Difference between revisions of "Unnatural corpse"

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{{infobox main
 
{{infobox main
 
| name = Unnatural corpse
 
| name = Unnatural corpse
 
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An '''Unnatural Corpse''' is an [[entity]] that appears in your colony via events. It looks like a copy of your still-living pawns. As soon as you get the corpse, its original copy will suffer from a mood penalty as well as the corpse sometimes teleports near to it.
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An '''Unnatural Corpse''' is an [[entity]] that can threaten your colony. It will haunt one of your colonists until it is ready to strike.
  
===== Removal =====
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== Acquisition ==
There is no way to get rid of the corpse as it will reappear eventually. Once it "wakes" up, it will chase and hunt its original, where the victim will be hypnotized for several seconds before their brains get consumed. The unnatural corpse is challenging to kill, similar to a Ghoul's unnatural regeneration but faster.
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The unnatural corpse will appear without warning, instantly and silently transporting itself into your colony. It also can be obtained via a Mysterious Cargo [[quest]]. In either case, the haunting has begun. It cannot be placed into a holding cell, and can be studied at any time for advanced anomaly knowledge. A pawn cannot have more than one unnatural corpse at a time. When the corpse spawns the notification will state that "it looks exactly like (name of colonist)" and "the only difference is that it feels waxy and warm to the touch". Encountering it unlocks the death refusal anomaly project.
The only way to get rid of the corpse before it awakes is to study it which takes several days. After that, you'll get a notification that your colonist will be able to remove the shard implanted on the corpse, which will destroy it. You can still keep it around optionally to study as it gives "advanced research points" for the dark research tab.
 
  
===== Killing =====
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== Summary ==
The duplicates invincibility is limited and if you damage it enough you can break the extreme healing causing it to be killed easily. It is recommended to make sure the original colonist is far away to prevent them from being killed.<sup>[Needs more testing].</sup>
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The unnatural corpse is a dead, identical copy of one of your colonists. While harmless at first glance, it will haunt that colonist until either destroyed or until it disappears. It is ''highly recommended'' you research and destroy the corpse as fast as possible, as it is nearly impossible to stop when it is activated.
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The corpse's existence causes a -6 mood penalty on the original colonist, and its presence can cause random [[mental breaks]], such as corpse obsession and insane ramblings.
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The corpse will silently teleport itself to being near the original at all times, making it difficult to contain. Interestingly, it will only teleport when it is out of camera shot. This teleportation occurs even if the original colonist has been sent on a caravan.
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The corpse also does not inherit any of the original's body modifications, such as bionics. It inherits [[psycasts]], but cannot use them. It also inherits the [[genes]] of the original pawn. It cannot be resurrected by any means, such as [[resurrector mech serum]] and dead-life dust from any source, including [[deathpalls]].
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The corpse can not be permanently destroyed without proper study. Injuries that the corpse sustains such as skull removal will be healed if the corpse ever awakens. The corpse can be butchered as normal, but it will respawn after some time. Additionally, the original pawn will suffer a "Corpse Torment" debuff, knocking them unconscious for 24 hours and inflicting 20% pain. Butchering the corpse does reset the cooldown to study the corpse, so this may prove to be beneficial if rapid study is needed at the expense of a colonist. Fully studying the corpse gives an option to destroy it, yielding one [[shard]].
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All of these factors make the unnatural corpse a present, if relatively minor, threat to your colony. This will change if the corpse is ever given the opportunity to awaken.
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===== Awakening =====
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After several days, you will receive a warning [[letter]] stating the corpse is growing stronger and is beginning to awaken. You are advised to destroy the corpse before it is too late. Roughly a day after your warning, the corpse will begin to awaken and you will have mere moments to destroy the corpse before it stands up. There is no way to delay the awakening.
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When it has awoken, the corpse has only one goal: to find and grab the original pawn. If it succeeds, it will hypnotize the pawn and hold them in place for several seconds. If uninterrupted, the corpse will instantly kill the original pawn by psychically incinerating the target's brain. This means it will instantly kill even [[deathless]] pawns, and this attack is unavoidable. It bypasses armor, dodge chance, and has no interaction with [[psychic sensitivity]]. The hypnosis can be interrupted by certain outside sources: Skipping either the pawn or the corpse away from each other will break the trance, as well as forcing the corpse to vomit with Vertigo Pulse. Although the hypnosis is broken and the pawn is no longer at risk of dying, they are still rendered immobile for some time after. If attempting to escape from it, Burden and Stun can be used, though one must remember the corpse will inherit the psychic sensitivity of the original pawn.
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The corpse cannot be trapped by any means. If unable to path to its target, it will teleport even through solid walls. It will chase the original pawn until either the original or the corpse itself is destroyed. After the destruction of its target, the corpse will wander momentarily before disappearing. If the target is inside of something like a [[cryptosleep casket]], it will rip open the casket to attack, though this does slow the corpse down.
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Destroying the unnatural corpse after it has awoken is exceptionally difficult. It has a regeneration ability similar to [[Ghouls]], but far more powerful. It will nigh-instantly regenerate any damage done to it until its regeneration has been depleted, and it will have +1000% pain shock resistance. Additionally, the corpse has an incoming damage multiplier of 20%, meaning it takes only a fifth of the damage a normal pawn would. The corpse also starts with a move speed modifier of 50%, but that modifier will quickly rise over the next few hours to a terrifying 300% movement speed modifier. Combined with the absurd regeneration that can regenerate anywhere from 200 to 400 hp and any gene bonuses the corpse may have inherited, an awoken corpse is nearly unstoppable and all but guarantees the irrecoverable loss of the target pawn. For reference, a direct hit with a [[hellsphere cannon]] may only take 200 hp off the regeneration total. It will hopelessly shrug off antigrain warheads and orbital bombardments alike.
  
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Destroying the corpse after it has awoken yields one shard as normal. If the corpse loses its regeneration and cannot move, it will be destroyed.
  
== Occurence ==
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== Strategy ==
Unnatural Corpses can be obtained from [[Events]] or Quests. The primary way of obtaining a corpse is for it to spawn in an event, in which it will appear on your map near player owned buildings. It may also be obtained via the mysterious cargo quest as a piece of cargo. A pawn cannot have more than 1 unnatural corpse at a time.
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Given how hard it is to stop an awoken corpse, the fact it provides no benefit to the colony, and the rewards for destroying it never change, it is highly recommended to destroy the unnatural corpse as soon as you are done studying it. '''Letting it awaken is a poor decision and should be avoided at all costs.''' There is no reason the keep the corpse around other than its meager amount of advanced research potential, which other entities are better suited for.
  
When the corpse spawns the notification will state that "it looks exactly like (name of colonist)" and "the only difference is that it feels waxy and warm to the touch".
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However, if for whatever the reason you must fight an awoken corpse, there are ways to make the fight significantly easier.
  
== Summary ==
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First, items like the [[psychic shock lance]] will have no effect on the corpse. Biomutation lances do work, however they will only delay the corpse's assault; it will reappear after some time. Similarly, sending the target away such as on a caravan will cause the awoken corpse to vanish as well, with a message stating it will return. These stalling tactics can be useful, but they will reset the corpse's regeneration capacity and its movement speed bonus, effectively restarting the fight.
When the corpse first spawns a notification will appear stating that "it looks exactly like (colonist) in every way"
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And " the only difference is that it's waxy and warm to the touch ". the corpse will teleport towards the colonist it looks like should they get to far. It is also worth noting that the colonist will gain a permanent mood debuff until the corpse is destroyed, the corpse acn only be destroyed if it has been studied for multiple days.<sup> [needs confirmation]</sup>soon after this notification will appear stating that "it appears to be creating some sort of consciousness" and " destroy the corpse before its too late". Soon after that message appears the corpse will start to move and will get up and chase down the colonist it's looks like, when it catches them the will paralyze them and kill them. Disappearing after. You also cannot use a Resurrector Mech Serum on it as it will fail and the serum will still be used.
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Second, a hidden feature of the corpse is that is will copy certain hediffs when it awakens. The awoken corpse will copy the original pawn's:
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- Injuries, including scars. These will be healed nearly instantly at the cost of some regeneration.
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- Drug effects, such as go-juice and flake. This includes addictions.
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- Buffs, such as Combat Command.
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- Age-based illnesses, such as bad back and dementia. These are not healed.
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- Certain specialty hediffs, such as void-touched and inhumanization.
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- Changes in genes.
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The corpse does not copy:
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- Diseases, like malaria, food poisoning, or flu
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- Pregnancy.
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Notably, anesthetic ''is'' copied. This means you can anesthetize the original pawn before the corpse awakens, making the corpse anesthetized as well, allowing for an easy takedown. If you anesthetize the original too late, that can still be helpful. Carrying the targeted pawn prevents the psychic attack from being used, forcing the corpse to melee the carrier until the targeted pawn is dropped. This can buy you significant time.
  
Butchering the corpse provides human meat and leather as would a normal corpse, but it will respawn soon  (reportedly three hours) shortly. Note that the study time is reset when it respawns.
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Third, the awoken corpse is unable to regenerate from certain effects, namely temperature and poison. Extreme temperatures can inflict heatstroke and hypothermia into the corpse as normal, which will cripple it just like a normal pawn. Toxic build-up from venom fangs and venom talons cannot be regenerated from either. The only problem to this is the corpse's speed and teleportation making it difficult to hit.
  
The encounter bypasses many of the normal combat mechanics in Rimworld. First, the encounter is completely unbalanced. It does not have any parameters to account for the military level or wealth of the colony. Compare to a raid's point value parameter, which is based on wealth and controls how many raiders there are and how strong they are. Second, the unnatural corpse has one main attack, which immobilizes the target, and after a moment one-shot-kills their brain. This completely bypasses any armor, dodging, counterattack ability that the targeted colonist may have, and prevents the possibility of rescue. Third, the unnatural corpse is immune to most special weapons, like psychic shock lances. Although a psychic insanity lance can be used on it, it has no effect.
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Fourth, the Psychic Slaughter ability that some [[Creepjoiners]] have can be used to instantly destroy the corpse. This means you lose the shard in the process, however.
  
== Analysis ==
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Finally, the unnatural corpse's appearance unlocks the death refusal research. Unlocking the ritual and using it on the original pawn gives them the ability to revive even if the corpse manages to attack them. However, this is unlikely as you will probably finish studying the corpse long before the ritual is available.
Having the Royalty DLC makes it significantly easier to kill the corpse. A skip strategy could be used, teleporting the unnatural corpse or the pawn when the corpse get too close. The focus psycast could be used too to increase the moving speed of the pawn, or the pawn could be given a jump pack to buy time. Without Royalty, bionic or archotech legs can be used in conjunction with drugs. This enables the pawn to get a moving stat above 200%. The unnatural corpse's maximum speed is 300%, but it will take some time before it reaches that.  
 
  
To kill it, approximately ~1600 damage needs to be inflicted to the corpse. The exact amount differs, but the rapid regeneration energy has approximately ~270 hp, while the awoken unnatural corpse hediff has a 20% incoming damage multiplier, leading to ~1350 damage that needs to be done before you can damage it normally (although damage will still be decreased by 80%). With five or more colonists with high dps weapons this can be achieved reliably (e.g. high quality chain shotguns). By the time the corpse will outspeed your pawn it will be close to death.
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== Trivia ==
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A unique music track plays when an unnatural corpse has been awoken.
  
 
== Version history ==  
 
== Version history ==  
 
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* [[Anomaly DLC]] Release - Added.
  
 
Categories.
 
Categories.

Latest revision as of 00:56, 16 May 2024

Unnatural corpse

Base Stats

Type
[[{{{type}}}]]

An Unnatural Corpse is an entity that can threaten your colony. It will haunt one of your colonists until it is ready to strike.

Acquisition[edit]

The unnatural corpse will appear without warning, instantly and silently transporting itself into your colony. It also can be obtained via a Mysterious Cargo quest. In either case, the haunting has begun. It cannot be placed into a holding cell, and can be studied at any time for advanced anomaly knowledge. A pawn cannot have more than one unnatural corpse at a time. When the corpse spawns the notification will state that "it looks exactly like (name of colonist)" and "the only difference is that it feels waxy and warm to the touch". Encountering it unlocks the death refusal anomaly project.

Summary[edit]

The unnatural corpse is a dead, identical copy of one of your colonists. While harmless at first glance, it will haunt that colonist until either destroyed or until it disappears. It is highly recommended you research and destroy the corpse as fast as possible, as it is nearly impossible to stop when it is activated.

The corpse's existence causes a -6 mood penalty on the original colonist, and its presence can cause random mental breaks, such as corpse obsession and insane ramblings.

The corpse will silently teleport itself to being near the original at all times, making it difficult to contain. Interestingly, it will only teleport when it is out of camera shot. This teleportation occurs even if the original colonist has been sent on a caravan.

The corpse also does not inherit any of the original's body modifications, such as bionics. It inherits psycasts, but cannot use them. It also inherits the genes of the original pawn. It cannot be resurrected by any means, such as resurrector mech serum and dead-life dust from any source, including deathpalls.

The corpse can not be permanently destroyed without proper study. Injuries that the corpse sustains such as skull removal will be healed if the corpse ever awakens. The corpse can be butchered as normal, but it will respawn after some time. Additionally, the original pawn will suffer a "Corpse Torment" debuff, knocking them unconscious for 24 hours and inflicting 20% pain. Butchering the corpse does reset the cooldown to study the corpse, so this may prove to be beneficial if rapid study is needed at the expense of a colonist. Fully studying the corpse gives an option to destroy it, yielding one shard.

All of these factors make the unnatural corpse a present, if relatively minor, threat to your colony. This will change if the corpse is ever given the opportunity to awaken.

Awakening[edit]

After several days, you will receive a warning letter stating the corpse is growing stronger and is beginning to awaken. You are advised to destroy the corpse before it is too late. Roughly a day after your warning, the corpse will begin to awaken and you will have mere moments to destroy the corpse before it stands up. There is no way to delay the awakening.

When it has awoken, the corpse has only one goal: to find and grab the original pawn. If it succeeds, it will hypnotize the pawn and hold them in place for several seconds. If uninterrupted, the corpse will instantly kill the original pawn by psychically incinerating the target's brain. This means it will instantly kill even deathless pawns, and this attack is unavoidable. It bypasses armor, dodge chance, and has no interaction with psychic sensitivity. The hypnosis can be interrupted by certain outside sources: Skipping either the pawn or the corpse away from each other will break the trance, as well as forcing the corpse to vomit with Vertigo Pulse. Although the hypnosis is broken and the pawn is no longer at risk of dying, they are still rendered immobile for some time after. If attempting to escape from it, Burden and Stun can be used, though one must remember the corpse will inherit the psychic sensitivity of the original pawn.

The corpse cannot be trapped by any means. If unable to path to its target, it will teleport even through solid walls. It will chase the original pawn until either the original or the corpse itself is destroyed. After the destruction of its target, the corpse will wander momentarily before disappearing. If the target is inside of something like a cryptosleep casket, it will rip open the casket to attack, though this does slow the corpse down.

Destroying the unnatural corpse after it has awoken is exceptionally difficult. It has a regeneration ability similar to Ghouls, but far more powerful. It will nigh-instantly regenerate any damage done to it until its regeneration has been depleted, and it will have +1000% pain shock resistance. Additionally, the corpse has an incoming damage multiplier of 20%, meaning it takes only a fifth of the damage a normal pawn would. The corpse also starts with a move speed modifier of 50%, but that modifier will quickly rise over the next few hours to a terrifying 300% movement speed modifier. Combined with the absurd regeneration that can regenerate anywhere from 200 to 400 hp and any gene bonuses the corpse may have inherited, an awoken corpse is nearly unstoppable and all but guarantees the irrecoverable loss of the target pawn. For reference, a direct hit with a hellsphere cannon may only take 200 hp off the regeneration total. It will hopelessly shrug off antigrain warheads and orbital bombardments alike.

Destroying the corpse after it has awoken yields one shard as normal. If the corpse loses its regeneration and cannot move, it will be destroyed.

Strategy[edit]

Given how hard it is to stop an awoken corpse, the fact it provides no benefit to the colony, and the rewards for destroying it never change, it is highly recommended to destroy the unnatural corpse as soon as you are done studying it. Letting it awaken is a poor decision and should be avoided at all costs. There is no reason the keep the corpse around other than its meager amount of advanced research potential, which other entities are better suited for.

However, if for whatever the reason you must fight an awoken corpse, there are ways to make the fight significantly easier.

First, items like the psychic shock lance will have no effect on the corpse. Biomutation lances do work, however they will only delay the corpse's assault; it will reappear after some time. Similarly, sending the target away such as on a caravan will cause the awoken corpse to vanish as well, with a message stating it will return. These stalling tactics can be useful, but they will reset the corpse's regeneration capacity and its movement speed bonus, effectively restarting the fight.

Second, a hidden feature of the corpse is that is will copy certain hediffs when it awakens. The awoken corpse will copy the original pawn's:

- Injuries, including scars. These will be healed nearly instantly at the cost of some regeneration.

- Drug effects, such as go-juice and flake. This includes addictions.

- Buffs, such as Combat Command.

- Age-based illnesses, such as bad back and dementia. These are not healed.

- Certain specialty hediffs, such as void-touched and inhumanization.

- Changes in genes.

The corpse does not copy:

- Diseases, like malaria, food poisoning, or flu

- Pregnancy.

Notably, anesthetic is copied. This means you can anesthetize the original pawn before the corpse awakens, making the corpse anesthetized as well, allowing for an easy takedown. If you anesthetize the original too late, that can still be helpful. Carrying the targeted pawn prevents the psychic attack from being used, forcing the corpse to melee the carrier until the targeted pawn is dropped. This can buy you significant time.

Third, the awoken corpse is unable to regenerate from certain effects, namely temperature and poison. Extreme temperatures can inflict heatstroke and hypothermia into the corpse as normal, which will cripple it just like a normal pawn. Toxic build-up from venom fangs and venom talons cannot be regenerated from either. The only problem to this is the corpse's speed and teleportation making it difficult to hit.

Fourth, the Psychic Slaughter ability that some Creepjoiners have can be used to instantly destroy the corpse. This means you lose the shard in the process, however.

Finally, the unnatural corpse's appearance unlocks the death refusal research. Unlocking the ritual and using it on the original pawn gives them the ability to revive even if the corpse manages to attack them. However, this is unlikely as you will probably finish studying the corpse long before the ritual is available.

Trivia[edit]

A unique music track plays when an unnatural corpse has been awoken.

Version history[edit]

Categories.