Guide: Material Safety
Many materials and items in the mod can present hazards to handling, and similarly to real life, some of these hazards are not immediately intuitive. Radiation exposure can silently cripple your character without ways of detecting and mitigating its effects. Hydroreactive elements can violently explode if kept in your inventory and you encounter rain or water. Pyrophoric elements can set your character on fire if you don't have a set of tungsten reachers in your inventory. You can even contract lung illnesses if you don't pack suitable protection against coal fumes and asbestos!
This guide will help protect you from the dangers of the world, and equip you with vital knowledge to master the atom and the rest of the natural world, hazards and all.
Radiation
Although 'radiation' can refer to any emission of energy as waves or particles, NTM specifically has ionizing radiation as its greatest hazard. Radiation is emitted in several different ways and is by far the most dangerous hazard — your radiation dose will not decrease without intervention, and is associated with crippling maluses leading up to death at 1000 RADs absorbed.
Protection
Thankfully, there are multiple measures that can generally reduce your radiation intake. Radiation resistance determines how much is blocked; the actual amount of radiation you absorb is equal to . As a result, a little will go a long way at first, but increasing resistance will become less effective at blocking radiation later on.
Resistance can be improved by:
- Wearing armor. Several armor pieces have base resistance values, which will form the bulk of your protection.
- Equipping armor mods using the armor modification table. Upgrades, such as cladding, are the best way to squeeze additional protection out of an existing armor set. Later on, the Liquidator Medal can be used to deduct a flat 10 RAD/s from your radiation dosage, practically nullifying radiation with a high-enough resistance.
- Using Rad-X. The additional 0.2 resistance is a great boon for the early game, as most metal armors have very low protection (<25%).
- Standing on top of a player decontaminator. The decontaminator will subtract 10 RAD/s from your dosage, making it a great choice for handling radioactive items like uranium early-on.
| Helmet |       |
| Chestplate |    |
| Leggings |   |
| Boots |   |
Recipe for the Liquidator Suit, with the highest resistance of any armor before petroleum processing, ideal for early game protection.
Exposure
Contamination
Certain blocks like fallout and the flames from a balefire explosion will give you (and other mobs) the contaminated status effect. It will slowly tick up your contamination by as many RAD/s as the level, e.g. Contaminated 2 gives 2 RAD/s. Items that cure potion effects, like the iodine pill or even a bucket of milk, can remove it; the player decontaminator is usually the best choice though, as it removes the effect on its own.
Chunk Radiation
The world itself is governed by a fairly simple, chunk-based radiation system: radioactive blocks will contribute RAD/s to a chunk, which will slowly spread out to other chunks and irradiate any entities present. Additionally, trees and grass will begin to die above 10 RAD/s (for some reason, the config option changing the threshold is unused).
Radiation absorbers directly counteract chunk radiation, removing a set amount of rads from their chunk every half second. Additionally, ambience radiation generators will constantly absorb 100 RAD/s, outputting as much HE as RAD/s in the chunk. Although both methods will eliminate chunk radiation for the most part, most entities will still experience a small trickle of RAD/s.
Ray-Cast Radiation
The most realistic (and scariest) type of radiation present in NTM. Radiation is emitted from the source and directly irradiates mobs and the player, being only partially blocked by blast-resistant blocks. This type of radiation is usually reserved for fatally-radioactive sources, such as the burning debris of an RBMK or a ZIRNOX. In either case, being directly exposed will instantly kill you, even with the best protection early-on.
There's little that can be done; the best choice is to avoid this type. Placing plenty of resistant blocks like concrete between you and the source, as well as standing far away from it, will drastically reduce the dosage. For both the RBMK and ZIRNOX, you can significantly reduce the radioactivity by extinguishing them with a foam or sand fire extinguisher or even just letting them burn out with time.
Particulate and Gas
A hazard that you are going to immediately encounter as you start a new world is coal dust, which can cause black lung. This can wreak havoc on your lungs, causing you to suffer weakness, and begin coughing blood and soot. Protecting yourself from these deadly dust particles is quite simple however. All you need is a simple to craft mask. Cloth can be created from wool and string in the crafting table, and then either dropped in water to soak them, or held and right-clicked to urinate on them. Urine creates a more effective protection against chemical gases, while water only protects against dust.
| Cloth | Mask |
|---|---|
   4 |
    |
Note that neither of these will protect against the finer particulates of asbestos, which can cause Mesothelioma. You'll need to find masks that protect against particulates (not just airborne particles). The earliest way to protect against these particulates is a gas mask filter. These filters must be attached to a gas mask by equipping the gas mask, and right-clicking while holding the filter.
| Activated Carbon Filter | Gas Mask Filter |
|---|---|
    |
  |
Other Hazards
See: Item Mechanics
Pyrophoric
These materials will immediately combust the player when held, but this danger can be easily mitigated with a simple tool, a set of tungsten reachers. These are crafted fairly easily with just tungsten and latex. These reachers also have the bonus of reducing radiation received by items stored in your inventory.
Hydroreactive
Protecting yourself while handling hydroreactive elements is simple, do not let them contact water! This however may be easier said than done, as being rained upon while carrying these elements in your inventory is enough to cause them to violently react, destroying all hydroreactive items immediately and causing an explosion. Make sure to stay under a roof when handling these elements, and do not enter any pools of water. There is no other way to mitigate the danger of hydroreactive elements, so plan ahead when building your workspaces and factories.
Flammable / Explosive
Similarly to hydroreactive elements, these will immediately combust upon contact with lava or fire (whether that be in the environment, or while inside a players inventory), causing an explosion, holding flammable and pyrophoric elements without a tungsten reacher is a very dangerous combination, so plan accordingly.
Blinding
Usually caused by schrabidium and other schrabidic compounds. It causes blindness when held due to the bright light emitted, but it goes away after 5 seconds when removed from your inventory. You can also be blinded by an FEL running with a visible light emitting crystal, however this is permanent, and must be removed by drinking milk or taking an iodine pill.