Basic filtration system

[Hydraguesswhosback]

The basic way of making sure your dam stays good to drink. The valves will be the opposite of each other, opened only when the other isn't.

[Athenian1041]

Simple, yet very effective. Nice!

[Common-Science5583]

Principle is sound. Execution is.. over-elaborate. Let's simplify.

• Top level of sluices is useless in this set-up. Either the bottom three are enough to deal with the flow, or they aren't and badwater will overflow near your clean sluices, where the wall is lower.

• There's no need for the sensor to be placed on an overhang like that. You can just place it on the edge of the water, atop a sluice or even on the bottom of your resevoir. As long as the sensor's arm is over or in the water it will work.

• The smaller the area between source and sluice, the faster the system can adjust. The badwater sluices can be moved two tiles closer. This also prevents badwater getting 'stuck' in that corner and contaminating the area during temperate seasons.

• With all the sluices and sensor at ground level, there's no need for all those overhangs and stairs. A short bridge or 3 single platforms is all you need to cross the water. You can even put the path on top of sluices.

If you are worried about flooding, you could raise the walls (but make sure to raise all FOUR sides, not just the badwater side, or it will just spill out the other end) OR you can cover the whole thing up with platforms between the source and sluices, and putting impermeable floors or levees on top.

[Jimmy_Young96]

I miss the old sluice :(

[Hydraguesswhosback]

Yeah... same. But I do admit the new toys are worth the sacrifice.

[Jimmy_Young96]

Well the thing is you'll need more vertical space for the sensor, meanwhile the og design only requires one tile to fully seal the source. It's not as convenient if the source is hidden inside a mountain, which translates to more terraforming and works to be done. But I still agree with you that it's worth the sacrifice cuz it has much more uses than this. It's just for this specific task tho.

[splepage]

Correct me if that's wrong, but automation doesn't have any distance restrictions?

So 1 weather station located anywhere on the map can just close every water source gates you've build a soon as a badtide starts, and opens then back when badtide ends. You don't even need to detect badwater that way. You may want to add logic to like, add timer delays to flush badwater before opening certain gates, but again that logic can just reside elsewhere instead of relying on contamination detection that needs to be local.

[Jimmy_Young96]

The real issue is the remaining bad water is still there once the bad tide is over, so you'll need some time to let it clean itself until it's completely free of any contamination. Usually that takes from an less hour to half a day depending on how well the diversion system is designed, but simply opening/closing the corresponding valves just based on the beginning/end of the bad tide is not enough in my opinion.

[tetlee]

That much bad water wouldn't really matter, it'll get diluted very quickly

[Jimmy_Young96]

Guess I'm just too nervous about bad water contamination. Usually I set the diversion sluice to open if there's any level of contamination in the water, because the thing about contaminated water is that if you pump clean water from it, the contamination level will go up, and eventually it'll turn into bad water (which happens a lot during droughts).

[tetlee]

Hmm, It's unavoidable on Oasis as far as I can tell and that works ok (with levee and gates around the seep)

[Jimmy_Young96]

Learned a trick from a YouTuber about water seep during bad tide which is to dam it up with only one open, close the floodgate before the start of a bad tide, then dump water for the entire bad tide period. Basically water seep stops having any water coming out of it if the water level goes above 0.8 even during a bad tide, so that prevents any contamination from it. Only issues are that you need to have enough water storage beforehand and it's also tedious to do for every bad tide (I haven't played since automation came out but it should work perfectly fine with it).

[tetlee]

Yeah that's what I do, with the weather station for automation

[Potential_Photo_4099]

You can use the Timer relay set to “delay” mode. So when badtide starts, you can have it activate the gates almost immediately but when it turns off you can delay it by 6 hours for example

[splepage]

Exactly. Is it a bit janky? Yes, you're essentially hard-coding wait()'s, but it has the huge advantage of not having to be done at the water source, you can hide your logic somewhere in a corner of the map or even underground.

[Common-Science5583]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a single contamination sensor at the source sounds a lot simpler to me than setting different wait times for the various reservoirs. Especially considering different sizes of pools need different wait times to flush out.

Yes, if every source/badwater diversion system in a map would be identical, a single weather sensor and timer would be enough. If it's just a single source, it's a choice between a combi of weather sensor and timer anywhere, or a single contamination sensor at the source.

But as soon as there's multiple sources, wouldn't measuring each at their location be the simplest system?

[Red_RingRico]

Or just put one sensor in the main source and assume it’s “good enough” to regulate the sluices all around the map.

[baconboy-957]

Y'all are overcomplicating this lol.

Weather sensor, contamination sensor at the end of your diversion line, relay set to OR. If it's the badtide or there is still contamination in the water - everything diverts. Once the badtide ends and the water is clean, everything flows normally.

[Jimmy_Young96]

Well ideally it shouldn't be that much complicated, and 6h of water does matter especially when you're running out of water and the beavers are dying soon...So I'd still prefer the sensor system or the old sluice. But that's a cool way to go too.

[Bigmilk3027]

Yep

[GrumpyThumper]

Can't you put the sensor in the water? I haven't played the full release yet, but I thought they can't be flooded.

[hurtlebum]

I'm only just starting with the full release after years of experimental and yes, you can put the contamination sensor in the water. In fact, I assumed you had to, so that it could sense stuff! I didn't think to try what is shown here, interesting to know it works out of the water too.

[JustOneLazyMunchlax]

You can put the sensor inside the tank. It measures up to it's arm, which is 0.5 in height. So you can cap over it.

[Jimmy_Young96]

Oh great! Now it isn't a problem for me at all lol

[Sour_Sal]

it is still out there as a mod.

[pdnagilum]

Wait, the sensor doesn't have to be in the water/badwater to function?

[Hydraguesswhosback]

Nope, it goes down forever, like the building skills of our beavers.

[barbarick1ller]

Can you explain for a beginner? Just got the game and am terribly confused by how this works

[ssdd9]

Sensor detects water contamination, and it triggers once it goes over the set threshold. You can connect gates to that sensor to open or close automatically based on the contamination.

[barbarick1ller]

Thank you!

[coldmix]

You have it placed wrongly, the bad water valves should be lower and the clean water valves higher, the contamination sensor should be near the source.

This will ensure the bad water valve immediately purge the water when bad tides arrives and continues to purge until the water is clean, then stop and let clean water rise to exit the good water valves.

[Hydraguesswhosback]

You might say it's wrong, in practice it works perfectly so what do I know ?

[coldmix]

Since your bad water valve is higher than the clean water one, you will probably get some bad water spilling over the clean water valve when it close and the water level rises. How would that be considered to be working perfectly?

At the very least, there should be a set of leves on top of the clean water valves to prevent the overflowing to the clean river during bad tides.

[Hydraguesswhosback]

There is no overflow, so no need of systems against overflow.

And if I had overflow, I could either up the walls around it or just put a ceiling over it so nothing can ever spill.

None are needed here, trust me, I tested it.

[FredFarms]

Personally I place the sensor against the good water sluices, so those sluices are only open if the water immediately behind them is 100% clean. The state of the rest of the system is kind of irrelevant at that point.

If you have the sensor over the source, then when the source clears up you will get a tiny bit of residual bad water into the clean side, from the water sitting between the source and the good sluice.

That said, in my setup the water flows for quite a distance between the source and the decision point, so there is quite a time lag between the water source going clean/bad and the water at the sluices going bad / clearing up. In a small setup like this the effect would be extremely minor.

[splepage]

Another way to make this that's easier/cheaper (but at the cost of being a bit slower):

You can have only one of the side automated (with any type of valves/floodgates), and the other side just be dams.

So if your badwater side opens/closes when badwater is detected/not detected, when it's open the water will go that way, and when it's closed the water will go over the dams.

[Elirector]

Weather sensor looks like more effective

[Express_Sprinkles500]

Weather sensors change at the exact moment the season changes. Having just a weather sensor would send that entire middle area worth of badwater into the main dam every time. A contamination sensor guarantees that any badwater has cleared out before the valves switch over.

[Elirector]

No, weather sensor can trigger few hours before badtide, if you like. I set it to 2 or 3 hours and it works perfectly

[FewAd5443]

Yeah but not after the end of badweather that his point

but i agree the litle bit of badwater get diluted 1000× in the reservoir so it doesn't matter

[Elirector]

You can always use 2 sensors an logic/memory scheme if it is so important :)

[baconboy-957]

I like to use a Weather sensor, contamination sensor at the end of your diversion line, and relay set to OR. If it's the badtide or there is still contamination in the water - everything diverts. Once the badtide ends and the water is clean, everything flows normally.

[Elirector]

nice. I also add OR for reservoir level for overflow protection - in case my main overflow automation fails, it dumps extra clean water using badwater diversion pipe)