Radiation

Radiation
Radioactive materials like Uranium, Enriched Uranium, Plutonium or Nuclear Waste emit ionizing radiation. This radiation is represented as radiation zone around its source.The closer to source of radiation you are, the stronger it is. You can watch the radiation level on your personal Geiger computer in top-left corner of your radar map. Radiation in this game is shown in Sv units (Sievert), or to be exact mSv (milliSievert) and uSv (probably microSievert - "u" letter is probably used instead of µ symbol due to charset compatibility. 1 mSv = 1000 uSv.

Sources of Radiation
Main sources of radiation are natural Uranium resource deposits and player made Shielded storage containers with radioactive materials inside and Nuclear Fission reactor building. Small container (creatend while you drop cargo from your invenory) with Uranium (or other radioactive material) inside does not emit any radiation.

Effects of Radiation
When exposed to radioactivity, your vehicle will be continually receiving damage, unless it is equipped with protective armor plating. Level of radiation protection is shown in Armor Plating statistics as „+X mSv danger threshold“. Radiation damage can be issue mainly in first phase of game, when you haven't yet researched any Armor plating (or didn't get it from Random loot). As the Uranium resource deposits are undetectable until you unlock Ionizing Radiation science, it is hard to avoid radiation zones around those deposits until you advance to this science.

Don't forget to equip newly crafted vehicles with some Armor plating before going onto a trip outside your Outpost.

In later game, if you craft new vehicle in Outpost where radioactive materials are stored, it will immediately start to receive damage upon crafting. It is very advisable to have some Armor plates prepared and equip it on new vehicle asap.

However radiation damage seems not to be as strong to be real problem. On top of that environmental radiation rarely exceeds 1 mSv. While I am standing on top of Huge Uranium deposit, my Geiger computer will display around 980 uSv. So almost any kind of Armor plating will solve problems with natural radiation damage.

Radiation can have negative effect on Research lab productivity. Try to keep your labs away from radiation emitting buildings.

Important notes
When you carry radioactive materials in your inventory, you will always receive some radiation damage. Armor Plating with higher damage protection threshold will reduce this damage.

Science regarding nuclear power and buildings required to store and use radioactive materials costs a lot of lead. For example, Shielded storage container costs 40 000 Lead and you will need four of them. Having big stockpile of lead is good idea before you start utilizing nuclear power.

Disclaimer
Information on this page come from my single player server experience. They may be incomplete and slightly different from multiplayer game experience. Game version 19.09.01.1. Also I am not a native English speaker (you surely noticed already ;-) ), so feel free to correct me.