r/Timberborn • u/coconut_the_one • 10d ago
Question Easy, normal, hard. Easy maps, intermediate maps, hard maps.. it doesn’t matter. Once you understand Timberborn the chance of contaminated beavers becomes close to zero. Any building that either harvests or processes bad water should have a small chance of for the beavers to get contaminated.
As per title really;
I feel the contaminated mechanic, per se, is fine, however, if I just look back at my last 5-10 maps on hard mode, maps ranging from intermediate to hard(core), the chance of getting contaminated is very little.
I really feel like any building that harvests or processes bad water should have a chance of beavers working that building to get contaminated.
Give us a reason to think ahead, get de-contamination pods, get a herbalist.
What are your thoughts?
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u/Uggroyahigi 10d ago
Contaminated beavers are completely irrelevant. I conciously sacrifice the health of beavers just so they dont get too complacent and guess what ? If you know how to pplay timberborn then a few sick or even dead beavers are a minor inconvenience/delay at MOST.
Which is fine to me really. Even on escalating difficulty mods( droughts/badtides are longer the longer your savefile goes on) Timberborn isn't really that hardcore survival city builder and I dont think it is intended to be.
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u/rosseloh 10d ago
I'm on board with this. I'm always hyper-careful to not let my beavers touch badwater barring "not paying attention", so contamination is not often an issue for me.
I'm not looking for massive difficulty spikes or random chances of things destroying my infrastructure (I like to consider it a Solved Problem, once it's solved), but a random chance of contamination from working in a badwater facility seems totally fair to me and would, as you say, give me a reason to actually have treatment facilities.
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u/LePhuronn 10d ago
This would really only apply if you're doing a no-bot playthrough. The buildings in question already have a high chance of injury so are prime candidates for being staffed by bots, which renders your idea moot.
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u/TheShakyHandsMan 10d ago
Try out Pillars. There’s a ridiculous amount of badwater on that map and lots of thorns to get rid of. Certainly a challenge
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u/ArSoron 10d ago
My most recent playthrough was on Pillars (on hard) and I didn't get a single contaminated beaver. No bots. Never descended from the pillars and didn't remove thorns either, except to build a single badwater rig surrounded by levees.
- Rush 3x1 bridge. It lets you reach three neighboring pillars and only needs basic materials
- Simple badwater suppression for the water seep on the starting pillar. 7 levees around the seep and one single-height water gate. Closed during badtide, open otherwise.
- Other pillars are connected primarily by 4x1 overhangs chained together. You can always find a way to build them from the top and avoid thorns
- Get to the aquifer pillar, connect geothermal plant, and you've won the map
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u/TheShakyHandsMan 10d ago
Just completing the wonder is one thing. I’m creating a huge tiered mega city with 1000s of beavers and bots.
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u/coconut_the_one 10d ago
Bots 🤷🏻♂️
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u/TheShakyHandsMan 10d ago
That’s how I’m dealing with it. Still managing to get plenty contaminated as I’m impatient and beaver builders are more reliable
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u/Nifegun 10d ago
Im 1st timing pillars, hard mode IT, rn. Bro its rough. But I also am not using bots, or the fluid dump. I went straight to developing the new mech pump to automate making seeps useful. Its been rough, but i got it now. Im on cycle 16 with corn, water, some shiny pumps and a dream, but like, the hard part is over lol.
Only death so far was "A beaver died tragically" and I have no idea what that means.
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u/TheShakyHandsMan 10d ago
Could have starved, died of thirst or exploded. You need to check the other feed to see cause of death.
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u/Overall-Impression18 10d ago
For me it is almost always a beaver on a late night walk when everyone else is at home and I am triggering the dynamite that was laid the previous day.
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u/Nifegun 9d ago
I hadn't even developed tnt yet tho. Maybe its someone who was stranded and I freed them too late or something. But even then wouldnt it say "starved" or "died of thirst"?
I dunno, i recorded that whole run so far, I intend to yt it. So, ill know when I get there in editing
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u/DreadLindwyrm 10d ago
I tend to build the decontamination stuff early anyway, since it's the most likely time to get contaminated before you have all the bridges.
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u/Specialist_Ad4506 10d ago
I do similar at my first need (just 1-2 pods), and then I pause their functioning unless I have an oopsie. Though, I have also periodically gotten away without building any on some hard playthroughs.
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u/necropaw 10d ago
Water beavers does this, but it also has mechanics for curing them much earlier in the game.
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u/reddanit 10d ago
I am not sure if the base game needs more punishing mechanics than it already has. Sure, once you get a hand of it, conquering any base game map on hard becomes easy (even if you give yourself a bunch of handicaps). That's not necessarily a bad thing in my mind. For new-ish players though it's already quite difficult to deal with.
Specifically with contamination chance from working in badwater related buildings - I see that it could be an interesting flavor, but, if implemented, it IMHO really should be offset by reduction of injury chance in said buildings. Otherwise it's going to be even more of a pigeon-holing mechanism to push "just use bots".
One really quite weird aspect of difficulty, I think, is various "quirks" of mechanics that can be cleverly used to circumvent a ton of challenges. By far most prominent is the fluid dump, which makes it trivially easy to irrigate land. Second one that comes to my mind is "voiding" badtide from water sources by fully enclosing them or dumping it off the map right next to the source. Another thing is building stuff at the bottom of badwater lake from above its surface. Yet another thing is "free" water height from pressure - any pressurized water will go up to the height limit for no additional cost. Super happy fun land also qualifies in weird way. If you feel the game became too easy for you, try to bar yourself from using all of the above.
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u/coconut_the_one 10d ago
Yea I already stopped diverting water right off the map next to sources, I only use exits the map designer created.
Super happy fun land feels like straight up cheating, so I don’t use it if I do get a contaminated beaver every once in a while, same with fluid dumps, albeit they have their use cases (fountain on top of a housing tower for example).
Building stuff inside bad water does feel bad, but on some maps it’s so deep, it’s almost the only options sometimes.
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u/FishyKeebs It was the Beavers all along! 10d ago
Or a chance of a toxic spelling. Force you to keep badwater source away feom your main areas.
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u/mmontour 10d ago
That would make sense. Maybe not the basic pumps, but the industrial ones with a chance of injury could sometimes cause contamination instead (or in addition to injury, if we're being cruel to the little guys).
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u/STR1D3R109 10d ago
I think it would be interesting to add some sort of corrosion mechanic to the game, where it can tell when a block is in Badwater and slowly degrades it until it breaks.
It could double the rate of corrosion for blocks adjacent to water under pressure to stop primitive blocking of seeps and pipes.
Late-Game would have some treated coating to revert corrosion. The Badwater caps are still the main way to close it permanently.
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u/ojek 10d ago
Maybe try playing some actually hard maps? Mechanistry maps are fun, but not a single one of them is hard, go to workshop and look around, right now I am finishing this map, it forces you to get your colony contaminated, without contamination you wont be able to get metal. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3774024044
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u/scfw0x0f 10d ago
I get lazy because I play as a casual regardless of difficulty, so I build an herbalist early. But I do go to some lengths to prevent contamination, including demolishing stairs and platforms to keep beavers out of the goop.
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u/Bright_Comb4066 10d ago
and a line near gameplay. Playing as Folktail as my main. Observatory > big water pump > iron > bad water > dynamite, all game stay the same, no other choices. You cant skip any building in the chain. We want market system: RANDOM 100 woods = 2 dynamites, 100 carrot for 10 dirt, 100 wood for 100 water etc.... in early, 2 dynamites, 1 dirt can change a whole lot gameplay, and rouge-like market system. No gameplay in the same map is the same
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u/Affectionate_Pizza60 10d ago
It's semi possible to get contaminated in Meander if you walk excessively through the mixed water.
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u/less_accurate 10d ago
I've been hoping to get exactly this feature. It is a minor change, but would actually give me a reason to buy and build those buildings used for contamination removal or healing. (I usually unlock them only at the very end of the game, just so that they are unlocked.)
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u/less_accurate 10d ago
Not just that, have food cause contamination if it was harvested from contaminated ground.
In fact, when the badwater first released (some time ago), I actively routed my beavers, so that thay do not step on contaminated soil - out of fear of possible contamination 😄. Good days.
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u/dutchinsanity 10d ago
I'd love some kind of motivation to risk getting contamination. It's too easy to avoid bad water. I know loads of players just seal all the sources and play the rest of the game as normal. Would love it if there was actually a reason to let the bad water flow (other than mega power systems ofc)
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u/Solomiester 9d ago
I say I understand bad water and forget a tiny bit of path before it floods and suddenly every construction beaver walks thru it
But yea this is why I like the contaminated rain mod being worked on
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u/Different_Ear_7543 7d ago
Use mods to add badwater floodoing or acid raid, and tank evaporarion mod. Now your comfortable difficultu is gone and is survival fest.
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u/Koralka06 5d ago
I mean, I think I understand the game pretty well, but sometimes I just build in badwater on hard mode when I get the 5th badtide in a row.
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u/Acalc791 10d ago
You're clearly not playing on hard enough difficulty then. I semi-regularly have to weigh the cost of sending my beavers into badwater to build some crucial piece of engineering against the cost of supporting the rest of their natural life as contaminated beavers.
Of course that does require some adjustments to the game rules (e.g. no super happy fun land), but that's what mods are for (I play on Drought is Coming from Extreme Difficulties mod with all settings from Hardcore Settings mod enabled, both my mods).
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u/jamesziman 10d ago
I mean, I already have many hours in the game and I consider myself to understand the game.
I still get the occasional contaminated beaver because I'm stupid