Solar still

[Indigo]

I don't know very well how this works. But I think that if you put the saltwater in there, through evaporation you should be able to get -both- salt and water. I mean... to get salt, you evaporate the water, and to get water, you need to evaporate it to extract the salt... The quantities you get of both of them are ridiculous enough for this not to be a problem for any economy.

[madfish]

A makeshift solar still is just a open container with salt water in it with a smaller, empty, open container sitting in the middle. Underneath a plastic sheet weighted with a pebble in the centre. When the water evaporates from the salt water it hits the plastic sheet and runs down, dripping into the smaller container.

So yes, you should be left with a two containers with salt and water. You're right.

[Piscator]

It's technically impossible at the moment, although it seems logical.

[curious]

Would it be technically possible to have them alternate? Say, if they were run for four days that the first gave double the salt, and the second it gave double the water... and so on? So essentially you would get the whole four days salt, and the whole four days water.

[EchoMan]

I believe that is even less technically possible. But if you set up a 2 day water project and then a 2 day salt project.... violá!

[curious]

You mean, like I already do?
It just got me thinking, the amounts are so meagre, and if a 'real' still gives both simultaneously... well... I could drone on all day.

[Indigo]

I believe that is even less technically possible. But if you set up a 2 day water project and then a 2 day salt project.... violá!

But then you'd get half the quantities that if it was a whole 4 days project with both resources as result.

If it's technically impossible, well, it's technically impossible. But, in theory, that's how it should work.

[EchoMan]

If we were somehow to make solar stills produce both salt and water in the same project, the result would probably be half of what it is today. That is how it would be balanced.

[Indigo]

Half? Of 15 grams of salt per day? O.o

I really don't see. Since the solar still should be producing both salt and water, and at the moment it only produces one of them at a time, I don't see why it should be halved. Also, as I said in the first post, the amount of each that you get per day is small enough that this shouldn't be a problem for any salt/water economy existent in the game (provided that such thing actually exists), i.m.o.

[EchoMan]

If it produce 15 grams of water or 15 grams of salt today and we made this change, in order to balance the output, the produce would still be 15 grams per day (7.5 grams of salt and 7,5 grams of water). Get my point?

And "should be" is all in the eye of the beholder. Who says Cantr physics/mechanics should be just like in the real world?

[Indigo]

I get your point, but I'm not sure you're getting mine. If you put the same quantity of seawater in the solar still as you're putting now to get 15 grams of salt or water, hypothetically you would be getting 15 grams of both salt and water. As it is working now, one of the final products vanishes into thin air.

A different thing is, as you say, that it works in the game as it does in the real world. I won't go into that. But honestly, if it were to be implemented the way you say (halving the quantities per day, although you get both of them as result of the same project) I don't see any use of making that change. You would get just the same as you're getting now.

[EchoMan]

I'm still not convinced you get my point.

15 grams of salt or water is by design. It's not a bug. It is a result of RD's calculations. Doubling the output would affect game economy (maybe not so much in this case, but still).

[Indigo]

I -do- get your point, but you're not getting mine.

I know it's not a bug. And I'm not saying that RD's calculations are wrong, but they are not complete. If you get 15 grams of salt, you would be getting the same amount of water (that it would be dropping in a different container of the solar still). As it works now, that water is missing (and it's the same the other way with salt if what you're extracting is water).

Would that affect game economy? Doubtful, with those amounts, but I'm not an expert in this. If that's the case, just drop the suggestion. I don't see the need of making a change to just make it work as it would do in real world if that means that we will be getting half of what we, hypothetically, should, according with those RD's calculations.

[curious]

Perhaps a solution then, is to allow more than one to be made in the same location?

[Hedgedhogst]

I was thinking about this too. Unless we've all agreed on the economical imbalance that outputting both resources at once could cause, being able to produce both resources in the same project would be nice.

As a hopefully viable suggestion to counter the issue of making script alterations, would you be able to let the project run through, -then- slip in a matching quantity of the alternative resource too?
Since it's just two resources on one project type, I'd guess that's a possibility. But what do I know?

On the topic of economy imbalance, salt only seems to get used for leather and meat, as far as I see, and everywhere I go has little of either. At least until you get inland to the foodless towns, and I've not yet seen a ship sailing through a forest.
As for water, I don't know. I've rarely come across it, but if an extra few traces of water 'floods' the market (no pun intended, ish) then by all means, send it my way. With the extra water and a pot still, I'll soon solve our 'more bloody potatoes?' issue.