Petition to bring the water back!

Fair enough, thanks for the response!

...seriously though, thank you for the thorough response! It's nice to know what's not possible so we can focus on what is.

Query:

Why can't the old system be reimplemented.

It worked fine then, the average between the warter at its highest and lowest points were shallows that functioned as solid ground pathwise. So it was only a visual improvement, but it was a nice visual feature to have.
Are there any constraints that would prevent it from working again?

Planets currently feel a bit "dead-ish", they lack a bit of life. Bubbly lava and water that is more than an animated texture map might provide a bit more character.

They were removed because it was against WYSIWG. You couldn't tell what was pathable and what was not due to the rise and fall.

Notice: Even Supcom and other such strategy games do not have waves/tides, most likely for similar reasons.

honestly that's the sadest excuse for a reason I ever heard. *WYSIWYG* can go stuff it. it's never satisfied. it's never enough. you can't trust someone like that.

no.

the engine wasn't flexible enough.

The principle is just miss-applied. The solution would have been to mark pathable areas with appropriate decals in the first place. Even now, you can't tell whether the water is deep enough for ships or shallow enough for vehicles. Only thing you can tell at all, is that any shore is blocked off for construction.

Visible water depth is just for visuals, it's not exactly readable either way in those shallow regions.

Btw.: All in favor of another change to water so submarines can work again: Rather than a smooth tinting of deep water better a steep step as soon as the water would be deep enough for submarines. Not exactly realistic, but that was never the goal for PA, was it?

Naval in and of itself is still woefully inadequate. I miss my strat subs...