Does water absorb pollution?

[RedHaze1911]

I heard it turns it green, but does it affect how far pollution spreads?

[Nonotorious]

Yes, if you open the factoriopedia in the icons in the top right of the screen and check the tiles tab you can see all the different tiles and how much pollution they absorb.

[Chris!!]

Green water is purely an aesthetic thing, it doesn't have an impact on the absorbtion of pollution, it only shows how much pollution there is in it's immediate area.

[knighttemplar1960]

Water doesn't absorb much pollution. You'll see your cloud expand farther and faster over water than it spreads over land.

[Doc✪Hollywood]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Water doesn't absorb much pollution. You'll see your cloud expand farther and faster over water than it spreads over land.

Thank you knighttemplar1960 for pointing out how pollution behaves in the game. This is interesting, as you bring a lot of experience.

As a beginner I just checked the Factoriopedia about pollution absorption on Nauvis again to be sure:

Water, Deep Water: 1.54/m
Grass, Dry Dirt, Dirt: 1.11/m
Sand, Red Dessert: 0.92/m
(Gleba: Deep Lake: 0.61/m)

From this specs Water is the best pollution absorber. I heared that grass is degrading, like trees, and consuming pollution for that.

• Is it possible that this is the reason, why pollution spreads faster over water than over gras, because gras is degrading and with that, in total, consuming more pollution?
  
• Latest when the grass (and trees) are gone water should be the best neutralizer*.

* For that reason I planned to build around water

[malogoss]

Water used to be a pollution wall with how much pollution it was absorbing. Pretty much on par with the densest forests, except it did not get damaged by pollution like trees do.

But that was a long time ago, before 1.0 IIRC. Water still absorbs some pollution, just less than it used to. And green water, AFAIK, is purely visual. Blue or green, it still does its thing.

[Chindraba]

The pollution values for different tiles have been adjusted. All were increased and their relative order has changed.
Old, 1.1 Pollution/min/chunk

1. Out of map 0.6144
   
2. Grass 0.4608
   
3. Dirt and Red desert 0.405504
   
4. Sand 0.35652
   
5. Water 0.3072
   
6. Nuclear ground 0.1538

New 2.0 Pollution/min/chunk

1. Out of map 6.144
   
2. Water 1.536
   
3. Grass and Dirt 1.10592
   
4. Sand and Red desert 0.9216
   
5. Nuclear ground 0.768

It is going to take a while for many veteran players to realize that these changes exist. Especially that water is not the best (ignoring the out of map chunks we can't see anyway) instead of the 2nd worst.

As to the grass being like the trees, No. The grass does not actually degrade from absorbing pollution and how much it will absorb does not change over time. Trees absorb a certain amount, and they absorb a big glob of it when they take damage which also changes how much they will absorb from then on. Some trees die and stop absorbing, others only degrade so far and then stop while still absorbing pollution, at a lower rate.

All the variations of water, including the polluted green water, have the same absorption rate and are, as @malogoss said, purely visual. Relative to pollution anyway.

[knighttemplar1960]

The change to water may be due to the fact that Space Age allows you to plant trees using an agricultural tower. You can pretty much create forests that will absorb more pollution than water any where you want. (You can even use removable landfill to put it in the center of a large lake since you only really use the edges of the lakes for water and defense).

Of course, by the time you can do that pollution is a non-issue because you have the tech required to automatically keep attack parties from even damaging your factory on Nauvis.

[Doc✪Hollywood]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

The change to water may be due to the fact that Space Age allows you to plant trees using an agricultural tower. You can pretty much create forests that will absorb more pollution than water any where you want. (You can even use removable landfill to put it in the center of a large lake since you only really use the edges of the lakes for water and defense).

Of course, by the time you can do that pollution is a non-issue because you have the tech required to automatically keep attack parties from even damaging your factory on Nauvis.

Wow, that's pretty cool!