Greetings dear Comrades of the Soviet Republic. Day by day our days are getting colder and even the world is approaching a difficult winter with raising heating costs, in our Republics there is no such a problem because we allow ourselves to use fossil fuels as key resources for heating until there is no other reliable option. Last week we delayed the report because there was not enough material to write about, but today we have sizeable portion of latest information for you, and we hope you will enjoy this report.
There were mostly bug fixes being done in past weeks, but we were able to add some small things like an option to get notified when a storage runs out of resources, and we also added few more options to customize controls. This report will be about waste management though. We want to give you deeper look into the concept of this new feature which will come after the Metro update.
Waste Management
Player will have three options to decide if he/she wants to play with waste management and how much does he/she want to deal with that. Waste management turned on or off is obvious but there will be a more realistic mode which will require much more management and facilities because it will require Demolition office to remove remains from demolished buildings and then you will need special facilities to process and separate several types of waste. More about demolition in upcoming reports.
New resource, Waste will be introduced, and it is made similarly to water which is shown as water but includes different components (it is wastewater and fresh water in different ratios). You will be able to build a new facility called Recycling Centre, which will be able to separate different components from the waste from further use but there will be an option to burn all the waste to produce some heat or power by that or just store it somewhere.
Waste as a resource will include these components:
Biological waste: When it is left in storage it can turn into fertilizer or can be processed in special facility into fertilizer (more about fertilizing in upcoming reports). Biological waste is burnable and has medium heat value.
Steel/Metal waste: When separated from waste, it is steel/aluminium scrap, and it can be turned into stell or aluminium in special facility. Scraps can be stored in aggregate storages and are not burnable.
Construction waste: When separated it turns into construction rubble and with further processing it can be turned into gravel which can be reused in construction. Construction waste is not burnable.
Plastic Waste: After separation it can be transported into special facility where new plastic is created from the waste. It is burnable but with small heat value and when burning it produces higher amount of pollution.
Toxic waste: Cannot be processed to anything and it can be burned with very low heat value and very high pollution. When this is stored, it is causing pollution too.
Burnable waste: Waste such as remains from boards or so, which are burnable with high heat value, and relatively low pollution.
General waste: Unspecified waste which cannot be recycled but can be burned with medium heat value.
Ashes: In general, when something is burned (except scraps and construction rubble), ashes are created which cannot be burned anymore.
These are all the different components of Waste and every waste produced is a mixture of these with different ratios. For example, one facility may produce waste which contains 10% of biological waste, 30% of steel scrap, 50% of general waste and 10% of plastic waste. Then you can use the Recycling Centre to separate steel scrap and plastic waste from and later process that into steel and plastic in special facilities. Or you can just bring this into Incinerator, and you will get on the output some energy and pollution with some Ashes and steel scrap (for example 15% Ashes and 85% steel scrap). Then you can bring this waste into Recycling Centre and separate steel scrap from ashes. It is up to you.
Waste collection
It will work similarly to water. Every building will have default waste storage, but you will be able to build Container Stands which will act similarly to water substations and the waste in their range will be stored in them. This way garbage trucks do not need to visit each building and thus they can save some time. We are planning also to introduce research which will allow you to build container stands which have the different waste components already separated.
Facilities
We will have several types of facilities to process and store waste. Incinerators will be used to burn waste and produce heat or power, different plants will be used to process waste back into resources, and there will be different waste separating facilities etc.
We hope you can see the potential for this new feature. It may become quite complex but there will be an uncomplicated way for those who want rubbish, but their only intention is to burn it. It should not be too complicated to implement into existing Republic, as You will need only to build waste storages, get the technical services equipped with garbage trucks and then you can build the container stands and other facilities to separate and reuse some of the wastes’ components. And that is all we have for this report and the next one may be after the Metro Update will be released if everything goes well. So, enjoy the life, have fun, and stay tuned for the next report.
Thank You for Your support
3Division Team