When should I start caring about polution?

[P O P]

So far the toxic wastepack quests are just my way of getting some nice loot for practically free. What percent of pollution is the point I should start caring? Currently at 7% and it doesn't really harm me any.

[Triple G]

There´s a chance to get acidic smog, but i never had it so far. It´s probably connected to the amount of pollution You have - like in more likely if You have higher pollution. Else it doesn´t matter much if it doesn´t bother You.

[P O P]

Originally posted by Triple G:

There´s a chance to get acidic smog, but i never had it so far. It´s probably connected to the amount of pollution You have - like in more likely if You have higher pollution. Else it doesn´t matter much if it doesn´t bother You.

I got acidic smog once, but even then it did next to nothing. Could of gotten lucky with the duration though.

[MadArtillery]

Is it touching your base? if no, ignore it.

[Astasia]

In terms of metagaming it, pollution is largely beneficial and it's generally optimal to paint most of your map green, the pollution stimulus gene is a fairly substantial bonus you can take advantage of that way, once you have the relevant genes/implants. Acidic Smog does basically nothing, it accelerates item deterioration for stuff laying around outside, slows crop growth for a few days, and gives colonists not immune something like a -5 mood hit while they are outside for the duration. It doesn't cause toxic buildup or directly damage crops at all, and even at 100% pollution it doesn't happen often enough to matter. For downsides, mostly you are just looking at things like wastepack infestations happening occasionally, otherwise ya the tox pack dump quests are just a win-win. Just maybe keep your farming area clean if you want to grow certain things that don't like pollution, or a pollution free "guest area" if you want to host quest NPCs without them dying.

[Chibi Life]

I haven't had to deal with pollution mechanics at all even when I decide to use mechs. It's just too easy to store the wastepacks in a large freezer and if I want to get rid of them I caravan them away lol. And just don't land near polluted places.

[Danielle]

If it's far away from your base and you can handle the wastepack infestations then I guess just whenever the pollution starts to annoy you. It's not particularly hard to drop down a few pumps nearby and fix any pollution you've accumulated after the fact.

I will say that the benefits of shooting your wastepacks at the nearest tribal colony cannot be understated, in that they will be only too happy to retaliate by sending droves of easily beaten back bags of spare organs.

[Red Bat]

Pollution can start impacting your colony at very low levels. Pollution animals like wasterats can show up at like 15% pollution. Wastepack infestations can start happening if you have any pollution at all, and while they usually happen when a wastepack disappears, they can also happen randomly in the middle of the map which can be debilitating depending on your defenses and wealth level.

Pollution causes toxic buildup and eventually cancer in most pawns that walk over it. This is very very rarely a big deal for raiders (usually only if you stack toxic gas on top of it), but it can be a problem if your hunters or animals keep going over polluted tiles.

You can adapt to pollution with xenogerms if you have the right genes. Sanguaphages are immune to it, and Wasters+insectoids are both buffed by it. That said, it still will make animals sick, will buff hostile insectoids, and prevent the growth of most crops.

You can just dump your wastepacks near enemy factions, however you can only fit 25 per drop pod so you might have to have a caravan if you plan to get rid of enormous amounts of wastepacks.

I usually either just accept that I'm going to have a lot of pollution and try to contain it to portions of the map I don't particularly do much with, or if I'm not producing a lot of wastepacks I'll try to freeze them until I can load them onto a caravan and get rid of them on the way to some other destination.

[Lord Freedom]

My colonies usually die before pollution is an issue. Only downside is infestations however they do not immediately aggro and so putting them near choke points entering your colony might actually benefit you.

[Red Bat]

Originally posted by Lord Freedom:

My colonies usually die before pollution is an issue. Only downside is infestations however they do not immediately aggro and so putting them near choke points entering your colony might actually benefit you.

The problem is there's a separate wastepack infestation event that just puts the infestation in the middle of the map rather than near where you put the wastepacks.

[Anonymous Dragon]

If your colonists spend too much time in the pollution, they will begin to get toxic buildup which can lead to severe diseases and death, even with just small amounts of exposure.
If your map gets too polluted, you will eventually get different animals like toxalopes and wasterats, and it will be like a permanent toxic fallout. Trees will die off and be replaced with sad scraggly trees, and growing crops other than toxipotatoes becomes much harder or impossible.
What I would recommend is building a large refrigerator entirely for toxic wastepacks and dumping them on your enemies far away using drop pods whenever you can.

[- BusterZlista -]

never, build roofing everywhere on the entire map, and become hostile with every faction to get more raids, wipe out every faction on the planet and win, or not as war is profitable

for food just butcher the corpses and drug everybody to keep them happy, eventually when all your colonists are drugged beyond usefulness, recycle them and keep drugging to avoid mental breaks

if you want them alive still, then remove their legs and keep them confined at the hospital, but this is just a personal suggestion, as i sometime see pawns as collectibles

also use every killbox and kill design known to man, rimworld is not fair to you so you will not be fair to it back, kill everyone and profit, hopefully you are invigorated by slaughter as i am

[Bare Foot Bandit]

caring for the pollution is for soyboys and REAL rimmers never care for it

[apud.harald]

Originally posted by Cokenclu The Clueless:

caring for the pollution is for soyboys and REAL rimmers never care for it

We do not tolerate pollution in Ordensstaat Burgund. STRENG GEHEIM!