Pollution Revamp

Keep but adjust values

Pretty straight forward. We keep the current technical solution but adjust producer amounts and the levels where effects occur.

Make it something primarily cosmetic

Remove gameplay impact and change it so that pollution has mostly graphical effects.

I think it should be a soft mechanic which links your actions with the area around you, in mostly a visual way. As a form of immersion and to make the game a bit more believable.

I think that this should NOT come with big downsides. It should be "oh that's neat", not "oh no"

I also think pollution shouldn't be on things you are forced to use, so it is tied more to your choices than simply your progression.

So someone could say "ooh I bet this person uses steam power, you can see the [effects of] pollution from it"

Change the effects to be less annoying and use it as an incentive to use certain progression paths

My own take is that pollution should be used as a gameplay mechanic to offer the player the choice of easy paths or cleaner paths, where the cleaner path would probably be more expensive or less powerful, but come with the advantage of higher efficiency of passive/renewable energy and resource generation, such as bees, crops, plants.

Attempt to change the expectation, make having pollution normal/expected, but give bonuses for going green

Currently not entirely sure how this would be implemented, but the main idea is to stop punishing people for polluting and instead reward them for picking greener options and/or doing green things.

Use pollution to incentivize more TPS friendly building strategies

There's been some talk about trying to use pollution as a mechanic that steers people into more TPS friendly builds, or at least away from unfriendly builds.

Have pollution effect machine efficiency or increase maintenance needs

It has been suggested that pollution could affect machine efficiency and/or maintenance needs for multiblocks.

Have pollution spawn/attract mobs attacking pollution producers ala Factorio

A number of people have called for a Factorio like mechanic where pollution increases the danger from mobs.

Drop pollution as a mechanic completely

Some people want to just disable pollution completely, possibly changing it to be more of a resource that can be processed instead of a punishment.

Benefits instead of punishments

Reward players for staying at low pollution levels (increased crop yields, etc.) instead of punishing players for high levels.