5 of 10 lienages you say and the two most advanced and ordered ones were the ones you called out for having a pond or shallow well
cause you seen one brief moment of a civilization
same as you did for the iron nerf there are stacks of iron, lets nerf it

iron needs to be found and mined and you basically limited the iron to high skill players

just because they don't have water they survived until others came and fix the issue
it's not like they wasn't pressured enough, nerfs and pressure wont change the bottom, only the top

like kids still ask where is water and people just "ah i cant find water i just don't farm"

finding iron is boring, and sometimes a lifetime of job
makign water with charcoal is boring

it's not like kids gonna gather you branches and you just make charcoal
sometimes you don't have a setup for fast charcoal making ,no carts, no cistern

maybe you got the wrong approach
why not increase the water usage?

right now only mango uses water, with a very long timer
buff stew but increase water usage?
like that crock looks bigger than 3 bucket and still uses 1 bowl of water

add a next level of farming? like special seeds for farming well, lets say a low chance you get a special seed which needs more water but gives more nutrition?
full water based foods? tea, soups with heat bonus for a while? or cooling effect

in a strategy game you got the resources on top side so you now you are low on it, in ohol you just got to cheeck manually

what about having fixed amount of water but allow recycling it?
maybe actions like takign a shower or aquariums, hot spa, pool.
then the used water gets dirty. ONI had a nice system where even humans gave back dirty water from food, sure pooping and vomiting it's a weird game mechanic

we got sand, maybe filter the water with sand?
so you either move to other pond or filter water back to clean water
storing water would be more important than now

but anything that would encourage water usage, would be nice
sure would be some people using more than they should, but still a start

people feed sheep to make clothes
people make radio parts from the photo parts excess materials
intertwined tech paths are fun

people are bored in big cities cause nothing to do but i don't want to set off more fires than now
like a lot of lifes are just fixing things up and i never even get back there

we need something which is essential to going forward in tech tree to something what is fun to do
stew is fun , shrimping is fun, fixing things for the sake of fixing it is not that fun
when ignoring it takes no effort. sure it wont be that much food and someone gonna die, but generally not the ones who can fix the issue

the effect of nerfing ponds will be more suicides
while grinding to have a barrel, which holds 50 water which allows a new activity what buckets wont, will make players want to make a barrel and fill it with water.
Indoor farm? maybe a pot which allows growing things inside building, but takes 50 water to start it up? then just 10 at a time.
This would give incentive to buildings and water producing on a higher scale.

We don't make water cause we don't really need to

I make newcommens to have one for later, i do it when we still got wrough iron and generally before we even need it, but not like anyoen makes rubber or oil cause it's not the most fun.
Sure, i like cars and i was scavenging with a car the other day, made kerosene as kid and stomped snakes with it later, got materials for photo paper.
But a lot of lifes we don't have oil, car, or any chance to make one in my lifetime cause people don't do things for advancing no matter what, they do things for clothes and vaniy items. If some actions that lead to fun activities would have excess materials to advance in tech, that would make more sense. Composting has extra wheat, which makes pies. It's an agreement that one produces meat other makes pies from it.
Rubber? It's a long process and you can make tires or a tiny ball.

When people say that big cities are boring, they mean that there are no resources to build things, no fun activities to do with the already made resources, not that we want to work more to feed the newbees.

Tarr · 2019-05-03 07:02:01

Spoonwood wrote:

Tarr wrote:
Also probably need to disable the ability to upgrade the shallow/deep well into a diesel well and instead move it so you can upgrade off the pump wells.
It's very possible to produce the pump valve before you naturally run out of water and that would just be another death knell for a town if someone turned the only water source into an unusable well.
Of course I guess you could also make it so you can pull a useless pump valve out of the well to prevent this as too.
The issue here almost entirely concerns shallow wells. The deep well has to be dry in order for the pump valve to remove the stanchion kit, so putting in the pump valve only kills off the 2 hour water regeneration period (or whatever it becomes).

Yes, but we have zero real idea how well water is going to tweaked in relation to the update. As of right now deep wells still only have an average of 17 uses before going dry, add in the fact you can still gamble water (and lose) meaning someone can potentially just toss out all the towns water by putting water in and out (however it was changed to not allow water to be added if at full charges.)

I'd rather him think about the sort of damage that can be done before implementing a change and have the forethought to stop the potential griefing instead of waiting a few weeks to see the fix done when people put two and two together and start griefing all the towns this way.

Booklat1 · 2019-05-03 13:46:13

Why do we even have random chances to use wells? shouldnt it become fixed chance now?

Amon · 2019-05-03 16:45:58

What if instead pond clustering, the higher end (above newcomen) offerent ease of life like the ability to pump water into workspaces and houses via piping?

The issue is not enough incentive to progression that started it? The only thing not making people go higher than newcomen is how easy characoal is to use and the ability to fire it again and again.
Also i'd maybe look into newcomen, even if a different pond spawning rate is included.

Last edited by Amon (2019-05-03 16:49:52)

Twisted · 2019-05-03 23:43:46

Jason, before you push the update make sure to make the Natural Spring a static object. Currently it can be picked up according to Onetech.

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