How many EMs are enough?

[OldOneEye]

I am curious as to how many Environment Modifiers need to be built before their effectiveness peaks? I don't want to keep building them and wasting the resources, if I've hit the wall on how much they are effecting the world.

[TimTolle]

You don't need to build any of them. The tutorial says you should build them, but it's not necessary. (On hard or insane you can think about building Neutralizers. The value shown in the build menu equals the minutes after that the Black Stalker will arrive. On medium there is enough time for all missions.)

[OldOneEye]

Ok that makes sense. I remembered it said they're stackable, so I wanted to know if there was a "max limit" before building them was pointless. Thanks for the quick reply!

[Baron01]

I stopped building more of those machines once I hit 50 minute mark. I was not seeing even beginning of storms with that amount of time.

For the other parameters, build as many as you need to negate most of negative effects. I believe you can not get monster activity and radiation to above 0. I had monster activity at -1 in my game and I think building next machine would not reduce it to 0. Radiation reduction per machine is 100 or 150 but it also can only reach 0. That means if you only have -50 in the radiation parameter, your machine will provide just 50 points.

[OldOneEye]

Thanks for the info. I'm mainly worried about the radiation and monsters. The Black Mask Stalker not so much. I can kill that guy fairly easily with my current loadout, but it was getting annoying how often he was popping up, making me waste my ammo and such, when I just want to explore. I've reached a point where the space/time modifier that reduces radiation is making no difference. When I select it from the craft menu, it shows no change in radiation levels. So I'm assuming that means that if I build any more, it won't have any effect. I can still build more of the Storm/Black Mask Stalker modifiers (forgot the actual name) and it shows reduction in appearances. So you're likely correct in that it can only go so far, which is what I originally was wondering. Thanks again for the post!

[OldOneEye]

Originally posted by Subswon:

Baron01 is correct. I think I can chime in a little more though.

The machines are capped at the moment you build them. You cannot achieve positive radiation security. It caps at 0. Wormholes cap at -1. I don't know what the chernobylite storm timer caps at.

Radiation/monster wormholes/chernobylite storms continue to grow for seemingly forever. It's possibly a soft-timer on the game itself. So there's seemingly no "max limit". I tried to avoid progressing the story to see if the zone's conditions were tied to the story, but they worsened even if I was simply doing the repeatable scavenging missions.

The more days you play, the more machines you will need to build. Build them as needed, not proactively. I tend to carry a little bit of the materials needed at all times in case I load into the zone and the conditions are worse.

Well, I do know that the Storms modules can go into the positive as I have done this. Though It's only +4, but it's in the green, so I can only assume it will go all the way to the max limit on that meter. I have ran into a situation where even when I create the space/time module for decreasing radiation, I can no longer make any difference. It literally says nothing when I go to select that modifier, no + or - , no effect whatsoever. So, I can only assume that I've reached the limit in which these things are effective.
Thanks for the post!