Phantom Water Pump Facts in SimCity 2000

Contributor/author(s): Wren Weburg

One way to steer around the water issue is to build a so-called "phantom water pump" by placing a single pump in your city, and connecting it to power, but NOT connecting any pipes to your city. While this does remove all the water shortage messages, it does not benefit your city with water in any way. Allow me to explain.

The city's water graph works a little differently than most people think. The percentage you see by selecting water in the graphs window shows what percentage of your pumps' output that's not being consumed by the water grid. So, when your your water graph shows 100, it means 100% of your city's water output is not being used since the water grid is full and doesn't need it. If it drops to 80, then your city is using 20% of the pumps' output, and 80% isn't being used. In the same respect, if it drops to 0%, then 0% of your pumps' output isn't being used--all of it is being consumed. When you use the phantom pump method, that one pump is merely reporting that 100% of its water is going unused, and is exactly the same as having no pumps at all. This does, however, trick the simulator into not reporting water shortages, which may make some people happy.

See also
SimCity 2000 Water Model Facts