Water mills.

It's been a long time since the last time i posted on this forum and today i come with an old question that i want to confirm if the answer to it has changed in the experimental builds. That being of watermills and their ability to accept either cells(filled) or raw water from pipes. I played around with the liquid pipes from thermal expansion so i know those don't work at least but is there any way to automatically fill watermills?

My assumption as of this moment is no. if that's still the case then what is the possibility of getting any new versions of the water mill, or a higher end hydro electric power? I wouldn't mind spending more or having to go deeper down the machine lines so that my dream of a hydro-electric dam which didn't produce less power then a same size solar farm into a reality.

Quote from SpwnX

It has never accepted piped water. You could automate water buckets, but its not worth.

yes i'm aware they never had in the past, i was hoping it had changed. I'm not sure what you mean by automate water buckets, the block doesn't seem to support any kind of item pipes at least not with any of the current modpacks i've seen. I still think some attention should be given to the mechanics of hydropower especially since geothermal generators can receive piped liquid(which most people use with Endertanks from ender storage) and most modpacks include compact solars which allows people to make unrealistically small solar arrays..

Quote from ShneekeyTheLost

How about it requires being in a River biome, submerged, underwater at Y 50+, and gives bonus energy if it is on a significant drop?

if you're going to do that why not just replace the watermill with a multiblock part. Have it check to see if the following is true

A. Water intakes In a river biome
and
B. If water is present at intakes.

personally i've never liked the Manual mode (edit: or passive mode come to think of it) and have always wanted it tweaked or changed completely. The simple fact it used source water instead of flowing water has irked me, but i suppose you can't do much since all Rivers in minecraft are at sea level. I mean hydropower should be a gravity fed system after all.

Final post edit: I also like my industrial power supply to look industrial, I very much liked to use Water strainers when they where present in power converters because i could make them look like a proper bulky water turbine.

Quote from SirusKing

But a steep drop is very easy to make, and the water doesn't travel down it (because its infinite) so making it check for waterfalls for an energy boost wouldnt really make much sense if the water isnt moving from its place.

i definitely like the idea of a tidal generator but think that it should be a level 2 hydro solution. I mean until fairly recently using the power of sea currents and tides just has been fairly expensive. I think if such a power source was added to IC that it should reflect that cost at least in energy. Perhaps have it require carbon-fiber In their construction which would put it as a mid level ic2 power supply just a step beyond solar and able to produce a similar amount over a minecraft day (including night) with production peaks at dusk/dawn?

at least that's my 2 cents for this round of posting