Water Mechanics For Wurm

[Etherdrifter 2,518]

Sometimes, while sitting there waiting for my favour bar to fill, I often wonder how the devs would implement rivers and lakes into wurm.

 

Looking at wurm mechanics the basic components for fluid flow seem to be there (elevations etc), but any solution would be very server heavy.

 

There have been a few suggestions over the years:

Spoiler

 

 

But these have all been either limited or underthought in a mechanics sense.

 

 

What are people's thoughts on how fluids could be introduced to wurm in a more dynamic way?  Has it been done really well elsewhere at all in a similar 2d environment?  Is it possible without completely reformatting the way maps work?

[Miretta 1,415]

well...we got bridges now and 2nd stories, which were making path free for structures on top of other structures and on top of terrain. We have slopes, like you said and we even have springs all over the world (where we attach wells too) 
one could take, let's say 30-50% of those springs , which are situated on a slope, add some kind of flow mechanic, the same thats maybe used for sand and dirt and let that flow lower every corner or tile it passes to create the base for the river, then when start and end point of flow are known(end point where usually sand or dirt stops sliding) one could use both points to "bridge" with a mesh inbetween which could have an animated texture on top of it. Add to that some form of algorithm that recognizes if terrain is being changed around the riverbed and change meshgeneration accordingly. It wouldn't need to update all the time, but instead it could be a half static system, where it only calculates for the first time and any additional changes cause by terraforming.
I don't think that it would need to have a volume, since we can't go underwater anyway, so it would be simply an overlay created on top of current terrain.

[akaedis 429]

There was an "attempt" so to speak on the test server to add water to different elevations. 

 

What they did? Blocks of water. Quite literal blocks of water. I dont think the idea went any further then that tho

[MootRed 193]

56 minutes ago, akaedis said:

There was an "attempt" so to speak on the test server to add water to different elevations. 

 

What they did? Blocks of water. Quite literal blocks of water. I dont think the idea went any further then that tho

 

i remember these blocks of water on the old test server.

[Eltaran 79]

I'd love to have streams and lakes but...!

 

Reroutable rivers would probably also cause problems. One day you have a beautiful deed, the next day someone upstream changes the way the water flows and you look at a big marsh. I guess such a mechanic could rather easily be abused to grief people.

[FranktheTank 1,901]

I don't really see a point outside people just liking rivers streams and lakes.

 

Lakes are already around, just enclosed bodies of water.

 

The only way to make rivers, streams, and lakes really useful in anyway is making the ocean undrinkable.