I reworked water (and jar) balance into a more enjoyable way (for me) to gather and obtain water in my Doom Survival mod.
- Jars are NOT craftable, at all. (Craftable jars = infinite water)
- Open water can be drunken from with open hands and a water purifier that has limited durabilty, but will instantly infect you with open hands or build up a dormant infection with the purifier.
- Jars are filled from sinks, toilets, water coolers and blue barrels.
- Dew collector collects dew water and is crafted into useable water with a jar.
- Every recipe that uses an item containing a jar has a 80% chance to return a useable jar.
Just reading your response to IzPrebuilt and 2.6 dew collector requiring jars gave me an idea. Would love to hear, what others think about it!
PS! Haven't been reading about ideas about water and jars since 1-2 months after Town Hall meetings.
What about 2 different water sources to keep things simple but still give the dew collector a purpose: dew/rain water and surface water (water filled from lakes, rivers, underground tunnels, or other sources). For simplicity I just call the latter surface water.
Dew/rain water - half clean water.
surface water - very dirty water.
What about:
Making dew/rain water easier and more convenient to use and surface water much harder to use? (The attachments for dew collector should be then balanced as well but not discussing that right now)
1)For example: Making dew/rain water to be able to boil very/pretty fast(like 20-30 sec) & making surface water (if kept simple) required much much longer boiling time(instead of 50 sec maybe 180)? - Meaning for convenience you would want to work towards dew collector, but if not annoyed by screamers, just have multiple campfires and you are also good to go.
2)Fresh dew/rain water could be also more viable way to drink in need without boiling, and having smaller possibility to give dysentery. (Not sure why sb would like to drink dew water in higher game stages, if they already have dew collector, but hey, player has the option to do it). Really dirty water would have higher chance of dysentery as 12% &/ even a chance for infection?.
2a)it would also be nice, if dysentery would maybe be hidden for the first 1-3 minutes and then kick in(meaning you are maybe already on the way to mission and feel, oh sh*t, this is going to be a problem soon.
Not directly related:
3)Filling water (%-based or variable amount based cuz some have some don't) from toilets, sinks, water coolers, and blue barrels, should be a thing - it does not add any complexity to the game and make it more realistic.
4)I am not sure how to fit in water purifier mod.. But a limited durability could be an option - not sure how it fits the current vanilla experience when being the only mod that has durability.
From nature as far as I understand:
still water, will get contaminated pretty fast.
Water from air(dew, rain) are almost perfect, but get some contamination from the surface they land and what also moves through the air at the same time(pollen, bird droppings etc.).
Water from surface (like rivers, lakes, etc.) usually have biological & chemical "hazards"(bacteria, viruses, agricultural runoff(especially in America
), heavy metals etc.) to higher or smaller degree always existent.
To make surface water drinkable, one hast to filter it, boil it and maybe even use chemicals.
Feel free to let my first thought to explore any realism or gameplay or logical issues.
Of course, I would love to see toxic water for wasteland (undrinkable or requiring advanced filtering systems), a changing and different water qualities for each water source(water from lake next door could be pretty good today, but after dead zombie falling into it, it now is very hard to purify) and a real struggle to make water drinkable(filtering, chemicals, boiling) especially early game - but I don't see a way to make it without overly complex compared to every other mechanics in the game. And even if the arguments can be made for both side, I totally understand the reasoning behind keeping the game as simple as possible without necessary sacrifices(!) (very happy to have some basic survival components back into the game) and prefer it even so. Let the mods add complexity and you can dive into them after getting to know the game first without being overwhelmed. Hopefully console players also get their hands to mods at some point.
Edit: some corrections & clarifications
