Sounding Pole idea for pump wells that exhaust

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-06 21:56:45

I described this idea in other threads, but I wanted to focus on it a bit here.

The problem we're facing is that the engine only supports tracking one set of "uses" per object, and for the pump wells, that's currently being used to track how many buckets of water are left inside after you run it and start emptying it.

In order to have it exhaust eventually, I'm currently using a probability roll at the end, after the last bucket is removed. 19/20 times, it will just become a dry well (ready to fire again), but 1/20 times it will become an exhausted well, and require an upgrade to Diesel before it produces water again.

The problem with a flat D20 roll like this is that the variance is very high. You expect 20 runs of the pump, on average, before it exhausts, but you also expect 1 in 20 pumps to fail on their very first run.

The idea with the Sounding Pole is to pull this "tracking of overall pump health" out of the pump itself, and into some other object.

So, when you build a pump well, in the final step, you'd end up with a Well Sounding Pole in your hand. Whenever a well goes dry, after running and emptying it, the sounding pole is used to prepare it for the next firing. You stick it in and measure how much water is left. You can see this visually on the pole, with little marks, and a water line (part of the pole will be wet after you use it on the pump well).

You can't get more water from the pump without using the sounding pole to find out how much is left.

Over time, this sounding pole will get used up, just like any tool. Eventually, at the end of its life, the sounding pole will dip into the well and tell you that there's no water left, and at that moment, the well will become exhausted.

This solves the problem described above, in that now, the well can have a "meta status," that is represented by the sounding pole, separate from how many buckets of water are left from the last pumping. And the sounding pole can have some number of probabilistic uses, just like an axe or whatever, and thus reduce the variance. Instead of 1/20 pump wells failing after the first run, we could still have 20 pumpings on average before exhaustion, but 1/625 wells failing after the first four pumpings (and no wells ever failing after the very first pumping).

So, that's good.

However, the sounding pole idea has other problems:

1. It's portable, unlike the well, so it's easy to run off with, thus allowing a griefer to ruin a well when no one is looking (though this might motivate a property fence to protect the sounding pole, creating an inherited well-master role, which is cool).

2. It's possible to breath extra life into an existing local well by "importing" a fresh sounding pole from some other distant well. Villages could steal each other's poles, but also, one village could build a bunch of remote wells to "farm" sounding poles for the center of town. I don't have a problem with either of these things.... but they just make no sense in terms of the fiction of the sounding pole. You saw that the well was low on water, and then you got a new pole, and suddenly, the water is high again? Huh?

Anyone have any ideas for solutions to these problems? Some better fiction for a sounding pole to make "giving a well a new lease on life" more sensible?

I have thought about region-locked objects of some kind.... this would allow a sounding pole to only be used on the well that it came from, but I'm not sure how to implement that.

futurebird · 2019-05-06 22:04:37

When you run a coal or kerosine pump you get 90 seconds, or some fixed amount of time IDK how much to take as many buckets of water as you can out of the well. Then it needs to be fired again. Now you aren't using that variable to track buckets and can use it to track the life of the well.

It'd be frantic fun community work like baking.

Last edited by futurebird (2019-05-06 22:06:19)

Potjeh · 2019-05-06 22:06:33

Problem 2 sounds terrible to me.

Dodge · 2019-05-06 22:08:17

Easily griefable. Doesnt make sense to be able to "give" water to a pump by bringing another pole.

How about when the water pump fires up it fills a water tank, that you then remove put down and empty with buckets.

This way you eliminate the "uses" from the pump and are able to use it for the RNG.

Empty water tank would be craftable so cant be griefed by stealing and hiding it.

Thaulos · 2019-05-06 22:08:19

Can you do it by age instead?

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-06 22:25:56

Water tank is another idea. I guess it would be very heavy (slow to walk with) and not containable in carts.

Can't do it by age, either, because each object again only has one timer, and that timer is currently being used to "run" the pump. (The pump runs for 30 seconds, and that's using the timer).

The "pump once and take as much water as possible" is another option, but then we're back to the "milking contest" thing from long ago... though I guess it does make some sense than for a cow, because you brought a bunch of water to the surface, and it's going to sink back down again if you don't grab it. This means you'd have lots of buckets and cisterns ready to go, and it does require cooperation.... so that's definitely an idea to consider. That speed mechanic is already in place with the forge and oven, as you've observed...

Booklat1 · 2019-05-06 22:26:25

Potjeh wrote:

Problem 2 sounds terrible to me.

Jason's ingame solution to problem one is even worse, the last thing we need is a well pole keeper behind a fence

I dont see other solution to this issue but dumb laboring copies of all transitions and pump stages for a "depleting" pump after the first whiff. Its a lot of repetitive work for a small fix but i think it's much much better than adding yet another gimmick to a tech that A LOT of people are learning right now.

Additionaly, slightly buffing deep well gives people time to set up cisterns/oil for future projects. I'm just concerned water rush becomes too strong a drive for civs because of both the 1/20 to whiff and ease to set up the first pump.

Edit: tank is much better than pole but still gimmicky. Remember, people are just learning about pumps, big changes might be discouraging.

Last edited by Booklat1 (2019-05-06 22:28:22)

futurebird · 2019-05-06 22:35:45

We have a pump at my parents little farm in PA. It works by bringing the water up and you can fill as many buckets as you want as long as it's running. You can't exactly fill two buckets at once, (but can you bake two pies at once?) but to me the "rush as get water while it's running" thing seems realistic.

You could also make it so it holds one bucket at a time while running and you put one in take the full one out and do that as many times as you can while it's running if you want to avoid people "getting too much" (by investing in tons of buckets and cisterns? IDK if it's that bad, and almost all players know enough to "prep" for running the pump by having their bucket ready...)

Last edited by futurebird (2019-05-06 22:36:17)

Twisted · 2019-05-06 22:38:40

Can you make an item slow down your speed to 0% and make it so you can only pick it up when standing on it and only drop it on that same exact tile? Or maybe it could teleport back to the origin tile if you drop it on an adjacent tile.

That way you could spawn the sounding rod on the tile to the right of the well (which would up until then be an immovable natural spring edge so you can't build anything on that tile). Since you can only pick up the rod while standing on it, and you can't move it anywhere, that would solve both problems 1 and 2.

I also like the water rush idea, it would encourage clever designs with cisterns and a lot of bucket making which is always a plus in my eyes.

Last edited by Twisted (2019-05-06 22:40:24)

wondible · 2019-05-06 22:45:30

jasonrohrer wrote:

The problem we're facing is that the engine only supports tracking one set of "uses" per object, and for the pump wells, that's currently being used to track how many buckets of water are left inside after you run it and start emptying it.

I don't know the mechanics well enough, but could you flip them? 1/X chance when taking water it goes empty, but pump can track it's lifetime on uses. The chance to use water would actually make it sortof like the other water sources.

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-06 22:50:42

Yes, I could flip it, wondible.... hmmm...

Twisted, I thought about an object that you can't walk with (like the fishing pole, which prevents you from walking away while fishing).

That's possible with the sounding rod, and then you could only set it down nearby. Problem comes if the area around the well is cluttered, and you have nowhere to drop it.

Another problem: a chain of people (even one person, working alone and leap-frogging), could transport the pole like a relay race. I drop it at X, then go over to X+1 and grab it, and drop it at X+2, then go to X+3 and grab it, and drop it at X+4, etc.

Spoonwood · 2019-05-06 22:52:58

futurebird wrote:

When you run a coal or kerosine pump you get 90 seconds, or some fixed amount of time IDK how much to take as many buckets of water as you can out of the well. Then it needs to be fired again. Now you aren't using that variable to track buckets and can use it to track the life of the well.
It'd be frantic fun community work like baking.

I've said this in another thread, but you don't want to run the charcoal pump as much as possible to maximize water. It can only get upgraded if it hasn't exhausted. So, by running it more than immediately necessary you potentially lose out on the increased water and better kindling cost of a kerosone pump. You want to run a charcoal pump as little as possible (it will need get run though of course). The kerosone pump run until your heart is content.

This also makes it clear that everyone would ideally do oil first. Doing an oil rig isn't as complicated as doing an diesel water pump either.

Twisted · 2019-05-06 22:57:00

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yes, I could flip it, wondible.... hmmm...
Twisted, I thought about an object that you can't walk with (like the fishing pole, which prevents you from walking away while fishing).
That's possible with the sounding rod, and then you could only set it down nearby. Problem comes if the area around the well is cluttered, and you have nowhere to drop it.
Another problem: a chain of people (even one person, working alone and leap-frogging), could transport the pole like a relay race. I drop it at X, then go over to X+1 and grab it, and drop it at X+2, then go to X+3 and grab it, and drop it at X+4, etc.

Would it be possible to make the tile next to the well a container that can ONLY contain the sounding rod? The sounding rod would only be storable in that container, you couldn't even drop it on the floor (unless you die holding it, but make the carry speed something silly low like 1% and it can still be returnable in that case. Probably not, huh?

futurebird · 2019-05-06 22:57:48

Spoonwood I saw your point there about charcoal and agreed.

Thaulos · 2019-05-06 23:28:26

What if you needed some sort of enabler building that was required to be placed nearby?

Like each spring would have another natural item beside it where you could place a separate building, perhaps the pump itself or some sort of water level meter. If both buildings could connect to each other and access each other information then maybe such a system could allow one item to use the timer/counter of another.

Maybe later you could also use it as a system for more complex interactions between buildings such as assembly lines or having a power source in a separate tile from the building needing electricity.

Maybe a switch to open and close a door? Or lights that provide indications on items nearby? Could also provide a way for more complex crafting somehow? What if you needed to have a building in a certain state to be able to use another?

What if you could purify water and there was three steps and you could place a machine for each step side by side and have them interact with each other as you enable the multi tile machine.

Last edited by Thaulos (2019-05-06 23:35:21)

BladeWoods · 2019-05-06 23:46:13

There could be a 'water rod container uncontained' object that spawns next to every pump. Water rod can be added to it to make a 'water rod container contained' object. So it's the only thing that can contain a water rod. Nothing else can be put on the container object since it's occupying the tile.

I'm not thrilled about the water rod idea though. It might be a lot of work idk, but I think it's a good time to update the engine to handle this. Will help with handling other scenarios and future scenarios too.

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-06 23:47:23

Future, I now understand the idea better.... pump runs, and WHILE IT IS RUNNING, we can get water from it. That does make a ton of sense. It's running and just gushing gushing gushing. I'd have to shorten the running time. I'd make it work the same for the diesel pump too (even though it doesn't currently exhaust.... yet....)

Anyway, this would free me up to have total control over exactly how long we expect these things to last, and how much variance, which would be very good.

Spoonwood · 2019-05-07 00:52:02

jasonrohrer wrote:

I'd make it work the same for the diesel pump too (even though it doesn't currently exhaust.... yet....)

Um... what? You've said you've felt surprised that lineages haven't been longer. If the water will run out because of diesel water pumps breaking, then every town has a finite amount of time even with abundant iron (and diesel water pumps cost twenty iron each assuming an oil rig that doesn't break). Not having an infinite water technology would cap generation length by a good bit, since after a while the only steel tool technically needed is a shovel, and even then people don't generally exhaust all of the soil pits within like a 1k radius of the town.

futurebird · 2019-05-07 01:06:46

I assumed that was a reference to some kind of future tech that would make the diesel pump obsolete...

pein · 2019-05-07 01:15:35

relying on people speed and competence sounds even worse than minimum uses

can you make two linked objects on 2 tiles?
like you got the sounding pole semi automatic like a lever, clicking on it moves it into the well than backwards?
cause this is an expense what people didn't plan about but still easier to get new rods than to move the whole well site
so only time it would work if the two things are linked and unmovable

the other solution it would be to make it we want to exhaust the wells
each time a newcommen gives water, it would give something else
for example a red ball (just a dumb example)
you already got the springs located so it could be red ball (0,40) or whatever
or just make it each adjacent spring well give other type of ball

when you got 20 red balls, you can use it to upgrade that well

so instead of making people want last longer, make it that they want to exhaust it faster

remember the tortilla? it was only placeable to a flat rock
what if the red balls are given to a specific position, then people can only put it on a flat rock or other kind of thing, like stakes hit into ground
100% slowdown would mean that cant be moved easily, if minimum pickup age is higher than 5 and people cant die meanwhile (starve, killed, old age) and can only hold it for a few seconds or drops back to ground

now what this red ball should be and what should it make when stacked up, i don't know
a new material that helps other projects? like some kind of metal that allows to make new specific items?
or similar to a bell, it would make a sound when it's completed, signaling that a well is exhausted, but could be used to signal nearby cities your location

something people want more than water

speakign of which, each spring has coordinates, and therefore the sounding pole could be only used with the same spring
if it's 100% slowdown, given by the well is completed, and only works with that well, there is no reason to take it away and it's quite hard to hide it moving 1 tile at a time

the core is separate tile from the well, so cat it have a lever which is automatically made on that tile(like you can make floor under it or place item, but at the moment the well is made it would be blocked and emptied (swap and teleport the item), and pushing the level would be required to start the well, but each use would be tracked and break the well eventually

Last edited by pein (2019-05-07 01:19:41)

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-07 02:00:36

Spoon, the end of water in one physical location doesn't mean the end of a lineage. The lineage can move. What, they're going to say, "Pump died, now we'll all just stand here and die?"

I was imagining that the engine could be removed from the dead well, and moved to another well location.

I don't know that "steady state" is ever a good thing for a village to achieve. And currently, "iron running out" is supposed to be the long-term thing that imbalances stuff, but it's too slow.

Grim_Arbiter · 2019-05-07 02:54:49

jasonrohrer wrote:

Spoon, the end of water in one physical location doesn't mean the end of a lineage. The lineage can move. What, they're going to say, "Pump died, now we'll all just stand here and die?"

Yes they will do exactly that jason. I would rather suicide than try to eve next to somewhere where there isn't ground iron.. and I never suicide.. but I know what's pointless and a complete waste of time.

Some people dont want to eve, and now you are throwing them into that scenario. Also any dead town found by an eve is now going to be worthless.

You dont make families matter more by making villages pointless.

Tarr · 2019-05-07 04:30:11

jasonrohrer wrote:

Spoon, the end of water in one physical location doesn't mean the end of a lineage. The lineage can move. What, they're going to say, "Pump died, now we'll all just stand here and die?"
I was imagining that the engine could be removed from the dead well, and moved to another well location.
I don't know that "steady state" is ever a good thing for a village to achieve. And currently, "iron running out" is supposed to be the long-term thing that imbalances stuff, but it's too slow.

I mean with your suggested change of spreading out springs people will 100% kill themselves or try to stay at a village until it dies off instead of migrating to the next spring. Right now it's feasible to make roads and just run the water back home but putting springs too much further apart would just be a death knell for the town. Migration just isn't feasible when trying to move a group of people as you double the required amount of time to get somewhere, have no idea who has and doesn't have a modded client, and it's too easy to get lost from each other in general.

So speaking right now, it is definitely possible to set up a system where water eventually depletes and minor movements are possible without mass suicides but any large scale changes to springs would lead to towns 100% dying any time all the water ran out.

I'd rather oil rigs ran dry than diesel engines going exhausted first. This way you know pump tech gets exhausted at the lower end and the price of having a non-exhausting pump is that eventually you have to redo the oil grind. The end of a town should be about running out of local resources not based on whether or not a family is willing to move (they're not going to move since no one cares about their surname anyways.)

Also, the sounding pole idea is probably better than trying to fix the rng of water pumps. Having an exact number means you know how much time you have left vs having a chance to lose a town due to pure bad rng.

Last edited by Tarr (2019-05-07 07:20:14)

zed · 2019-05-07 05:01:36

jason: did you see the movement transitions solution I suggested in the
"methods of reducing variants" thread? It does seem like a neater solution to
spreading the information across two objects.

Spoonwood · 2019-05-07 05:27:38

jasonrohrer wrote:

Spoon, the end of water in one physical location doesn't mean the end of a lineage. The lineage can move. What, they're going to say, "Pump died, now we'll all just stand here and die?"

First off, cities in the real world tend to last. You can find plenty of cities 2000 years old here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_o … ted_cities Given that 25 years is a generation, you check my math if you like, that's 80 generations. 80 generation towns on bigserver2 were rather rare, and a few players have already pointed out that generation length will decrease with this update, and I suspect that's correct. 40 generations already seemed pretty long before this update. Sure towns get resettled, but I think there's often a period of at least one hundred years where no one lives in that place, if not longer.

Second, the individuals can move. They can live off of wild food. But what is their fertility like? Oh... no one is close to fire while on foot, and yum is quite limited. Thus, families that choose to move basically have the same fertility probability as an Eve camp. Nope that's wrong. WORSE than an Eve camp, since Eve camps make fire, and even if Eve is fast and moves away from the fire, it's still probably something temperature wise. Perhaps you will think that a smart family will bring clothes, but children get born naked, and thus the lineage may well end up more fragile fertility wise than Eve camp. Almost everyone in the family will end up low in the fertility line when moving, if not everyone, and they don't start to creep back up until they have fire again, and then will need a new farm. A family that moves is vulnerable to predators also, so and lag can result in people's deaths or deadly animals behind trees. Sure, someone needs to go outside of a camp in a normal town, but really, that's a man's job since the man dying isn't as big of a deal, and raising children in the wild ends up tricky.

Third, what is the point of building a town if just will go away because of intentional game design? People playing want something that lasts. Jason, I don't know if you know this, but in OHOL years there exists a town over 216,000 years old on a public server. No, it's not on bigserver2, but someone started a project for a town to last in November, and some others have helped keep the basic structure alive (for the most part) of that town and other towns that got made thereafter. There exist towns in deserts, one in a jungle, all made before the temperature overhaul. It's one thing for towns to die because of griefing or lack of girls, or because the new water mechanics aren't understood 'well' enough yet, but if all towns must die everywhere for no reason, I really don't think you've listened to a substantial portion of your player base in terms of what they like.

Fourth, Grim is right.

Fifth, Tarr is right about migration being a problem.

Sixth, I'm inclined to agree with the second spot where something is connected to the pump which counts its uses comes as the right idea. But again, I don't know how feasible that would be to implement in the code.

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#1 2019-05-06 21:56:45

Sounding Pole idea for pump wells that exhaust

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Re: Sounding Pole idea for pump wells that exhaust

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