Probably Stolen - Cyberpunk Shopkeeper Sim: Water Trading Made Easy

Steam Community guide by Owlie.

Changes since the Demo

I'm just as shellshocked with the new mechanics so help me get through this together

• Filters no longer remove microbes. Use of purification pills and UV lamps are now essential in achieving high-quality water
• Purification pill has been buffed and can reduce chemical contaminant down to 0.71%
• Couple of new water trader equipments like the massive 20L water tank (expandable) and a some kind of water purifier that uses heat treatment. I assume this one can produce pure water more consistently
• Powerbloc no longer goes to inventory slots. Watch out with that
• Moisture farms has been nerfed heavily. Price raised to 650 350 Creds, now uses 6 kwh per day, produces only 850ml each night, and they loses effectiveness the more farms you have. This kinda make rustwater purification a much more enticing leap
• There was a slight update to water purifier machine. Its cycle now stops at certain purity level rather than having a soft cap

Brief introduction

Water trading is the most foolproof way to make a lot of money in this game. It's probably the most consistent and lack the amount of micromanagement that the other starting class has.
This guide explains the process and tricks of the trade in the simplest way possible

How to Sell Water

I am genuinely questioning your ability to follow this tutorial if you had to ask

How to Test Water

Water trader start will give you a bottle of testing strips. Open it up to reveal the content. The way you test water is by dragging the strips into the container full of water. It will explain the purity % of the water which will affect the price of the water and the people willing to buy it

• Sometimes, I try to pool all of my water inside a 6L Jugs and test it all at once. It saves up on water testing strips
  

How to Buy Water (and not get scammed)

Buying water is an important way to supplant the early part of water trading. One thing to consider is that water seller mislabels their products very often. If you have extra strips, use it to test every bottle they want to sell to you. Finding out scams will net you with reduced price and a discount on top of it.

• Sometimes you can see scams at a glance.
  
  Water that looks darker than usual are of ghostwater quality or worse. If they are labeled as basewater, then it has been mislabeled, and you should call out the seller

How to Scam People (Totally optional btw)

You can "upgrade" your water from ghostwater to basewater and from basewater to high-quality
At the early game, most customer wouldn't know better, and even if they caught ya; Just say oopsie! Then change it back to basewater. Some customer do warn you that they have tester strips and water buyer attracted by display will always bring a testing kit so be careful.
Just be mindful that at some point, people are going to caught on and you'll get some kind of late-term consequence. Usually happen once certain volume of mislabeled water has been sold. I usually started getting called out after selling around 100L or more of this way

Basic Water Trading - Filtration

From the start, you are given everything needed to start making profit on water. Here is a written step by step if the image example wasn't enough

• Drop a water purification pill into a container of water
• Put a water filter on the water pitcher
• Put unfiltered water into the water pitcher
• Put the filtered water from the pitcher into another container
• Using the 6L jug saves up on pills and testing kits since you only need to use it twiceYou typically do not need to check on the water quality unless you're buying from someone, because if done right; 90% of the time, you will produce high-quality water as a result (and even if it's not, we can just insist that it is and just start scamming)
• You can use labeler to change the label into high-quality without needing to test
  Remember, the aim at this level is to turn ghostwater and basewater into high-quality or to turn basewater into high-quality
  What **NOT **to do
• Don't sell the water jug you start with. It will be quite some times before you find traders that will sell you jugs
• Don't hoard too much water bottles. They takes up space so fast
• Don't try to produce pure water at this stage of the game
• Don't buy large quantity of water (2L bottles for example) without testing it
• Don't buy rustwater or gutterflow. (At least not without the proper equipment to improve it)
  What to do
• Do keep one or two spare water filter
• Do put up as much of your water on display so buyer will come
• Do save up credits to buy moisture farm and batteries in day 3, or if you can't then check out doc jackson's or wait till next wednesday I TAKE IT BACK! DO NOT BUY A MOISUTRE FARM. GET A PURIFIER OR THE ADVANCED FILTER

Common Issues

I followed the steps, but I failed to make high-quality water
Please check the durability of your filter inside the water pitcher. If it is at 0/400, replace the filter and do process again.
The filter is not broken

Did you skip the softening process? maybe there are remaining microbial contaminant. I learned it the hard way that filters cannot remove them. Use water purification pills or UV lamps to deal with those.
I used the water purification pills, but the water is still not high-quality
If the water testing strip show that it's only between 98% to 99%. I recommend diluting the basewater with equal amount of high-quality water. Dilution will be explained further down below.

• You start with a Hydratech purifier. Using this on ghostwater can lead to high-quality water with significantly higher purity, which is good for diluting
  But I have no high-quality to dilute with
  Then there is nothing more you can do for the moment. You'll learn soon why further down this guide
  

Intermediate Water Trading - Softening and Purifier

• Note from the author: Okay, so I went from the demo to the full game, looking for changes on water farm. I know it's getting nerfed, I expect it to go from overpowered, to decent, but turns out moisture farms are absolute GUTTED. I do not recommend buying it. I will update this chapter with a new scheme. Please give it a day or two

Softening

Once your farms start producing more than 4L of water each day, water filters becomes a bottleneck. Softening is an intermediary step to reduce the durability loss on water filter. Below are explanations for tools that helps this
Name Explanation

Water Purification tablet Remove all microbial contaminant and reduce chemical contaminant down to 0.71%. Each tablet will remove 80ml of contaminants. It will always try to remove all the chemical contaminant it can first before moving down to the microbial contaminants

Kotton Fabric An overlooked alternative to water filter. Kotton fabric removes only the soluble material, usually ones obtained from blending. Water from gutterflow tap are NOT affected by this. It is typically used for chemistry, and not the usual water trade

UV Lamp Remove all microbial contaminants. Having this will save up some tablets, but won't make that redunant.

HydraTech Water Purifier Removes all contaminant equally up to basewater quality. In some cases, it works on water that wouldn't otherwise be able to be made into high-quality

Water Purifier Slightly reduce all contaminant overnight. Works best with heavily contaminated water.

Heating Plate A device that comes free with the chemist profession. It has a rather obscure function of removing microbial and organic contaminant when water is heated between 60 to 100 degree, however, going above that will risk boiling away the water instead

Rustwater Purification

The next challenge is to process rustwater into high-quality water. This is quite challenging to comprehend so pay attention on this.

• Thanks to water purification tablet buff, water purifier has been elevated as the main modus of high-quality water production production
  
  In order to begin, you need:
• Rustwater on tap: This mr. wild upgrade costs 550 worth of favors and credits, but it's optional. You can just work on other types of water sold by merchants while you save up for this (or pick up the new perk that lets you start with this fully upgraded)
• Water purifier machine. Cost 345 if bought from retired merchant, 375 if bought from Doc Jackson.
• Batteries, though you can start by taking off the battery from the bottle printer.
• 2L bottle, or more preferably; The 6L jug that you start with
• Water purification tablets.
  Step 1: Soften the amount of contaminant by using the tablets. 1 for 2L bottle, 2 for 6L jugs
  -----Optional: Run it through UV lamp prior to using the purifier machine if you have one
  Step 2: Put the container in a powered water purifier machine, leave it overnight
  Step 3: Leave the machine for 1-2 nights if it's 2L or 3 nights if it's 6L
  Step 4: Take out the water and put it through a pitcher with water filter
  Step 5: This should result in high-quality, but run it through testing just to be sure
  ------Not pure enough?: If the result is basewater, put another tablet in or run it through UV. If it's still not good enough, simply put it on the purifier machine for one more night.
  
  !!! This table has been recently updated for newly updated purifier mechanic !!!
  !!! Please read this if you haven't
• Tested with unmodified water purifier and 6L of rustwater + 2 purification tablet for softening
  Initial 95.50% purity Heavy and Chemical = 0.91 + 0.72 1 Night 97.00% purity (+1.50%) Heavy and Chemical = 0.91 + 0.72 2 Nights 98.15% purity (+1.15%) Heavy and Chemical = 0.91 + 0.72 3 Nights 99.00% purity (+0.85%) Heavy and Chemical = 0.28 + 0.72
  New Observation: Water purifier will instead use the current purity as a basis for the rate of purification rather than looking at the contaminant present. It will start by removing every contaminant except for heavy metal and chemical, then it will remove heavy metal before chemical. Leaving it at the purifier's limit. This does mean that you'll always end up with some chemical contamination.

Advanced Water Trading - Dilution and Display

Water Dilution

As mentioned before. Dilution is a way to increase the volume of high-quality water by mixing it with lower quality basewater that cannot be filtered further. The reason why will be elaborated in the next chapter, but for now, all you need to know is the math.

The goal of getting high-quality water is 99.00% purity. Any percentage above it does not alter the sale value of the water. If you test your high-quality water, it will show amount of let's say 98.31%. This means it has an extra 0.31% of excess purity ready to be diluted down.
So if you have 1L of high-quality water with 99.50% purity and 1L of basewater with 98.50% purity, diluting both water together will result in 2L of 99.00% high-quality water.
I will explain it again with pictures for clarification.
Pic.1: Shows 450ml of basewater with 98% purity
Pic.2: Shows 1800ml of high-quality water with 99.36% purity (filter removed)
Pic.3: Shows result of combining both. Resulting in 2250ml of 99.11% purity
What is calculated is the distance from 99% purity which is exactly 1%. Because the volume of the first one has 1/4th difference, this means each dilution takes away exactly 0.25% purity.

• If you by a miracle, came upon volumes of pure water, I would recommend using it to dilute more high-quality water. Value-wise, it is the most optimal use for it

Attracting upper class buyers

• Having total value of over 300 (350 as I was told) adds a chance for water hoarder from the upper level to come. You can easily reach this by displaying a full 6L jug of high-quality waterThe chance for them to come is affected by the day progression. They will not appear in the first two week of the run. Store appearance and the total value of display will increase the chance of them appearing.
  The amount of credits they have is affected by store appearance perks. Maxing out at 900 beauty for example increases their budget by 100%. Other than that, giving discounts also raises their budget
  Water hoarder will also start giving 15% tip once you have 20 Reputation among the Upper Level
  
  Springwater A recommended way to get to this is to simply put up a springwater for sale. Eleanor will come by to pawn off her stuff at the third week. Do not sell the springwater. It will be important in attracting high level water merchants
  
  6L Jug A primary reason why it's important to attract water hoarders is due to the fact that this is the only way you can get more water jugs. They always come with one empty jug for sale

Expert Water Trading - Contamination and Alternative

Aquascan The following step require Aquascan device which are able to analyze different contaminants within a water. I recommend buying this from Doc Jackson whenever there is a household goods surplus which will reduce the price of this device.

Composition Spectrometer This is an upgrade of the aquascan that comes for free with the chemist profession/wild upgrade. For water trading, this is functionally the same

Chemical and Heavy Metal contaminant

These are the contaminant that water filter cannot remove. It's why some water just stops at basewater level even after proper filtration.
Using aquascan to analyze filtered water will show that there are remnant of both contaminant totals to just slightly above 1%, resulting in basewater. Dilution can deal with this issue, but if the unfilterable contaminants are too high, a more elaborate process will be required.

Alternative Rustwater processing

• Just to start with, don't forget to purchase both of Wild's water tap upgrade to collect infinite amount of rustwater.
  ------Step 1: Treatment
  The first step is to use water purification tablet. Only 2 tablet is needed for a full 6L jug. This step is looks optional, but skipping this will make the next steps take 4 times as long.
  ----------------Step 2: Softening
  If step 1 was skipped, I recommend using UV lamp to at least take away the microbial contaminant.
  Beside that is the use of Hydratech water purifier. If you have that machine, you probably wouldn't need to do the steps below this to turn rustwater into high-quality water.
  -----------------------------Step 3: Purification
  
  Gutter Tilapia
  This is the organic method of removing large volume chemical and heavy metal contaminant. The more fish present, the faster it will happen. Additionally, since sewer tilapia thrive in any condition so you don't even need to put filter in the fish tank.
• A good practice is to put the output into a water purifier first to soften it
  This test was done with 12L fish tank full of rustwater + 5 Tablets was used. There were 6 Adult Gutter Tilapia (Age 12) in the tank
  Initial Heavy Metal + Chemical = 0.92 + 0.71 Night 1 H + C = 0.79 (-0.13%) + 0.57 (-0.13%) Night 2 H + C = 0.65 (-0.14%) + 0.43 (-0.14%) Night 3 H + C = 0.50 (-0.15%) + 0.28 (-0.15%) --- High quality ready Night 4 H + C = 0.34 (-0.16%) + 0.15 (-0.13%) --- Fish becomes eldery Night 5 H + C = 0.24 (-0.10%) + 0.15 (-0.00%) --- Seems to be the softcap Night 6 H + C = 0.24 (-0.0%) + 0.15 (-0.00%) --- This appear to be the hardcap
  Assessment: The rate which they remove contaminants grow. It appears to be based on the total weight of the tilapias, and I do think that high-quality is the upper limit for them
  
  Hydroreed
  Hydroweed appears as an inferior, but very consistent alternative to rustwater processing. Unlike with tilapia, it's a lot less resource intensive. Since rustwater is heavily contaminated, it should already contain the minerals needed to maintain it.
  This here is a test on purification. It uses 6L of rustwater straight from tap + 2 purification tablets
  Initial Heavy Metal + Chemical = 0.89 + 0.71 Night 1 H + C = 0.64 (-0.25%) + 0.51 (-0.20%) Night 2 H + C = 0.46 (-0.18%) + 0.37 (-0.14%) --- High-quality ready Night 3 H + C = 0.33 (-0.13%) + 0.26 (-0.11%) Night 4 H + C = 0.24 (-0.09%) + 0.19 (-0.07%) Night 5 H + C = 0.17 (-0.07%) + 0.13 (-0.06%) Night 6 H + C = 0.12 (-0.05%) + 0.10 (-0.03%) <--- Plateaus at 98% total Assessment: All three method; Purifier, Gutter Tilapia, and Hydroweed seems to be balanced to function at the same rate. It equally removes all contaminant in the water rather than being selective
  Playing with genetics
• My personal favorite is perennial trait from the bloomberry. It makes it so you only need to plant it once and it becomes permanent growth until you cut it down with a hatchet
  -------------------------------------Step 4: Filtering
  Once the amount of unfilterable contaminant is at a safe level, bring it out to the water pitcher for filtering
  ----------------------------------------------------Bonus Step: Dilution
  You don't need to have both unfilterable contaminant to be exactly at above 1% to be ready for filtering. With your moisture farm running, you should have plenty of high-quality water ready for diluting. A calculated use of this can save up one or two days of purification