Uses for pollution producing modules?

[autopoiesis]

I still make pollution producing modules just for completion's sake, but I've never actually used them, because I have no idea why I would. Has anybody figured out some sort of use case? Like a military outpost that somehow lures biters away from your main base?

[kingarthur]

idk what they are good for now but used to be pretty useful as a way to bait biters to a specific spot to farm biter candies when alien science was still a thing.

[Light]

I used to use them to kill trees when evolution was maxed. It would safely decimate vast forests over time.

That was before the deconstruction planner could be used to single out trees for robots, but even robots take longer than pollution in distant areas.

[bobingabout]

Basically, another case of "They exist because people were asking for them". It's not something I've really used myself, but I did set up a little polluting outpost to lure in the biters to that spot to drop artifacts in my testing game, and that worked pretty well.

[arbarbonif]

Any chance you could take them off of the module combining tech? They aren't used in any of the combined recipes and it is annoying to have to make just a handful of them to research that one tech.

[bobingabout]

Any chance you could take them off of the module combining tech? They aren't used in any of the combined recipes and it is annoying to have to make just a handful of them to research that one tech.

Maybe

[SuicideJunkie]

They could be useful in a beacon if greenhouses were set to produce negative (ie absorb) pollution when running. Even a small pollution removal rate could be jacked up by 1000% with the pollution modules.

Perhaps they could amplify the effects of others when combined?
Speed and productivity could be good combos with the pollution; even more speed/production while being super toxic.

[bobingabout]

They could be useful in a beacon if greenhouses were set to produce negative (ie absorb) pollution when running. Even a small pollution removal rate could be jacked up by 1000% with the pollution modules.

Perhaps they could amplify the effects of others when combined?
Speed and productivity could be good combos with the pollution; even more speed/production while being super toxic.

that's actually a good idea. though modules can only be a multiplier, you can't have a module transform a negative pollution into positive.

currently though, the greenhouse produces no pollution at all.

[Hannu]

I still make pollution producing modules just for completion's sake, but I've never actually used them, because I have no idea why I would. Has anybody figured out some sort of use case? Like a military outpost that somehow lures biters away from your main base?

I have used them to get more action to my bases. I have a large enclosed area for whole railworld and mines near defense lines have generated intentionally pollution. In my opinion significant and varying resource flow to defense makes game more interesting. At end game biters can not give any real threat so more pollution and more biters needs more bullets.

[SuicideJunkie]

that's actually a good idea. though modules can only be a multiplier, you can't have a module transform a negative pollution into positive.

currently though, the greenhouse produces no pollution at all.

While it can't be an inverter due to the -80% hard cap, we wouldn't need that.

I meant that if greenhouses were set to produce -0.5 pollution/min, then a pollution beacon with the existing modules could multiply that to -5 p/m (+900% pollution) and really suck down the smog into your logs.