# Charcoal water purifier error message

**URL:** <https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/charcoal-water-purifier-error-message/3165>\
**Category:** The Garage\
**Created:** [September 22, 2013, 12:33pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/charcoal-water-purifier-error-message/3165 "2013-09-22T12:33:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![VonCede](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3e96dc/32.png) [@VonCede](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/VonCede)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 12:33pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/charcoal-water-purifier-error-message/3165/1 "2013-09-22T12:33:26Z")

</div>

When I tried to purify my gallon jug of water (10) with the charcoal water purifier with only 2 charcoals loaded in, I got the error message “You don’t have enough battery power to purify all the water.”, which made me scratch my head for a moment.

I don’t currently have enough resources to test other charcoal-powered items how they handle this situation.

Version: Windows SDL 0.8-257-g529a989

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c2a13f/32.png) [@Hex](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Hex)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/charcoal-water-purifier-error-message/3165/2 "2013-09-26T15:57:08Z")

</div>

I’m not sure if it’s bugged, but I tried this earlier in my playthrough and the purifier needed 1 “charge” of charcoal for every unit of water, I think.

If this isn’t a bug, charcoal for this purpose is really inefficient currently. For 10 units of water you’d need 10 two-by-fours just for the charcoal! Considering that a single two-by-four in a rock fireplace will burn long enough to boil those 10 units (and then some!) I think the numbers need tweaking a wee bit!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kevin.granade](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/kevin.granade/32/1316_2.png) [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/charcoal-water-purifier-error-message/3165/3 "2013-09-26T18:08:38Z")

</div>

There’s a fix in-progress for the error message.  
As for balance, yea that might be a little excessive, it looks like the process you’re using in game would have about 50% yield by volume, so we might want to bump that up a bit, also I’m not really sure what the exchange rate for a carbon filter SHOULD be…  
Also after reading about it, carbon shouldn’t be remotely sufficient to purify even regular groundwater to a safe state, much less goo-infested danger water 😛  
Water purification needs a total rework \>_\<  
Also word of warning, if you search for “carbon filters”, or “DIY activated charcoal”, it will return a ton of weed growing resources, I’m fine because I’m on every watchlist known to mankind already, but others beware \<_\<

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![VonCede](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3e96dc/32.png) [@VonCede](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/VonCede)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/charcoal-water-purifier-error-message/3165/4 "2013-09-26T20:07:06Z")

</div>

> [@Kevin Granade](#):
>
> Also after reading about it, carbon shouldn’t be remotely sufficient to purify even regular groundwater to a safe state, much less goo-infested danger water 😛

Does the [ultraviolet light](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SODIS) kill it?

… wait a second, since I can only assume from how long the water cleaning takes that we are only boiling the water, not distilling it…  
Then in what temperature (in Celcius) does the goo die?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![i2amroy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/i2amroy/32/909_2.png) [@i2amroy](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/i2amroy)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/charcoal-water-purifier-error-message/3165/5 "2013-09-26T20:11:36Z")

</div>

As best as I know the goo isn’t actually contributing that much to bad water poisoning (though it might help just a bit). The major problems come from the radioactive and other toxic stuff that have been dropped into the water along with a bunch of other junk (which means that boiling water to clean it really wouldn’t do much at all).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![An0n3](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/an0n3/32/2257_2.png) [@An0n3](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/An0n3)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 8:19pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/charcoal-water-purifier-error-message/3165/6 "2013-09-26T20:19:26Z")

</div>

> boiling away radiation

Yeah no. It works from a game-y perspective though.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kevin.granade](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/kevin.granade/32/1316_2.png) [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/charcoal-water-purifier-error-message/3165/7 "2013-09-26T20:33:18Z")

</div>

I have a more involved proposal outlined at [https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/72](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/72)  
but it hasn’t trickled to the top of anyone’s task list, so we still have a crappy model of water safety.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![An0n3](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/an0n3/32/2257_2.png) [@An0n3](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/An0n3)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2013, 8:42pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/charcoal-water-purifier-error-message/3165/8 "2013-09-26T20:42:11Z")

</div>

Like I said it makes sense from a game-y perspective though. You want people to be able to get it without too much trouble since you need so much of it so regularly.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Rivet](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/rivet/32/11_2.png) [@Rivet](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Rivet)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 4:21pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/charcoal-water-purifier-error-message/3165/9 "2013-09-27T16:21:06Z")

</div>

[quote=“Hex, post:2, topic:3165”]I’m not sure if it’s bugged, but I tried this earlier in my playthrough and the purifier needed 1 “charge” of charcoal for every unit of water, I think.

If this isn’t a bug, charcoal for this purpose is really inefficient currently. For 10 units of water you’d need 10 two-by-fours just for the charcoal! Considering that a single two-by-four in a rock fireplace will burn long enough to boil those 10 units (and then some!) I think the numbers need tweaking a wee bit![/quote]

Yeah it’s meant to be inefficient. The charcoal you produce in-game is a pretty far stretch from the fancy activated charcoal such filters normally use. Add that to the fact that the purifier unit is a cobbled together collection of bottles and hoses, and you’ve got a leaky, inefficient system.

The charcoal purifier’s benefit is that it’s a portable water purifier that doesn’t use any of your precious batteries, instead running off of cheap and easy to produce charcoal.

That being said, I think I might boost charcoal’s production efficiency a bit, to make the inequality slightly less over the top.

Edit: Charcoal production efficiency has been [doubled](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/3306).