Water Freezes Mod

The Water Freezes Mod adds dynamic water freezing and thawing to RimWorld, allowing lakes, rivers, marshes, and even oceans to freeze in cold conditions. It includes ice depth simulation, interactions with buildings and terrain, and support for several other mods.

Water Freezes Mod Features

The Water Freezes Mod adds a water and ice depth tracking system where water gradually freezes into ice and ice gradually melts back into water.

• Dynamic freezing and thawing: Lakes, marshes, and rivers freeze when temperatures are low enough, with freezing and thawing spread out over time to reduce lag and stutter.
• Ice depth simulation: Thicker ice melts more slowly than thinner ice, and lake depth is estimated based on distance from land, causing water to freeze from the outside in.
• Ocean freezing option: Includes a mod option to allow oceans to freeze at very low temperatures.
• Watermill behavior: Watermills stop when frozen instead of breaking down.
• Building interactions: Buildings that can exist on water but not on ice may break down or be destroyed when the water beneath them freezes. Buildings placed on ice that cannot exist on water will be destroyed when the supporting ice thaws. Buildings placed on bridges, including modded bridges, are immune.
• Ice digging: Ice can be dug up, with thicker ice yielding more ice but taking longer to gather.
• Fishing interaction: Digging out ice leaves any unfrozen water underneath, allowing fishing if you use a mod that supports it.
• Cooling utility: Ice can be used to cool rooms, making tribal freezers and solar flare backup cooling possible.
• Seasonal refill: Natural lakes refill in spring if their ice is removed. Artificial lakes do not.
• Vanilla Fishing Expanded support: Includes compatibility with Vanilla Fishing Expanded, which can be disabled.

Planned features

• Ice skating: Planned as a new recreation type.
• Ice sculptures: Planned support for using ice as a sculpture material that cools rooms and melts depending on where it is stored, together with Soil Relocation Framework.

FAQ

• Can this be added to an existing save? Yes. Existing water on the map will be considered natural water, even if it did not originally generate with the map. Debug tools can be used to correct this if needed.
• Can this be safely removed from a save? Yes, if no ice from this mod is present. Otherwise, there are no guarantees. A quick way to remove all ice is to use the “Reinitialize” debug action.
• I used debug tools to change water to something else and it reverted. Why? Use the “Clear Natural Water Status” tool first, or another tool that includes that function. Natural water reverts during spring and summer, and SetTerrain does not clear that status on its own.

Compatibility notes

Do not use the Water Freezes Mod together with Odyssey, as Odyssey already includes water freezing.

The Water Freezes Mod was re-released using only Asset Bundles after RimWorld 1.6 added improved support for them, avoiding a larger file size. A previous version of the mod is available separately.

The Water Freezes Mod is designed to work with Soil Relocation Framework.

• Proxy Heat: Should work fine and was designed with this in mind.
• Celsius: Disable its freezing and melting system or it will conflict. It should work fine otherwise.
• Multiplayer: Tested and working with the Multiplayer mod.
• Terrain System Overhaul: Compatible.
• Terraforming mods: If a terraforming mod changes a natural water tile, it will revert. Future support is planned through Soil Relocation Framework, or you can use debug options to mark the terrain as no longer natural water.
• Water-based buildings from other mods: If buildings placed on water do not behave correctly during freezing or thawing, the author invites users to ask about it.

When troubleshooting the Water Freezes Mod:

• See if the error persists if you just have this mod and its requirements active.
• If not, try adding your other mods until it happens again.
• Always post your log using the Log Uploader.
• For best support, please use the Discord channel for error reporting.
• Do not report errors by making a discussion thread, as the author gets no notification of that.
• If you have the solution for a problem, please post it to the GitHub repository.
• Use RimSort to sort your mods.

Additional credits: UdderlyEvelyn, ZenthWolf.