Eco-friendly gameplay: Is it even theoretically possible in Factorio?

[zOldBulldog]

Many people have tried to go green over the years.

After many tests and research I understand that it is not possible today to be fully ecologically friendly in your Factorio gameplay:

- You can reduce your pollution with Efficiency Modules and smart builds, but you can't really eliminate it.
- You can get mods that scrub pollution from the air, but the enemy will still evolve based on time and on your total pollution produced... even if you scrub it afterwards.

What I ask in this thread is whether it is even possible to achieve it without a change to the core game?

If a new mod tried to make Eco-Friendly gameplay possible, it would have to do the following:

- Eliminate evolution due to time.
- Eliminate evolution due to total pollution produced.
- Create evolution due to pollution reaching an enemy nest, and make it significant to ensure there is a strong incentive to completely avoid that situation (and probably a configurable option).
- Perhaps (not sure) increase the evolution factor caused by destroying nests (or better yet, make that factor a configurable option).
- Provide a number of alternative non-polluting techs, as well as techs to reduce (and even eliminate) the pollution impact of existing objects.

Of course, the key issue is whether those things are controllable by a mod or not. If they are, then this is possible and we can move the discussion to the mods subforum in the hope that someone will create such a mod (and no, the BioIndustries mod does not achieve this, I already checked). If they are not... maybe such things need to become mod-controllable.

[DerGraue]

viewtopic.php?f=91&t=13562&p

That is not everything on your wish list, but some of it:

"Terraforming Station – A radar-like building that slightly reduces the evolution each time a scan is completed."

[zOldBulldog]

viewtopic.php?f=91&t=13562&p

That is not everything on your wish list, but some of it:

"Terraforming Station – A radar-like building that slightly reduces the evolution each time a scan is completed."

Yep, close but no cigar. It seems more focused on penalizing pollution than in creating the possibility of zero pollution designs and penalizing only when pollution *reaches* the aliens.

[Ranakastrasz]

There was a mod that based evo factor on a few things, including time, enemy bases killed (Decaying over time) and current pollutiom via a logrithm. So cleaning up pollution had serious effects and could even reduce enemy evolution. It never worked all that well and ai have no idea what it was called.

[jim lee]

Donno' if this is the right place for this but..

I found that controlling the power to mining areas gives me the biggest bang for the buck in controlling pollution. I watch the amount of stuff in the train loaders and when it gets full, pull the plug on the miners & ovens. After a bit you can see a significant reduction in the pollution cloud.

-jim lee

[bobucles]

All buildings stop polluting when they have stalled. So there's no need to pull the plug on your miners. They'll stop well enough, just don't go too crazy on buffer storage.

Eco modules are your biggest early game bang for the buck when it comes to reducing pollution. They will clean up miners, and cheaper assemblers reduce the impact of steam boiler pollution. Solar panels are a strong next step, and nuclear power is pretty damn clean for high demand bases.

It takes some practice to get used to tree absorption mechanics. Your base borders may look clean for long time, but chances are the trees are getting slowly killed off as the cloud expands. When the cloud gets too thick trees die, and they absorb a chunk of pollution in the sacrifice. That sacrifice keeps your borders small, but it is a temporary fix and permanent scrubbing potential gets lost. Ideally you don't want trees to get killed off at all, and the best bet is to run lots of small, spaced out base modules to do that.

[Qon]

- Eliminate evolution due to time.
- Eliminate evolution due to total pollution produced.
[...]
- Perhaps (not sure) increase the evolution factor caused by destroying nests (or better yet, make that factor a configurable option).

Already possible with Map generator settings > Enemy > Evolution.

- Create evolution due to pollution reaching an enemy nest, and make it significant to ensure there is a strong incentive to completely avoid that situation (and probably a configurable option).

https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/eve ... ty_spawned
That event can be used to detect when entities are spawned. Entities are spawned when spawners absorb pollution. So indirectly you can detect this. But units can also spawn without pollution to some extent. Didn't find any property on LuaEntity to read pollution absorbed directly. But if they don't absorb pollution (and are not otherwise disturbed by say artillery or flamethrowers) then they probably stop spawning units or just freeze completely until you get close so that might not matter in practise.

- Provide a number of alternative non-polluting techs, as well as techs to reduce (and even eliminate) the pollution impact of existing objects.

Don't think you can add new categories for technology ("research") effects, though I could be wrong on that. But new buildings that don't create pollution should be possible. Don't know if the -80% limit for eff modules in energy and pollution reduction can be changed, didn't find any info. Not that used to finding stuff in the prototype definitions.

[zOldBulldog]

Thank you Qon.

So it seems that although the game allows some control and someone might be able to come close to simulate what I describe, it is not really possible to eliminate evolution due to time and total pollution produced to replace it with evolution due to pollution that *reaches* nest.

Which in turns means that it is not possible to create a mod that allows true green game play unless the devs change the core APIs.

Bummer. But at least it tells us where this discussion belongs... in the suggestions forums, I the hopes that the devs will SOMEDAY add appropriate functions to the API.

[jim lee]

Add a pollution reducing module?

-jim lee

[bobucles]

I haven't played with pollution reducing modules in a while. The reduce how much pollution per kW a structure produces. Last I remember they had the same 20% cap as eco modules, and the benefits multiply with eco to give .2*.2 = 4% pollution output. That's as close to 0 as you will need for any normal setting game.

Pollution is a huge factor in enemy activity. If you want to eliminate it completely the best option is to play on peaceful mode. Hmm, now that nest consumption is capped, I wonder how peaceful nests will behave on pollution?

[zOldBulldog]

Some of the key things that you can do with the new game settings are Time Factor = 0 and Destroy Factor = 0 or maybe 1 or 2.

You could even set Pollution Factor = 0, but that just eliminates the pollution evolution, it does not replace it with a significant evolution hit when the cloud touches the nests.

Also, as mentioned here (or in other threads since whe initial post, I can't remember), there are API calls that would allow doing that last part as well as setting those two zero/near zero defaults.

In other words... The answer to the original question is yes, it is theoretically possible AND the tools to make it as a mod are available. I created a mod request in the appropriate forum, with a link to the thread with all the API answers. Hopefully somebody will write the mod. (Qon's post here was the key to finding the answers)

[darkfrei]

Code: Select all

Just note all existing chunks
Check some of them per one tick
If all chunks are checked then repeat

[Hannu]

Why everything have to be perfect? It is not natural or in my opinion even interesting if it is possible to prevent all pollution and still produce stuff in industrial scale. I am not against new possibilities to get more clean systems and different gaming mechanics but already difference between slow grow with efficiency modules and rapid growth without caring about pollution have order of magnitude difference in biter attacks. But I agree that making more possibilities to control pollution and biter evolution would give interesting options in game.

You can think that the problem is not just pollution hitting the nests. Biters must collect their food from nearby nature and if pollution decrease amount or quality of their prey and/or food plants and player's structures prevent they collect food and/or expand, it is very clear reason to get aggressive against player.

[Qon]

You can think that the problem is not just pollution hitting the nests. Biters must collect their food from nearby nature and if pollution decrease amount or quality of their prey and/or food plants and player's structures prevent they collect food and/or expand, it is very clear reason to get aggressive against player.

The game separates pollution absorbed by trees in a healthy manner and trees taking damage while absorbing pollution when they are overwhelmed. You can trivially add some evolution when trees are damaged.

So I'm thinking of several factors you can change independently:

• Pollution absorbed by spawners. As requested.
• Pollution damaging trees. The natives eating plants that have absorbed too much pollution will now evolve.
• Trees killed. Chop them down: expect revenge.
• Natives (non-spawners) killed.
• Pollution absorbed by trees below the damage threshold. If you want you can have this negative (you can set anything negative but here it makes more sense) to reduce evolution when trees get to breathe in CO2 as they want to.

Just set the value to 0 if you don't want a particular source affect evolution. Or a really low value like 0.1 if you want something to have just a small effect.

[zOldBulldog]

You can think that the problem is not just pollution hitting the nests. Biters must collect their food from nearby nature and if pollution decrease amount or quality of their prey and/or food plants and player's structures prevent they collect food and/or expand, it is very clear reason to get aggressive against player.

The game separates pollution absorbed by trees in a healthy manner and trees taking damage while absorbing pollution when they are overwhelmed. You can trivially add some evolution when trees are damaged.

So I'm thinking of several factors you can change independently:

• Pollution absorbed by spawners. As requested.
• Pollution damaging trees. The natives eating plants that have absorbed too much pollution will now evolve.
• Trees killed. Chop them down: expect revenge.
• Natives (non-spawners) killed.
• Pollution absorbed by trees below the damage threshold. If you want you can have this negative (you can set anything negative but here it makes more sense) to reduce evolution when trees get to breathe in CO2 as they want to.

Just set the value to 0 if you don't want a particular source affect evolution. Or a really low value like 0.1 if you want something to have just a small effect.

I like this. Very good improvement over my initial idea.

That will make it even more desirable to follow eco-friendly practices and to use alternative methods to produce resources without polluting.

[Koub]

I dig this too.

[Qon]

Posted the ALPHA version of the mod in the mod request thread.

I dig this too.

Is this the mod that finally makes Koub abandon vanilla to join the mod addicts community?

[Koub]

Well, my take on mods is "when I have all the achievements, I'll allow myself mods to adapt Vanilla to my liking", but also "if a mod does a really good job at ... doing its job, then it might be added to vanilla, so I'm all for good mods .
I've always been bothered by how evolution factor works in vanilla, and your list pretty much fills the gaps.

[zOldBulldog]

Well, my take on mods is "when I have all the achievements, I'll allow myself mods to adapt Vanilla to my liking", but also "if a mod does a really good job at ... doing its job, then it might be added to vanilla, so I'm all for good mods .
I've always been bothered by how evolution factor works in vanilla, and your list pretty much fills the gaps.

That was exactly how I did it. Pure vanilla until I did 100%. Then I started with a few mods. Discovered that the game has a 2nd set of achievements for modded games (so I get to do it all over). As I do those... I am testing various mods and selecting those I'll keep long term. This one will definitely be one of my long-term mods.

I had a few minutes over lunch for a quick test. I created a new map, set the settings so that it would be very obvious if aliens evolved, played 30 minutes (obviously pollution did not reach aliens this early) and ... evolution is pegged at 0.00%. No crashes, error messages, nothing... works as planned.

And I love the mod name: Next Gen Evolution