Water
Water is the central liquid of Sandlab: it levels out, puts out fire, cools lava and feeds most of the slow reactions.
- Movement
- Liquid — flows and levels out
- Weight
- 3 / 9 (heavier sinks through lighter)
- Lifetime
- Permanent
- Glow
- None
Water has weight 3. It drops whenever it can, and when the way down is blocked it also moves sideways into any lighter cell that is not static, which is how a poured column spreads into a flat pool. Oil, at weight 2, floats on it; sand, salt, gunpowder, seed, ash and lava all sink through it. Acid has exactly the same weight, so the two never form layers; they react instead.
Water is the main extinguisher. Its table turns both itself and a touching flame into steam 90 percent of the time a pair is checked, the highest figure for anything that fights fire. Steam is harmless and drifts away, so a splash leaves a small cloud and an empty space where the flame was.
Against lava the result is less tidy. The water becomes steam and the lava becomes stone at 70 percent per check. The stone is static, so the first contacts build a solid skin between the remaining water and the remaining lava, and cooling slows down once the two are no longer touching.
Many materials grow on water or spend it. Plant converts it into plant, ice freezes it into ice, seed sprouts and removes the water it touched, salt dissolves into it without using any of it up, and acid and water annihilate each other into steam.
Real water carries heat, evaporates over time and expands when it freezes. None of that happens here; a water cell stays water indefinitely unless one of those listed contacts changes it.
Try it yourself
- Two liquids, two layers. Pour oil and water into the same basin in either order. They settle into two layers, dark oil above blue water, regardless of which one went in first.
- Crust on a lava pool. Trickle water slowly across a lava pool. A grey skin of stone forms along the surface while steam rises away; stop pouring and the lava under that skin stays molten and bright.
- Neutralise an acid stream. Pour a stream of acid into a tank of water. Along the line where they meet, both liquids vanish into steam, and the exchange continues until one side runs out.
Reactions
Odds are per contact check: each tick, touching cells inside the same two-by-two block are checked against the reaction table, so even a small chance happens soon after contact.
When water touches something
- Touching Fire: turns into Steam, and the Fire turns into Steam. (almost instant, 90% per contact check) →
- Touching Lava: turns into Steam, and the Lava turns into Stone. (almost instant, 70% per contact check) →
When something touches water
- Touching Plant: this Water turns into Plant. (very slow, 2% per contact check) →
- Touching Ice: this Water turns into Ice. (slow, 4% per contact check) →
- Touching Salt: the Salt dissolves away. (slow, 8% per contact check) →
- Touching Seed: the Seed turns into Plant, and this Water dissolves away. (slow, 6% per contact check) →
- Touching Acid: the Acid turns into Steam, and this Water turns into Steam. (fast, 50% per contact check) →
Tip
Every fire or lava contact uses up water, so aim a stream at the leading edge of a fire. Water poured onto cells that have already burned out is wasted.