Moisture pump
Moisture pump
Very slowly equalizes moisture in nearby terrain, converting marshes or shallow water into dry ground, and soft sand into normal sand. Does not affect deep water.
Base Stats
Building
- Size
- 1 × 1
- Minifiable
- False
- Placeable
- True
- Passability
- pass through only
- Cover Effectiveness
- 15%
- Terrain Affordance
- Light
- Power
- -150 W
Creation
- Required Research
- Moisture pump
- Skill Required
- Construction 6
- Work To Make
- 1,500 ticks (25 secs)
- Resources to make
75 + 
4- Deconstruct yield
- 37 - 38 + 2
- Destroy yield
- 18 - 19 + 1
A moisture pump slowly removes moisture from nearby terrain, providing buildable and sometimes arable land.
Acquisition
Moisture pumps can be constructed once the moisture pump research project has been completed. Each requires 75 Steel, 4 Components, 1,500 ticks (25 secs) of work modified by the construction speed of the builder, and a construction skill of 6.
Once constructed, they cannot be re-installed, they can only be deconstructed.
Summary
A powered moisture pump will slowly remove shallow water and other marshy tiles up to a radius of 6.9 tiles. The pump's radius will expand roughly 1 tile every 8.7 days — the entire radius will be terraformed in 1 year (60 days). The pump instantly transforms the tile that it is installed on once it becomes powered.
- Mud, marsh and marshy soil are converted to soil.
- Soft sand is converted to sand.
- Shallow water and shallow ocean water are converted to stony soil, except in the ice sheet and sea ice biomes, where they are converted to ice.
All other terrain types are unaffected by moisture pumps. Importantly, moisture pumps do not terraform moving water and deep water.
Pumps can be built on bridges, and will convert tiles under a bridge. However, the bridge must be removed before heavier objects can be placed on the land.
Once the tiles are converted, the change is permanent, and the pump is redundant. Moisture pumps cannot be manually turned off and must either have their power source disconnected or be deconstructed to stop them drawing power. Even after reaching their maximum radius, pumps will still draw power.
Analysis
Moisture pumps are the only way to permanently terraform wet environments. Because they are very slow, planning ahead or building in other areas is required while you wait up to a full year in advance. Moisture pumps may also have to be placed in a location that will need to be defended.
Wealthy Terraforming
Because moisture pumps instantly terraform the tile they are installed on, a colony can terraform an area quickly by building a large number of moisture pumps, one on each tile. You can alternatively build moisture pumps much closer together (such as 2 tiles apart) and only need to wait for them to expand their radius a few times. This strategy requires an exorbitant amount of components and steel.
Version history
Original moisture pump sprite
- Misc
- Caravan hitching spot • Egg box • Grave • Marriage spot • Party spot • Pen marker • Sarcophagus • Tool cabinet • Meditation spot
• Nature shrine (Large, Small) - (research)
- Comms console • Cryptosleep casket • Firefoam popper • Ground-penetrating scanner • Long-range mineral scanner • Moisture pump • Multi-analyzer • Orbital trade beacon • Pod launcher • Stele (Large, Grand) • Transport pod • Vitals monitor • Ship landing beacon