[2.0.15] Productivity module pollution effect

[Shemplo]

Description of productivity module says that they produce +5%/+7%/+10% more pollution when the actual numbers are ~50%/70%/...

Check on screenshots for assembly machines 2 and 3: all of them have same receipt and different sets of productivity modules. When assembly machine 3 has basic pollution rate = 2/m, same machine with module 1 has pollution rate = 2.94/m (+47% instead of 2.1/m) and so on

[valneq]

For what it's worth, this has been the case for a very long time. The logic behind this behavior is that the true pollution output of a machine scales with its power consumption.

That means that

• when the machine consumes no (or minimal) power (due to inactivity or efficiency modules), it has also decreased (or no?) pollution.
• when you increase the power consumption via speed module or productivity module, the pollution will increase proportionally to the increased power consumption.
• For prodcuctivity modules you have the additional effect that they would increase the base pollution (by the given percentage) even if the power consumption is at its base value (one example being counter-balanced with efficiency modules).

I know that the tooltips don't reflect this logic and lead to a lot of confusion. I had the same confusion many years ago before someone explained this to me.

[MechBFP]

To follow up on the reply above, this is why efficiency modules are so good. They don’t just reduce your power consumption, they also massively cut your pollution as a result of using less power.

[Rseding91]

Thanks for the report. others have mentioned how it's actually working and at this point in Factorio development I don't consider it worth changing the tooltip information for productivity modules to include a full paragraph explaining what's actually happening. "More pollution from using this" is roughly all you need to know as a player. The actual % doesn't actually matter because you only have a binary choice: use it or don't.

[valneq]

[…]I don't consider it worth changing the tooltip information for productivity modules to include a full paragraph explaining what's actually happening. […]

Sounds like a feature request for a new entry to the tips & tricks!

[Shemplo]

Thank you all for explanation, I really didn't do at least one more experiment with speed module. Now I've checked that inserted speed module also increases pollution production (it's not mentioned in description) and efficiency module decreases it, what proofs that pollution production linearly depends on energy consumption

So my suggestion would be rename parameter of productivity module from `pollution: +7%` to `extra/additional pollution: +7%`