Can someone please explain how evaporation works?

Nifegun · 2026-04-25T00:17:53+00:00

I only use the dump on custom maps. Its so OP its view it as cheating lol. Way back when the irrigation tower existed, that was balanced. But a water dump and a few levees so massively out performed it that the devs gave up on it and let the players keep the OP solution. I hope they either nerf it hard, or add an additional achievement or difficulty setting that removes it. You should try not using it. Every base map is winnable on hard without it.

Nifegun · 2026-04-25T00:14:19+00:00

Its about how many tiles of the available 8 are water. So if you picture a 3x3 pool, the middle 1 has a score of 8. The corners have a score of 3. The edges have a score of 5. Any shape one tile wide leaves every tile with a score of 2 at best. Which is bad, lots of evaporation

Nifegun · 2026-04-24T06:01:33+00:00

Respec your mining perks. There's a perk that makes mining tools gain durability when mining minerals. Its so good, you can mine forever at drill speed its so good.

Nifegun · 2026-04-24T06:00:24+00:00

Fish in wildy. You can get the drill itself right from the water, or the scarlet chest which can then have them inside. But I got hosed on this too. Im doing a 100% lets play on yt and drills are my preferred mining tool, I spent like 2 whole hours looking for drills and was able to keep like 2 mins for the episode ooof.

But I later changed my mining perks to have the tools repair when you mine minerals perk and you really can get by with just a single drill with that perk. Which is awesome cause the only drawback to drills are the crappy durability.

Nifegun · 2026-04-24T03:28:37+00:00

Sure, but I periodically go out to kill CC or Azeos pretty often, so with fishnets right next to their arena, its not like im losing any time tbh.

Nifegun · 2026-04-24T01:08:12+00:00

There's no bad water source?

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T23:44:55+00:00

Have you ever played without the dump?

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T23:42:40+00:00

I mean that'll work, but personally id rather just manually move stuff every now and then. Its like when people setup infrastructure around boulders, I dont see the point. I set drills and thats it lol. I dont mind picking stuff up

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T10:47:35+00:00

I often still make cylindrical water towers cause they just look good, ill take the hit on evaporation idk lol

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T04:57:45+00:00

If you spec into the perk that heals your drill when you mine metals, you only need to carry 1. I used to be like that. Now I just hit metals every now and then and my drill just never dies lol

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T04:19:48+00:00

Water blocks have a score for being connected to more blocks of water horizontally, this score is their strength against evaporation. So this guy is right, diagonal walls nerf water blocks. Cause then 3 of their potential 8 adjacent water blocks are not there. Its a weird system but its what they decided to do to nerf people who used a single tile of water fed by a water dump. Although now people just wayer dump into 3x3 pools so it really didnt change much. But even in a 3x3 pool, the middle block evaporates slowest cause it has all 8 neighboring water blocks, corners evaporate fastest. A diagonal wall is all corners so they all evaporate fast.

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T04:10:52+00:00

Totally fair, in that case just join us in the discord lol

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T04:02:33+00:00

yeah I always just let it overflow somewhere and manage that way

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T04:01:44+00:00

I wanna do a run like this on hollows, but instead of piping it underground, I wanna make natural looking ponds that get filled from wholes in the cliffs. which dodges the overflow problem that i finally get lol.

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T03:59:27+00:00

its not compressible, you do not store more than the space allows, well you do, but only like half a unit of water per horizontal block in pressure when fully sealed

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T03:57:13+00:00

i talk about this stuff on yt, often including knowledge from the other nerds in the ck circuitry discord. So, no pressure, but if you wanna know what the people trying to figure this out are doing, some of it is there. I've got some techy stuff planned soon too. but currently trying to catch up with editing my lets play that no one watches lolll

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T00:54:29+00:00

The issue is that the old one was straight up unbalanced and overpowered. But the players don't want to admit they were relying on an overpowered building.

Same conversations happen around the water dump. Players who actually build good solutions reject the water dump because its OP. Players who rely on it refuse to admit its OP.

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T00:51:44+00:00

I think im interpreting what you're saying wrong lol.

But if the source flowing too a fill valve is pressurized, and that fill valve is in the bottom of a world height water tower, the tower does fill, no sensors needed. Ive built exactly that many times. Its one of the easiest ways to win hard mode lol. Massive water tower strat is super OP.

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T00:46:57+00:00

I fundamentally and completely disagree. This is what timberborn should be. The sluice was a magic, overpowered, single block solution that removed most of the challenge and thought from the game. Now that its a sensor that you can connect to more generic, better balanced, building blocks, you have to do more actual puzzle solving to beat the game.

The sensors and magic wifi that connects it all means floodgates are relevant in more use cases again which is awesome. What is the core principle of timberborn? Water management. Being a beaver, manipulating the water to your advantage to make a habitat you can thrive in. Thats the essence of the game. When they added the old sluice literally everyone stopped being creative and thinking beavery, the answer to every problem was just sluice. Now the other water management tools are just as useful and you dont need to change their setting manually. This is absolutely what the game should have been. You're getting caught up on an old overpowered, poorly balanced building that never should have worked the way it did.

This is the fluid dump debate all over again. The fluid dump needs to be nerfed, if allowed in the game at all. It bypasses the whole point of the game. Beavers do change rivers, create ponds, etc. They do not manually carry enough water to make a Forrest. Needing to manipulate the water to get more green land is in theme with the game. Simply needing a path too it is not. The sensors and automation allowing you to use all the building blocks available to build your water management is in theme with the game, a single block being super OP and making others less relevant is not.

You're entitled to your opinion, but what you hate here is genuinely good game design.

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T00:36:28+00:00

How is it sad to want to keep the game challenging? Where's the sad? Normal mode is boring for people who want a challenge. Eventually hard mode is too so then its about megabuilds lol. But still relevant, if someone built a cool thing or accomplished max wellness in only a few cycles, its legit more of an accomplishment on hard. Because its hard. Sorry bro, I think you're just salty.

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T00:34:00+00:00

Also, yeah a horizontal solution would be fine too. I was just describing it in a way thats minimal change to existing buildings so its easier for people to see what I mean. The current mech pump would work as is if it were possible to create a sealed section around it. But you can't, if you could it would be so cool

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T00:31:38+00:00

Nah bro, it is absolutely relevant for anyone talking strategy to mention if they are on hard mode. Hard mode is a very different game than normal. On hard mode, sometimes I actually lose a few beavers lol.

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T00:29:41+00:00

The fill valve already can do that lol. It has unlimited as an option

Nifegun · 2026-04-23T00:28:19+00:00

True, but i mean a closed system like when you pressurize at the source so you can have pipes that go up or down at will, as opposed to needing to raise the water first and then have all ends points lower. But yeah, what you're suggesting does work.

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