[GregTech-5][1.7.10-FORGE-1355+][Unofficial but approved Port][Stable] Even GT5 Experimental is slowly getting stable.

I really, really hate the idea of pollution the way Pyure is suggesting it as an indescript efficiency-cutting variable. It's not even just about realism, it straight up makes no sense and seems to be about making the implementation super-easy and not balanced, practical, or realistic. Very few machines are affected by pollution because they literally don't interact with it in any meaningful way. Pollution is not a logistic problem, it's an ecological one. The majority of effects should only affect players and animals. IE, a sufficient level of pollution would cause reduced sunlight, making solar boilers and solar panels produce less and less power as it worsens. At a certain level, rain would become acidic, damaging any living thing that the rain touches that isn't wearing a hazmat suit. Bad enough and it even damages the hazmat suit until it melts and hurts you. Think 'Twilight Forest' in how the acid rain works, except not block-piercing. Sufficient pollution levels would also randomly replace water source blocks with 'polluted water' source blocks, which would calcify or mess with machines. IE, if a boiler gets it, it would reduce the fuel value by 50% and also the steam value by 25%, making for a grand old fucking. This is the most painful impact I can see, besides acid rain. Polluted water getting into an ore washer would make it take 5 times as long to wash. In a autoclave, it would outright be unable to function at all. Cleaning the water would involve a new machine, a Filter Unit which would use filters made of wool and carbon fiber which would suck up, say, 16 liters of Pwater and produce 12 liters of regular water, with a chance of byproduct of dirt, dark ash, and tiny sulfur. The filter would wear down durability with each successive use, making it an expensive process to repeatedly clean water.
Lastly, a high enough level of pollution would blanket the area with Radioactivity I to IV, requiring constant careful use of a hazmat suit to even traverse. Machines which use mufflers would, in addition to outputting pollution, also work slower and slower (without using any less power) as it presumed muffler = output thus they require an air input and smeggy air is less effective. It would also make machines that require maintenance, require it more and more quickly, since the acidic humidity and air would corrode the machine (such as sulfuric and nitric compounds do IRL)

Huge bonus idea: Rarely, random chunks/areas can spawn with pre-existing pollution levels. Could be a fun idea to have a new biome, 'Nuclear Wasteland' with a permanent Radioactivity I. :3

Cleaning pollution, besides going away super-slow by itself, could involve building a multi-block machine Air Purifier. It uses a 3x3 grid of filters to make Filter Blocks in a star shape (3x3x3) surrounded by casings, the speed affected by power level (starting with 8v for the slowest), and extracting dirt, carbon, and dark ash from the air for slowest effect, or the option to build one for water (or one for each, but not both!) which will produce dirt, dark ash, sulfur, and sulfuric acid (as a liquid, in tiny amounts) from Pwater. If it gets only regular water, it will produce dirt only, at a very low (1%?) rate, and outputs regular water again. (In that way it could be an infinite dirt generator, but at the speed/voltage ratio, it would be an awfully expensive, awful way!)

In polluted settings, the above water-filter process would be required to have reliable, non-polluted water. All your water would have to pass through one or an array of them to even be useable. This, I feel, is a painful restriction that makes pollution a very big concern. (Or in my case, a goal! Make a sufficiently functional factory in a smog bowl! YAY MEXICO CITY!)

I hope you like my ideas. I feel it marries balance and utility with realism and logistics in the true spirit of Gregtech without being overly redundant or being too radically different from 'pollution hurts productivity'.

Also, semi-unrelated: I always wondered why there's no ash output from large boilers. Where it go??? I likey my mountain of ash blox!

this makes a lot more sense to me than anything else I have read. I my town we have a GM foundry that has over the years gotten better at polluting, but there machines still worked fine back in the 70's and 80's when there was a blanket of rust colored crap for a 1/2 mile around the plant. but at the same time the half dozen machine shops in town ran just fine.

Quote from axlegear

I really, really hate the idea of pollution the way Pyure is suggesting it as an indescript efficiency-cutting variable. It's not even just about realism, it straight up makes no sense and seems to be about making the implementation super-easy and not balanced, practical, or realistic. Very few machines are affected by pollution because they literally don't interact with it in any meaningful way. Pollution is not a logistic problem, it's an ecological one. The majority of effects should only affect players and animals. IE, a sufficient level of pollution would cause reduced sunlight, making solar boilers and solar panels produce less and less power as it worsens. At a certain level, rain would become acidic, damaging any living thing that the rain touches that isn't wearing a hazmat suit. Bad enough and it even damages the hazmat suit until it melts and hurts you. Think 'Twilight Forest' in how the acid rain works, except not block-piercing. Sufficient pollution levels would also randomly replace water source blocks with 'polluted water' source blocks, which would calcify or mess with machines. IE, if a boiler gets it, it would reduce the fuel value by 50% and also the steam value by 25%, making for a grand old fucking. This is the most painful impact I can see, besides acid rain. Polluted water getting into an ore washer would make it take 5 times as long to wash. In a autoclave, it would outright be unable to function at all. Cleaning the water would involve a new machine, a Filter Unit which would use filters made of wool and carbon fiber which would suck up, say, 16 liters of Pwater and produce 12 liters of regular water, with a chance of byproduct of dirt, dark ash, and tiny sulfur. The filter would wear down durability with each successive use, making it an expensive process to repeatedly clean water.
Lastly, a high enough level of pollution would blanket the area with Radioactivity I to IV, requiring constant careful use of a hazmat suit to even traverse. Machines which use mufflers would, in addition to outputting pollution, also work slower and slower (without using any less power) as it presumed muffler = output thus they require an air input and smeggy air is less effective. It would also make machines that require maintenance, require it more and more quickly, since the acidic humidity and air would corrode the machine (such as sulfuric and nitric compounds do IRL)

Huge bonus idea: Rarely, random chunks/areas can spawn with pre-existing pollution levels. Could be a fun idea to have a new biome, 'Nuclear Wasteland' with a permanent Radioactivity I. :3

Cleaning pollution, besides going away super-slow by itself, could involve building a multi-block machine Air Purifier. It uses a 3x3 grid of filters to make Filter Blocks in a star shape (3x3x3) surrounded by casings, the speed affected by power level (starting with 8v for the slowest), and extracting dirt, carbon, and dark ash from the air for slowest effect, or the option to build one for water (or one for each, but not both!) which will produce dirt, dark ash, sulfur, and sulfuric acid (as a liquid, in tiny amounts) from Pwater. If it gets only regular water, it will produce dirt only, at a very low (1%?) rate, and outputs regular water again. (In that way it could be an infinite dirt generator, but at the speed/voltage ratio, it would be an awfully expensive, awful way!)

In polluted settings, the above water-filter process would be required to have reliable, non-polluted water. All your water would have to pass through one or an array of them to even be useable. This, I feel, is a painful restriction that makes pollution a very big concern. (Or in my case, a goal! Make a sufficiently functional factory in a smog bowl! YAY MEXICO CITY!)

I hope you like my ideas. I feel it marries balance and utility with realism and logistics in the true spirit of Gregtech without being overly redundant or being too radically different from 'pollution hurts productivity'.

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Thanks for unblocking me long enough to have this discussion. Understand that everything I say below is exactly worded as though directed to one of my bestMinecraftBuddies4Life. Some is positive, some is negative, and none of it has anything to do with you personally. And no, I have zero expectation that this discussion is going to end civilly due to zero tolerance on my part for bullshit. But who knows? On to the fun!

1) Positives
============
The majority of your suggestions fall directly into the "cool shit we wanna implement to make pollution look fun" bucket. Call it "Tier II" stuff. This includes affecting the player directly, affecting solar input (which I plan to do anyway), requirements for hazmat protection, creation of nasty biome/block effects, destruction of water and/or crops. All of this stuff is sufficiently negative that it provides a player with an incentive to avoid pollution, so none of it runs directly against the grain. Virtually all of it is stuff that Blood Asp will implement at some point if I don't anyway, I can promise you that.

The idea of "initial polluted chunks" is interesting. I need to give that some more thought, but I'm not sure under what circumstances it would normally make sense. That said, I really prefer giving modpack developers new toys, and if someone wants to make a gregtech-based post-apocalyptic world with pre-polluted biomes, its something I'd want to provide if possible. I need details on what might constitute an realistically-polluted environment in a non-apocalyptic environment.

"If it gets only regular water, it will produce dirt only, at a very low (1%?) rate, and outputs regular water again. (In that way it could be an infinite dirt generator, but at the speed/voltage ratio, it would be an awfully expensive, awful way!)"
I think someone above already mentioned a water cleaner. While I love the idea (it sounds very fun) I'm just not sold on the cost/benefit analysis. One way or the other, virtually every GT pack has some sort of infinite water supply, so there's no need to clean water. (And of course it would require implementation of dirty water in the first place). Clarify if I'm missing anything here though.

2) Negatives
============
"Pollution is not a logistic problem, it's an ecological one."
These aren't mutually exclusive. A ecological problem can create logistical problems (and vice versa really). Since there's no ecological issues to address in GT, I'm aiming to fix the gameflow problems as my primary objective.

"it straight up makes no sense and seems to be about making the implementation super-easy and not balanced, practical, or realistic"
Some of this is personal opinion of yours, although I'll allow that the initial implementation cycle certainly does prioritize simplicity. Ultimately it also makes sufficient sense from a realism and gameflow perspective that it appeals to me. Ultimately the implementation will not appeal to everyone.

"Cleaning pollution, besides going away super-slow by itself, could involve building a multi-block machine Air Purifier."
While I love the idea of a pollution-cleaning block, it defeats the underlying point of my implementation here. I'm not implementing pollution as a cool new toy. It's not supposed to do anything other than fix progression problems that exist already in the game. These problems aren't even problems for a lot of players, and so the implementation holds zero appeal for them. So even though the first thing people often brainstorm is "pollution scrubbing" mechanisms, and admittedly its one of the first things that crossed my mind too, ultimately I know its design-breaking.

In all my years in game design (and I have one or two), the key advantage is knowing what to trim away. Ideas are cheap, discipline is hard.

Quote from bear989

this makes a lot more sense to me than anything else I have read. I my town we have a GM foundry that has over the years gotten better at polluting, but there machines still worked fine back in the 70's and 80's when there was a blanket of rust colored crap for a 1/2 mile around the plant. but at the same time the half dozen machine shops in town ran just fine.

Yep, the idea of smog in the air having any significant impact on machinery is playing a bit loose with physics. Particularly since you could just wipe gears down with a cloth every once in a while or add some lubricant and "fix" the problem for another decade.

"Huge bonus idea: Rarely, random chunks/areas can spawn with pre-existing pollution levels. Could be a fun idea to have a new biome, 'Nuclear Wasteland' with a permanent Radioactivity I. :3"
I'm re-reading this and wondering if I botched my understanding.

Would these chunks spawn as a result of your industrial pollution levels, or just spawn naturally as part of world gen?

Quote from Pyure

"Cleaning pollution, besides going away super-slow by itself, could involve building a multi-block machine Air Purifier."
While I love the idea of a pollution-cleaning block, it defeats the underlying point of my implementation here. I'm not implementing pollution as a cool new toy. It's not supposed to do anything other than fix progression problems that exist already in the game. These problems aren't even problems for a lot of players, and so the implementation holds zero appeal for them. So even though the first thing people often brainstorm is "pollution scrubbing" mechanisms, and admittedly its one of the first things that crossed my mind too, ultimately I know its design-breaking.

In all my years in game design (and I have one or two), the key advantage is knowing what to trim away. Ideas are cheap, discipline is hard.

I disagree on this. A simple variable as you proposed is something which breaks the progression and immersion to me, not adds to it. At present, the progression is that you need to build bigger and better to make the really good stuff (such as distillation tower or matter fabricators), and to run those you need more power. To get the resources, you also need better machines. And you need resources, which are more quickly processed with bigger machines. This variable idea will, to me, not add to progression but greatly discourage advancement in favor of 'absolute minimalism', such as using a bronze macerator or LV macerator for life, because why upgrade when all it will do is require more power for very little gain? It won't be faster, because power = pollution.
I very, very, very strongly feel that it would have exactly the opposite effect on progression than you think it will.

The idea I proposed as a whole, in addition to the scrubbers, adds to the 'build it bigger, build it better, make it stronger' mentality that I feel embodies Gregtech. You can build bigger, more polluting power arrays for on-demand processing, but you also have to factor in the additional cost to power scrubbers and water cleaners. (more on the water later.) This will add another branch of logistic concerns in addition to the proposed ecological ones, rather than a variable-based barrier that encourages nothing and discourages everything.

As for water- the idea is that it replaces water source blocks, as metnioned, thus making pure water unavailable for pumping except from external mod sources or complex, costly, inefficient routes. Your options are to etiher purify your water, or deal with the consequences of Pwater (much more rapid maintenance for multi-blocks, slower ore processing, no autoclaving, no brewing, greatly reduced boiler efficiency). This achieves your desired lead-pipe-to-the-knee goal of pollution gumming everything up (and moreso), but in a way that it can actually be overcome with further development and logistics. An obstacle isn't fun if you can't work around it.

Here's a more specific example:
I could pump water into a bronze boiler and produce 16,000 steam/tick and use, say, 256 units of fuel every 256 seconds (1:1). So, 4,096k steam total. This would wear it down by whatever normal damage happens in 256 seconds.
But if that water becomes polluted, it would only produce 12,000 steam/tick and use 256 units of fuel every 128 seconds (2:1). So, 1,536k steam total for the SAME fuel and water. That's a 62.5% cut, very nasty. This is not acceptible! So you need to purify water. Plus it would further accelerate the maintenance, say double, requiring maintenance in half the time.
Now you need to provide the water flow plus 25%, since you lose 25% of your water when converting Pwater->Water. Plus it works at a set speed (haven't susses it out yet), so 8v is not gonna be suitable for supplying a bronze boiler. But maybe 32v would for part-time, and 128v is ideal. 8 and 32 would be more for gradual water to be stored in a tank, while 128+ is for on-demand. It works constantly, more or less, so the power draw would be painful. I imagine it would be 6EU/t for 8v, 24 EU/t for 32v, 96 EU/t for 128v, etc.
So now, you have your pure water, but at the cost of extra water pump power (possibly) and the power requirements of the water filter. So it STILL hurts your productivity, since a chunk of that boiler output will be eaten away cleaning water for itself. Water filtration is the 'dirty industry' route for keeping your machines working, and only counteracts the super-nasty Pwater effects. The other performance-hurting variables caused by 'air' pollution would also plague you: Say, a 25% faster maintenance cycle and gradually slowed production for muffled machines (thus assumedly requiring air intake). So you could get a total of, say, 25% slower/less output and 25% faster maintenance needs, PLUS the PWater for a grand total of 87.5% less production, 25% slower production as well, and 75% faster maintenance needs. That's pretty damn crippling!

Now, the numbers for the AIR filter could be made flexible based on output. IE, when you go to assign a 'pollution' variable for each machine, you can decide whether it's a positive or negative machine, based on whether it's a net produce or net loss of pollution compared to Pollution In vs. cost of Pollution Out. In other words..

A small coal boiler produces what, 5 EU/t maximum? 3 EU/t equivalent best-case? So if it is a 'red' machine with, say, a 50% output above equal, then it would require 4.5 EU/t of energy to an air filter to counteract- thus requiring MORE power than it produces. So your option is to either use something less polluting, use less of them to allow nature to filter it's rate out on it's own and try to avoid overloading it by keeping your machines part-time.
A steel coal boiler is, perhaps, even worse: Say +66%.
Lava would reasonably be better, but not ideal still, say, +33%.
An LHE I think would be zero, unless lava is used, and rely instead on the source of hot coolant to produce pollution. But that's getting into IC2's territory so that's a bag of worms i'll avoid.
Diesel would be nasty but not as bad as coal. Say, 10% for each tier.
Gas Turbines would be cleaner, say 5% per tier.
Solar boilers, wind turbines, water mills, steam turbines, and solar cells would, of course, be 0%. They don't generate pollution, unless some is made to power the machines that produce the materials they're made from or from the boilers that produce the steam in the first place.

I'm on the fence about nuclear. It doesn't realistically IRL throw radiation out into the atmosphere, it's all conveniently bottled into barrels and buried, usually, or reprocessed. So i'm still pondering a good way to handle this, naquadah reactors, and fusion. Those are tricky.

Currently by default, there's not much reason to use the solar/wind/nuclear power sources because fuel is cheap and easy, and their outputs are excellent and easier to design. This pollution model would make them a lot more valuable and viable, especially nuclear.

Quote from Pyure

"Huge bonus idea: Rarely, random chunks/areas can spawn with pre-existing pollution levels. Could be a fun idea to have a new biome, 'Nuclear Wasteland' with a permanent Radioactivity I. :3"
I'm re-reading this and wondering if I botched my understanding.

Would these chunks spawn as a result of your industrial pollution levels, or just spawn naturally as part of world gen?

Either or. I don't know how easy it is to 'overwrite' a biome rather than generate one. But I figured in either case, in a Nuclear Wasteland biome, grass tiles could not spread and would, in fact, die and be replaced with clay or dried dirt or something. Water would automatically be polluted, if generated. And the entire area would be affected by Smog 1 to 5 (each level reducing solar levels 20%) and possibly Radioactivity 1 to 5 (thoroughly encouraging you to stay away!)

Plus you'll have some hippies that will want to build a base there to 'clean' the biome or something, but I dunno if that's possible or feasible. A naturally generated NWasteL would have a 'minimum' pollution level, else it would eventually become clean just with time.

Also, I should note that the pollution numerics should be rather high- not an 8-bit number but a huge one, so you have a lot of leeway and time to 'prepare'. I don't wanna see newbies throw a few boilers up then suddenly have it rain Co-60 and wonder what the fuck they did, but neither do I want to see someone with 12 lava boilers running constantly not pay a price with time.

Plus I like the idea of the mechanic of Pwater, especially if it's got other effects, such as slower swimming than normal water, or nausea on touch, etc. Like back in Gt4 days, some mods had that (MFR? I forget). Plus it wouldn't count as water for watermills, which combined with reduced solar levels from Smog 1 to 5, makes it harder and harder to 'go green' after you smut the place up initially.

I'm already picturing it. My laboratory powered with arrays of solar panels, pumping out clean, filtered water to bottle or can and sell to the lowly peasants of Smogtown whose water is as bad as Los Angeles'.

Well fusion is trickier if you want to talk about radiation. It depends on the reaction. I don't think any should release x-ray or gamma (unless your fusion reactor sucks ass in which case it won't be producing energy). Most release neutrons and some release protons. I don't know if any release electrons or not (and if it even matters if they do). Anyway the neutrons are bad news but get captured by lithium shells around the containment device and produce heat in the process (so you can do your typical steam cycle). More difficult reactions such as p+B11 produce protons which are really bad news but get captured by EM fields for direct conversion to electricity.

Any working fusion design should be pollution free (though I can't say much about actually getting and refining the exotic materials necessary to make one).
Fission also typically does not "pollute" in any meaningful way. Reactors that use freshwater for the thermal cycle can increase the temperature of watershed which is bad for wildlife but I'm not sure any reactors actually use lakes or streams for the thermal cycle. It's almost unheard of for the water the fuel rods heat up to be the same water that runs through the turbines. There's usually an exchanger (similar to how GT5U does it now) so the only stuff that should be radioactive is coolant. I can see breaking pipes with coolant in it being Bad for the environment lol. Also pipes/tanks with hot coolant could need some sort of radiation shielding to avoid pollution idk. Seems like just another thing that doesn't add much to gameplay.

I agree willis. Probably best to leave nuclear sources pollution free. Too hard to implement and not very practical, considering the 'waste' is depleted cells and that exists already.

I just think my solution works well because it allows an area to have an over-arching 'pollution' variable, like Pyure wanted, but with more dynamic effects than just a strange blanket ban on productivity. While more complicated to implement, I feel it's not too difficult. Just stuff like so:

If > 4,750,000 Radioactivity V, Smog V, Toxic V
If > 4,500,000 Radioactivity V, Smog V, Toxic IV
If > 4,000,000 Radioactivity V, Smog V,
If > 3,500,000 Radioactivity IV, Smog V, Toxic III
If > 3,000,000 Radioactivity III, Smog V
If > 2,500,000 Radioactivity II, Smog V, Toxic II
If > 2,000,000 Radioactivity I, Smog V
If > 1,750,000 Smog V, Toxic I
If > 1,500,000 Smog IV
If > 1,250,000 Smog III
If > 1,000,000 Smog II
If > 500,000 Smog I

Smog I = 20% reduction of solar panels, +20% faster maintenance wear
Smog II = 40% reduction of solar panels, +30% faster maintenance wear, 10% slower muffled machines
Smog III = 60% reduction of solar panels, +50% faster maintenance wear, 25% slower muffled machines, water source blocks begin to be replaced with Polluted Water
Smog IV = 80% reduction of solar panels, +75% faster maintenance wear, 33% slower muffled machines, acid rain begins to fall, water source blocks replaced with polluted water all at once
Smog V = 99% reduction of solar panels, +150% faster maintenance wear, 50% slower muffled machines, acid rain also damages hazmat suits slowly, water still instantly replaced with polluted water
Toxic I = You take 1 damage every 5 seconds if not in a hazmat suit.
Toxic II = You take 1 damage every 1 seconds if not in a hazmat sjuit.
Toxic III = You take 1 damage every tick if not in a hazmat suit.
Toxic IV = Instant death outside of hazmat suit.
Toxic V = Your hazmat suit will melt quickly and then you'll die. Congrats, I don't know how you managed to fuck your world this badly. You're probably the kind of person who did a Genocide Run twice in Undertale, aren't you?

The above is just an example, not necessarily balanced out. But yeah, you can see how it becomes increasingly nasty if you keep stanking up the joint. Nature could handle say 1 pollution per tick. To get from Smog II to Smog I purely via natural difussion it would take 7 hours or so. I think that's fairly balanced but i'm sure Pyure can tweak it better based on expected playtime, since 7 hours is a long time for non-chunkloaded areas, but not that long for chunkloaded persistant servers.

Quote from axlegear

I disagree on this. A simple variable as you proposed is something which breaks the progression and immersion to me, not adds to it. At present, the progression is that you need to build bigger and better to make the really good stuff (such as distillation tower or matter fabricators), and to run those you need more power. To get the resources, you also need better machines. And you need resources, which are more quickly processed with bigger machines. This variable idea will, to me, not add to progression but greatly discourage advancement in favor of 'absolute minimalism', such as using a bronze macerator or LV macerator for life, because why upgrade when all it will do is require more power for very little gain? It won't be faster, because power = pollution.
I very, very, very strongly feel that it would have exactly the opposite effect on progression than you think it will.

If I'm reading this correctly, you're thinking that I'm implementing measures to make higher-powered machines generate more pollution. This is not the case.
Fundamentally, one can assume that only a few machines will really generate pollution. You can start with Coal and Lava boilers and leave it there and accomplish the majority of the objectives right away.

From worst to last:
* Lava boilers (small) will have the terrible pollution efficiency.
* Coal boilers (small, bronze) will have bad pollution efficiency.
* Coal boilers (small, steel) will have moderate-bad pollution efficiency.
* Coal boilers (Large) will have moderate pollution efficiency.
* LHE (Lava) will have reasonable-moderate pollution efficiency.
* LHE (Hot Coolant) will emit zero pollution

Maybes, dunno:
* LV Machines in general will have reasaonable-moderate pollution efficiency
* MV machines in general will have excelent pollution efficiency
* HV+ machines in general will emit zero pollution

So there's zero reason to stick with lower tech.

Right now people are discouraged from using HV machines because, energy-efficiency wise, they suck ass. Its common to see 16 LV centrifuges instead of 1 HV one (recipe requirements notwithstanding). This will be an additional incentive to upgrade.

Quote from axlegear

The idea I proposed as a whole, in addition to the scrubbers, adds to the 'build it bigger, build it better, make it stronger' mentality that I feel embodies Gregtech. You can build bigger, more polluting power arrays for on-demand processing, but you also have to factor in the additional cost to power scrubbers and water cleaners. (more on the water later.) This will add another branch of logistic concerns in addition to the proposed ecological ones, rather than a variable-based barrier that encourages nothing and discourages everything.

We share identical mentalities. Bigger and better ftw. I also agree that, seen purely from this "fun" perspective, the addition of pollution scrubbing makes tons of sense. Where it fails is that it potentially breaks the initial objective: preventing low-tech-spam.

As a concession, however: It occurs to me there's absolutely nothing stopping me from adding it ANYWAY and making it configurable. It would be a negative polluter. From an implementation standpoint its pretty simple. That said, it would be using the same streamlined "air pollution" mechanic everything else uses. Can't promise it in initial release because it requires a new machine. Call it Tier 1.5

Quote from axlegear

As for water- the idea is that it replaces water source blocks, as metnioned, thus making pure water unavailable for pumping except from external mod sources or complex, costly, inefficient routes. Your options are to etiher purify your water, or deal with the consequences of Pwater (much more rapid maintenance for multi-blocks, slower ore processing, no autoclaving, no brewing, greatly reduced boiler efficiency). This achieves your desired lead-pipe-to-the-knee goal of pollution gumming everything up (and moreso), but in a way that it can actually be overcome with further development and logistics. An obstacle isn't fun if you can't work around it.

This only fails for cost/benefit reasons. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the mechanics you're describing. From a game design perspective they're even streamlined with the overall design.

I'm going to straight up admit that my objection here may be specifically because of the packs I play and the lack of playvalue it adds for ME. Since I know you have some familiarity with Infitech2, you recognize that this would add almost zero play value for Infitech2 players. Nobody pumps the lakes for 3 reasons: 1) its annoying, 2) it makes lakes look ugly with current finite water physics, and 3) everyone can just make infinite water from railcraft, enderio, and thaumcraft addons. It adds nothing for me or the players I work with, so based purely on the design you've suggested I can't prioritize it.

If there was some way to "taint" water in tanks or coming out of infinite water source blocks, it would be a different matter altogether. Dirty water would be fantastic. But using Reika's reactorcraft fission waste as an example: there's no point implementing a measure that everyone can just ignore (in his case by simply voiding the waste)

Quote from axlegear

Now, the numbers for the AIR filter could be made flexible based on output. IE, when you go to assign a 'pollution' variable for each machine, you can decide whether it's a positive or negative machine, based on whether it's a net produce or net loss of pollution compared to Pollution In vs. cost of Pollution Out. In other words..

Refactored (and to some degree abstracted), these appear to be the current design.

Quote from axlegear

I'm on the fence about nuclear. It doesn't realistically IRL throw radiation out into the atmosphere, it's all conveniently bottled into barrels and buried, usually, or reprocessed. So i'm still pondering a good way to handle this, naquadah reactors, and fusion. Those are tricky.

Fusion should have zero pollution interaction whatsoever. I'm inclined to agree with fission. It should only emit pollution if something goes wrong, but if something goes wrong, you have an entirely different subset of mechanics to deal with. Mostly involving restoring a backup in my case.

Quote from axlegear

Currently by default, there's not much reason to use the solar/wind/nuclear power sources because fuel is cheap and easy, and their outputs are excellent and easier to design. This pollution model would make them a lot more valuable and viable, especially nuclear.

I didn't consider this and you're right, it would be a pleasant incentive to use green solar and wind. In Infitech2 at least, fission is already pretty viable thankfully.

Quote from SpwnX

I pretty much agree with axlegear here. Nobody wants pollution that doesn't make sense or is just slapped there for "balance".

Well obviously some people do, or we wouldn't have assembled that design in the first place.

Quote from SpwnX

If its there, it must be something that you deal with because it actually does yield real problems not just some random machine inefficiency "cause pollution".
That is just something half thought and a lazy implementation that I can't accept, at all.

+1 for making the place an actual hazardous place to live, If you can't grow crops, livestock and such, or even breathe safely on that place, it makes pollution already a big problem, really.
Make environment hazardous, enough to destroy your industry.
ALL Blocks get corroded with rain (save acid-proof blocks that are expensive as fuck), machines that run on water or air malfunction, machines that burn stuff gets inefficient (lower oxygen quality), machines that run any cutting device will start to need regular "maintenance" (replace macerator grinder blades, sawmill saws and whatever more).

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All of that is the standard "wishlist" stuff people would like to see involved with pollution. None of it is counterproductive. Some of it may be tricky to implement. None of it is "Day 1 out the door" stuff if I'm doing the implementation.

Its open-source guys. If you want to fork the project or do a pull request, go for it. If it doesn't break anything else, it will probably be accepted.

I violently believe that Gregtech should not be designed in a way that catours to other mods to such a level that it limits itself to THEIR parameters, because other mods do not have the same implementation, goals, or spirit as Gregtech, and this is thusly a flawed and very damaging mindset.

I understand that other mods add broken, cheaty water-generators. That should be irrelevent to Gregtech because Gregtech is Gregtech, not EnderIO or Railcraft. Furthermore, those who insist on having those mods probably aren't as interested in Gregtech in the first place, so it's another case of 'why cater?' Lastly, those who really want to 'greg up' mods can and will. If water pollution is implemented as I suggested, I will disable Railcraft watertanks (which I currently use!) and other potential pure-water-generators, which is very easy to do with Minetweaker. My players won't be significantly affected installation-wise because it's just a script to add. Alternatively, one could simply make raintanks and such harder to craft- I've considered making it require sealed wood and steel or iron screws instead of just wood and iron plates. This would add some obstacle and discouragement but not remove them.

I feel that limiting Gregtech's capabilities just because 'other mods are easier' is a devaluable position that will destroy it's development and spirit both. If you remove capabilities or never implement them, you are not giving users the chocie of whether or not to use them, you are denying the choice. If you add the capabilities but allow them to be toggled, this is entirely different- They either will or won't and noone misses out. Since I feel most users would not use the simplified 'pollution = less efficiency' variable idea Pyure initially suggested, it would be a waste of time to implement which he or Asp could spend on something more productive and valuable to the community. Whereas with my idea, it would be more work but would be toggleable at master and configureable with the appeal to those who want realistic pollution, and the option to be avoided by those who would rather not use it. After all, just 'disable it' is what they would be doing if they circumvent it using another mod anyway. And if that's the route they are going to go... why are they even installing Gregtech at all?

Edit:
Also, you could perhaps just have Pwater go into a centrifuge or electrolyzer or some pre-existing machine and output normal or distilled water. That would not require a whole new machine, just a new recipe. MUCh easier than my initial idea.

Quote from Pyure

Well obviously some people do, or we wouldn't have assembled that design in the first place.

All of that is the standard "wishlist" stuff people would like to see involved with pollution. None of it is counterproductive. Some of it may be tricky to implement. None of it is "Day 1 out the door" stuff if I'm doing the implementation.

Its open-source guys. If you want to fork the project or do a pull request, go for it. If it doesn't break anything else, it will probably be accepted.

I started writing some changes that I would like to see (really minor, superficial stuff) but then I wasn't sure if my style fit in with existing GT5 code conventions and if I was doing things the "right" way. I don't want to end up making the code hideous and have a bunch of special cases that only exist because I didn't understand the code.

And i'm not a programmer, tried once and failed, don't have the mental acuity for it. Nor are any of my server's players. I don't even know what a fork or pull request IS, much less how to do them. So... I really have no option here but to give suggestions and present arguments and debate. So the 'it's open source, if you don't like it go make your own' mentality is kind of insulting and doesn't really help anyone. So I just do what Axle do: Come up with ideas and work out the logistics.

Hi guys!

After reading your points of view and suggestions about pollution and avoiding spam lava boilers for steam (and EU generation) I have an idea but I don't know if it can fit in the GT philosophy. If the lava boilers could have some kind of a cooldown mechanism, could it solve the spamming of them for energy generation? I mean, the lava boilers could work during a certain amount of time and after that, they automatically shut themselves off in order to avoid a meltdown (because lava) or a explosion (or some kind of effect) or Steve must shut them off (using a soft hammer, for example) to avoid the catastrophe. It could serve to enforce the player moving to other generators.

Edit: After reading Sapient's post below this one: We also can put a recipe for the next tier machines using the previous one as a part of the crafting, I mean, if I am going to make a MV macerator, I can make it from scratch or I can use the LV macerator as a part of the recipe for the new one.

I just want to remind you all, that simplest way to "preventing low-tech-spam" is to change recipe overclock mechanics.
It should eat 4x more energy and work 4x faster on each tier. So total energy/item value would be same for all tiers and players will upgrade they machines asap just to work faster.

I also changed in my config (thx BloodAsp for this ability) efficiency of generators. I think it should increasing any next tier (up to tier 3) and than all low-tech would be replaced by next-tech just asap.

Personally, i'm fine with the overclocking mechanics as-is. But I leave that to you. It's just the pollution that concerns me. The static variable is just a chore. The dynamic effects I suggested adds a clear penalty/reward system, has a logistical GT-oriented solution, encourages green energy, discourages high-yield powerspam options, and has realistic implementation and mechanics. Maybe i'm biased, but I can't see how anyone could disagree and say it's not better than a worldwide 'pollution slows everything' variable.