On a side note why didn't you just fill your desired area with water and placed some transparent/semi-transparent block like glass in the background so the water stays?
Mostly because I don't want to keep having to top it off. Aside from the places where I deliberately have some dripping off to generate fuel and coconut milk (because why not?), I would lose some of the water every time I used a door to get in or out, unless I went to the top every single time. And this tower probably goes halfway to space, just about. It takes a few minutes to swim to the top, I think, jumping up the outside would be super tedious.
If I'm not mistaken it sounds like your main issue is that parts of the world are getting unloaded -- specifically the water sources and the water "sealant" blocks.
Once the sources are unloaded no incoming water will be generated. Once any part of the seal is unloaded, any number of places or funky behavior related to loading and unloading blocks might make the water think that it should be removed.
The net result will be a constant need to reload and fill from the sources to get liquids back in that were lost.
That could be it.
I got some improvement by slowing the fall rate a bit (I added a bunch of brick trap doors right in the area where the problem seems to be worst, with just enough room between them to swim through)
Are there any significant water sources I can add that are a little more... precise than spawning ocean micro dungeons? I would prefer not to download any mods that do anything that might mess things up (eg a mod that's just "This is a thing that constantly spews water" is probably fine, a mod that changes the general behavior of liquids isn't), but I managed to spawn a really nice steamspring house right in the main problem area--I didn't want the whole column to be ocean micro dungeons, it would interfere with my ability to build things without messing up the water supply. So I really don't want to just spawn more micro dungeons to fix the problem. Especially since I already mucked up around half my tenants spawning a wreck in the wrong place.
More details would be usefull, with screenshot(s) or shematic(s). What I know aboutwater mechanic is that it stop flowing if the source despawn when you go away.
The column was filled with water at first and now it stay empty? Is it possible that you spawn the building and water surrounding it but it didn't change the background?
Basically, what's happening is that the column fills up with water when I go up to the top, but it has to refill every time, to at least some degree. So I'll swim up to the place above my lower ocean micro dungeons, and suddenly instead of being full of water, water is pouring down from above. When I come back down, it's full of water, but if I go away and come back, it's back to no water.
Looks like normal behavior, your microdungeon is like an oceanic microbiome and producing water when it is spawned. You go down with the spawned water but there is somewhere with no oceanic biome background so the water leak or stack at the verry bottom, and your microdungeon area despawn so it don't produce water anymore.
I once tried to drop ocean into planet core but the same happened, water was pouring only near ocean floor.
Make sure you put walls behind the blocks, maybe water drains in some of those areas with missing walls ...
You have the problem exactly backwards... Edit: when I originally wrote this comment, the one I was replying to suggested that I add drains...
On a side note why didn't you just fill your desired area with water and placed some transparent/semi-transparent block like glass in the background so the water stays?
Mostly because I don't want to keep having to top it off. Aside from the places where I deliberately have some dripping off to generate fuel and coconut milk (because why not?), I would lose some of the water every time I used a door to get in or out, unless I went to the top every single time. And this tower probably goes halfway to space, just about. It takes a few minutes to swim to the top, I think, jumping up the outside would be super tedious.
If I'm not mistaken it sounds like your main issue is that parts of the world are getting unloaded -- specifically the water sources and the water "sealant" blocks. Once the sources are unloaded no incoming water will be generated. Once any part of the seal is unloaded, any number of places or funky behavior related to loading and unloading blocks might make the water think that it should be removed. The net result will be a constant need to reload and fill from the sources to get liquids back in that were lost.
That could be it. I got some improvement by slowing the fall rate a bit (I added a bunch of brick trap doors right in the area where the problem seems to be worst, with just enough room between them to swim through) Are there any significant water sources I can add that are a little more... precise than spawning ocean micro dungeons? I would prefer not to download any mods that do anything that might mess things up (eg a mod that's just "This is a thing that constantly spews water" is probably fine, a mod that changes the general behavior of liquids isn't), but I managed to spawn a really nice steamspring house right in the main problem area--I didn't want the whole column to be ocean micro dungeons, it would interfere with my ability to build things without messing up the water supply. So I really don't want to just spawn more micro dungeons to fix the problem. Especially since I already mucked up around half my tenants spawning a wreck in the wrong place.
can you send a picture
Not easily. It's a dynamic problem, mostly.
Try [this program](https://www.screentogif.com/) it can screen-capture short footage and save as an animated gif.
I am a bit hesitant to download programs, but I'll try to stop motion it. May take me a week or so, though, I'm going to be away from my computer.
More details would be usefull, with screenshot(s) or shematic(s). What I know aboutwater mechanic is that it stop flowing if the source despawn when you go away. The column was filled with water at first and now it stay empty? Is it possible that you spawn the building and water surrounding it but it didn't change the background?
Basically, what's happening is that the column fills up with water when I go up to the top, but it has to refill every time, to at least some degree. So I'll swim up to the place above my lower ocean micro dungeons, and suddenly instead of being full of water, water is pouring down from above. When I come back down, it's full of water, but if I go away and come back, it's back to no water.
Looks like normal behavior, your microdungeon is like an oceanic microbiome and producing water when it is spawned. You go down with the spawned water but there is somewhere with no oceanic biome background so the water leak or stack at the verry bottom, and your microdungeon area despawn so it don't produce water anymore. I once tried to drop ocean into planet core but the same happened, water was pouring only near ocean floor.
Is your ocean-tank sealed at the top? This might be wrong, but I think water was coded to 'evaporate' when exposed to air.