How pollution works

Every chunk carries a pollution number. It lives on the chunk itself and is saved with your world, so a filthy factory site stays filthy after a restart.

What pollutes

Sources are config — "<block id>=<pollution per second>", or "#<block tag>=<rate>" for a whole tag. Only blocks that have a block entity are scanned, which is one small map per chunk.

Create's blaze heat level scales it, mouldering x0.35, fading x0.6, kindled x1, seething x2.

Cleaning it

Air Scrubber Cleans its own chunk at 50 % of its rate and each of the four neighbouring chunks at 12.5 %

Air Scrubber

Shafts connect at both ends of its axis, it eats 8 SU, and it needs a Filter Cartridge to work.

Works from 1 RPM, and cleans faster the quicker it spins, up to 256 RPM (4× output).
Cleans its own chunk at 50 % of its rate and each of the four neighbouring chunks at 12.5 % — one well-fed scrubber covers a plus-shaped area of five chunks.
Right-click with a cartridge to install it, right-click empty-handed to pull one out.
Under Engineer's Goggles it reports the local air quality, its tier, and how much filter life is left.

Advanced Air Scrubber

THERES NO ITEM TO CRAFT! Lay out a flat 5x5 square of Air Scrubbers, all on the SAME axis, and the block in the middle is promoted.

6x the cleaning rate and a far wider radius.
It reaches up into the cloud layer
It costs 8x the stress, and that is on top of the 24 ordinary scrubbers making up the square. !A full array is a serious power commitment!

Filter Cartridges

	Capacity	Notes
Filter Cartridge	24 000 pollution	Iron bars, wool and an Andesite Alloy.
Brass Filter Cartridge	96 000 pollution	Four times the life, and a much better soot yield.

When a cartridge fills up it turns into a Clogged Filter Cartridge and the scrubber stops. Wash it clean with Create's splashing recipe - an Encased Fan blowing through water - and you get the cartridge back + Soot.

Soot

The stuff from the sky.

Burns as furnace fuel (800 ticks).
Crafts into 2× Black Dye.

Tiers

Tier	Pollution	What happens
Clean	< 400	Nothing.
Light Haze	400+	Faint fog, the sky are coloured
Polluted	1 800+	Clear smog, ash, visibility drops.
Heavily Polluted	4 500+	Flowers and grass wither, grass blocks turn to dirt, crops lose a growth stage, players get Nausea.
Toxic	8 000+	All of the above, twice as fast, farmland reverts to dirt, and players also get Poison and Weakness.

Terrain damage and player effects can each be switched off in the config if you only want the visuals

Pollutions. You can add your sources of pollution! Defaults out of the box:

Block	Per second
Furnace / Smoker	4
Blast Furnace	8
Campfire / Soul Campfire	1
Create — Lit Blaze Burner	16 (×heat level)
Create Crafts & Additions — Liquid Blaze Burner	16
Create: Diesel Generators — Burner	20
Create: Diesel Generators — Diesel Engine	45
Create: Diesel Generators — Large Diesel Engine	70
Create: Diesel Generators — Huge Diesel Engine	110
Smart Diesel Generator — Smart Diesel Engine	45
Create: TFMG — Industrial Blast Furnace / Diesel Engine / Coal Burner	60 / 45 / 20
Vintage Improvements — Vacuum Chamber	6
Create Big Cannons — Blast Furnace	25

Command

/smog              reading for where you stand, and which engine is active
/smog set <n>      operator only, built-in engine only
/smog add <n>      operator only
/smog clear        operator only

Under Pollution of the Realms the editing commands are not working

Config

config/smog-common.toml

Section	Controls
`integration`	Whether to defer to Pollution of the Realms.
`simulation`	Step interval, cap, spread rate, decay, rain bonus, vegetation absorption.
`thresholds`	Where each tier starts.
`sources`	The full emitter list.
`effects`	Terrain damage and player effects, independently.
`scrubber`	Clean rate, cartridge capacity, brass multiplier, stress cost, adpother radius and step cost.

Every rate is expressed per second, so raising tickInterval makes the simulation cheaper without changing the balance.

Create: Smog