Circadian assistant

The circadian assistant is an artificial body part that slows the rate at which pawns get tired.

Acquisition

Circadian assistants can be crafted at a Fabrication bench once the Circadian influence research project has been completed. The required techprint can be obtained either by trade or completing quests for the Empire. They require 15 Plasteel, 4 Advanced components, 26,000 ticks (7.22 mins) of work, and a Crafting skill of 8.

Pawns from ancient shrines may have this implant installed.

Summary

An installed circadian assistant decreases Rest Fall Rate by −20%. This does not equal 20% less sleep. See Sleep Saved for the exact details.

When a pawn with this implant is shocked with EMP, they will receive brain shock, knocking them unconscious temporarily.

Installation

Installing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, 2x medicine of herbal quality or better, and a Medical skill of 5.

Removing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, 1x medicine of herbal quality or better, and a Medical skill of 5.

If the operation fails, the part has a chance^{[What Chance?]} to be destroyed.

Analysis

The circadian assistant increases work hours without impacting Consciousness like the half-cycler. However, this implant is virtually always worse for productivity than either a bionic arm or bionic leg, depending on the type of work the colonist focuses on. The brain shock makes using EMP against mechs more difficult, but gives a way to safely down the pawn in case of a mental break or prison break.

With high quality beds, and/or other positive modifiers to rest, consider setting a pawn's schedule entirely to Anything. A pawn with greatly enhanced sleep will go beyond a 24 hour sleep schedule, which means that pawns will spend less time moving to/from their bed. Remember that being in darkness will reduce work speed by a significant percentage, unless there is something mitigating this.

Sleep saved

In essence, the circadian assistant only has an effect while the pawn is awake. Therefore, actual sleep saving will always be lower than expected values.

For example, a baseline pawn in a normal bed would spend 18.19 hours awake per 7.56 hours sleeping, to avoid being Drowsy. The assistant increases awake time to (18.19/0.8), or 22.74 hours awake, without impacting the sleep needed.

A baseline pawn in a normal bed spends (18.19 hr awake) / (7.56 + 18.19 hr total) = 70.6% of a day awake. Equal to 16.95 hr per 24 hour cycle.
With the circadian assistant, this becomes (22.74 hr awake) / (7.56 + 22.74 hr total) = 75.04% of a day awake. Equal to 18.01 hr per 24 hour cycle.

This means that, in a normal bed, the circadian assistant will actually decrease sleep by ×94.08%, or about 1.06 hours per day - rather than the expected 80% sleep. Increasing Rest Effectiveness or Rest Rate Multiplier will actually lower the relative time savings of the circadian assistant. For example, a quick sleeper installing a circadian assistant would end up decreasing sleep by ×95.69%, saving about 0.853 hours per 24 hour day (compared to just quick sleeper).

For comparison, bionic arms and bionic legs increase Manipulation or Moving by +12.5%, per part, which increase work speed / travel time by that amount. While "awake time" would increase both time working and travel time, the other parts are more specialized and thus are generally better at increasing a specific work's speed.

Notes

Despite its description, it does nothing to mitigate toxic buildup.

Artificial body parts

Arm/Hand: Archotech arm • Bionic arm • Power claw • Prosthetic arm • Wooden hand • Drill arm • Elbow blade • Field hand • Hand talon • Venom talon
Head: Archotech eye • Bionic eye • Bionic ear • Bionic tongue • Cochlear implant • Denture • Aesthetic nose
Head implants: Joywire • Painstopper • Circadian assistant • Circadian half-cycler • Gastro-analyzer • Learning assistant • Mindscrew • Neurocalculator • Psychic harmonizer • Psychic reader • Psychic sensitizer • Venom fangs • Control sublink (Standard, High) • Mechlink • Mech gestation processor • Remote repairer • Remote shielder • Repair probe
Spine: Bionic spine
Stomach: Bionic stomach • Nuclear stomach • Reprocessor stomach • Sterilizing stomach
Organs: Bionic heart • Heart • Kidney • Liver • Lung • Prosthetic heart • Detoxifier kidney • Detoxifier lung
Visceral implants: Death acidifier • Aesthetic shaper • Coagulator • Healing enhancer • Armorskin gland • Stoneskin gland • Toughskin gland • Immunoenhancer • Love enhancer
Leg/Foot: Archotech leg • Bionic leg • Prosthetic leg • Peg leg • Wooden foot • Knee spike
Related: Psylink neuroformer • Xenogerm
Deprecated: Scyther blade • Psychic silencer