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Guide_-_Pumping_septic_tanks

Guide - Pumping septic tanks

Video guide on how to do this job

Septic tanks map

Map of the septic tanks locations

The player can pump septic tanks with the Gifu, a vacuum truck that is located outside the sewage plant in Peräjärvi. You will need to obtain the keys from Uncle Kesseli at his house before being able to drive it. Its primary use is pumping raw sewage from people's homes around the map.

Getting a pump job[]

A pump job can be started when one of the owners calls the player and requests that they empty it. After answering the call, the location will be marked with a dart on the map above the phone. Up to five septic tank jobs may be marked on the map at the same time. If the phone call was not answered, the job will not be available and pumping the waste will give no benefits.

Doing the pump job[]

Back up the truck to the septic tank to where the truck is 1-1.5 meters (3-4 feet) away. Walk behind the truck and pull the well cover off. Click on the hose on the right side of the truck and it should attach itself to the pumping valve. Place the hose inside the well with the first segment going into the well first, then turn on the hydraulic pump inside the truck. The hand throttle can be used to increase the rate at which sewage is pumped, which increases with revs. After pumping out 2250l of waste (maximum tank capacity is 2500 L), the owner will make a comment and pay 1,200 mk. Turn the pump off and take the money from his hand, pull the hose back out from the well, and reattach it to the side of the truck. Be careful not to walk too far away while waiting for the Gifu to pump, if you exit the loading range, the man will disappear and you will be unable to retrieve your hard-earned money.

The hose can be pulled out of the septic tank by driving the truck forwards, but it might tear off the hose. If that happens, do not worry; the hose coupler can be reattached to the sewage inlet even though a check mark icon Check mark icon does not appear. If the hose has fallen into the well completely and cannot be reached, it will respawn on the truck the next time the game is saved and reloaded. Pulling the hose up by hand is the safe option, but it might require some practice. Do it slowly and lay it on the ground (as opposed to dropping it) between pulls to minimize the chance of it falling back in.

The truck can hold 10000 liters of waste or just over four houses' worth. The waste must be dumped at the wastewater treatment plant in Peräjärvi. Dumping waste illegally will result in a fine (if the waste is found), delivered to the mailbox at home. The value of the fine is derived from a combination of the amount of waste dumped and the player's earnings (see below). Fleetari will eventually give the player a call and ask him to do some vandalism. This still counts as illegal dumping and a fine will still be levied, but the player will earn some booze, Fleetari's gratitude and an increase in his discount from 10% off to 40% off (which may or may not be worth it, depending on how much the player has earned so far and how much work they plan to have done on their car).

Gifu economics[]

There are 5 septic tanks in the game. Slowly they fill with waste. This filling speed is not a constant, so they never become full simultaneously and it's impossible to guess which of them become filled up first (if you have emptied them previously at about the same time). It usually takes about a work-week for them all to become full. Owners start to call you when waste level reaches 2450 L mark. As soon as you answer the call, waste flow will stop. Don't worry, if you ignore the call tank won't overflow. In fact, its waste level will never reach its full 2500 L capacity and, until you answer the call, waste level will fluctuate between 2450-2460 liters.

Interesting thing is that you can't fully empty any of the tanks, presumably because some of the waste has solidified and can't be pumped. Waste level will stop lowering at around 50 L mark no matter how hard you throttle. This yields you about 2400 L of waste per septic tank if you pump it out completely. As was mentioned above, tank owner will thank you and hand out the money as soon as you lower his waste level to 250 L mark. You can stop right away, without emptying the tank completely, and take the money. If you decide to stop at this moment, depending on your reaction time and pump speed, this will on average lower pumped waste amount to about 2300 L per tank (or even less if you are really that good). Payment will stay the same, no matter what.

Dumping waste at the treatment plant costs money: 1 mk for every 7 liters, but no less than 150 mk. I.e. you can't pay less than 150 mk, even if you dump just 1 liter. This means that it's in your best interest to hit pump switch as soon as possible because you will pay less at the plant increasing your profits.

Because Gifu has a terrible fuel consumption (about 10 times worse than Hayosiko) and emptying all the tanks involves traveling to Peräjärvi and back, stopping and maneuvering at treatment plant and every tank (and don't forget fuel spent while pumping), fuel costs become non-negligible expense for this job.

First of all, to minimize the costs, use fuel oil instead of diesel - on the average, fuel oil price is 4/7 diesel price. The only drawback is that you will be fined for using fuel oil while driving on the highway, but you don't actually need the highway for this job (see the optimal route below). Second, don't park your Gifu at home. Park it near one of the septic tanks and drive there and back on Hayosiko or Jonnez which have better fuel economy. Third, try to drive on the higher gears (4H and up) as much as possible, downshifting as needed to climb a few steep hills. By keeping Gifu in the high range you lower its fuel consumption.

Fuel-wise, this is the optimal route for doing 5-tank run:

  • Your run starts with a septic tank at south-eastern corner of the map, the one at the house near highway intersection. If you have already done this route, your Gifu will be waiting for you here ready to pump the tank. Get to this tank from your home on Hayosiko or Jonnez and leave it here. There is a water well near the house if you need it.
  • From here drive to Loppe, pump two tanks. Use the dirt road - it's the shortest path to Loppe and will use less fuel. You can use Fleetari's outhouse to save your progress, and the water well near the mansion to quench your thirst if you didn't take any other things to drink.
  • Then drive to Peräjärvi and pump one of the tanks there. Again, use the dirt road. At this point your Gifu is (almost) full with crap, so it's the right moment to dump it at treatment plant. If it's too late, park it near the plant and go about your business - get drunk at Pub Nappo, kick some ass, mess with Petteri and Jani, you know the drill. It's a good moment to save the game at outhouse behind the shop. You can sleep at the backseat of your Gifu.
  • After dumping the waste from the first four tanks, pump the last one and dump the waste again at the plant. Now go to Teimo's and fill Gifu up to the brim with fuel oil. Fill the truck with diesel if you are planning on taking the truck on the highway. Otherwise filling with fuel oil is the most cost effective method, if you stay on the dirt roads. You will also earn more proffit as a large chunk of the earnings go to fuel expenses.
  • Time to get back to the first tank at south-eastern corner. It may be tempting to use highway, but you'll use less fuel if you take dirt roads. Park Gifu at this tank like your are about to pump it and keep Gifu there till the next run. It's the closest septic tank to the player's home and it's very easy to park Gifu at this tank without any maneuvering when driving from north. Take whatever vehicle you've left there previously and drive it back home.
  • Try to avoid slowing down (getting up to speed uses lots of fuel compared to maintaining speed so don't go faster than you need to) and shift into 6-high to cruise. It will use the least fuel if you do it right and drive economically.

This whole route, if done properly, takes a little more than 1/4 of Gifu's 300 L fuel tank. When first receiving a Gifu keys from your uncle, Gifu will be parked at treatment plant with about 3/8 of a fuel tank. You can get to it on Jonnez, which you will then store in its cabin till the end of the route and use it to drive back home.

Now, if you have already done above route before, your profits will be 4100-4200 mk from each run. Assuming that you tried to pump as little as possible from each well and followed fuel saving tips above. While on this route you may do other activities like taking engine parts and wheels to and back from Fleetari, shopping at Teimo's or collecting your mail orders. You can even try to do advertisment job for Teimo while at Peräjärvi - there are 13 mailboxes here or you can bring Jonnez with you to go around all of them. Plan these activities beforehand because you may need Hayosiko to haul all the stuff to and from Gifu. It's advisable not to start this route on Friday, because it usually takes more then one day to finish it and treatment plant is closed on weekends (and there is a rally going on). Because the route takes such a long time to finish, it's also a good idea to keep a beer case and some food inside the Gifu's cabin, make sure it doesn't spoil - food can still spoil in the shopping bag so bringing food that doesn't spoil such as potato chips is recommended.

Of course you are welcome to modify above route however you like to suit your immediate needs, e.g. by taking a detour to visit your grandma or tow a wrecked car on the way to Fleetari, but this will lower your profits accordingly. Be creative.

Waste crime[]

If you are feeling good (or Fleetari asked you a favour) you can dump the crap wherever you want. If you are seen dumping waste by any character, you will receive a fine in your mailbox. This is a fine for your crimes (humorously named shitcrime internally). If you don't pay it immediately when you get it from mail box or ignore it for some time, it will be added to a pile of other unpaid fines on your kitchen table.

You get a one day-fine for every 400 liters of inappropriately dumped waste. When expelling waste out of your Gifu's tank, you can notice that waste stream is not continuous and pauses sometimes. This is because waste is expelled in a batches of 2400-2410 liters. Even if there is not enough waste remaining for a full batch or you close the valve earlier - Gifu's tank will still expel a full batch, creating waste out of thin air if needed. This means you'll get at least 6 day-fines, because you will expel at least one batch. And the maximum (for an episode) is 30 day-fines for emptying a Gifu filled up with crap to the brim, because 10000 L of stored waste results in five batches of expelled waste. And of course these episodes will stack up to create even more day-fines if your continue to misbehave this way.

Tips[]

  • The septic tanks can be fallen into, killing the player via drowning in the most disgusting way possible.
  • Don't dump the sewage anywhere else than the wastewater treatment plant or you might be fined.
  • Lower the rear axle after pumping the 2nd tank and raise it when you empty the truck.
  • Do not save while the truck is pumping or you won't get paid for that septic tank.
  • If the level of sludge is not lowering steadily, but jumping from one level to the next, the owner will not pay for the job, as the septic tank wasn't completely full yet.
  • If pulling the hose out by hand, grab it and slowly start moving away from the well without stressing the tube too much. The physics engine is janky and if it moves too fast it will jiggle and the grip on the tube will be lost, making it fall down the well again. Pull the hose until the end can be grabbed, then drag the end of the hose to the base of the truck, just off to the right of the coupler (where the hose attaches to the truck). Eventually, a "Put hose away" prompt will appear, click it to secure the hose in place.
  • Try to find an easy approach to the septic tanks with the truck. Long complex parking jobs eat up fuel.
  • If the Gifu is parked too far from the well, the hose may not reach far enough down the well to get all the waste. If it's been more than two minutes and the owner hasn't said anything, check that sewage level really stopped lowering and carefully back the truck closer to the well making sure that hose goes all the way to the bottom.
  • Sometimes, if Gifu is parked too close to the well and there are more than enough of hose length in it, sewage won't pump even if pump is turned on and throttle is maxed out. In this case you should pull the hose out completely and reposition Gifu to be farther away from the well. After this, you can drop the hose back into the well and try again. Generally, when you dislodge the hose from the truck and it lands near the well cement top without covering it, you are good to go.


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