Ore Scrubber

Ore Scrubber is a sanitation building that removes germs from freshly handled materials before they are brought deeper into the colony. It is especially useful for cleaning contaminated resources that Duplicants are carrying directly, such as Polluted Dirt from an Outhouse, germy water processed through a Water Sieve, or Slime contaminated with Slimelung. By treating the material before it enters storage and production chains, it helps prevent germs from spreading through the base.

Its cleaning effect applies to items and bottled liquids being carried by a Duplicant, and it can also sanitize gases if they are taken from a Canister Filler. This makes it useful for dealing with infected bottled liquids and germy gas containers, including cases such as Zombie Spores in Carbon Dioxide. However, it does not remove germs that have already been transferred to Duplicants from handling contaminated debris; it only cleans the material itself.

Ore Scrubbers work best when they are part of the path from digging or hauling into the colony. They sanitize freshly mined resources before those resources are brought inside, and placing them in Chlorine improves their effectiveness because the material benefits from both the building’s operation and the natural disinfecting effect of the atmosphere.

• If a Duplicant finds an Ore Scrubber already in use, they will ignore it and keep moving. Placing two or more side by side helps prevent bottlenecks.
• A Duplicant Checkpoint or tightly controlled doors can force Duplicants to pass through a scrubber, but this increases the time required to disinfect materials because fewer Duplicants can move through at once.
• Slime from the Marsh Biome often carries more than 900,000 Slimelung germs per tile, so it commonly needs two passes through Ore Scrubbers to be fully disinfected.
• If digging is set to a higher priority than storing, Duplicants may mine several tiles of Slime before hauling it, which can stack the germ count far beyond what two scrubbers can comfortably handle. Giving storing a higher priority helps ensure Slime is carried immediately after mining.
• Ore Scrubbers can remove germs from bottled liquids being carried by Duplicants, making them useful for cleaning water after sieving or other contaminated bottled resources.
• For maximum throughput, combine scrubbers with good traffic control and, when possible, Chlorine to speed up disinfection.