Water

Unturned II U4 Discussion
1

Water

“Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink.”

The essence of life itself, one simply cannot survive without water. We are surrounded by water everywhere; in the oceans that cover most of the planet’s surface, in the lakes, ponds, streams, and springs, and even in the very air we breathe. As it stands, however, very little of this water is actually drinkable. Ocean water, due to its salt content, is simply undrinkable. The same stands with freshwater sources such as creeks and rivers, which are often contaminated with both microorganisms and chemical pollution. How to make unsafe water potable? There are a number of methods.

  1. Boiling
    An exceedingly simple method, yet one that is highly effective. Very few, if any, protozoans, bacteria, and parasites can survive in water that has been boiling for at least one minute. However, it does not work on heavy metals and other chemical pollutants, so it is only suitable for water found in lakes, streams, and ponds.

  2. Distillation
    Essentially how this works is you would boil the water into vapor and force the vapor into a separate, cooler container in order to condense the vapor back into liquid. As the water is evaporated, all contaminants, be they microbial or chemical, are left behind.

  3. SoDis
    Also known as solar water disinfection, this method is widely prevalent in developing, Third-World countries. It involves filling a clear bottle with contaminated water and leaving out in the sun for six to twelve hours. Cloudy weather greatly compounds this method, raising treatment time up to two days, and is completely useless in rainy weather. Chemical contaminants are also not affected.

  4. Filtration
    There are two types of filtration, one that simply filters out impurities such as organic material, sand, insects and such, and the other has membranes thin enough to filter out most protozoans and bacteria. Chemical contaminants are not affected.

  5. Chemical
    Various chemical agents can also be used to purify water, with varying degrees of success. None of them affect chemical contaminants.

  6. Reverse Osmosis
    An extremely power-consuming method that requires complex machinery and semi-permeable membrane filters, and also requires frequent maintenance, but can produce large amounts of potable water no matter what contaminants are in it.

Items

Water Purification Tablets
Chlorine-dioxide based water purification tablets. One tablet purifies a liter of water, and it takes 40 minutes for the process to complete. Cannot be eaten, unlike previous games. Found in camping sites, outdoors stores, and military locations.

Iodine
Found in 2% tincture bottles at pharmacies, and also have a chance to spawn in the medicine cabinets of residential buildings. Requires five drops and half an hour to purify water. Also, it loses potency at temperatures below 68 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius).

Bleach
Works similarly to iodine and requires three drops and an hour to purify water, but works in all temperatures. The container, however, is significantly larger and bulkier than the aforementioned two.

Hydrogen Peroxide
Found in pharmacies and medicine cabinets, hydrogen peroxide can be used to purify water with limited success, therefore it should only be used with small amounts of water.

Activated Carbon
A granulated compound that exclusively removes chemical contaminants.

UV Pen
A battery-powered system that emits ultraviolet light to sterilize bacteria, protozoa, and viruses. Immersion of the device in water for ten seconds is enough to purify it.

Solar Still
A device that relies on direct sunlight to evaporate water so that it may be cooled and collected, however, the method is highly time-consuming with comparatively low yields. As this is a variation of distillation, the solar still is capable of producing clean water no matter how contaminated or what is in the untreated water.

Still
A system of containers and piping that allows distillation to take place. Requires a constant heat source, such as fire. Can also be used as part of the method to brew alcohol.

Industrial Water Purification System
A system with various containers, piping, machinery, and semi-permeable membranes, allowing for reverse osmosis to take place. Requires frequent replacing of membranes in order to prevent damage to the other components.

Water Filter
A hand-powered handheld mechanism that pumps water through a filter to remove any biological contaminants.

Industrial Water Filter
A scaled-up version of the normal water filter, but requires electricity to power the water pump. Produces significantly more output than the smaller version.

Since we’re already here, I’ll also be covering the various types of water sources as well as additional related items and concepts.

  • Rivers
    One of the most common water sources in an area, rivers usually are filled with chemicals and heavy metals due to them being used as a common method of waste disposal for factories and other industrial facilities.

  • Ocean
    Water that is relatively clean of contaminants, but cannot be consumed due to its high salt content.

  • Creeks, Brooks, Streams, Lakes
    Fresh water lacking in chemical and industrial pollutants, but has plenty of microorganisms that can cause a variety of diseases ranging from dysentery to cholera. Note than reservoirs found behind dammed rivers are considered lakes.

  • Springs
    Only found at high elevations, springs are unique in that their pristine location and groundwater source means that water collected from these is safe to drink without any treatment.

  • Wells
    Can be drilled using purpose-designed drills, and are also found in mostly rural areas. Water collected from these is safe to drink without any treatment.

  • Rain
    One of the cleanest and purest forms of water, can be collected using rain catchers.

  • Ponds
    Similar to creeks, ponds, and streams, but contain a significantly higher concentration of microbial contaminants due to stagnation.

  • Pools
    Manmade reservoirs of heavily chlorinated water used for recreational activities such as swimming. Water in these is usually safe to drink, but without frequent cycling and subsequent chlorination they can quickly develop large amounts of algae and bacteria.

Items

Raincatcher
A device made to maximize surface area to collect rain. Can be made from common household items.

Pool Shock
A granulated, concentrated powder composed mainly of sodium hypochlorite, the same ingredient used in liquid bleach. Due to its sheer concentration, it is only suitable for disinfecting large amounts of water at once, such as that of a pool or well.

3 Likes
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most explanative title ever

1 Like
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Pretty sure that depends on how clean (or polluted) the air is.

1 Like
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Did you accidentally add “to” instead of a period or did you accidentally leave off what follows after “to”

5

Im pretty sure that if its at least been several days since the factories stopped, the chemicals would probably go away.

naw fam, these arent safe to drink, but your body can take it once or twice.

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Just saying, factories dont pollute rivers, its runoff from farms that use fertilizer, as the fertilizer usually has phosphorus in it. Also you cant reliably drink out of pools that are chlorinated, you WILL get chlorine poisoning pretty quick. Also you can usually drink out of rivers, most diseases you get from rivers are pretty rare. Ive drank out of rivers hundreds of times and never gotten anything, but tbf it was when snow was melting so the quality was higher.

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This is how some factories puller water. The pullutonates go up in the air, mix in with the clouds, and when it rains, it causes acid rain.

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Maybe in communist countries. :us:

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lmao why didnt hurricane harvey victims just drink the water smh my head :thinking::thinking::joy:

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In small doses, chlorine can actually consistently be used to safely create potable water.

It’s relatively safe compared to other methods, assuming we’re referring to air in say, Canada. Obviously you wouldn’t want to drink rainwater from China or another country with incredibly polluted air, but most of the time the pH levels and contaminants are not severe enough to be harmful.

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Small doses of chlorinated water
=/=

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Fine, you can use it to purify other uncontaminated water.

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I kinda like the idea of boiling the hell out of water to make it safer to drink. Also not to mention that you’ll likely use a pot. Which can be used in cooking. (Segway)

However. I’m not really sure if something like distillation or anything further should be a thing. I mean, sure, it’s realistic. But you have to make an entire steam-catcher to collects drops of water. It’s just takes too much efforts in my opinion.

Also, try not to add something science-ish. I think bleach is already too much.

Keep in mind that any ideas of featuring a way to making one resource shouldn’t be too conplicated than looting for that resource. Because the harder and complex it is. People will depends on it less. Generally these features are more of the “Last-resort” features (Just like how rain-collecting in somewhat useless in 3.0, maybe 4.0’s loot spawn will be different. Or not. Still.)

14

This has nothing to do with complexity, it’s because for some trivial reason rain barrels only fill up after rainfall and not during it, as well as the fact that you need a canteen to drink what should be a directly accessible rain barrel (being a literal container that you can drink water out of). In addition, rain barrels should also be able to collect ambient moisture in the air (which varies by humidity).

In this case it’s less of a complexity problem and more of a bad oversight of a game mechanic.

15

No that’s wasn’t really comes to complexity but more of a “Noone really uses it because you can get water in an easier way” sorta way.

(Also. One canteen per fully filled barrel? I’m not that smart but c’mon that barrel has a volume of like 20 canteens at the very least. But I think it would take like 3-4 rainy days to fully filled it… at least that’s how it’s work here. Also yes. The ‘Can’t refill it until the rain stop’ is also a problem.)

Again, maybe 4.0’s lootspawn and how you can obtained clean water might be different than what we have now.

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Might be? I’d definitely count on it being different.

17

‘filter your dirty drinking water’

Or you could just drink it and hope you get a high Constitution roll

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Or pray you punched enough zombies to resist whatever came out of that black stagnant puddle.

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