Expert water distribution system design methodologies have recently challenged the performance of well-established metaheuristic approaches. By predetermining the pressure values of these systems, the design process has become almost straightforward in terms of a much reduced number of hydraulic simulations needed. However, these algorithms have only been used to solve the simplified least-cost problem. Moreover, they have been developed after the assumption that pressure distribution is sufficient to determine the hydraulic behavior of these systems. This article shows that flow values in looped networks cannot be completely determined by pressure and that these can also be assigned by the designer to follow different criteria. Three different methods were developed and tested showing how flow predetermination can be used to handle additional objectives such as network reliability.