Turn off factory to remove pollution over time

[Tarnos]

Hey, I wonder, but do bitters attack you if you don't pollute their spawns?
Is it a good strategy to pause factory and wait for pollution to disperse before turning on the factory again?

[Nailfoot]

If you have expansion turned on, then biters will attack you regardless of pollution. They will constantly try to expand into areas you have already cleared.

Also, the biters will get more powerful over time, unless you turned that off. So in the time your factory is off, the biters are still progressing but you are not.

I say, don't worry much about the pollution and just tech up your defenses!

[Tarnos]

Alright, thanks.

[Fel]

Not really, no.

I mean, you would have to pause it quite a bit before pollution reaches them for it to not go too much further, and each time you would need to pause it faster after launching it than the previous due to adding to your production.

On top of that, enemies evolve based on total pollution produced, time and spawners destroyed, so all of the time spent waiting for pollution to dissipate would contribute to their evolution.
If the pollution never ever reached them, it wouldn't be much of an issue but if they ever attack or if you ever need to attack yourself, you will be faced with much more evolved forces.

If that wasn't enough, the default settings let bitters periodically expand in a random direction somewhat close to existing nests, so in time they will have nests closer and closer to your base if you don't take care of them, meaning that the area left for pollution without attacks will shrink over time.


If you really want to avoid enemies without destroying them first, your best bets are solar panels (and accumulators) or nuclear for power, electric furnaces and efficiency modules in every single machine to greatly reduce the power (and the pollution as a direct result).

[Drizzt]

correct me if i'm wrong - but i think the initial starting location is a no go zone for expansion - so they will never expand into that first chunk - or is it a timing thing, and they are allowed to once they start expanding? (also am i right in thinking that accumulated global pollution triggers expansion?)

i have used the turning off of the factory to remove pollution right at the beginning of the game when i have a spawner base pretty near to me - so i stop producing pollution just before it reaches them and then go and do some scouting and collect the last huge rocks from around the base - and then turn the factory on briefly to produce enough walls and set up an ammo flow - and then i set it going and build the perimeter turrets while the pollution is spreading again

i have also done it later in the game once i have cleared out a large area to stop new attacks - but you still have to deal with new expansions that move into your area since they can migrate into a polluted zone

[Fel]

Unless it changed, the starting area is just a zone where they can't spawn a nest initially but at least in previous versions they happily expanded all the way to spawn if you let them.

It's pretty easy to test too, make a sandbox with the expansion timers at the lowest times, type /c game.speed = 1000 and wait a few minutes to see spawn overrun by nests.
(it's better to turn auto saves off for this or it wastes time saving every few seconds).

[Admiral Ampharos]

Is there a way to modify a save to turn off expansion? I'm pretty far into a save and I don't want to have to start over.

[Fel]

Sure, you can either use commands or mods for that.

This mod allows you to change map settings, just save and disable it (from the "mods" menu in the title screen) once you are finished changing things:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ChangeMapSettings

[Warlord]

Originally posted by Fel:

Sure, you can either use commands or mods for that.

This mod allows you to change map settings, just save and disable it (from the "mods" menu in the title screen) once you are finished changing things:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ChangeMapSettings

Mods and/or commands that edit the map settings will disable [edit: STEAM] achievements. Mods will disable them for as long as they are installed, and the command will disable them for the rest of the save file's life.

[Katitoff]

You'd never want to turn your factory off for any reason other then power management in early game, in which case power switches are great.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Fel:

Unless it changed, the starting area is just a zone where they can't spawn a nest initially but at least in previous versions they happily expanded all the way to spawn if you let them.

It's pretty easy to test too, make a sandbox with the expansion timers at the lowest times, type /c game.speed = 1000 and wait a few minutes to see spawn overrun by nests.
(it's better to turn auto saves off for this or it wastes time saving every few seconds).

cool - i suspected it may be that - and obviously in most cases by the time they would be coming for those initial spaces i have the mother of all turret walls surrounding a grid of 9 radars zones :-)

also - as a side note - i almost universally played with biters on for years since i like the challenge and urgency that they provide - but recently i played a few peaceful games just for the joy of building without the stress of defending - and it was very nice - and now i understand why enough people voted for the Sit Back and Relax category for Factorio to get nominated - since it really is a zen like experience to just be focused on growing the factory without having to think about defences or pollution management (i turned off pollution too to keep the land green and the water blue :-))

[knighttemplar1960]

If you are worried about pollution and nearby spawners sending biters to attack your base early There are a few things you can do.

1. Mine ore, coal, and stone by hand. This creates no pollution. (Large rocks are an excellent source of coal and stone early game.)
2. Craft items in your inventory. Crafting things yourself creates no pollution.
3. Carry your materials to the edge of a stand of trees and smelt it there. This doesn't eliminate the pollution but the trees will absorb some of the pollution until it kills the tree.
4. Use pipe to grounds to move water to the stand of trees and set up your power generation there. This doesn't eliminate the pollution but the trees absorb some of it until they die

All the stone you come up with can be used to make stone furnaces that can be used as temporary walls until you can tech up enough to make actual walls and turrets. If you keep every thing in one area like this you can defend it yourself until you can make turrets and more ammo.

[Purpleganja]

You can slow down pollution generation to better match the absorption of your land to get manageable attacks if you are under heavy pressure.
Any changes in pollution generation will be felt later, maybe 10, 20, 30 minutes later depending on the distance your pollution diffuse into.
It goes against the idea of always going bigger and bigger, but if you are about to get destroyed because you fell behind or are playing with harder settings, just do what you can to survive.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

All the stone you come up with can be used to make stone furnaces that can be used as temporary walls until you can tech up enough to make actual walls and turrets

that is freakin awesome - i wish i was that smart and creative :-)

[Veeshan]

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[Veeshan]

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