Heart

The heart is an organ that pumps blood through the circulatory system. The heart accounts for up to 100% of a person's blood pumping. Destruction of the heart is instantly fatal.

Pawns can suffer from an artery blockage, which reduces pumping efficiency of blood, or from heart attacks, which can be fatal if not treated.

Acquisition

See also: Human resources

While most animals have hearts, the heart item can only be acquired by either harvesting them from human pawns through the "Harvest Heart" surgery bill, or by installing a prosthetic heart or bionic heart into a human with the heart being provided as a byproduct. The harvesting bill requires 1 of any type of medicine to perform. Success chance is dependent on a number of factors, including bed quality, room cleanliness, and doctor skill - specifically the doctor's Medical Surgery Success Chance. For details on the bills for installing artificial hearts, see the relevant part's page.

One heart can be taken from a healthy patient but any damage, infection, carcinoma or other issue affecting a heart will prevent harvesting and prevent a heart being produced when replaced by an artificial organ. Harvesting the heart, rather than replacing it, will always kill the patient.

Removing a heart from a guest or prisoner decreases faction goodwill by 20 points down to a max of -100, and creates a -5 mood to your pawns for 8 days due to "someone's organ harvested", stacking up to 5 times, with a 0.75x multiplier. Surgery on your own people gives "colonist's organ harvested" which is statistically identical to the previous mood penalty, however both types of mood penalties stack. Lastly as the pawn is killed by taking the organ, the members of the colony gets an additional a -6 for 5 days.

Pawns with the Bloodlust and Psychopath trait are not affected by the harvesting of other people. If the heart is replaced with an artificial heart of any kind, there is no mood penalty.

Hearts can also be acquired through trading with faction settlements or Exotic Goods traders.

Summary

Summary stuff goes here

Installation

Installing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, ?x medicine of ?? quality or better, and a Medical skill of 8.

Removing the part requires ? of work, ?x medicine of ?? quality or better, and a Medical skill of ?.

If the operation fails, the part has a chance^{[What Chance?]} to be destroyed. If the installation surgery fails, there is also a 25% chance that the patient dies. Thus, as the maximum success chance of any surgery is capped at 98%, there is always at least a 0.5% chance of death per attempt.

Analysis

While hearts can be harvested from prisoners, guests, and your own colonists, generally it is preferable to harvest from prisoners because removing the heart is fatal. Killing a guest or your own colonist carries a significant mood penalty.

There are two primary reasons to harvest an organ - trade and transplantation.

Transplantation

Hearts can be damaged by disease, drugs, or combat. Damage to the Heart reduces Blood Pumping (up to 100% when totally destroyed). This has several effects - the first is up to a 20% reduction in Consciousness which in turn affects almost every task a pawn can perform - making them worse in basically every way.

The second effect is up to a ?% reduction in the Moving capacity, in turn affecting both Move Speed and Melee Dodge Chance. This effect stacks with the consciousness penalty and can significantly affect performance of a pawn in any combat or any task that requires moving or collecting ingredients.

Finally, damage to the Blood Pumping capacity reduces the Rest Rate Multiplier which makes a pawn sleep for longer periods to become fully rested.

Heart transplants can also be used to treat heart attacks, which can be fatal if not treated, and Artery blockage which both reduce heart efficiency and can cause heart attacks. Lastly total destruction of the heart is instantly fatal. Thus, it is recommended to replace damaged hearts on valuable colonists as soon as possible. However, unlike other organs, artificial variants of the heart exist, with the prosthetic heart being inferior to a healthy natural one, and the bionic heart being superior, offering small buffs to Moving and Rest Rate Multiplier. Thus, if the mood penalties of harvesting cannot be withstood, options exist.

Trade

Each heart is worth 1,200 silver, and only has a mass of 1 . The abundant supply of raiders means that, if the mood penalty can be withstood, a significant amount of value can be extracted from them without having to keep prisoners and wait for a Slave Trader or Royal Tribute Collector .

Because removing the heart is fatal, it's actually suboptimal to remove when the other organs are all okay. The Liver, Lungs, and Kidneys are also options for harvesting. If willing to organ-murder the donor, the optimum is removing:

1x Lung worth 1,000
1x Kidney worth 900
1x Heart worth 1,200

For a total of Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character ","..

If the Heart is unavailable you can take the Liver instead which has the same value but weighs twice as much. If that is also unavailable, the second lung and then the second kidney are the optimal options. Removing the heart, liver, second lung or second kidney are all fatal and prevent further harvesting.

If unwilling to organ murder the donor, the best option is to harvest

1x Lung worth 1,000
1x Kidney worth 900

For a total of Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character ","..

Version history

0.7.581 - Item form added, and now harvestable.

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