Psychic harmonizer

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Psychic harmonizer

Psychic harmonizer

This brain implant projects the user's mood in a spherical psychic field, forcing others nearby to feel a blurred, simplified version of their emotions. It can be an powerful tool to keep morale high, but if the user becomes unhappy, it can lead to collective disaster.

Base Stats

Type
Medical ItemsBody Parts
Tech Level
Archotech
Market Value
1030 Silver
Mass
4 kg
HP
50
Flammability
100%
Technical
thingSetMakerTags
ImplantEmpireRoyal
techHediffsTags
ImplantEmpireRoyal
tradeTags
ImplantEmpireRoyal


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 (of the same faction) with a moodlet.

This moodlet is dependent on the implantee's current mood value. It is linearly interpolated between these values:[Rounding?]

  • −8 moodlet at 0% implantee mood.
  • 0 moodlet at 50% implantee mood
  • +10 moodlet at 100% implantee mood.

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

The effects of multiple psychic harmonizers can stack. However, if a pawn has a psychic harmonizer implant, they cannot be impacted by another psychic harmonizer.

It only impacts members of the same faction. SlavesContent added by the Ideology DLC 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 mood in general: Joywires provide a +30 mood boost. If a pawn is happy all day, they are a good candidate.
  • 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 work speed?
  • Unconscious pawns. See below for details.

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 geneContent added by the Biotech DLC 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. The goal is to get Consciousness below 30% (but above 0%). 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 either go-juice or wake-up can be used for a Consciousness boost.

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 devastated pawns to 100% mood (assuming they can take drugs at all).