Pollution confusion.

[waitofaiorur]

So... Doing a few achievements, namely raining bullets and logistics embargo. In a death world marathon for good measure
Found a great tip on reddit about defending your pollution-cloud and not your base, which makes total sense.

Now for the confusion part...

After seeing a detailed explanation on YouTube by the excellent Xterminator, I thought I had it all figured out.
My assumption: Pollution for an entity is a fixed value + an indirect value caused by power-consumption.

After some reading about efficiency modules I summarised the consensus to be that level 1 modules is worth it, but level 2/3 is a waste of time (which kind of sounds like a gameplay mechanic with room for improvement, but one thing at a time).

My early base was coal-powered so I quickly stuffed everything I could with level-1 modules. Less pollution. Good times!
Of course not everything supports modules and coal is a finite resource, so later I moved to solar only.

Now for the actual confusion... You confused yet? No? Good!

GUI says for an electric miner that pollution is 10/min. Stuff it with three level 1 efficiency modules, it now reports a pollution of 2/min.
Stuff it with level 2 modules instead, nope, still 2 per minute. I'm all about solar at this point, so efficiency modules shouldn't really do anything... but...

Also the pollution-production graphs still says 10/min per electric miner. (It also shows evolution-level which supposedly is a cheat? Yeah... lets put a pin in that.)

Now for the total confusion.

My assembly-level 2 machines reports a pollution of 3/min. Enter level 1 efficiency modules, it is now 1,2 per minute.
Stuff it with level 2 efficiency modules, contrary to electric miners, it now reports a pollution of 0,6 per minute.

But... it only reduces power usage... and I'm on solar... and what's the point of efficiency modules then... and life... and help?

[Wisey]

Efficiency modules cap out at 80% reduction

[eradicator]

Efficiency modules cap out at 80% reduction

Not quite. Machines consume a minimum of 20% of their original consumption. If a machine has more than 100% consumption from speed/productivity modules you can still reduce it to 20% - and that's about the only edge-usecase for higher tier efficiency modules.

But... it only reduces power usage... and I'm on solar... and what's the point of efficiency modules then... and life... and help?

Depends on what's cheaper in material and time to deploy. Also some recipes don't support productivity modules, so might as well fill the slots with something else.

[darkfrei]

It would be nice if the pollution can be reduced by 33.126%, that the pollution production is about 66.87% with one best module.
Two modules have 44.72% of start pollution, three of them makes only 30% and fourth of them gives just only 20 % pollution. In vanilla.

By the mod every next module makes the production smaller, but the result will be done as exponent.
5 modules and 13.37% pollution, 6 modules and 8.94%. Never 0% pollution, but limitless pollution reducing.

[Xeorm]

So, pollution generated is base value * energy efficiency rating * pollution rating. Both ratings can only go up to 20%, so the max you can do with the base items is 2/m for miners. (10 * .2 = 2). Similarly a level 2 machine that generates 3/min is 3 * .2 = .6/m.

The pollution production graph is...weird to say the least. The values presented as far as I can see for pollution/min is correct, but the number of items is weird. I wouldn't worry too much about it. As well, seeing the current evolution value is not actually cheating. It's one of the console commands you can do any time you like, without triggering cheat conditions. Can keep achievements and all that. So reporting it like it does is nice.

For usage though? Don't underestimate them. Miners require 90kw, so 30% is ~30kw. A solar panel gives ~42kw, while costing similar-ish resources. As long as pollution matters at all, this becomes a fairly good deal. Not to mention the space savings. AM 2s it's an even better deal, if you're not using productivity modules in them.

[waitofaiorur]

Thanks for all your answers. Everything makes sense again, for the most part

Regarding the evolution factor I could've sworn I saw someone asking about a savegame achievement-reset due to using the console command, but I probably have it mixed up with some other command.

What about machines idling? Do idle electric miners produce 10/min?
Do machines without power still pollute?

[Xeorm]

Thanks for all your answers. Everything makes sense again, for the most part

Regarding the evolution factor I could've sworn I saw someone asking about a savegame achievement-reset due to using the console command, but I probably have it mixed up with some other command.

What about machines idling? Do idle electric miners produce 10/min?
Do machines without power still pollute?

Probably mixed it up. All the commands that nuke achievements start with /c. /evolution is its own command.

If they're not doing anything they don't pollute.

[Teridus]

The pollution production graph is...weird to say the least. The values presented as far as I can see for pollution/min is correct, but the number of items is weird.

Afaik - It is not the number of items, but the absolute amount of pollution - in the selected timeframe- emitted by that itemtype.