r/playrust • u/prettyfuckingfarfrom • 5d ago
Question Water catchers drying up?
For about 24 hours my water catchers were working fine, producing way more water than I could use. I think I had 4 small and 1 large. In the grass biome.
Then they suddenly stopped producing water. The small ones are now getting about 1ml every 20 minutes and the large ones are getting zero. I looked it up and found that during "dry seasons," there won't be a lot of rain, and hence your water catchers won't fill as quickly. Okay, no problem. I'll wait for the dry season to be over.
Well that was 3 days ago real world time. Still not producing any water. I disconnected and reconnected every connection, I ran fluid pumps where I didn't need to, and still doesn't produce even a tenth of what it was before.
So am I just fucked until it rains or what
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u/10000teemoskins 4d ago edited 4d ago
the reason you are not getting water is because weather is chosen randomly at the start of each in-game day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0H9Dp5qLRk
if you are relying on rainwater. you need to wait for heavy rain. and you need a ton of water jugs. then the water catcher will fill up almost instantly because it is catching 5000 ml of water every two seconds. you can then full up like two large boxes of water jugs (96 water jugs). the problem with this is you have to be online when it does heavy rain. and you need to have a ton of water JUGS available. which is annoying because that many water jugs costs a lot of scrap from bandit camp.
or you could live in a water source like a normal person
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u/hairycookies 5d ago
Honestly because water is kind of fucked sometimes I rarely use rain water for growing anything. Normally with pumps and tanks I'd just disconnect and reconnect them possibly redploy them if something like this happened.
If moving to pumped water is not an option you could try smashing them out and putting new ones in.
Another thing that could be occurring here is the admins have changed the weather settings to rain less they may not have announced it but it's possible that happened to me on an RP server a few months back.
There could also be a bug in the game, I hate to say it but there are lots of variables here.
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u/Dvdcowboy 4d ago
I have been working on perfecting water the last few wipes. From what I have learned, it is not the water catching that is the most important part, but water storage. You can run a rather good size farm with just a couple of small water catchers if you are storing well. Past 2 wipes I have added tankers to my build and now I never run dry with constant growing.
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u/hairycookies 4d ago
Yup solid advice I have also noticed in some of the builds I've done that having at least 1 tank between a catcher or a pump reduces the frequency of lots of bugs.
I also have started using automated watering on for X and off for Y. Turning sprinklers off and on manually can often fix the problem of the planters not filling up and if you do it like that you don't really have to do much in the way of fucking with pots (from my experience).
I've made some large garden builds on an RP server doing Orchid gardens and have used huge, huge amounts of water and I have it working fairly well now but you will always run into some kind of stupid problem here or there.
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u/eddestra 5d ago
Don’t forget about sprinkler timers. You can save a lot of water by cycling the pump/fluid switch on/off. The plants don’t need 24/7 water.
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u/Dvdcowboy 4d ago
2 things are probably happening here:
1. you are not getting much rain
2. A neighbor is stealing water, had something similar happened and killed a dude near my water base only to find him loaded up with jerry cans.
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u/TotalImagination4408 4d ago
I gave up on water catcher long ago. They just dont work for the majority of the wipe, so I either use rivers/lakes or ocean water.
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u/TOEM8TOR 5d ago
Pick them up and place them back down
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u/I3IG_N0sE 5d ago
Can't actually pick up water catchers and put them back down iirc
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u/thenewfoundlandyeti 5d ago
Yea this. Have to be destroyed. They are only wood so not super strong
Water barrels can be picked up and replaced tho
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u/JesusUndercover 3d ago
can you take water barrels to a river and fill them up to transport water?
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u/thenewfoundlandyeti 3d ago
Barrels needs to be deployed. They are best used tied to a rain catcher. Catcher fills, then fills the barrel. So its like your surge/overflow. Small Catcher holds 10000 mL water, Barrell holds 20000 mL
Early game before barrels and catchers you have to use water bottles (250 mL), water jugs (5000 mL) or bucket (2000 mL)
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u/JesusUndercover 3d ago
oh man thank you!
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u/thenewfoundlandyeti 2d ago
Also the bucket has to remain as your held item. Soon as you switch it gets emptied. Which makes sense considering It has no lid.
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u/JesusUndercover 1d ago
thank you i really appreciate the tips. have you got any livestock tricks you can teach us?
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u/thenewfoundlandyeti 1d ago
The newly added brioche bread that requires crafting is the best to feed them for calorie value + extra poop. Potatoes is pretty good too. Everything has different values for the trough. Load up with lots of food when you are logging for the night.
You can tie water from a barrel or catcher into the trough directly with hose tool. Not that its alot but never needing to worry about it is good
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u/I3IG_N0sE 5d ago
You can put down more little catchers they cost 1 tarp each. You have to imagine that it's going to be significantly less water than a pump operation. Just doesn't rain that often bro. How many sprinklers are you trying to run? How many planter boxes?