Pumping septic tanks

Pumping septic tanks
Release date	11 October 2016
Task	Pump the five septic tanks around Alivieska
Job giver	Various
Repeatable?	Yes
Requiredequipment	Gifu
Payment	1,200 mk per septic tank

The player can pump septic tanks with the Gifu, a vacuum truck that is located near the woodshed along with the tractor and flatbed. Its primary use is pumping raw sewage from people's homes around the map.

Getting a pump job

A pump job can be started after one of the owners has called the player's phone and requested their septic tank to be emptied. After the call, the location will be marked with a dart on the map above the phone. Do not confuse it with the dart that marks firewood delivery, they are the same colour. Multiple septic tank jobs may be marked on the map at the same time.

Doing the pump job

Upon arriving at a customer's house and backing up the truck close to the tank; walk behind the truck and pull the lid off the well—it's a white cement-coloured circle with a square lid. Click the hose on the right side of the truck; it should fall off. Drop the hose fully down the well, avoiding kinks, go back inside the cabin, and turn on the hydraulic pump. After pumping approximately 2,500 L (quarter of the truck's tank), which takes about one and a half minutes, the man sitting nearby should start talking and hand out some money—1,200 mk to be exact. 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.

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 cap can be reattached to the sewage inlet even though an indicator 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.

Sometimes a well will be full but the owner hasn't called about it yet. They will still pay for pumping their waste as long as the well is full and the waste level is decreasing steadily rather than incrementally. Check the wells on other houses while waiting for the poop to be siphoned.

The truck can hold 10,000 litres of waste, or four houses' worth. The waste must be dumped at the wastewater treatment plant in Peräjärvi. Dumping waste illegally will result in a fine, delivered to the mail box at home. The value of the fine is derived from a combination of the amount of waste dumped and the player's earnings. If the waste is not dumped, 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 and Fleetari's gratitude (though neither of which are likely to be perceived as being worth the cost of the fine).

General strategy

A general strategy for pumping all of the septic tanks is to first load the truck with a beer case, a few sausages or some other food items (sausages are the most hunger-efficient food), and the moped. Wait until it's early morning on a weekday (Mon-Fri), somewhere around 04:00. Enter the truck and keep it in the high gear range, leave the rear axle lifted as well to conserve fuel.

Drive the truck to the first septic tank near the dirt crossroads (the most southeastern tank on the map). Leave the moped on the ground near the house and complete the pumping job, get back in to the truck and enter the highway. Drive anticlockwise on the road for a while and take the first exit on the left; it leads to Loppe. Pump both of the septic tanks there and lower the rear axle. Get back on to the highway, keep driving anticlockwise, and take the next exit on the left to Peräjärvi. Pump one of the tanks there.

After the fourth septic tank has been pumped, drive to the wastewater treatment plant. Enter the office and pay the disposal fee by clicking on the cash register (wait until the man has finished talking for the payment prompt to appear). Get back inside the truck and back it up inside the hall until the rear wheels are almost on the grating. Walk to the rear of the truck and open the spill valve, wait for the waste to spray out, then close the valve. Walk back to the cabin and drive to the last remaining septic tank. Once the final tank has been emptied, drive back to the treatment plant and repeat the above process.

Now that all of the septic tanks have been emptied, drive to Teimo's Shop to refuel. If done efficiently, the truck will only need around 100 litres of diesel, which costs about 400 mk. Once the fuel has been paid for at the counter, enter the highway again and drive anticlockwise once more, take the second exit on the left (the first one leads to Rykipohja), and park the truck by the first septic tank that was emptied. Use the moped to drive back home, and drive back to the truck with any vehicle once all of the septic tanks are full again.

This process will take about one hour if done without hassle, and will net about 3,900 mk. Each septic tank is worth 1,200 mk (6,000 in total), the sewage disposal fees will be around 1,700 mk, and refueling will cost around 400 mk.

Tips

• The septic tanks can be fallen into, killing the player via drowning in the most disgusting way possible.
• 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 wonky 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 left of the coupler (where the hose attaches to the truck). Eventually a "Put hose away" prompt will appear, click it to to secure the hose in place.
• Try to find an easy approach to the septic tanks with the truck. Long complex parking jobs eat fuel.
• If the lorry 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, carefully back the truck closer to the well and make sure the hose goes all the way to the bottom.