Factorio Wiki: Pollution

Cite as: Factorio Wiki: Pollution
Original: https://wiki.factorio.com/Pollution
sha256: c6a7457d2e667390f83e1a81f78d7b98e405dfcc9a19634d94c64ecb8feba5a5
Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20261026202648/https://wiki.factorio.com/Pollution
Accessed: 2026-10-26
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Credit: Official Factorio Wiki editors; see the page history.
Notes: Used for the 64-tick chunk update and the spawner absorption rule, which the data's comments only sketch.

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Pollution lives on 32 × 32-tile chunks. A chunk holding at least 15 units passes 2% of its pollution to each of its four neighbours per update, which the map settings count per second and the wiki times at every 64 ticks.	`Pollution spread`	Code
Every tile soaks up pollution each second: water 0.000025 units, grass and dirt 0.000018, sand and red desert 0.000015. A whole chunk of grass takes in about 0.018 a second (1.1 a minute).	`Chunks`	Code
Spawners, not factories, turn pollution into attacks: each update a spawner absorbs 20 plus 1% of its chunk's pollution (the wiki gives two versions of when it stops or what it takes instead, below), and after absorbing a certain amount it sends one of its units to a gathering point; the gathered group attacks after 1 to 10 minutes. The absorbed pollution pays for sending units, not for spawning them.	`SpawnersSpawnersSpawnersSpawners (absorption)Spawners`	Wiki