Toxic wastepack

Toxic wastepacks are waste products created by mech-related buildings or the cleanup of polluted tiles.

Acquisition

Pollution pumps and pawns manually cleaning pollution on the ground will generate wastepacks, at a rate of 1 wastepack per 6 polluted tiles. Wastepacks may also be dropped into your colony as part of a quest.

Mechanoid Recharging and Gestation

Toxic wastepacks are produced when friendly mechanoids utilize mech rechargers or large mech rechargers, or whenever a mech gestator or large mech gestator finishes gestating one. The amount of wastepacks produced is proportional to the Bandwidth of the mech recharged or gestated.

Mechanoid Type	Bandwidth	Wastepacks Per Recharge
Agrihand, Cleansweeper, Constructoid, Fabricor, Lifter, Militor, Paramedic, Scorcher	1	5
Legionary, Pikeman, Scyther	2	10
Lancer, Tesseron, Tunneler	3	15
Centipede blaster, Centipede burner, Centipede gunner	4	20
Centurion, Diabolus, War queen	5	25

Summary

Up to 5 toxic wastepacks can fit into 1 tile, and they do not fit on shelves.

Pollution

When a wastepack is destroyed in any fashion, they will pollute 6 ground tiles of a colony, per wastepack. A full stack of 5 wastepacks pollutes 30 tiles. This pollution can spread through constructed walls, but will not bypass natural stone walls.

When burned or damaged, wastepacks release tox gas, in addition to the pollution.

When dumped from a caravan or sent via unmanned transport pod, wastepacks will lower the goodwill of a nearby faction or the faction base that you polluted. The goodwill loss is proportional to the amount of waste dumped: −1 goodwill for just a few packs nearby, −60 or more for multiple pods filled with wastepacks dumped directly on a base. Factions (except tribes) may retaliate by dropping wastepacks back at you, and hostile factions may send an additional raid.

Wastepacks dumped on the world map immediately pollute the world tile by 0.05%, requiring 2000 wastepacks to completely pollute a hex from 0% to 100%.

Dissolving

1 wastepack per stack will dissolve every 8 days, with the following factors:

0.5x if indoors.
2x if in rain and outdoors, even if roofed.
0x if 0 °C (32 °F) or lower. Any temperature above freezing point will not slow the dissolving of the wastepack.

The packs also deteriorate in the same way as all other items. As an example, 5 Toxic wastepacks left out in the rain will dissolve 1 wastepack after 4 days and deteriorate the rest over the course of the next day or so as they lose HP at a rate of 20 per day outside in the rain. This means that even if temperature is below freezing when left outside or unroofed, a wastepack will slowly lose HP and eventually be destroyed, releasing the pollution inside. Unlike most other items, deterioration leaves behind the pollution inside rather than deleting the item altogether.

Analysis

Storage

A 7x7 room holds 245 wastepacks, and can be cooled by a single cooler in a double-walled room, and is effective up to an outside temperature of 41 °C (105.8 °F). 245 wastepacks are enough storage:

To constantly run 8 bandwidth worth of mechanoids for 1 entire year, 4 bandwidth of mechs for 2 years...
To store the waste of 2 toxifier generators for 6 years. A pollution pump, or a pawn cleaning the pollution by hand, is required to turn ground pollution into wastepacks.

Depending on climate and freezer setup, you can get more storage with 1 cooler. And this is 1 cooler - worth 90 Steel, 3 Components and -200 W of power (plus the material for walls and doors). You can easily use multiple coolers to store your waste. This gives you enough time to get a form of waste disposal ready.

Disposal

credit to /u/BenightedAlizar on r/rimworld

Most means of destroying wastepacks have some sort of consequence:

Letting it pollute. Pollution is localized - wastepacks that deteriorate or dissolve away from your base won't have an impact, at least for a while. Insectoids may come as wastepacks are destroyed, and acidic smog can happen at high enough pollution levels.
Dumping it offsite. Dumping near a faction base (up to 41 tiles?^{[Safe distance?]}) will lower goodwill proportional to distance, wastepacks, and current goodwill. Wastepacks may also be dropped back at you, and if the faction is already hostile, you may start a raid. Dumping within 4 tiles of your colony will increase the chance for acidic smog.
- Caravans take time and food to set up, and have a limited carrying capacity - especially without pack animals or friendly mechanoids.
- Transport pods can dump wastepacks far away. You can choose which faction to anger, or possibly dump it away from anybody. 1 pod, which can store up to 25 wastepacks, and per launch costs 60 Steel, 1 Component, and a variable amount of chemfuel depending on how far you launch it.
- Shuttles store up to 166 wastepacks (1000kg) at a time, and simply transporting waste will not anger the Empire - dumping it has the usual penalties. This costs 1 permit slot, has a cooldown of 40 days, and requires a noble pawn of at least Knight/Dame rank. This permit can theoretically support up to 5 bandwidth without honor costs (although the realistic value is slightly smaller).
Wastepack atomizers have no direct consequences from their use. However, they require a precious nano structuring chip to create, a fair amount of power, and aren't fast. One atomizer can support 4.8 bandwidth of mechanoids - a mechanitor is very likely to have more.
Polux trees, which are another clean form of pollution removal. These trees only grow naturally if there is plenty of pollution already, though seeds can be bought from traders. They clean only 20% as fast as a Wastepack atomizer, and can only clean if there is no artificial buildings in the area, but will erase pollution directly from the ground. This is also a downside for dealing with future pollution, as these trees do not stop wastepack infestations.

Additionally, a pawn can carry in its inventory up to the total colony carrying capacity of wastepacks by exploitatively forming caravans, which enabling the following methods:

Death acidifiers, which exploitatively deletes wastepacks carried on a pawn with the implant on death. This does not cause pollution.
Subcore ripscanners, which exploitatively locks wastepacks carried on a pawn on death. The pawn's corpse can then be destroyed along with any wastepacks in its inventory. This does not cause pollution.
Pollute the undercave, which also helps you deal with fleshbeasts since they are not immune to toxic buildup. Pollution of the undercave does not pollute your colony in any way, and they ceased to exist once its associated pit gate collapsed.
Pollute the labyrinth, but you must destroy all wastepacks there, or the warped obelisk will teleport them back to your colony when you leaving there.
Pollute the metal hell, wastepacks dropped there are not coming back with your pawns.

Gallery

Version history

Biotech DLC Release - Added
1.4.3542 - Fix: Can destroy wastepacks on temp tiles to avoid relationship penalty loss.
1.4.3555 - Added more consequences for dumping near a faction base.

Biotech (DLC)

Families: Relationships (Reproduction • Children)
Life stages (Babies • Children • Adults)
Furniture (Crib • Baby sleeping spot • Growth vat • Toy box • Baby decoration • School desk • Blackboard)
Mechanoids: Laborers (Agrihand • Cleansweeper • Constructoid • Fabricor • Lifter • Paramedic • Tunneler)
Combatants (Centurion • Legionary • Militor • Scorcher • Tesseron)
Commanders (Apocriton • Diabolus • War queen • War urchin)
Mechanitors: Control (Mechlink • Band node • Mech boosters • Mech signallers • Control pack • Airwire headset)
Mechanoid creation (Basic subcore • Standard subcore • High subcore • Subcore encoder • Subcore softscanner • Subcore ripscanner • Mech gestator)
Maintenance (Mech recharger)
Genetics: Xenohumans (Dirtmoles • Genies • Highmates • Hussars • Impids • Neanderthals • Pigskins • Sanguophages • Wasters • Yttakin)
Genes Germline • Xenogene • Metabolic efficiency
Genetic Modification Genepack • Gene extractor • Gene bank • Gene assembler • Gene processor • Xenogerm • Archite capsules
Deathrest (Deathrest accelerator • Deathrest capacity serum • Deathrest casket • Glucosoid pump • Hemogen amplifier • Hemopump • Psychofluid pump)
Pollution: Nature (Toxalope • Toxipotato plant • Waste rat • Gray pine tree • Pebble cactus • Rat palm tree • Witchwood tree • Stasis cocoon)
Mitigation (Wastepacks • Atomizers • Pollution pumps • Polux trees)
Adaptation Face mask • Gas mask • Tox grenades • Tox pack • Tox shell • Toxic needle gun • Toxbomb launcher • Detoxifier kidney • Detoxifier lung
Nonchalance Toxifier generator