Factorio Forums

Hello again, Factorio community!
I have another basic question, if you wouldn't mind answering it. First, a story
I was having some problems with biters, mainly the big blue b-tards, so I decided to completely switch from solid fuel-powered steam engines to solar panels and accumulators.
My question is: will the "pollution cloud" on the map get smaller, and if so, how quickly?

Most should be answered here https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... =Pollution

Right, so because I am producing less pollution due to not using ANY boilers, my "pollution cloud" should VERY SLOWLY shrink?

Yes. But in the area of biter nests the pollution is all sucked in.

It's been 3 or 4 in-game days since I switched to pure solar, and my pollution area has not decreased AT ALL. Is something wrong or is it just extremely slow. In my central area I have furnaces, a few drills and some assembly machines. In my other areas I have oil being pumped, refined and used in chemical factories, and I have a train running around the area.

Machinery produces it's own pollution (you can see the value on the right if you mouse over things) and you can reduce this using effectivity modules. These can reduce the power usage and therefore pollution by up to 80%. If you put three level 1 effectivity modules or two level 2s then it will reduce both power usage and pollution to 1/5 of normal. I do this on every game I play and am basically allied with the biters at this point.

what i've noticed is that placing effectivity modules into structures also lowers significantly polution.

i had a place with 8 electronic drills and about 20 cubes red polution around it, it went back to plus minus 8

I had 15 boilers, each producing 6 pollution. Now I have removed all my boilers. Since then I have added about 5 electronic drills. Surely my pollution should noticeably decrease at some point. Could it be that the continuous operation of my train is kicking up too much pollution?

You're producing less pollution, but it takes time for it to dissipate.

Okay, I've now stopped blue science production (don't need to research anything for a while, anyway) and have got efficiency modules on the go.
I've put as many as I can on all my drills and oil pumps (didn't realise they gave of 9 pollution EACH), and it's massively dropped.
Thanks for your help guys!