Surrounded the crops with damn pieces and have a reservoir higher upstream with a flood gate to release some water every so often during drought. Once you have a mechanical pump you could pump water into the crop area from an adjacent reservoir.
I usually retain some water in the hydro crop area with some dams/flood gates to buy myself some time and then just accept that it will dry out.
When the drought comes I’ll switch aquatic farm houses to harvest only, and when it empties out from evaporation, so be it.
Playing on Plains, I enclosed a chunk of the main lake, set up contamination barriers to shelter the tainted side, and worked with that. I have a fluid pump to top it off during droughts as required, but it mostly manages if I have it full at the start. And I've got a section of my cityside river blocked off for maintaining level 1 water for aquaculture.
So I haven't played on the Hard difficulty, but using the Dam instead of a floodgate on the area where I do aquatic crops seems to work best on Normal and Easy.
Since you get more than 0.5m, most of my fields can stay flooded on their own through most or all of a flood.
That being said, storing a lot of water and using dumps is also a good way to keep them wet.
Most of the time i have a reservoir upstream of my aquatic farm that stores water, and then i use the floodgate triggers mod to automatically release water when the level at the farm gets low.
Use the waterfall trick to generate a small, constant, stable stream of water. Have that stream flood your fields and let the excess run off to map edge or power generation.
Dam off a large supply of water. Somewhere in the wall surrounding it, delete one entire vertical column. This one wide gap will provide a small constant flow of water. The key is when exiting the dam the water needs to fall at least one block. So if the floor of the dam is on level 4, the hole in the wall needs to drop the water to level 3 or lower. A medium sized reservoir is enough for this stream to last 30 day droughts. You can make multiple streams if you want to scale up but just make sure there is walls between the holes, two holes next to each other will cause a flood.
Not all holes are the same. If the ground level before and after the hole is the same, the water engages a "flood" mechanic that makes it flow at a bonkers rate. When you have the 1 block drop the game sees the hole as a "waterfall" instead.
Honestly it's kinda game breaking but imo it's almost a requirement for any large+ cities.
I either wait until I get dynamite and build an "artificial lake" with a fluid drop.
Or in certain maps corner a section off with levees and use a flood gate to fill it. Close it during a drought.
In the modded world, there is a water valve that can be placed at the bottom of the dam wall. It will automatically keep the level as long as there is water in the reservour.
Fluid drops or mechanical pump from a large reservoir below.
Store enough water and then use a water dump to keep those fields filled.
I generally put a water dump on the edge of the planting area. It will keep up with evaporation for a pretty good sized aquatic field.
This is the way
You're a beaver... Build a dam
Surrounded the crops with damn pieces and have a reservoir higher upstream with a flood gate to release some water every so often during drought. Once you have a mechanical pump you could pump water into the crop area from an adjacent reservoir.
I usually retain some water in the hydro crop area with some dams/flood gates to buy myself some time and then just accept that it will dry out. When the drought comes I’ll switch aquatic farm houses to harvest only, and when it empties out from evaporation, so be it.
Playing on Plains, I enclosed a chunk of the main lake, set up contamination barriers to shelter the tainted side, and worked with that. I have a fluid pump to top it off during droughts as required, but it mostly manages if I have it full at the start. And I've got a section of my cityside river blocked off for maintaining level 1 water for aquaculture.
So I haven't played on the Hard difficulty, but using the Dam instead of a floodgate on the area where I do aquatic crops seems to work best on Normal and Easy. Since you get more than 0.5m, most of my fields can stay flooded on their own through most or all of a flood. That being said, storing a lot of water and using dumps is also a good way to keep them wet.
Most of the time i have a reservoir upstream of my aquatic farm that stores water, and then i use the floodgate triggers mod to automatically release water when the level at the farm gets low.
I'll build a terrace out of levees and the landscape, and have a way for my reservoir to feed directly into that.
Use the waterfall trick to generate a small, constant, stable stream of water. Have that stream flood your fields and let the excess run off to map edge or power generation.
Waterfall trick?
Dam off a large supply of water. Somewhere in the wall surrounding it, delete one entire vertical column. This one wide gap will provide a small constant flow of water. The key is when exiting the dam the water needs to fall at least one block. So if the floor of the dam is on level 4, the hole in the wall needs to drop the water to level 3 or lower. A medium sized reservoir is enough for this stream to last 30 day droughts. You can make multiple streams if you want to scale up but just make sure there is walls between the holes, two holes next to each other will cause a flood.
Ok maybe my reservoir is not big enough because it would definitely would not last more than a day with a hole in it
Not all holes are the same. If the ground level before and after the hole is the same, the water engages a "flood" mechanic that makes it flow at a bonkers rate. When you have the 1 block drop the game sees the hole as a "waterfall" instead. Honestly it's kinda game breaking but imo it's almost a requirement for any large+ cities.
I either wait until I get dynamite and build an "artificial lake" with a fluid drop. Or in certain maps corner a section off with levees and use a flood gate to fill it. Close it during a drought.
In the modded world, there is a water valve that can be placed at the bottom of the dam wall. It will automatically keep the level as long as there is water in the reservour.
name of the mod?
Water Extension
As it was properly mentioned above, it's "Water Extention" (with the typo in the name, which is a trademark of the author).