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RimWorld’sBiotech Expansion adds a new level of management to an already notoriously difficult game. Mechanoids are no longer exclusively enemies and can now be harnessed to work for you. The pollution they produce, if it’s left ignored,can cause your entire colony to fall deathly ill, attract dangerous insectoid raids and ignite wars with environmentally conscious factions.
Related:Rimworld: Biotech - Every Xenohuman Type, Ranked
With good waste management, you can completely avoid the downsides of pollution or evenweaponise it to empower you. There are different approaches here and each has its own advantages, drawbacks, and tech requirements.
How Toxic Wastepacks Are Generated In RimWorld
Toxic Wastepacks are generated by several of the new buildings added in Biotech. Most heavily, the ones related toMechanitors and Mechanoids.
Tamed Mechanoids are a powerful asset to your colony, carrying out simple tasks anddefending you from raiderswithout needing to risk your fleshly meatsack colonists. The downsides are that they need large amounts of electricity for maintenance, andthey produce a lot oftoxic waste.
Choose your mechanitor carefully. They should havea high smithing skillbut shouldn’t be so vital to the colony that other jobs will go undone while they’re managing their machines.
You also want to keep them well protected, as their mechanoids can quickly go feral if they die. It can be fun to make the same person your mechanitor, ideology leader, and royal psychic but they won’t have enough time to do any to the fullest.
Mechanoid gestation chambers andrechargers will accumulate wastepacksin their internal storage as they’re used. Larger mechanoids will generate more waste both when created and recharged.
Additionally, they requirebandwidth, a new resource unique to mechanitors. This determines how many mechanoids you’re able to control at once and requiresbandwidth nodesto be increased.
The bandwidth nodes, along with the gestation chambers and rechargers willall consume a steady supply of electricity.
Even with bandwidth nodes, you will want to be careful with how many mechanoids you create. If asolar flaredisables your electronic buildings your mechanoids will initially become non-responsive but canturn feral and attack you.
For this reason you’ll also want toposition your nodes somewhere safeand invest in consistent electricity sources such asgeothermal generators.
An easy way of meeting this electricity demand is withtoxifier generators, which produce large amounts of energyat the cost of generating even more toxic waste.
Even if you aren’t playing with a mechanitor you might still encounter toxic waste. Some maps will have a high amount of starting pollution, andquests may ask you to safely store or dispose of toxic waste for other factions.
How To Safely Store Toxic Wastepacks
When left unattended, toxic wastepacks will dissolve and release their contents into the groundwater. The scent of fresh poison can attractinsectoidsto the area, likelyburrowing up into the room you were storing the toxic waste.
Having a high pollution level near your colony will also cause other harmful events, such as acid smog that block solar panels and hurts peoples' mood.
When stored below zero degrees Celsius wastepacks will not decay andcan be stored indefinitely. They still only fit five to a stack, so you wouldneed a large warehouse to store them en masse.
Some popular mods for Rimworld adjust the number of items a single resource stack can contain, making warehouse management less taxing. For most resources, this doesn’t heavily impact balance but for toxic wastepacks it can remove the main consequence by allowing you to store large numbers of them in small freezers.
Frozen storage is not a perfect solution, since you’re only ever one crisis from having todeal with all the stored pollution simultaneously.A solar flare can knock out the coolers, raiders could break open the walls, or a power short couldstart a fire inside the warehouse.
you may minimise this risk byusing thick walls that retain heat and keep out intruders, and not running any power cables through the inside of the building.
Related:Rimworld: How To Use The Biosculpter Pod
How To Safely Dispose Of Toxic Wastepacks
Toxic wastepacks are difficult to destroy and the various methods each work at different scales and require specific technologies or equipment.
where to find them
Limitations
Pollux Trees
This new species of flora will begin toappear naturally on highly polluted ground.
Seeds for them can bebought from tradersor rewarded by quests.
While difficult to get these trees will naturallyextract pollution from the ground around them, creating a clean space around them.
Other forms of cleaning require you to firstpump the toxins outof the polluted terrain.
They requireno maintenance.
They work slowlyand will struggle to keep up with the amount of waste produced by a colony relying heavily on mechanoids.
They can bedestroyed by fire or beavers.
Wastepack Atomizer
Unlocked by the research “Ultra Mechtech”.
This buildingrequires a nano-structuring chip to research and construct, obtained from defeating the dangerousApocriton mechanoid.
Alongside the nano-structuring chip, you will needsteel and plasteel to construct it.
A single atomizer will destroy wastepacksas fast as five pollux trees, averaging 10 wastepacks in five days. you may store your wastepack atomizer indoors and close to your pollution-producing buildings tominimise the time spent hauling toxic waste.
The nano-structuring chip used to construct them can also be used for creating powerfulmechanoid war queens,Mechlord equipment,and upgrades. Each Apocriton you summon will bring a largergroup of supporting mechanoidsmeaning that using your nano-structuring chips for only a small amount of waste disposal isoften not worth the price.
Make it somebody else’s problem
The research"transport pod".
Large amounts of iron, chemfuel, and electrical components toconstruct transport pods.
you may alternatively use atrade caravan with cargoanimalsto carry the toxic wastepacks.
Can eliminate large amounts of waste in a short span of time. A useful method for clearing out storage space when your freezer is full.
Committing war crimes is a rite of passagein the Rimworld Community, and dumping toxic waste outside somebody’s door counts.
There aresevere diplomatic consequences for dumping toxic waste, even when placing them in uninhabited land.
This can escalate to enemies launching their own toxic wastepacks into your colony, orsending raids to attack you.
Pretend it isn’t happening
Create a storagezoneon the farthest edge of the mapand place all your wastepacks inside of it.Configure your allowed areato minimise the time your colonists spend in this area.
Requires no resources or commitmentbesides the time spent carrying the wastepacks away from your base.
Insects that burrow up willbegin dormant and may be woken up by raiders or mechanoids. Watch them fight each other and be glad it isn’t you.
Can serve as astalling mechanismuntil you have access to other methods.
Eventually, thepollution will spreadacross the map.
Hostile insectoids and wasters gain thepollution stimulus bufffrom fighting on polluted terrain.
How To Survive And Thrive With Toxic Waste
The other main addition of the biotech expansion is the introduction of genetic modification, which offers several ways of gaining resistance or immunity to the harmful effects of toxic waste exposure. There is also clothing that allows you to safely handle toxic wastepacks without risking health effects.
If you equip your entire colony to be immune to toxins then you no longer need to fear pollution and can actually turn its debuffs into positives using the genepollution stimulus. This gives you an edge over raiders who will have to trudge through toxic waste and insect nests to reach you.
This isn’t an easy strategy to pull off: You’ll have to grow pollution-resistant crops, deal with the acid smog, and fend off more waves of bugs than the Mobile Infantry.
Sold byexotic goods traders.
Providesfull immunity to all toxins, including poisonous weapon attacks.
This gene is difficult to procure and has a high metabolic cost.
A weaker version is sometimes sold by traders that offer 50 percent strength.
Can beextracted from Wasterswith a gene extractor.
Providesfull immunity to environmental toxinsbut can still be affected by poison attacks.
Face mask
Can becrafted at a tailor’s benchafter completing the research of “complex clothing”.
Gas mask
Can becrafted at a machining tableafter completing the research “machining”.
Provides80 percent resistance.
Cannot be worn with most headwear, including some that can still be combined with a face mask.
Detoxifier kidney implant
Can becrafted at a fabrication benchafter completing the research “toxin filtration”.
You can sell the old kidney.
Detoxifier Lungs
Each lung gives 50 percent resistance,stacking to 100 percent.
More efficient than a normal lung,increasing movement speed.
A used lung sells for slightly more than a secondhand kidney.
It can help to keep a spare set of toxin-resistant equipment for new recruits to use or create a cleanroom for them to stay in until their new genome or organs are ready.
