Airborne

Airborne is a pollution and atmosphere mod for NeoForge 1.21.1, made primarily for multiplayer modpacks built around Create, TFMG, Sable and other industrial mods.

Instead of having pollution exist as individual blocks or entities, Airborne tracks it across the world on a chunk-scale map. Factories, engines, furnaces, lava and other sources add different amounts of different pollutants, which then spread out over time.

There are currently five pollutants:

• CO₂

• PM2.5

• SO₂

• NOₓ

• CO

Different fuels and machines produce different pollution profiles, so burning diesel isn't the same as running a Blaze Burner, and neither is the same as venting CO₂ directly.

Pollution isn't permanent, either. Forests, water, grass, sunlight and rain can gradually clean up an area. A small amount of pollution around a furnace might disappear without you noticing, while running a huge industrial plant for days can leave a polluted region that takes a very long time to recover.

The environment can also make things worse. High pollution can damage crops, animals, grass and trees, which in turn removes some of the natural systems that were absorbing the pollution in the first place. A badly polluted industrial area can eventually become much harder to recover.

Wind

Airborne has a large-scale wind system which affects how pollution spreads.

Natural wind changes over time, and sufficiently powerful Sable propellers can influence it as well. Large fans can therefore be used to push pollution in a particular direction, with higher-altitude installations affecting much larger areas.

Yes, this means you can potentially point a giant fan at your friend's base.

Pollution Map

The main way to investigate pollution is the Pollution Map, a Create-themed map that overlays a heatmap on the normal world map.

It has several modes:

• Environmental Health

• CO₂

• PM2.5

• SO₂

• NOₓ

• CO

Pollution sources are also shown on the map, making it possible to work out where a problem is actually coming from.

Create / TFMG

Airborne is intended to work particularly well with industrial modpacks. It includes integrations for things such as Create engines and burners, TFMG machinery and fuels, Create Propulsion: Simulated thrusters, Sable sublevels, and other combustion systems.

Exposed lava is also a significant pollution source, so maybe think twice before making a gigantic lava lake next to your factory.

Performance

The whole system is designed around long-running multiplayer worlds.

Pollution is stored as aggregated chunk data rather than thousands of individual pollution objects. Old pollution that has been completely dealt with is no longer simulated, and natural pollution sinks only need to do work when there is actually pollution for them to absorb.

The goal is for a world at 5,000 days to run about as well as one at 50 days, provided the amount of active pollution hasn't also grown enormously.

Airborne is meant to make industrialisation feel like it has consequences without turning every furnace into an immediate death trap.