we have to fight physics, why not have a waterwheel?!

[lonewolf5d]

 So I've been beating my head on the brick wall that is Oxygen Not Included, and after some 15 colony extinction level events i had a thought. We are fighting physics, biology and general stupidity. how do we not have water wheels?  even if were only as powerful as the hamster-wheel. it would be incredibly useful. 
no real heat production, we could use steam/hydrogen or even just drip water to produce power.
thoughts?

[Foefaller]

Water wheels need flowing water, only time water (currently) moves in large quantities is with pumps. Pumps take electricity... and the Laws of Thermodynamics say you can't produce more power pumping water through a water wheel than you spent to pump the water in the first place.

Steam engine that uses the steam geyser might be a thing however, though you'd have to make it both functionally different from Nat. Gas generators and geyser (which has P. Water as an exhaust) and not strictly superior to the current method of running it through a cooling system to get regular ol' water.

[lonewolf5d]

sure enough, if you only use one. say u make a shaft with a few. then you could cancel out the cost of running the pump and let gravity foot the bill.

[Foefaller]

3 hours ago, lonewolf5d said:

sure enough, if you only use one. say u make a shaft with a few. then you could cancel out the cost of running the pump and let gravity foot the bill.

What about the force of gravity you are fighting when you pump that water up to the start of your would-be perpetual motion machine in the first place? Even if you're beating it, it's still there pulling the water down, increasing the energy required to get the water to the top.

...and stacking water wheels wouldn't increase power. at least, not if it was modeled realistically, as each wheel would reduce the potential power gained from the wheel below it. Even if you assume pipping or some other control to not lose water mass, you're losing a little bit of energy to friction within the parts of the water wheels with each wheel you hit. In fact, (and someone not recalling their freshman college Physics class might want to chime in if I'm wrong) that stacking friction means you would generate less energy with multiple vertically stacked wheels than with a single wheel at the bottom.

[Red Truffle]

6 hours ago, Foefaller said:

What about the force of gravity you are fighting when you pump that water up to the start of your would-be perpetual motion machine in the first place? Even if you're beating it, it's still there pulling the water down, increasing the energy required to get the water to the top.

How about pit reaching magma levels?  On the on the side, you have a flow of water, fall down, and on the other side a flow of steam rise up. Both of the flows may be rotating wheels = profit?

[HabdomeRaider]

The problem is that the game doesn't currently model gravitational potential energy. Note that you can pump liquids as high as you want for a fixed amount of energy. It's something that would be cool to add, but it would require reworking everything about how pipes function.

[Oozinator]

Aka "fake physics" - waterwheel. Would be possible to mount buckets onto a wheel and when they filled by drops, it turns/generates energy a bit..
But ONI needs no new powersource, if you ask me. A waterwheel would be a nice visual addition, but nothing else, so far.

[LeadfootSlim]

Even if one water wheel produces less power than is required to pump it, all you have to do is stack two or more on top of each other until you get infinite energy... unless, of course, there's a direct water input at the top that requires nearly 100% of a pump's flow, and it outputs free-flowing liquid.

The best solution is to make it a limited machine like the Thermo Nullifier. You get a bit of free power, plus a decorative doodad, at the expense of time and trouble in connecting it to your base.