Factorio Forums

It seems that pollution generation is directly proportional to energy consumption (putting in modules which reduce power usage reduce pollution creation, putting in modules that increase power usage increase pollution generation)

But... If I were to say, starve my factory of power, would that have the same effect of reducing the pollution generation rate per time? If I run my factory at half power, did i half my pollution generation rate? (at the cost of speed, of course).

Also, if an assembler is not running, because say, it is backlogged, or it is starved of resources, does it still produce pollution?

Thanks!

pbhead wrote:It seems that pollution generation is directly proportional to energy consumption

I'm afraid you are incorrect with that assumption. Check pic below and you will see that each machine is different pollution level, and the one using the most energy actually makes the least pollution!

pbhead wrote:(putting in modules which reduce power usage reduce pollution creation, putting in modules that increase power usage increase pollution generation)

As far as I am aware the only module that increases pollution is productivity module, and none reduce.

pbhead wrote:But... If I were to say, starve my factory of power, would that have the same effect of reducing the pollution generation rate per time? If I run my factory at half power, did i half my pollution generation rate? (at the cost of speed, of course).

I am not 100% sure on this but I would say no.

pbhead wrote:Also, if an assembler is not running, because say, it is backlogged, or it is starved of resources, does it still produce pollution?

Thanks!

As far as I am aware, machines only create pollution when they are operating normally. (ie not backlogged, not unpowered)

Hope that helps.

FishSandwich wrote: As far as I am aware the only module that increases pollution is productivity module, and none reduce.

All modules affect pollution. You can easily see this by mousing over a "moduled" building.
The "pollution" modifier from productivity modules is a multiplier. I've suggested to rename it to "pollution multiplier" for clarity, but it was dropped for some reason.

Pollution formula from buildings with modules is (energy usage/base energy)*(base pollution)*(pollution multiplier). Fully efficient buildings with no productivity therefore will produce only 20% of original pollution.
This formula probably also works for badly powered and idle buildings, but I can't say for sure. Since idle (for any reason) buildings consume very little energy, their pollution should be insignificant.

Coolthulhu wrote:

FishSandwich wrote: As far as I am aware the only module that increases pollution is productivity module, and none reduce.

All modules affect pollution. You can easily see this by mousing over a "moduled" building.
The "pollution" modifier from productivity modules is a multiplier. I've suggested to rename it to "pollution multiplier" for clarity, but it was dropped for some reason.

Ahhh fair enough. I was going by the tooltips. I do often forget that this game is alpha and still has many secrets that aren't completely obvious to the player. :p

FishSandwich wrote:

Coolthulhu wrote:

FishSandwich wrote: As far as I am aware the only module that increases pollution is productivity module, and none reduce.

All modules affect pollution. You can easily see this by mousing over a "moduled" building.
The "pollution" modifier from productivity modules is a multiplier. I've suggested to rename it to "pollution multiplier" for clarity, but it was dropped for some reason.

Ahhh fair enough. I was going by the tooltips. I do often forget that this game is alpha and still has many secrets that aren't completely obvious to the player. :p

It seems someone else corrected you before I did, but I was only comparing apples to apples, not apples to oranges with respect to pollution generation rates. Hence the clarifying parenthetical statement not even separated from the previous statement by a period, which you so nicely sliced off from the block of text.

Reminds me of a few particular miss-translations of political documents by the same error.

My apologies.

FishSandwich wrote:My apologies.

apology accepted.

time to check out your youtube videos i think.

Could it be that machines produce the said amount of pollution per unit produced?
So, whenever your assembly machine crafts one item, it spits out ~3 pollution, same goes for the chemical plant, mining drills, etc.

That way, if you starve your machines of energy they will produce items more slowly, thus producing pollution more slowly, too. That allows the pollution to dissipate into surrounding forests, etc. more easily, so it would decrease the radius of smudge floating around your factory.

(energy usage/base energy)*(base pollution)*(pollution multiplier)

This is it.
Production module adds to the energy usage and pollutionmultiplier at the same time. That is why it makes the pollution so high.