Water quality and global water quality change over time

Disclaimer: I’m not sure if this parallels the lore.
This is basically a two-part suggestion.
First we introduce a thing called water quality (WQ), just as tools have qualities, e.g. butchering quality.

Water quality 7 (unboiled, unfiltered natural water)
Unhealthy to drink. Good chance to cause sickness but a single sip will not cause death.

Water quality 8
Free of micro-organisms, at least free of ones that can’t survive boiling. Might still contain inorganic compounds and small particles, but they’re likely detectable by normal human senses. Likely safe to drink.

Water quality 9
Highest quality drinking water, but not distilled. No micro-organisms, no small particles, no unhealthy compounds. The tap water ideal.

This is where the grand scheme comes in: We’ll have WQ drop in all major water sources slowly over time as the world is being ruined, and as pollutants enter the water reservoirs globally, likely by alien design. Even rain water and ground water get contaminants, and they could be only one level better than the surface water. After the first year, all water sources will have suffered a -1 drop in quality. This repeats every year or even every season. To balance this, the game world will contain water purification technologies, and the player is gently pressured into finding them. Limits could be placed so that it’s not even possible to see -28 water quality or somesuch. We could e.g. have a “Water filter lvl 5-9” which requires at least WQ5 water and is able to purify it up to WQ9. The values could be semi-random, with the more powerful filters being more rare. On a lucky occasion the player might be able to find a filter that just increases the processed water’s quality by 1, and with a little extra energy and time it’s possible to clean it all the way to 9. Or 11, whatever top quality rating is chosen. The purification process could also use the fermentation vat mechanic, so that the player doesn’t have to stand there to wait for a lengthy purification process to complete.

We could alternatively remove any lower limits whatsoever and just have the WQ drop gradually, mercilessly and unstoppably. The player would have to eventually rely on scavenged drinks, and likely be forced to be on the move at all times.

Farming should require some minimum quality water. Otherwise the player might be able to sustain hydration by farming certain fruits and vegetables. If this is combined with the above, even farmers would end up on the road.

Consideration should be placed on the few CBMs that produce water.

The global water quality change could be reversible or irreversible.

Bonus: We’ll introduce a CBM that automatically cleans water up to 11. It will be installed to the torso location, to the back. It shall be called the Spinal Tap Water CBM

Personally, I like the Idea, but I would recommend small changes to the Quality system you propose.

There are already Water Quality Index Scales in the real world, like you proposed. For example like this:

From 0 to 100, with in total 5 stages of Water Quality. Tap Water would probably start out between 71 and 90, depending on location/city. I would agree that stagnant water would drop in the rating significantly, that would include water in toilets, swamp-water, or openly collected water, like rainwater in a barrel.
I wouldn’t propose that the water can go below 0 though ; It doesn’t make much sense, while the Nether, the goo and so on have a distinct influence on our world, it probably wouldn’t change every little bit of water in the vicinity, just to be a dick to the native Earthlings :stuck_out_tongue:
Stale water will go worse though, and Rainwater might get worse as well - maybe even up to a point where we can have stuff like Acid Rain :slight_smile: I actually really liked acid rain, it gave you one more reason to stay cautious, and it was a nice way to get acid…
River-Water should stay at least somewhat stable. Probably somewhere around 50 to 60 at the start, and it wouldnt drop lower than 50.

[quote=“Kadian, post:2, topic:12882”]Personally, I like the Idea, but I would recommend small changes to the Quality system you propose.

There are already Water Quality Index Scales in the real world, like you proposed. For example like this:

From 0 to 100, with in total 5 stages of Water Quality. Tap Water would probably start out between 71 and 90, depending on location/city. I would agree that stagnant water would drop in the rating significantly, that would include water in toilets, swamp-water, or openly collected water, like in rainwater in a barrel.
I wouldn’t propose that the water can go below 0 though ; It doesn’t make much sense, while the Nether, the goo and so on have a distinct influence on our world, it probably wouldn’t change every little bit of water in the vicinity, just to be a dick to the native Earthlings :stuck_out_tongue:
Stale water will go worse though, and Rainwater might get worse as well - maybe even up to a point where we can readd stuff like Acid Rain :slight_smile: I actually really liked acid rain, it gave you one more reason to stay cautious, and it was a nice way to get acid…
River-Water should stay at least somewhat stable. Probably somewhere around 50 to 60 at the start, and it wouldnt drop lower than 50.[/quote]
pretty much this , +1 to your idea since right now you can set up two funnels and you’re set for life

Huh. Live and learn. Sounds perfect then. I like that “depending on location” thing. A little or big variation between cities might make things interesting.

I feel like this would have great value if there were actual varied biomes in the overmap, too. Something to consider should development move in that direction?

We could also connect the water quality to the map-tiles as long as we don’t have biomes. Every Swamp tile has a Quality level of…30 for example, plus a randomized number between 0 and 15 or so ; River-tiles have 50+random, and so on.

While it is true that water would turn to crap. In many places near mountains etc, the quality may actually be better. Without people water would in fact, become better over a long period of time. Only city areas and places where run off would enter water lakes etc as is would suffer the worst.

Many ponds and reservoirs would still be reasonably clean…clean-ish.