Solar stills as an intermediate water option

The Problem:
There is a steep gradient between rainwater harvesters (no ongoing resource investment, high land usage) and thermal desalinators (relatively compact, high energy and resource investment). This tends to lead to powergamers spamming rainwater harvesters and other players spending a good chunk of their resources on thermal desalination.

Solar stills provide an intermediate option. These are essentially evaporation ponds with a roof on top to collect the water vapor.

See attached spreadsheet for numbercrunching. If evaporation ponds added the following recipes, they be a somewhat-too-good intermediate (too compact by roughly 3x, should consume 1.5-2x more power). Workers and maintenance are reasonable as-is.

Unheated: 45 saltwater -> 24 brine + 21 water. Heated: 90 seawater -> 48 brine + 42 water.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r90awh95bug2lat/CoI-Desalination.xlsx?dl=0

One other option is to produce depleted steam rather than water.