River water

[Chrysolite Azalea]

Hello everyone!

I play Minetest Game survival on valleys mapgen, and because of that I have access to river water. I use it on my farm:



Where and how do you use it? Where is it better to use river water? Where it's worth using ordinary water instead? Is it a good idea to mix them (on farm or pools, for example)?

I think it's good to use for farms and pools because of more convenient renewability (for me), and because it doesn't flow as far as ordinary water, causing less problem when it leaks due to accidental removal of blocks.

[Hume2]

The purpose of adding river water was that normal water was flowing off river banks too often and caused huge floods. There is no mandatory difference between them except the ones you mentioned: smaller flowing range and not creating infinite sources.

To answer your question: Using river water takes more time because it doesn't create infinite sources. You have to place water nodes one by one and full buckets don't stack. So you have to go to a river and back often. Also note that this process dries rivers and it might be considered as griefing if you do it in multiplayer. It might be easier to obtain river water from snow or ice because they are stackable. The only benefit of using river water is that it doesn't cause as huge flood when you dig some blocks.

[u18398]

To answer your question: Using river water takes more time because it doesn't create infinite sources.

This is not true. Put four riverwater_source like this:
XX
XX

Then take with a bucket one corner of that 2x2 hole:

XO
XX

And it will turn again into:

XX
XX

Infinite riverwater :) But you cannot build easiely lakes from it like with ordinary water. That is true.

[pampogokiraly]

In my opinion, river water looks way better than normal water if you use it in a farm.

I don't think there is any other reason to use river water.

[u18398]

It makes a difference if you use water_life mod. Different fish spawn in river water. :)

[Linuxdirk]

it might be considered as griefing if you do it in multiplayer.

If you don’t want an area to destroyed, protect it. f there is no protection mod available then there is no other way than to deal with it.

[Hume2]

it might be considered as griefing if you do it in multiplayer.

If you don’t want an area to destroyed, protect it. f there is no protection mod available then there is no other way than to deal with it.

Well, I talk about landscape griefing. There is simply no easy way to protect all rivers in the world. Landscape griefing is a vague term so there is no reliable way to prevent it. It basically means unreasonable devastation of the landscape, even though it doesn't belong to any concrete player. In this situation, it wouldn't mind if someone took a few buckets from the river but removing a lot from the river might cause problems for sailors. There are many things which can be done with a river, some of them harm the other players, other don't.

[Linuxdirk]

Oh noes … it becomes off topic … :)

There is simply no easy way to protect all rivers in the world.

It is super restrictive and takes some work to initially setting it up, but this can be done using the areas mod. First define a “root area” with no permissions to everyone, using an account as owner that is under your control (ideally your administrative account not used in regular gameplay):

./worlds/worldname/areas.dat:

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return {{["owner"] = "root", ["pos2"] = {["y"] = -30912, ["x"] = -30912, ["z"] = -30912}, ["name"] = "root", ["pos1"] = {["y"] = 30927, ["x"] = 30927, ["z"] = 30927}}}

This sets an area containing the whole buildable world according to 2 seconds Google search (-30912 to 30927 in all dimensions).

Then (either ingame or by manipulation of the file while the server is not running) define areas where people are supposed to build and set those areas to open.

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{["owner"] = "root", ["pos1"] = {["y"] = 9, ["x"] = 108, ["z"] = -127}, ["pos2"] = {["y"] = 14, ["x"] = 115, ["z"] = -120}, ["name"] = "Build here!", ["open"] = true}

This is a pretty small area just for testing purposes, but imagine the underground being opened, or a part of the world that is open on the surface, too. Or a plot area where people can only build in their own plot without having to protect anything further.

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return {{["owner"] = "root", ["pos2"] = {["y"] = -30912, ["x"] = -30912, ["z"] = -30912}, ["name"] = "root", ["pos1"] = {["y"] = 30927, ["x"] = 30927, ["z"] = 30927}}, {["owner"] = "root", ["pos1"] = {["y"] = 9, ["x"] = 108, ["z"] = -127}, ["pos2"] = {["y"] = 14, ["x"] = 115, ["z"] = -120}, ["name"] = "Build here!", ["open"] = true}}

Fortunately areas within areas overwrite previous areas permissions so you can simply set areas as needed with permissions as wanted. Players might request an area/plot via some kind of message or with a specialized mod when not having access to the area commands.

It basically means unreasonable devastation of the landscape, even though it doesn't belong to any concrete player.

If it does not belong to anyone then it is free real estate. Of course it is assholery to grief the landscape, but this will always happen when not actively prevented due to permissions. Small, not public servers with a closed community of players might not need this, but as soon as it is open, it will be griefed.

[paramat]

> There is no mandatory difference between them except the ones you mentioned: smaller flowing range and not creating infinite sources.

One more difference: If the 'waving water' shader is enabled, normal water will wave but river water will not (for obvious reasons). So river water is useful for water features / swimming pools / fountains or whatever, where you do not want the water to wave like ocean waves if that shader is enabled.

> Using river water takes more time because it doesn't create infinite sources. You have to place water nodes one by one and full buckets don't stack. So you have to go to a river and back often. Also note that this process dries rivers

The problem of creating holes in Mapgen Valleys sloping rivers when taking river water was attended to in MTGame by https://github.com/minetest/minetest_game/pull/1320
So river water is renewable, but in a different way, it does not automatically renew and spread horizontally like normal water does.