Been pointed to this video after my version... great work man, I think using iron teeth and building neatly is key (and not being an idiot probably helps too!) 😅
All depends how deep the pit you build is, and the main issue is water evaporation causing you to still need to put in more water consistently - that and the new update made water wheels slow down water, so the smaller wheel might actually make more power, not look as cool though. Need to do tests, but that update was trying to fight against infinite power wheel machines. Either that or just play Folktail and use windmills for free power during 30 day droughts :D
@@Goremize honestly i dont understand why people like the iron beavers, half my world is treefarms for power now and constantly have to maintain population production across 10 different colonies, instead of just throwing up a few dozen mills and happily expanding, the iron beavers are not worth the trouble imo
they added stoppingpower to the water wheels in the last update. there is a limit to how many water wheels can run on a current. fairly certain they did it spesifically to keep people from making infinate energy machines
Not only that - sharp turns slow down water as well, essentially the first wheel is trying to spin with water that has no current but gained from gravity, then the second wheel and on are trying to spin using current that is slowed down by the first wheel. Essentially, removing all the wheels and just having the one in the end before the turn may make more power then all the wheels combined. (Water can also be deeper, these are huge wheels, which will help with evaporation).
Yup. There are work arounds for it however. I typically have a reservoir running alongside the waterwheel channels (which are always two blocks wide) and typically put flood gates every so often (usually every two or so large waterwheels) between the reservoir and the channels - which allows water to flow in and also increases the flow rate.
Actually, in some testing I was doing the other day, I had maybe 8-10 wheels in a row on a channeled portion of river and the last 2 large wheels in the channel were consistently around 1k hp. Though I also noticed that as the water speed increased as it went through the channel, the depth decreased, so I had siphoned some water from the river off and was adding it back in with a levee every 2 wheels and it was helping to keep the flow rate and depth good enough to maintain high wheel output. I was also playing with how many pumps it takes to produce a viable flow rate, and I think it was at least 6 pumps to generate a high enough flow rate to maintain above spec wheel output, for a single width channel at least. Though I feel like the pumps take too much power and are too expensive on research points to make them viable for anything other than just messing around after end game. My plan was to send the water through the river channel and then pump it back up to the top of the river again.
@@p.g.8796 The way I see it, all you need is a small reservoir to feed into the river every once and awhile, even if you section off a small river coming from your sources and close it off once its full. that way you always have some water available and don't need to use anywhere near as many pumps as kibz (what he did is one of the worst ways possible, its like being as inefficient as possible) What he should have done is used that hole as water storage, and only pumped out of there when needed to keep the loop going. Loop only needs to be six deep as Irontooth. If he did it right, the loop could last through 90+ days of drought and give a LOT more power then he gets.
Can I just thank you unironically for YOUR service. Taking allll the time to do these crazy projects and masterfully editing the video to tell a complete story. It's not just a 25min video of you playing the game basically in real time or dragging the whole things out over about 5 videos which you easily could of done. Thank you again for the amazing, crazy and funny videos :-)
btw that pit only adds inefficiency, because you're pumping the water all the way up, then use the power horizontally, and dump all the water back down. a single block of height difference would achieve the same, for less pumping required. no idea if you can extract the power vertically from a waterfall, but if so, then the pit would help.or of course for continuing down with the stepped setup.
Exactly,it costs loads of energy to rise that water to just dump it down..need to make closed water system,making it return to start..then need just one row of pumps to pump for water that evaporates
@@imahumanbutichosetobeapota5479 he is using energy to transport water up a few blocks giving it potential energy. when i reaches the top it has only that potential energy. when it flows down said potential energy turns into kinetic energy that is transferred to the pumps that pump up the water. during this process energy should be lost due to friction, but this game ignores friction which is why this works in game and not in reality. also the water wheels get more energy out of the flowing water than it has. he is breaking the laws of physics in this universe. he is getting more energy out of the damn thing than he puts in. this violates the first law of thermodynamics: energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only altered in form. altered in form means transformed into a different type of energy e.g.: potential energy of water that falls down turns into kinetic energy. this case violates this law because energy is created out of nothing.
@@roberine7241 They do use this concept in the real world though. But they use solar to "cheat". During the day when solar power causes excess, they pump water up a mountain behind a dam. When no sun and power is needed, they release the water back down the mountain through the dam. It's a giant battery.
you need a starting reservoir to fill up first then to "activate" your battery you release the water stored up with your flood gates, with no flood gates between your wheels
I literally just did this last week after Christmas. I was able to get 15 wheels to spin at a consistent speed on the same level, but that was using the water sources. That was producing about 4000 power, so I decided I would try to expand it and try to make it "infinite." I ended up doubling the size until I got the water to a point where I could loop it back around, but at that point none of the wheels were spinning and the water was backing up and flooding my town. I then decided "Hey, I have a population of 200 beavers that are producing enough food to keep my food levels above 10,000. I've pretty much made an infinite civilization, so Why don't I just use this world for tests?" I downloaded a mod to make building instant, and also a terraforming mod to make building easier. I then laid out rows of 8 wheels set up exactly how Kibz did his, with the single water wheel and one block between rows. The only difference was, since I was still using the water sources, I made the channels on the ends two blocks wide to allow the water to flow hopefully without backing up. I also didn't use any floodgates or dams and just let the water flow unimpeded. I made 12 rows of wheels for a total of 96 which should be plenty to run however many pumps it takes to make five water sources worth of water flow. After experimenting more I estimate one pump to move about .3 cms of water. Anyway, I was able to get 4 full rows to spin at a decent clip on the same level. I would have to do more tests to find out if that has to do with the number of wheels, the length of the channels, or the amount of water flowing, but I think 32 wheels with 5 five sources of water per level is a good estimation. I had already been working on this for 7 hours, so I decided to stop and take a break, and I haven't had time to get back on since then, but I will be trying to lower the wheels after those first four to see if I can get another four rows to spin. If it works, I'll come back and let you guys know.
I think it’s kinda funny how I read all of this and the only thing I was thinking about is how similar this is to my log entries in science research (without the personal pronouns ofc).
Update. Four and a half hours later I have done a lot more experimenting. In rows of 8 giant wheels, three full rows on the same level will turn consistently. I have 12 rows total, dropping one level every three rows. At the bottom, I have 14 mechanical pumps for a total draw of 9,800 beaverpower. This pumps enough water to keep the wheels spinning up to produce about 370 bp apiece. This number fluctuates and you have to manually adjust the amount of water in the system to maximize it, but it does produce plenty of power. As I am writing this, my 96 power wheels are producing about 36,000 bp. During droughts, it keeps going for a while, but eventually, enough water evaporates that it stops working. Usually by about day 4 of a drought. However, once the water comes back, it fills up and can be started again in under a day. This could be supplemented by a backup reservoir that you gradually lower to fill up the system, but it would only be able to be three blocks deep unless you used pumps to get up to 6, using more power. This system seems to work very well for me and also leaves most of the source water free to flow elsewhere. I hope it helps anyone interested in doing this and if you have more questions, I can probably answer them.
Build a reversed system. A water reservoir on high ground, open the flood gate and go to town. Put all the pumping stations at the end to pump the water back. Add more pumping station to balance out the out/input. I did it with a small scale and worked greatly, just didn't have the patience to balance the water out/input
From 12/17/21 patch notes: Water Wheels now have variable HP output, depending on the current’s strength. If placed well, they’ll be even more effective than before. Water Wheels will now slightly slow down the water passing through.
Yeah, it's only a matter of time before the devs make it so that it takes more power to pump the water up high than the water could ever possibly generate. Kibitz will have to face the Laws of Thermodynamics eventually.
@@scarah1485 realy because i have a place where its doing that and i just have it flow on my crops. No bother doing it good ;) Sometimes it floods some more and then the buildings are under water and cant use them anymore. So don't know about devs saying a visual glitch.
@@firefly2472 you probably have a similar but [somehow] different glitch? I can't imagine the devs being wrong about something like that, that'd be pretty difficult to screw up (I guess they could have misheard someone when they asked if that was visual)
I did a lot of testing on this in creative to see how the mechanics work. Flow and power produced is proportional, 1 pump gives 0.25 flow so 8 pumps give 2.00 flow, which is about max, 2.25 wasn't achievable in my models. Yes 8 pumps consume more power but the system works on percentages, so if you're 1 wheel over break even that wheel will produce a lot more power at flow 2.00 then 0.75 (yours). Your step down design is a little aggressive, I didn't overly test this but I did rows of 9 wheels. Using 18 wheels and then drop down the system was self sustaining, at 27 wheels the whole system stopped, not sure why but ground resistance or evaporation could play a role. I then tested 18 wheels, drop down, another 18 wheels drop down (9 per row) and the system ran consistent (no fluctuations like yours), a lot of excess power, the amount of excess is based on the number of pumps. Build wise you could start with 2 pumps (1 won't work, some kind of mechanic I'm not aware of) and once you have enough wheel's up to support another pump then add in another pump. Wait for power to normalize, then another, until you hit 8. Then if you want more power, expand the wheels but due to the requirement of a drop down there is a theoretical limit if your recycling the water.. which is the point of this system.
The reason why the first design didn't work is because you basically put speed bumps in in the flow of the water with having those gates, if you would have removed the gates, it would have flowed because the water under the surface is flowing alot quicker and when it hit a brick wall the only place for it to go is up and it cant regain the momentum it flowing before it hit that brick wall. This is all simple fluid dynamics
I don't think this game has actual fluid dynamics, plus the power generation also depends on the depth of water (for whatever nonsensical reason, but it's how they programmed those wheels)
adding an accumulation reservoir before the wheels after the pumps should help with the pulsing issues, if it works for IRL plumbing maybe it will work for your system
The thing is the inf power stuff need more water input so it has more supply of water (fuel because it needs water to move the wheel) therefore faster flow of water and more smother power output
Kibbs, What you could do is let the pit fill all the way and remove the bottom pumps, therefore, less power usage, and if there is resistance from the wheels you could replace them with a smaller version of the water wheels ( with enough flow rate you could theoretically overclock the waterwheels)
so the higher you carry the water , the more mass and potential it has - the more power you can harness ?try making it higher and going to the depths of the pit
It’s likely not nearly as complicated, considering they don’t calculate energy losses through load in the system (each wheel should essentially reduce flow, but you can see in the vid flow seems unimpeded even when a wheel is taking energy from the system, accelerating even). It would likely be more efficient to have an input on each level change rather than have a mass at the start due to the variability in the flow rates, likely due to the turns in the route.
Pumps have to stay in optimal pumping range. Pump water up 6 tiles it needs to drop 5 back in pit to make real power gains. Problem is the bottom pump. Water level has to be variable because of evaporation. You have 3 sets of pumps and bottom one is only pumping 1 high. That kills the efficiency of whole system and will be lucky if you break even. And worse parts you only have 5 tiles of water storage. That will evaporate half way through drought.
you keep stopping the water with floodgates and levees you need to have a continuous route for the water to move in order for the water wheels to work, you have to set all the floodgates to zero for it to work the best
you have incredible patience and will power for doing this without mods. I was really hoping you had the insta build mod when you redid it all. thank you for the great video and the bits of sanity you lost along the way
if you had the 6 pumps on the same level or the smaller 1x water wheels, you need to also have the pumps stagered in their pump cycle so you don't get the sudden surges of 3 pumps dumping water at the same time
Hey Kibbz the way waterwheels work is by taking the momentum of the water and turning it into force, there are 2 ways to increase momentum increase mass or increase speed. Since we can't make the water heavier (only add more of it) we need to increase the speed, water gains speed from falling so make the area sloped before it turn. tldr: every 2-4 waterwheels drop the ground level a bit so its more like a slide not a river.
No because a battery losses energy each time it charges and discharges. This system actually creates energy because the wheels generate more power than the pumps consume. There is a momentum to the system giving energy storage but that is a secondary effect much less important than the physics defying system of infinite power (potential).
Each row of wheels being staggered at different levels is precisely what I was hoping you'd try this whole video lol. But I thought all you had to do was stagger the level of the levies, like one row is 2, next is 1.9, 1.8, etc.
I would love you to play Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic. Its basically factorio + cities skylines + transport fever. But in another way, i'd be absolutely terrified to see what you build, and at what scale... xD It is actually impossible to fill the map in that game (challenge accepted?). The game is simply too big. I've played like 2 years on the same map, same save, still works after all the updates, amazingly.
How come no one noticed any of the wheels moving in the wrong direction. The wheels will move with the flow of the water so if any of them are moving the other way. It means so is the water. It goes down each channel and the end bank pushes the water back reversing the water essentially slowing it down. You need a longer straight away and a gradual turn. Couple of options. At the end of each channel have it drop off into a small pit so it doesn't hit a bank and push back. You could use a pump pulling the water up and into the next channel or just have the pit start flowing into the next channel. Have it turn 90 and go down a channel. Also. Make less channels but longer.
The wheels can also be deeper in the water, I've seen the folktail wheels under 2 deep water spin faster and give more energy then Kibz is getting from ONE of these giant wheels. Deeper faster flowing water and he could remove most of his wheels and get more power out of them. It's basically the most inefficient way of making infinite power as of the last update that made wheels slow water down. Deeper water helps with Evaporation issues as well, can go further.
What did we learn: Perpetual motion is possible but the cost of explosives, construction wood, time, s̵͇͇̫͓̫̜̹̣̯͋̾ͅą̸͈͚̮̻͙̭̫͐̓̾́̿̈̽̋͐n̶̛̜̻̪̫͍͐̅ͅị̷̻̗͙̈́͐̑̒͒̓̈́̇̕͜t̸̨̧̻̺͖̙̪͍̱͈̟̍ͅͅͅy̴̢̟͙̹͚̜̘̏̌͐̄͛̔̀͝ and area is so high that simply using it as a growing area for engine fuel is more efficient.
Yo Kibz, you need the map with the highest water source, cascade that stuff down until it goes to beaver height and send the extra water (after your fields and drinking waterpump) back up. That would be the most efficient system.
you'd make alot more power just having regular wheels along the way and not using any pumps at all. this project just goes to show that the devs no not want this to be possible, so banking on what is essentially an exploit for an entire world is massively irresponsible
@@looweeg4229 kibs didnt sound like he enjoyed doing that for days on end, it didnt advance the beavers in any way and doesnt serve any purpose for the rest of the colonies. spending time you dont enjoy on something that serves no purpose is Irresponsible. thats just a fact my dude.
I think the reason the flat version doesn't work is because there is a maximum distance water can flow before it just becomes flat. Think of it like Minecraft water, where beyond a certain distance it stops flowing, requiring another block down in order to extend its flow distance.
Love this big experiment! Thanks for sharing! 😁👍 Somewhere I read that water wheels slow down the water current somewhat. So also because of this, having each line of water wheels one 'block' lower than the previous line would be a good idea for better efficiency / more power output.
As you were able to get 2 rows flowing on the same level, you could try to build 2 rows, then go down a level, then 2 rows, then down a level, and so on. this should allow you to double your power output/level.
I love watching you struggle with this. Use the pumps to fill a dam up as high as you can. This allows you to get a good amount of water stored up from your pumps doing their magic. Once you have this water stored with a spill gate dig out and down and place the water wheels at the base of the drop. I have built 3 down each time so I can build over the wheels. The water moving downwards will spread up right past your wheels increasing throughput and it circles back to the bottom where it gets pumped back to the top and off it goes again.
you can use a upward power shaft to combine the wheels, then you dont need to use a power line for every waterwheel line. safes space, adds more wheels
Make an experiment. Build a super long trough, check how long the water can flow from a single pump until it evaporates, then add water wheels and see if they make a difference.
So late now, but next time doing a project like this, I'd hook the output of the pump tower back in the hole before testing. That way, you don't lose any of that water... it keeps filling, even when pumping, and you don't lose it during dry season. I mean, you had it covered, duh, but i kept weeping over all that water flowing to nowhere lol.
Also, a huge advantage to doing that early is that the faster you can fill the hole, the sooner you can turn off the lower level and then middle level of pumps :)
Man respect for the amount of time and effort put in this video. I tried playing this game for myself (the demo). But it just takes ages to do something.
I never played timberborn before, but I believe the flood gate is the main issue. Logically speaking, flood gates slow down the water due to its structure, which causes the kinetic energy within the water to reduce. If you want the water to flow faster, it should be small entry, small canal,no interruption within the canal and a large exit to make a fast river flow. I am not sure timberborn has water physics that sophisticated, but thanks to you, I gonna buy this game to test it out! GREAT EFFORT MATE!
I think what is making it worse is the floodgates throughout the wheels as the boost won’t work because it just drains it from the previous bit before the floodgate and you will have to wait for it to refill again
I’ve got a super damn with a single wide slit running through it that is still able back up to my other spillways when there is water while flowing through the entire drought. It spills into a two by two channel that’s full of wheels.
I think the small water wheels would be a lot better as the gap is narrower and current is doubled, while the depth is halved and current increases again... Not mentioning the you can use 5 of them instead of each 3 of those large ones in a row
"Water Wheels will now slightly slow down the water passing through." Quoted directly from the Timberborn update 1 changelog, so this system does have a limit and it also explains why the power from the wheels is so unstable. Kibz, I hope you read this before you spend another 12 hours trying to improve this thing. Also, that thing you called a visual glitch, where the water was leaking through the rock? Yeah, that's actually a leak, it will flood the ground under it, while sapping water from the source.
i'd would of had the water flow back into the reservoir rather then out into a open field. That way you can keep the water for when the dry season starts.
You could have just used the pump station to fill up a big reservoir at the top and then created channels with flood gates to run water down into multiple single lanes creating high flow channels to put the wheels in. This would mean you could have all the wheels running at speed and you would just need to even out how much water is leaving the reservoir at the top vs how fast it is being refilled.
What about using the new smaller wheels? They would get more flow in a 1 wide river, so maybe more efficient and take up less space? And if you fill the pit more you only need 3 pumps.
I can't help wondering after seeing the second terraced version. Would changing the orientation of the wheels to be pointing downhill and then using a trough along the top to feed the rows of water wheels operate all the rows at higher output? Basically create several downhill torrents with more pushing force from the water because gravity and no slowing in turns.
A Possible way to improve this is removing the bottom 2 levels of pumps (or have them turned off) and increase the number of pumps at the top. Every additional pump of a lower level increases the power usage but does not increase the flow but additional pumps at the top level feeding directly into the system should increase the quantity of water flowing through. As it's supposed to be self-sustaining, as long as the water doesn't drop below the bottom level of the top tier of pumps, you should be able to increase the efficiency.
Water wheels slow down the water when it passes through them, and you get more power the faster the water, so yes if you had placed it even one level lower, your power output could essentially double or more for less space. You have infinite power but its like the most inefficient way possible, haha. 20:38, ah, much better, still too many wheels but much much better.
Fantastic video! But I can't help but think : what if the problem was just that these wheels needed deeper water? Wouldn't it be more efficient with the smaller wheels? Does anybody know if Kibitz eventually got an even higher efficiency in a future video? No matter what, I admire the persistence and the genius that goes into these builds!
I built something similar and to get it started just had water dumps so my beavers would fill my troughs up. Then I started the pumps and as each one hit an overflow point dropped my 1.5 gates down to 1, whole thing got up to speed very quickly and smoothly. but mine did go down a mountain
Though tbh, its kinda funny how The Irontooth has to do all this for power, meanwhile Folktails just make a windmills district and GG power for the rest of the game for free for no cost and no evaporation work. :D (or an entire district of engines/tree's of course, both work)
The next step will be to pick the water back up at the end of the loop to drop it back down again. If you can get 4K for every 2.1K of pumps it would scale nice. I also wondered why you didn't have a layer of wheels between each pump lifting, there's wasted flow rate between each set of pumps on the way up.
If they wanted that they should have multiplied the maximum of wheels per layer perm pump with the amount of layers a pump can reach, and balanced the energy cost of the pump based on that. (Or the amount a wheel slows the stream but that might break other parts of the game)
To be fair here, he says "infinite power" but he's basically breaking even with that giant setup, which is less effective then just planting more tree's and using engines, haha
is it possible that the flood gates messed it up? cause if it has to overflow it may be that it only flows a little bit at once. so maybe it would be fixed through dismantling the gates?
You built floodgates in the middle of the system.. which means each wheel was sitting in stagnant water... assuming the game only calculates the top level of water that is moving, that means the bottom level of water wasn't moving at all, thus, the wheels. If you tried the first style again, but without restricting water, it would probably work. Though keep in mind the waterwheel update also mentioned the wheels DO decrease the water speed.
You may be right about the water evaporating. But the fun thing about that is that water can only evaporate on the surface assuming it actually works as it should. So you Should get exponential returns for each additional water pump in terms of how far the water can actually flow down the river. Honestly, as well as this works, I'd like to see the design with four to six main pumps and a lot more wheels. I do still think you should have built a whole lot higher. But I'm honestly surprised how well it works with only a single drop per row. I think it would be good to consider building up above where you are now, or sending more beavers to lower the pit by another pump level or two and then building more pumps up to the top along with another two segments of twelve rows on the end of the first set of twelve. If you can do that, I really think your power production should go up by a lot. But then again, I could be wrong. For all I know, you're actually running into the inverse issue and you're getting to much water in the system rather than not enough; possibly due to water slowing down and building up before pushing through again when the pressure reaches a certain point. But... even that might be fixable with more pumps in a strange way; because you would just have to stabilize the water flow at a high point enough that the water fluctuation doesn't matter anymore.
Been pointed to this video after my version... great work man, I think using iron teeth and building neatly is key (and not being an idiot probably helps too!) 😅
All depends how deep the pit you build is, and the main issue is water evaporation causing you to still need to put in more water consistently - that and the new update made water wheels slow down water, so the smaller wheel might actually make more power, not look as cool though. Need to do tests, but that update was trying to fight against infinite power wheel machines. Either that or just play Folktail and use windmills for free power during 30 day droughts :D
Going to watch your video next RCE
I found a wild engineer!
@@Goremize honestly i dont understand why people like the iron beavers, half my world is treefarms for power now and constantly have to maintain population production across 10 different colonies, instead of just throwing up a few dozen mills and happily expanding, the iron beavers are not worth the trouble imo
Yepp, Matt
they added stoppingpower to the water wheels in the last update. there is a limit to how many water wheels can run on a current. fairly certain they did it spesifically to keep people from making infinate energy machines
Not only that - sharp turns slow down water as well, essentially the first wheel is trying to spin with water that has no current but gained from gravity, then the second wheel and on are trying to spin using current that is slowed down by the first wheel. Essentially, removing all the wheels and just having the one in the end before the turn may make more power then all the wheels combined. (Water can also be deeper, these are huge wheels, which will help with evaporation).
Yup. There are work arounds for it however. I typically have a reservoir running alongside the waterwheel channels (which are always two blocks wide) and typically put flood gates every so often (usually every two or so large waterwheels) between the reservoir and the channels - which allows water to flow in and also increases the flow rate.
Actually, in some testing I was doing the other day, I had maybe 8-10 wheels in a row on a channeled portion of river and the last 2 large wheels in the channel were consistently around 1k hp. Though I also noticed that as the water speed increased as it went through the channel, the depth decreased, so I had siphoned some water from the river off and was adding it back in with a levee every 2 wheels and it was helping to keep the flow rate and depth good enough to maintain high wheel output.
I was also playing with how many pumps it takes to produce a viable flow rate, and I think it was at least 6 pumps to generate a high enough flow rate to maintain above spec wheel output, for a single width channel at least. Though I feel like the pumps take too much power and are too expensive on research points to make them viable for anything other than just messing around after end game.
My plan was to send the water through the river channel and then pump it back up to the top of the river again.
Besides that, the fact that the water evaporates over time makes it impossible to be be a perpetual system.
@@p.g.8796 The way I see it, all you need is a small reservoir to feed into the river every once and awhile, even if you section off a small river coming from your sources and close it off once its full. that way you always have some water available and don't need to use anywhere near as many pumps as kibz (what he did is one of the worst ways possible, its like being as inefficient as possible) What he should have done is used that hole as water storage, and only pumped out of there when needed to keep the loop going. Loop only needs to be six deep as Irontooth. If he did it right, the loop could last through 90+ days of drought and give a LOT more power then he gets.
Can I just thank you unironically for YOUR service. Taking allll the time to do these crazy projects and masterfully editing the video to tell a complete story. It's not just a 25min video of you playing the game basically in real time or dragging the whole things out over about 5 videos which you easily could of done. Thank you again for the amazing, crazy and funny videos :-)
btw that pit only adds inefficiency, because you're pumping the water all the way up, then use the power horizontally, and dump all the water back down. a single block of height difference would achieve the same, for less pumping required. no idea if you can extract the power vertically from a waterfall, but if so, then the pit would help.or of course for continuing down with the stepped setup.
Exactly,it costs loads of energy to rise that water to just dump it down..need to make closed water system,making it return to start..then need just one row of pumps to pump for water that evaporates
Kibitz could fill the pit with water and just use 3 highest pumps xD
Kibitz: trying to break the laws of thermo dynamics
Also Kibitz: like, this should be working 19:18
he is not breaking laws of thermodynamics he is also deriving some energy from gravity
@@imahumanbutichosetobeapota5479 he is using energy to transport water up a few blocks giving it potential energy. when i reaches the top it has only that potential energy. when it flows down said potential energy turns into kinetic energy that is transferred to the pumps that pump up the water. during this process energy should be lost due to friction, but this game ignores friction which is why this works in game and not in reality. also the water wheels get more energy out of the flowing water than it has. he is breaking the laws of physics in this universe. he is getting more energy out of the damn thing than he puts in. this violates the first law of thermodynamics: energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only altered in form. altered in form means transformed into a different type of energy e.g.: potential energy of water that falls down turns into kinetic energy.
this case violates this law because energy is created out of nothing.
@@roberine7241 ok ok i am a eighth grader i told it for joke i know nothing about thermodynamics
@@roberine7241 They do use this concept in the real world though. But they use solar to "cheat". During the day when solar power causes excess, they pump water up a mountain behind a dam. When no sun and power is needed, they release the water back down the mountain through the dam. It's a giant battery.
@@chaunceyphilpot3986 yes I know. a very efective way to store that energy. at least compared to our current alternatives.
you need a starting reservoir to fill up first then to "activate" your battery you release the water stored up with your flood gates, with no flood gates between your wheels
Yup, and also a reservoir running along the side of the wheels that can be emptied into the channel in order to keep flow rate constant.
Hope they'll add pipes someday
Hopefully
Satisfactory players in update 1 be like
And trains😄
Ya
Seems like that may defeat the whole point of beavers building dams.... But I haven't played this game yet.
I literally just did this last week after Christmas. I was able to get 15 wheels to spin at a consistent speed on the same level, but that was using the water sources. That was producing about 4000 power, so I decided I would try to expand it and try to make it "infinite." I ended up doubling the size until I got the water to a point where I could loop it back around, but at that point none of the wheels were spinning and the water was backing up and flooding my town. I then decided "Hey, I have a population of 200 beavers that are producing enough food to keep my food levels above 10,000. I've pretty much made an infinite civilization, so Why don't I just use this world for tests?"
I downloaded a mod to make building instant, and also a terraforming mod to make building easier. I then laid out rows of 8 wheels set up exactly how Kibz did his, with the single water wheel and one block between rows. The only difference was, since I was still using the water sources, I made the channels on the ends two blocks wide to allow the water to flow hopefully without backing up. I also didn't use any floodgates or dams and just let the water flow unimpeded. I made 12 rows of wheels for a total of 96 which should be plenty to run however many pumps it takes to make five water sources worth of water flow. After experimenting more I estimate one pump to move about .3 cms of water. Anyway, I was able to get 4 full rows to spin at a decent clip on the same level. I would have to do more tests to find out if that has to do with the number of wheels, the length of the channels, or the amount of water flowing, but I think 32 wheels with 5 five sources of water per level is a good estimation. I had already been working on this for 7 hours, so I decided to stop and take a break, and I haven't had time to get back on since then, but I will be trying to lower the wheels after those first four to see if I can get another four rows to spin. If it works, I'll come back and let you guys know.
I think it’s kinda funny how I read all of this and the only thing I was thinking about is how similar this is to my log entries in science research (without the personal pronouns ofc).
Update. Four and a half hours later I have done a lot more experimenting. In rows of 8 giant wheels, three full rows on the same level will turn consistently. I have 12 rows total, dropping one level every three rows. At the bottom, I have 14 mechanical pumps for a total draw of 9,800 beaverpower. This pumps enough water to keep the wheels spinning up to produce about 370 bp apiece. This number fluctuates and you have to manually adjust the amount of water in the system to maximize it, but it does produce plenty of power. As I am writing this, my 96 power wheels are producing about 36,000 bp. During droughts, it keeps going for a while, but eventually, enough water evaporates that it stops working. Usually by about day 4 of a drought. However, once the water comes back, it fills up and can be started again in under a day. This could be supplemented by a backup reservoir that you gradually lower to fill up the system, but it would only be able to be three blocks deep unless you used pumps to get up to 6, using more power.
This system seems to work very well for me and also leaves most of the source water free to flow elsewhere. I hope it helps anyone interested in doing this and if you have more questions, I can probably answer them.
@@inversevoltage So that doesn't really work on hard modes 22 day + droughts then?
@@Goremize I did say the system could be supplemented with a reservoir, but yeah. It would be harder to keep running for longer droughts.
@@inversevoltage so it is more of a battery than infinite energy
Build a reversed system. A water reservoir on high ground, open the flood gate and go to town. Put all the pumping stations at the end to pump the water back. Add more pumping station to balance out the out/input. I did it with a small scale and worked greatly, just didn't have the patience to balance the water out/input
From 12/17/21 patch notes: Water Wheels now have variable HP output, depending on the current’s strength. If placed well, they’ll be even more effective than before.
Water Wheels will now slightly slow down the water passing through.
It says right on the patch notes posted in the Steam News for Timberborn that: "Water Wheels will now slightly slow down the water passing through."
Yeah, it's only a matter of time before the devs make it so that it takes more power to pump the water up high than the water could ever possibly generate. Kibitz will have to face the Laws of Thermodynamics eventually.
10:40 yeah not a glitch. It does escape there. Corners are bit tricky with water. Just make sure u got 90° everywhere.
The devs confirmed its just a visual glitch no leaking
@@scarah1485 realy because i have a place where its doing that and i just have it flow on my crops. No bother doing it good ;) Sometimes it floods some more and then the buildings are under water and cant use them anymore. So don't know about devs saying a visual glitch.
Interesting, im just going off what the devs have said / tested in the discord
@@firefly2472 you probably have a similar but [somehow] different glitch? I can't imagine the devs being wrong about something like that, that'd be pretty difficult to screw up (I guess they could have misheard someone when they asked if that was visual)
I did a lot of testing on this in creative to see how the mechanics work. Flow and power produced is proportional, 1 pump gives 0.25 flow so 8 pumps give 2.00 flow, which is about max, 2.25 wasn't achievable in my models. Yes 8 pumps consume more power but the system works on percentages, so if you're 1 wheel over break even that wheel will produce a lot more power at flow 2.00 then 0.75 (yours). Your step down design is a little aggressive, I didn't overly test this but I did rows of 9 wheels. Using 18 wheels and then drop down the system was self sustaining, at 27 wheels the whole system stopped, not sure why but ground resistance or evaporation could play a role. I then tested 18 wheels, drop down, another 18 wheels drop down (9 per row) and the system ran consistent (no fluctuations like yours), a lot of excess power, the amount of excess is based on the number of pumps. Build wise you could start with 2 pumps (1 won't work, some kind of mechanic I'm not aware of) and once you have enough wheel's up to support another pump then add in another pump. Wait for power to normalize, then another, until you hit 8. Then if you want more power, expand the wheels but due to the requirement of a drop down there is a theoretical limit if your recycling the water.. which is the point of this system.
The reason why the first design didn't work is because you basically put speed bumps in in the flow of the water with having those gates, if you would have removed the gates, it would have flowed because the water under the surface is flowing alot quicker and when it hit a brick wall the only place for it to go is up and it cant regain the momentum it flowing before it hit that brick wall.
This is all simple fluid dynamics
Or in this case, the water on the bottom tile could've also just not been flowing pretty much at all and the upper water flows over it?
tried it, didn't work
Ah yes the simple fluid mechanics of extracting an unlimited amount of kinetic energy from a limited flow of water.
I had a similar setup on a smaller scale and this was the issue. I had too many gates in the system and it was slowing down the flow
I don't think this game has actual fluid dynamics, plus the power generation also depends on the depth of water (for whatever nonsensical reason, but it's how they programmed those wheels)
adding an accumulation reservoir before the wheels after the pumps should help with the pulsing issues, if it works for IRL plumbing maybe it will work for your system
23:49 I lost it, you're truly a mad scientist, bravo!
The thing is the inf power stuff need more water input so it has more supply of water (fuel because it needs water to move the wheel) therefore faster flow of water and more smother power output
You're out of your mind for redoing the whole thing. Props to you. These videos are great
22:49 It uses gravity, so it is not a perpetual motion machine.
7:35 theres also a theroy that having water flowing along side the wheels also makes the water faster down river, making all the wheels reach 100%
Kibbs, What you could do is let the pit fill all the way and remove the bottom pumps, therefore, less power usage, and if there is resistance from the wheels you could replace them with a smaller version of the water wheels ( with enough flow rate you could theoretically overclock the waterwheels)
You know that thing about doing the same thing over and over again Kibitz??? USE GRAVITY!!! and pump the water BACK INTO THE RESEVOIR
so the higher you carry the water , the more mass and potential it has - the more power you can harness ?try making it higher and going to the depths of the pit
It’s likely not nearly as complicated, considering they don’t calculate energy losses through load in the system (each wheel should essentially reduce flow, but you can see in the vid flow seems unimpeded even when a wheel is taking energy from the system, accelerating even). It would likely be more efficient to have an input on each level change rather than have a mass at the start due to the variability in the flow rates, likely due to the turns in the route.
Pumps have to stay in optimal pumping range. Pump water up 6 tiles it needs to drop 5 back in pit to make real power gains. Problem is the bottom pump. Water level has to be variable because of evaporation. You have 3 sets of pumps and bottom one is only pumping 1 high. That kills the efficiency of whole system and will be lucky if you break even. And worse parts you only have 5 tiles of water storage. That will evaporate half way through drought.
As your doing this i am currently producing INFINITE OIL in cities skylines
you keep stopping the water with floodgates and levees you need to have a continuous route for the water to move in order for the water wheels to work, you have to set all the floodgates to zero for it to work the best
did you not watch the whole video?
you have incredible patience and will power for doing this without mods. I was really hoping you had the insta build mod when you redid it all. thank you for the great video and the bits of sanity you lost along the way
if you had the 6 pumps on the same level or the smaller 1x water wheels, you need to also have the pumps stagered in their pump cycle so you don't get the sudden surges of 3 pumps dumping water at the same time
Hey Kibbz the way waterwheels work is by taking the momentum of the water and turning it into force, there are 2 ways to increase momentum increase mass or increase speed. Since we can't make the water heavier (only add more of it) we need to increase the speed, water gains speed from falling so make the area sloped before it turn.
tldr: every 2-4 waterwheels drop the ground level a bit so its more like a slide not a river.
for the most efficiency when the water re-enters the pit it should be almost on the same level so there is almost no wasted energy
You need a reservoir at the top too
Reminds of fusion energy efforts, trying to get more energy out of the system than initially supplied
I hate the same thought when watching this. Hopefully our nuclear fusion story will follow the same plot
This is not infinite energy, it is a electrical battery.
Now that I think about it…that is EXACTLY how a battery works. Good call! 😁
No because a battery losses energy each time it charges and discharges. This system actually creates energy because the wheels generate more power than the pumps consume. There is a momentum to the system giving energy storage but that is a secondary effect much less important than the physics defying system of infinite power (potential).
Each row of wheels being staggered at different levels is precisely what I was hoping you'd try this whole video lol.
But I thought all you had to do was stagger the level of the levies, like one row is 2, next is 1.9, 1.8, etc.
the flood gates only move in .5 increments
I'm glad you finally learned to harness the power of gravity!
I feel like Kibz lost a bit more of his sanity doing this.
The missing factor was gravity to give more energy back to the water.
Row one be moving,
Row two; grooving.
I'm not disapproving,
Row three boomin,
Power improving,
Wait! WHY DID IT STOP? I'm fumin'!!!
I would love you to play Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic.
Its basically factorio + cities skylines + transport fever.
But in another way, i'd be absolutely terrified to see what you build, and at what scale... xD
It is actually impossible to fill the map in that game (challenge accepted?). The game is simply too big.
I've played like 2 years on the same map, same save, still works after all the updates, amazingly.
the dedication rivals your dedication to satisfactory efficiency
How come no one noticed any of the wheels moving in the wrong direction.
The wheels will move with the flow of the water so if any of them are moving the other way.
It means so is the water.
It goes down each channel and the end bank pushes the water back reversing the water essentially slowing it down.
You need a longer straight away and a gradual turn.
Couple of options.
At the end of each channel have it drop off into a small pit so it doesn't hit a bank and push back.
You could use a pump pulling the water up and into the next channel or just have the pit start flowing into the next channel.
Have it turn 90 and go down a channel.
Also. Make less channels but longer.
Good point. That coupled with optimal drop per set of pumps. 5 spaces deep. But evaporation will make it impossible to keep optimal ratio.
The wheels can also be deeper in the water, I've seen the folktail wheels under 2 deep water spin faster and give more energy then Kibz is getting from ONE of these giant wheels. Deeper faster flowing water and he could remove most of his wheels and get more power out of them. It's basically the most inefficient way of making infinite power as of the last update that made wheels slow water down.
Deeper water helps with Evaporation issues as well, can go further.
What did we learn:
Perpetual motion is possible but the cost of explosives, construction wood, time, s̵͇͇̫͓̫̜̹̣̯͋̾ͅą̸͈͚̮̻͙̭̫͐̓̾́̿̈̽̋͐n̶̛̜̻̪̫͍͐̅ͅị̷̻̗͙̈́͐̑̒͒̓̈́̇̕͜t̸̨̧̻̺͖̙̪͍̱͈̟̍ͅͅͅy̴̢̟͙̹͚̜̘̏̌͐̄͛̔̀͝ and area is so high that simply using it as a growing area for engine fuel is more efficient.
dear god this would have driven me way past insane hahaha, well done Kibitz!
Yo Kibz, you need the map with the highest water source, cascade that stuff down until it goes to beaver height and send the extra water (after your fields and drinking waterpump) back up. That would be the most efficient system.
you'd make alot more power just having regular wheels along the way and not using any pumps at all. this project just goes to show that the devs no not want this to be possible, so banking on what is essentially an exploit for an entire world is massively irresponsible
@@zenonxvii2513 yeah i saw that the game doesnt let you have it easy, but you need to revise your definition of "massively irresponsible" :)
@@looweeg4229 kibs didnt sound like he enjoyed doing that for days on end, it didnt advance the beavers in any way and doesnt serve any purpose for the rest of the colonies. spending time you dont enjoy on something that serves no purpose is Irresponsible. thats just a fact my dude.
@@zenonxvii2513 i wouldn't say irresponsible. Just boring.
I think the reason the flat version doesn't work is because there is a maximum distance water can flow before it just becomes flat. Think of it like Minecraft water, where beyond a certain distance it stops flowing, requiring another block down in order to extend its flow distance.
You need to introduce an elevation gradient across your water wheels, that will essentially cause a "vacuum" and pull the water down.
If you have 2 leevees touching diagonally, water will escape through the corners. So water is escaping through the part you thought was a glitch.
Kibs just breaking the laws of physics. No big deal
Love this big experiment! Thanks for sharing! 😁👍 Somewhere I read that water wheels slow down the water current somewhat. So also because of this, having each line of water wheels one 'block' lower than the previous line would be a good idea for better efficiency / more power output.
That's it! I'm calling the physics police!
As you were able to get 2 rows flowing on the same level, you could try to build 2 rows, then go down a level, then 2 rows, then down a level, and so on. this should allow you to double your power output/level.
You can build a waterwheel underwater so you can stack it vertically
I love watching you struggle with this. Use the pumps to fill a dam up as high as you can. This allows you to get a good amount of water stored up from your pumps doing their magic. Once you have this water stored with a spill gate dig out and down and place the water wheels at the base of the drop. I have built 3 down each time so I can build over the wheels. The water moving downwards will spread up right past your wheels increasing throughput and it circles back to the bottom where it gets pumped back to the top and off it goes again.
you can use a upward power shaft to combine the wheels, then you dont need to use a power line for every waterwheel line. safes space, adds more wheels
Make an experiment. Build a super long trough, check how long the water can flow from a single pump until it evaporates, then add water wheels and see if they make a difference.
So late now, but next time doing a project like this, I'd hook the output of the pump tower back in the hole before testing. That way, you don't lose any of that water... it keeps filling, even when pumping, and you don't lose it during dry season. I mean, you had it covered, duh, but i kept weeping over all that water flowing to nowhere lol.
Also, a huge advantage to doing that early is that the faster you can fill the hole, the sooner you can turn off the lower level and then middle level of pumps :)
Finally using gravity! I kept wondering why so much vertical lift if you're not letting it down later.
If kibitz starts adding another I to “where last tiiiiiiiiiime” every video, eventually he’ll run out of space for the video.
Man respect for the amount of time and effort put in this video.
I tried playing this game for myself (the demo). But it just takes ages to do something.
You could enabl the debug menu to.. unlock say.. the instant build button ;) Makes playing the game a little less tedious
I never played timberborn before, but I believe the flood gate is the main issue. Logically speaking, flood gates slow down the water due to its structure, which causes the kinetic energy within the water to reduce. If you want the water to flow faster, it should be small entry, small canal,no interruption within the canal and a large exit to make a fast river flow. I am not sure timberborn has water physics that sophisticated, but thanks to you, I gonna buy this game to test it out!
GREAT EFFORT MATE!
Dude you earned every subscriptions good job on not giving up! man you crack me up haha 😂
I love how he intimidates the wheels into working
I think what is making it worse is the floodgates throughout the wheels as the boost won’t work because it just drains it from the previous bit before the floodgate and you will have to wait for it to refill again
I’ve got a super damn with a single wide slit running through it that is still able back up to my other spillways when there is water while flowing through the entire drought. It spills into a two by two channel that’s full of wheels.
as i understand it water need to go via 3 tile tunel to get max speed and you could add some more pump to increase flow of it
Next project: a water reservoir somewhere up high to let flow down in severe droughts.
You can stack the design vertical by bringing the water to the top that will save some space
I think the small water wheels would be a lot better as the gap is narrower and current is doubled, while the depth is halved and current increases again...
Not mentioning the you can use 5 of them instead of each 3 of those large ones in a row
I was thinking of using the pumps to pump water into a reservoir and use during the dry season hahaha
"Water Wheels will now slightly slow down the water passing through."
Quoted directly from the Timberborn update 1 changelog, so this system does have a limit and it also explains why the power from the wheels is so unstable. Kibz, I hope you read this before you spend another 12 hours trying to improve this thing.
Also, that thing you called a visual glitch, where the water was leaking through the rock? Yeah, that's actually a leak, it will flood the ground under it, while sapping water from the source.
The floodgates slow down the water. Also, that tight turn is slowing the water down too.
Why make the pit so big ? you can have like maybe only 1 set of 3 pumps if it isn't that deep, and use up 3 times less power.
He made the pit before he had the idea to do this, when he dug the pit he was just trying to make a hole as deep as possible
Yeah, it was more a "high low can we go!" and then went on to a town building idea, to this idea :)
In this episode, beavers reinvent pumped storage.
This man is such a god at factory games.
You should add smaller lakes at the end of each row and start going down with it
i'd would of had the water flow back into the reservoir rather then out into a open field. That way you can keep the water for when the dry season starts.
You're welcome. ;))
Increase flowrate through declines, route the water back into the reservoir .... voilá a perpetuum mobile^^
edit: oh, nevermind
You could have just used the pump station to fill up a big reservoir at the top and then created channels with flood gates to run water down into multiple single lanes creating high flow channels to put the wheels in. This would mean you could have all the wheels running at speed and you would just need to even out how much water is leaving the reservoir at the top vs how fast it is being refilled.
What about using the new smaller wheels? They would get more flow in a 1 wide river, so maybe more efficient and take up less space? And if you fill the pit more you only need 3 pumps.
You could add some more pumps and create a drop for the water so it speeds up
I can't help wondering after seeing the second terraced version. Would changing the orientation of the wheels to be pointing downhill and then using a trough along the top to feed the rows of water wheels operate all the rows at higher output? Basically create several downhill torrents with more pushing force from the water because gravity and no slowing in turns.
Thank yoou, what an episode. I love you please do more
nice!
A Possible way to improve this is removing the bottom 2 levels of pumps (or have them turned off) and increase the number of pumps at the top. Every additional pump of a lower level increases the power usage but does not increase the flow but additional pumps at the top level feeding directly into the system should increase the quantity of water flowing through. As it's supposed to be self-sustaining, as long as the water doesn't drop below the bottom level of the top tier of pumps, you should be able to increase the efficiency.
Water wheels slow down the water when it passes through them, and you get more power the faster the water, so yes if you had placed it even one level lower, your power output could essentially double or more for less space. You have infinite power but its like the most inefficient way possible, haha. 20:38, ah, much better, still too many wheels but much much better.
Remember when you upscale you have to upscale everything 1 to 2 more rows of pumps in this case
Fantastic video! But I can't help but think : what if the problem was just that these wheels needed deeper water? Wouldn't it be more efficient with the smaller wheels? Does anybody know if Kibitz eventually got an even higher efficiency in a future video?
No matter what, I admire the persistence and the genius that goes into these builds!
Can't wait to see the rest of that district
fill up *the pit* completely to use up less power on the pumps. then add more pumps. would get rid of the evaporation problem 100 percent guaranteed
I built something similar and to get it started just had water dumps so my beavers would fill my troughs up. Then I started the pumps and as each one hit an overflow point dropped my 1.5 gates down to 1, whole thing got up to speed very quickly and smoothly.
but mine did go down a mountain
Its better for each quadrant of water whells to be 1 block lower so the water flow can be acelerated+ more power
Though tbh, its kinda funny how The Irontooth has to do all this for power, meanwhile Folktails just make a windmills district and GG power for the rest of the game for free for no cost and no evaporation work. :D (or an entire district of engines/tree's of course, both work)
*casually makes a perpetual motion machine like a boss*
Went full Saruman, with “a mind of metal and wheels”.
ImKibiz never worked with electrical systems, pretty funny video tho
The next step will be to pick the water back up at the end of the loop to drop it back down again. If you can get 4K for every 2.1K of pumps it would scale nice. I also wondered why you didn't have a layer of wheels between each pump lifting, there's wasted flow rate between each set of pumps on the way up.
Pretty sure in the patch notes they said that water wheels would slow down waterflow…my guess is they wanted to prevent infinite power
If they wanted that they should have multiplied the maximum of wheels per layer perm pump with the amount of layers a pump can reach, and balanced the energy cost of the pump based on that. (Or the amount a wheel slows the stream but that might break other parts of the game)
To be fair here, he says "infinite power" but he's basically breaking even with that giant setup, which is less effective then just planting more tree's and using engines, haha
is it possible that the flood gates messed it up? cause if it has to overflow it may be that it only flows a little bit at once. so maybe it would be fixed through dismantling the gates?
Poor kibitz is gonna get an ucler. Good thing he eats healthy Magic Spoon!
You built floodgates in the middle of the system.. which means each wheel was sitting in stagnant water... assuming the game only calculates the top level of water that is moving, that means the bottom level of water wasn't moving at all, thus, the wheels. If you tried the first style again, but without restricting water, it would probably work. Though keep in mind the waterwheel update also mentioned the wheels DO decrease the water speed.
You may be right about the water evaporating. But the fun thing about that is that water can only evaporate on the surface assuming it actually works as it should. So you Should get exponential returns for each additional water pump in terms of how far the water can actually flow down the river. Honestly, as well as this works, I'd like to see the design with four to six main pumps and a lot more wheels. I do still think you should have built a whole lot higher. But I'm honestly surprised how well it works with only a single drop per row. I think it would be good to consider building up above where you are now, or sending more beavers to lower the pit by another pump level or two and then building more pumps up to the top along with another two segments of twelve rows on the end of the first set of twelve. If you can do that, I really think your power production should go up by a lot. But then again, I could be wrong. For all I know, you're actually running into the inverse issue and you're getting to much water in the system rather than not enough; possibly due to water slowing down and building up before pushing through again when the pressure reaches a certain point. But... even that might be fixable with more pumps in a strange way; because you would just have to stabilize the water flow at a high point enough that the water fluctuation doesn't matter anymore.
If it's fluctuating up and down, maybe put in some gravity batteries?