Difference between revisions of "Psychic harmonizer"

Revision as of 07:41, 30 April 2023

The Psychic Harmonizer is a special psychic implant that projects the mood of the user to other pawns.

Acquisition

Psychic harmonizers cannot be crafted, and instead must be acquired through trade or as a quest reward.

Summary

Once implanted in a pawn, the harmonizer projects a psychic effect with a radius of 30 tiles that affects nearby pawns with a moodlet whose value is dependent on the current mood of the implanted pawn. It base value scales from -? at 0% Implantee Mood, up to +10 at 100% mood.

This value is then proportionally scaled by Psychic Sensitivity of both the implantee and the subject of the effect. If a 100% happy implantee has 200% sensitivity, they'd give +20 mood buff. If a subject also has 200% psychic sensitivity, they would receive a +40 mood buff.

It only impacts members of the same faction, and pawns without a psychic harmonizer of their own. Mood bonuses from different harmonizers stack on pawns that meet the prior two criteria, however.

Slaves are considered to be part of their owners' faction for the purposes of the psychic harmonizer, not of their original faction.

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

Psychic harmonizers can be an extremely powerful tool to keep your pawns happy, if you install it in a pawn who is easily pleased. But if the pawn gets upset, it can quickly cause a "death spiral" of mood.

Pawn Choice

The following aspects lend well to being a (motile) harmonizer pawn:

Positive mood traits: Sanguine and Optimist have the most straightforward effect on the implantee's mood. Other traits like Body modder, Masochist, and Bloodlust also work well. Note that traits that impact Mental Break Threshold, like Iron-willed and Nervous, have 0 impact on the harmonizer.
High Psychic Sensitivity: The higher the sensitivity, the greater the mood buff. It also means a greater effect from a psychic drone, so be very careful with this. Eltex gear and psychic foil helmets can be used to modify psychic sensitivity as needed.
Pawns that will naturally be near other pawns. For example, a psycaster can meditate all day (which also counts as Recreation) in 1 place. A passionate crafter can sit in a chair all day, gaining mood from the passion and the comfort of their chair.
"Disposable" pawns. Drugs and joywires may slow the work of a hauler, but do you really need that extra workspeed?

Comatose pawns

A pawn's mood does not change when unconscious. If you can stack mood to 100%, then make a pawn comatose, you'll end up with a permanent +10 moodlet (so long as the pawn is fed). Because the pawn is unconscious, even a psychic drone won't bother them, meaning you can stack Psychic Sensitivity as much as you want.

The easiest way to do this is with the Biotech DLC. A pawn with the Deathrest gene can willingly enter deathrest, where mood is frozen, and stay in this state indefinitely. A deathrester can be woken on-command, allowing you to replace eltex gear as needed. As a side benefit, pawns don't need food during deathrest.
An alternative method is to use brain damage. You can use an already comatose pawn, but if needed, the fastest way to cause brain damage is to fail to install a brain implant (like a painstopper). If further Consciousness reduction is needed, you can use a joywire (-20%) and circadian half-cycler (-15%). If you need to make the pawn conscious again, then

Regardless of method, your patient should have the highest mood and highest Psychic Sensitivity as possible. Using some combination of yayo, flake, psychite tea, beer, lavish meals, and fine meals should get all but the most ruined pawns to 100% mood.

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 • Flesh tentacle • Flesh whip
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 • Revenant vertebrae
Stomach: Bionic stomach • Nuclear stomach • Reprocessor stomach • Sterilizing stomach • Fleshmass stomach
Heart: Bionic heart • Prosthetic heart • Heart • Adrenal heart • Corrosive heart • Metalblood heart
Lung: Lung • Detoxifier lung • Fleshmass lung
Kidney: Kidney • Detoxifier kidney
Organs: Liver
Visceral implants: Death acidifier • Aesthetic shaper • Coagulator • Healing enhancer • Armorskin gland • Stoneskin gland • Toughskin gland • Immunoenhancer • Love enhancer • Ghoul plating • Ghoul barbs
Leg/Foot: Archotech leg • Bionic leg • Prosthetic leg • Peg leg • Wooden foot • Knee spike
Related: Psylink neuroformer • Xenogerm
Deprecated: Scyther blade • Psychic silencer

@@ Line 20: / Line 20: @@
 == Summary ==
-{{stub|section=1}}
+{{stub|section=1|reason=How does the moodlet scale (linear with mood)? Max mood penalty}}
-Once implanted in a pawn, the harmonizer projects a psychic effect with a radius of 30 tiles that affects nearby pawns with a [[mood|moodlet]] whose value is dependent on the current mood of the implanted pawn. It base value scales from -? at 0% Implantee Mood up to +10 at 100% mood.
+Once implanted in a pawn, the harmonizer projects a psychic effect with a radius of 30 tiles that affects nearby pawns with a [[mood|moodlet]] whose value is dependent on the current mood of the implanted pawn. It base value scales from -? at 0% Implantee Mood, up to +10 at 100% mood.
-This value is further proportionally scaled by the [[psychic sensitivity]] of both the implantee and the subject of the effect, so a pawn with 200% psychic sensitivity affected by a completely happy implantee would have a +20 mood buff, and that buff would increase to +40 if the implantee's sensitivity was increased also increased to 200%.
+This value is then proportionally scaled by [[Psychic Sensitivity]] of both the implantee and the subject of the effect. If a 100% happy implantee has 200% sensitivity, they'd give +20 mood buff. If a subject also has 200% psychic sensitivity, they would receive a +40 mood buff.
 It only impacts members of the same faction, and pawns ''without'' a psychic harmonizer of their own. Mood bonuses from different harmonizers stack on pawns that meet the prior two criteria, however.
@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 ==Analysis==
-Psychic harmonizers can be an extremely powerful tool to keep your pawns happy if you install it in a pawn who is easily pleased however as the description states, it can easily cause problems as well.
+Psychic harmonizers can be an extremely powerful tool to keep your pawns happy, if you install it in a pawn who is easily pleased. But if the pawn gets upset, it can quickly cause a "death spiral" of mood.
-===Traits===
+===Pawn Choice===
-Several [[traits]] lend themselves to use with the Psychic Harmonizer:
+The following aspects lend well to being a (motile) harmonizer pawn:
-* Positive Natural Mood traits: The [[Sanguine]] and [[Optimist]] traits obviously synergize ideally with this implant, providing both a better effect and greater resistance to negative moodlets.
-* [[Masochist]]: Exceptionally easy to buff their mood and not only eliminate one of the biggest risks i.e. injury lowering the mood of the harmonized pawn, but turn it into a benefit. Some of the pawns non-mood effectiveness is lost because of [[pain]]'s effect on [[consciousness]] however.
-* [[Psychopath]]: Immune to many of the largest [[mood]] penalties.
-* [[Bloodlust]]: Similar to psychopath, they are immune to many penalties but also often get significant mood buffs just by participating in raid battles.
-* [[Body modder]]: Perhaps the best pawn to have it in, since it counts towards an implant total improving their mood but also exceedingly easy to keep happy. Bionics also improve the base pawns efficiency as well as their mood, so there is not the trade-off seen with Masochist.
-*[[Psychically hypersensitive]]: As the mood buff scales with psychic sensitivity of the implantee, this directly increases the mood buff by an additional +4.
-Most of these traits' benefits stack, making ideal candidates.
+* Positive [[mood]] traits: [[Sanguine]] and [[Optimist]] have the most straightforward effect on the implantee's mood. Other traits like [[Body modder]], [[Masochist]], and [[Bloodlust]] also work well. Note that traits that impact [[Mental Break Threshold]], like [[Iron-willed]] and [[Nervous]], have 0 impact on the harmonizer.
+* High [[Psychic Sensitivity]]: The higher the sensitivity, the greater the mood buff. It also means a greater effect from a [[psychic drone]], so be very careful with this. [[Eltex]] gear and [[psychic foil helmet]]s can be used to modify psychic sensitivity as needed.
-Traits that harm the default mood, such as [[Depressive]] should obviously be avoided, however traits like [[Nervous]] that affect [[Mental Break Threshold]] are largely irrelevant to harmoizer effectiveness.
+* Pawns that will naturally be near other pawns. For example, a [[psycast]]er can meditate all day (which also counts as [[Recreation]]) in 1 place. A passionate crafter can sit in a chair all day, gaining mood from the passion and the [[comfort]] of their chair.
+* "Disposable" pawns. [[Drug]]s and [[joywire]]s may slow the work of a hauler, but do you really need that extra workspeed?
-===Pawn jobs===
-What the pawn does besides act as a mobile [[psychic emanator]] is a valid question - ideally the best jobs for them involve the least upsetting interactions and the most interaction with other pawns. Thus, [[Electric crematorium|corpse burner]] is likely out because of the former, while growers or [[caravan]]eers are likely out for the latter reason. There are several options however.
-Having your implanted pawn being a [[psycast]]er has merit - as meditation is [[recreation]], they can be kept meditating all day and ensuring that:
-* They are in an optimum position to grant the buff to the most pawns
-* They maintain a full recreation bar, resulting in another mood buff despite tolerance slowing it.
-* They maintain a full psyfocus bar, allowing repeated and/or ready use of powerful psycasts like [[Psycasts#Berserk pulse|Berserk Pulse]] or [[Psycasts#Word of inspiration|Word of Inspiration]]
-Dumb-labor-only pawns are also options - drugs, pain, and joywires might slow the work of cleaners, haulers and stonecutters but they don't significantly impede their effectiveness otherwise, allowing stacking of mood buffs with little regard to side-effects.
-Passionate crafting pawns are also strong candidates - they can sit in a chair all day, in a central location for maximum effect, benefiting from both the comfort bonus and the passion bonus.
-===Other strategies===
-A [[joywire]] can be installed to keep the mood high, however this comes at a significant detriment to a pawn's effectiveness in almost all matters due to the [[consciousness]] penalty.
-As the effect scales with the [[psychic sensitivity]] of the pawn implanted with the harmonizer, another efficient method is to enhance the psychic sensitivity of a pawn. A full set would look like the following: [[eltex skullcap]], [[eltex shirt]], [[eltex vest]], [[eltex robe]], [[eltex staff]], [[psychic sensitizer]], [[Psychically hypersensitive]] trait. This significantly increase the mood effect, up to +50 on highly sensitive pawns, but also receive increased modifiers from [[psychic drone]]s, soothe pulsers and [[Psycast#Word of joy|Word of Joy psycast]].
-[[Drugs]] can be used to increase the mood of the pawn, however this is expensive and tolerance will lead to diminishing returns. Further the risk of overdoses and organ damage exist. Thus, they are best kept for emergencies where they can turn a single dose of [[yayo]] into a colony-wide effect.
-If the implantee does end up with a negative mood, exiling them in a self contained area more than 30 tiles away from other colonists may be possible.
 ===Comatose pawns===
-A pawn's mood does not change when it is unconscious. Thus, a significant and permanent mood buff can be obtained by stacking mood and psychic sensitity buffs on a comatose pawn, with the only recurring cost being nurses to feed the pawn. This strategy stacks with many of the other strategies listed here.
+A pawn's mood does not change when unconscious. If you can stack mood to 100%, then make a pawn comatose, you'll end up with a permanent {{+|10}} moodlet (so long as the pawn is fed). Because the pawn is unconscious, even a [[psychic drone]] won't bother them, meaning you can stack Psychic Sensitivity as much as you want.
-A simple way of creating such a pawn is to wait for a pawn to become brain-damaged. Ideally their [[consciousness]] will be below 30% and result in unconsciousness, but if not penalties from other items such as the -20% from a [[joywire]] or the -15% from a [[circadian half-cycler]] can be used to lower it below the threshold. If the brain-damage itself is sufficient to induce unconsciousness, dosing the pawn with [[wake-up]] and/or [[go-juice]] will temporarily allow them to operate. Regardless of whether it is pre-op or while dosed, while they are conscious they should be equipped with [[eltex]] apparel, as it cannot be done once they're unconscious at the time of writing, and their mood should be made as high as possible so that when they fall unconscious once again their mood is locked at the highest possible.
+* The easiest way to do this is with the [[Biotech DLC]]. A pawn with the [[Deathrest]] gene{{BiotechIcon}} can willingly enter deathrest, where mood is frozen, and stay in this state indefinitely. A deathrester can be woken on-command, allowing you to replace [[eltex]] gear as needed.  As a side benefit, pawns don't need food during deathrest.
+* An alternative method is to use brain damage. You can use an already comatose pawn, but if needed, the fastest way to cause brain damage is to fail to install a brain implant (like a [[painstopper]]). If further Consciousness reduction is needed, you can use a [[joywire]] (-20%) and [[circadian half-cycler]] (-15%). If you need to make the pawn conscious again, then
-With the [[Biotech DLC]], the [[deathrest]] gene can be used to easily create comatose pawns.{{Check Tag|Verify|Verify that the harmonizer works w. deathresting}} Have the pawn deathrest, and turn off automatic wake. Their mood will freeze, as if they were fully unconscious. The deathrester is able to wake up at any moment to replace eltex gear as needed.
+Regardless of method, your patient should have the highest mood and highest Psychic Sensitivity as possible. Using some combination of [[yayo]], [[flake]], [[psychite tea]], [[beer]], [[lavish meal]]s, and [[fine meal]]s should get all but the most ruined pawns to 100% mood.
 {{nav|body parts|wide}}
 [[Category:Medical Item]] [[Category:Body Part]] [[Category:Implant]]