Psycasts

Psycasts are psychic powers available to pawns with Psylink neuroformers, added by the Royalty DLC.

Acquisition

1. Acquire a Psylink neuroformer through trading, questing or surgery.
2. Gain Royalty Titles by accepting Honor as a quest reward.
3. Pawns with tribal backstories (Meditation type focus : Natural) can meditate at an Anima tree to grow anima grass. Perform a ritual to gain one Psylink level for 20 grass.

A random psycast of the new level can be gained when using a Psylink neuroformer - i.e. a random level 1 psycast is gained when a pawn uses their first neuroformer, a level 2 psycast is gained when using their second, etc. Further psycasts can be gained by using a Psytrainer which grants the specific psycast mentioned in their name. Additional psycasts are available for purchase from traders, with Empire bases and traders having the most, and tribals having the least.

Mechanics

A psycaster's effectiveness is controlled by three primary factors: their Neural Heat Limit, their available Psyfocus and the Psychic Sensitivity of their target.

Neural Heat

Neural Heat Limit

A psycaster's neural heat limit is the primary limitation to how many psycasts they can perform in a given period of time. Each psycast gives the caster a certain amount of neural heat. The more they exert themselves, the closer they get to their limit and the more powerful the debuff they receive while recovering. While the defaul neural heat limit is 30 it modified by a number of factors including the psychic sensitivity and psylink level of the psycaster. The resulting value follows the equation

Neural Heat Limit = 30 * Psychic Sensitivity * (1 + (0.33...* (Psylink level -1))) [Fact-check needed]

Neural Heat Recover Rate

Heat naturally decreases over time, with faster rates provided by additional levels of psylink. The default rate of 0.54 per second ^{[Fact-check needed]} with no psylink (though this will only be seen when using Neural Heat Dump as otherwise they cannot generate heat). The first level of psylink improves the rate to 1.0, with every additional level increasing the rate by 0.125. In addition, each percent of pain increases the rate of recovery from neural heat by 1.5%. The resulting value follows the equation, assuming at least 1 level of psylink.

Neural Heat Recovery Rate = 1 + (0.125* Psylink level ) + (1.5*Pain percentage) [Fact-check needed]

Psychic Breakdown

• Minor = -25% consciousness, 5 days mtb of minor mental break
• Major = -50% consciousness, 5 days mtb of minor or major mental break
• Total = 10% consciousness max

Psyfocus

In addition to the neural heat increase, each psycast also removes an amount of psyfocus. This psyfocus can only be gained by through meditation and degrades a small amount per day relative to the value of psyfocus the psycaster currently has.

Go-juice instantly gives 15% psyfocus when taken by psycasters while Wake-up increases the psyfocus gain from meditation by 20%.

Focus Type	Focus Item	Requirements	Incompatibilities	Max Strength
Natural	Anima tree Animus stone Small nature shrine Large nature shrine	Tribal Childhood Backstory	-	?
Morbid	Grave Sarcophagus	Psychopath Bloodlust Cannibal Masochist Jealous Undergrounder Tortured Artist	-	?
Artistic	Small sculpture Large sculpture Grand sculpture Large stele Grand stele	-	Ascetic, Tribal Childhood Backstory	44% (Legendary sculpture + 8 nearby masterwork sculptures)
Minimal	*Walls	Ascetic	-	?
Flame	Campfire Torch lamp Brazier	Pyromaniac	-	?
Dignified	Meditation throne Grand meditation throne	Title	-	33% (Unbelievably impressive, title-satisfying throne room)

Natural

Required:Tribal Childhood Backstory | Anima tree, Animus stone, Small nature shrine, Large nature shrine

Anima tree:

Animus stone:

Animus stones have a base meditation focus strength of 34%. Each animus stone up to a total of additional 4 stones within 10 tiles of an animus stone increases the meditation effectiveness by 2%, for a maximum of +8%. Like the Anima tree its effectiveness is limited by artificial buildings within a 35 tile radius. Note that this does not include flooring and torch lamps.

N.B. It is currently unclear if the following values are cut offs, or points in a processed curve fit to those values.

Artificial items in range	0	5	10	50
Strength Offset	-0%	-8%	-16%	-34%

Nature Shrine:

Morbid

Required: Psychopath, Bloodlust, Cannibal, Masochist, Jealous, Undergrounder, Tortured Artist

Grave, Sarcophagus

Artistic

Incompatible: Ascetic, Tribal Childhood Backstory

Small sculpture Large sculpture, Grand sculpture, Large stele, Grand stele

Minimal

(Required: Ascetic)

Wall

Flame

Required: Pyromaniac

Campfire, Torch lamp, Brazier

Dignified

Required: Title Meditation throne, Grand meditation throne

Both thrones have a identical meditation statistics and mechanics. They start with a meditation focus strength of 15%. If it is in a throne room that meets the pawns requirements, its focus strength is improved by 8%. Additionally its effectiveness is affected by room impressiveness.

N.B. It is currently unclear if the following values are cut offs, or points in a processed curve fit to those values. Also note, the room impressiveness descriptors only relate to descriptors the room will have at that specific value. The descriptors themselves do not control the value. A room with 50 room impressiveness will be listed "Slightly Impressive" but will not make the cut off for the 4% increase.

Impressiveness Value	0	30	60	100	170
Description at Value	Awful	Mediocre	Slightly Impressive	Very Impressive	Unbelievably Impressive
Strength Offset	-5%	+0%	+4%	+8%	+10%

Psychic Sensitivity

In addition to its effects in calculating neural heat, psychic sensitivity is also important in how it effects targets. The targets psychic sensitivity is important as it often acts as a modifier to the duration, and sometimes the magnitude, of the psychic effect. For example, a Psychically Hypersensitive (Sensitivity of 1.8) pawn will be affected by the Beserk psycast for 54 seconds instead of the normal 30, while a Psychically Dull (Sensitivity of 0.5) pawn would only be affected for 15 seconds, and a Psychically Deaf (Sensitivity of 0) pawn would be immune.

Psycaster Equipment

Psychic equipment can improve a psycaster's abilities by providing additional psychic sensitivity and/or by directly increasing the Heat recovery rate. The following modifiers exist:

	Name	Type	Sensitivity Bonus	Recovery Rate Bonus
	Psychically Hypersensitive	Trait	+80%	0
	Psychically Sensitive	Trait	+40%	0
	Psychically Dull	Trait	-50%	0
	Psychically Deaf	Trait	-100%	0
	Psychic foil helmet	Apparel	-90%	0
	Prestige recon armor	Apparel	+5%	0.033
	Prestige recon helmet	Apparel	+5%	0.033
	Prestige marine armor	Apparel	+5%	0.033
	Prestige marine helmet	Apparel	+5%	0.033
	Prestige cataphract armor	Apparel	+5%	0.033
	Prestige cataphract helmet	Apparel	+5%	0.033
	Eltex shirt	Apparel	+10%	0.033
	Eltex vest	Apparel	+15%	0.05
	Eltex robe	Apparel	+20%	0.083
	Eltex helmet	Apparel	+15%	0.066
	Eltex skullcap	Apparel	+40%	0.091
	Eltex staff	Weapon	+50%	0.083
	Psychic Hypersensitizer persona weapon	Weapon	+40%	0
	Psychic Sensitivity persona weapon	Weapon	+20%	0
	Psychic Quiet persona weapon	Weapon	-15%	0
	Psychic Fog persona weapon	Weapon	-30%	0
	Neural Cooling persona weapon	Weapon	0	0.15
	Psychic sensitizer	Implant	+25%	0

^A Psychic sensitivity traits are mutually exclusive with each other, but not with Neural Cooling. Persona traits appear on the following weapons: Persona monosword, Persona plasmasword, and Persona zeushammer

^Q Value scales with Quality. 0.5x -> 0.66x -> 0.83x -> 1.00x -> 1.16x -> 1.32x -> 1.5x. Note that Normal quality is not 1.00x

Psycasts

A psycast is the ability performed by the psycaster. A Psycaster can only perform psycasts of a level equal to or below the number of psychic amplifiers they have implanted. For example, to manifest Beckon, the psycaster would require 3 psychic amplifiers.

Regular psycasts

Image	Name	Level (Title)	Description	Effects	Heat Gain	Casting Time	Duration	Range	Area of Effect	Psyfocus Cost
	Burden	1	Slow the target for a short time by suppressing motor activity in the brain	Psychically-induced difficulty in locomotion Maximum movement speed capped at 40% Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity [Fact-check needed] Effect scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity [Fact-check needed] -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	8	0.25s	20s	30 tiles	Target	1%
	Painblock	1	Block pain pathways in the target's brain for a short time. This can allow a person to move and act even with grievous injuries which would normally incapacitate them.	Psychically-induced pain insensitivity. Target Pain Factor x10% Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity	10	0.25s	120s	25 tiles	Target	2%
	Stun	1	Momentarily disrupt motor function in target's [sic] brain, preventing any movement.	Psychically-induced. Stuns the target Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	12	0.25s	3s	20 tiles	Target	1%
	Chunk skip	1	Skip the 5 chunks of rock or slag to scatter them near the target point. This is useful for producing cover during offensive operations.	Skips the closest 5 chunks to scatter them near the target point. This is useful for producing cover during offensive operations.	14	1s	Instantaneous	25 tiles	Target	4%
	Solar pinhole	1	Generate a microscopic skipgate linked to the core of a nearby star. Solar material leaks through the pinprick in spacetime, illuminating and warming the surrounding area until it closes. The light is enough to work by, but not enough to grow plants.	Psychically-induced. Creates light and heat	0	0.25s	5000s (5 days)	25 tiles	15 tiles	8%
	Blinding Pulse	2	Induce noise in the visual centers of the brain, obscuring vision of everyone near the target point.	Psychically-induced partial blindness. Sight * 0.5 Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity [Fact-check needed] Effect scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity [Fact-check needed] -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	20	1s	30s	25 tiles	7 tiles	1%
	Waterskip	2	Douse a target in water, extinguishing fires. The water is archotechnologically skipped from distant bodies of water or underground aquifers	Psychically-induced. Creates a 3 tile diameter water dump at the targeted location leaving water puddles behind.	25	1s	Instantaneous	25 tiles	3x3 tiles	1.5%
	Neural Heat Dump	2	Instantly dump all your neural heat into someone else. As a side effect, the target will fall into a debilitating but non-damaging coma for about a day. The target must actively accept the psychic invasion, so only conscious allies can be targeted.	Psychically induced neural heat cleansing. Caster reduces their neural heat to 0 while allied target within line-of-sight falls into non-damaging coma within 10 tiles. Target does not require a psychic amplifier to receive neural heat. -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	0	1s	1000s (1 day)	25 tiles	Target	0%
	Beckon	3	Psychically command the target to approach the caster.	Psychically-induced. Target is unable to make ranged attacks and is forced to follow the caster. Lasts full duration or until struck. Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity	20	0.25s	8s	20 tiles	Target	1%
	Chaos Skip	3	Teleport the target to a random position near where he started.	Psychically-induced. Target is teleported to a random tile between 7 and 25 tiles away from its starting location 1s Stun after teleporting -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	18	0.25s	Instantaneous	25 tiles	Target	2%
	Vertigo Pulse	3	Interfere with the spatial orientation sense of everyone near the target point, causing intermittent loss of balance. Flesh creatures will become extremely nauseous as well.	Psychically-induced loss of spatial orientation. This will cause flesh creatures to vomit. Targets within the radius become dizzy and wander in a 3 tile radius from their initial position Living targets have a chance to vomit. Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	30	1s	20s	25 tiles	7 tiles	2%
	Smokepop	4	Skip dust particles up from under the ground surface to form a thick cloud. This reduces the accuracy of any shot fired through it, and preventing [sic] turrets from locking on entirely.	Psychically-induced. Creates a 7 tile diameter smoke at the targeted location.	30	1s	Instantaneous, Smoke dissipates in ~30 seconds	25 tiles	Tile	2%
	Skip	4	Teleport the target to a desired position not too far from his starting point.	Psychically-induced. Target is teleported to a selected tile visible to the target. -15 Goodwill impact	25	0.25s	Instantaneous	28 tiles	Target/Tile	2%
	Focus	4	Psychically focus the target's mind, boosting their sight, hearing and moving capacities.	Psychically-induced mental focus, increasing sight, hearing and movement capactities. [sic] Sight * 1.3 Hearing * 1.3 Moving *1.3 Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity	15	0.25s	60s	28 tiles	Target	3%
	Wallraise	4	Form a temporary wall by skipping rubble and soil up from deep under the ground.	A fragile wall made of rubble. It will collapse in time.' Creates a cross-shaped set of wall 3 blocks across and 3 blocks wide at the target location. Wall has 100 HP and lasts for 4 hours.	35	1s	Instantaneous, Wall disappears after 4 hours	25 tiles	Tile	2%
	Berserk	5	Induce an angry psychosis in the target's mind, causing them to attack anyone nearby.	Psychically-induced. Target goes berserk, attacking the nearest creature regardless of previous affiliation. -15 Faction Relations when used on allies. Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity	40	0.25s	15s	20 tiles	Target	4%
	Flashstorm	5	Use differential-pressure skipgates in the atmosphere to generate a localized flashstorm. The storm will strike the area with lightning for some time before dissapating.	Psychically-induced. Creates a storm at target location. -35 Goodwill impact.	65	1s	164s	20 tiles	14 tiles	4%
	Invisibility	5	Psychically manipulate the visual centers of everyone nearby, rendering them unable to perceive a particular individual for a short time.	Psychically-induced invisibility. This actually affects others nearby, making their brains unable to perceive the sight of this individual, even if the eyes are unaffected. Targeted creature cannot be attacked or targeted by any non-AoE psychic powers. This includes psycasts on self.	45	1s	15s	20 tiles	Target	3%
	Berserk Pulse	6	Generate an overwhelming rush of undirected rage in everyone near the target point.	Psychically-induced. All creatures within the radius go berserk, attacking the nearest creature regardless of previous affiliation. -75 Faction Relations when used on allies. Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity	65	1s	10s	15 tiles	5x5 tiles	6%
	Mass Chaos Skip	6	Skip everyone near a target point to a random location nearby.	Psychically-induced. Targets within radius is teleported to a random tile between 7 and 25 tiles away from its starting location -5 Goodwill impact.	40	1s	Instantaneous	25 tiles	17 tiles	3%
	Skipshield	6	Generate a spherical skipgate that sends all incoming and outgoing ground-level projectiles to some distant place. People and items are not affected.	Psychically-induced. Makes a circle that cannot be shot through.	65	1s	15s	25 tiles	9 tiles	4%
	Manhunter pulse	6	Drive nearby animals into a manhunting rage using a psychic pulse	Psychically-induced. All animals within the radius go Manhunter, attacking the nearest human regardless of previous affiliation. Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity	50	1s	60s	35 tiles	57 tiles	4%

Special psycasts

Officially added in 1.2, these psycasts cost a great amount of psyfocus in return for some useful utility, often outside combat.

Image	Name	Level (Title)	Description	Effects	Heat Gain	Casting Time	Duration	Range	Area of Effect	Psyfocus Cost
	Word of Trust	1	Speak to the prisoner while using psychic suggestion to reduce his resistance to recruitment. This psycast can only reduce a prisoner's resistance, but cannot recruit him.	Psychically induced. Resistance amount scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity. Base effect is to reduce resistance by 20.	0	2s	Instantaneous	30 tiles	Target	60%
	Word of Joy	2	Speak happy, calming words to someone while using psychic suggestion to implant a joyfuzz loop in his mind. The joyfuzz will suppress uncomfortable thoughts and sensations in the target to improve mood. This has the side-effect of dulling sensation and decision-making, which reduces consciousness.	The affected pawn gains the Joybuzz status, providing 30 joy at the cost of -20% consciousness for 7 days. Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity	0	2s	5000s (5 days)	1 tile	Target	40%
	Word of Love	3	Speak about someone's romantic virtues while using psychic suggestion to implant romantic desire in the listener. For days afterward, the listener will feel psychically-induced romantic attraction towards the other person. This great increases opinion and makes them much more likely to attempt romantic advances and marriage proposals if they get the chance. This psycast can be used to connect two other people, induce love for the caster, or force oneself to love another.	Psychically-induced romantic desire. This increases an individual's opinion of someone else, and increases the likelihood of romantic advances and marriage proposals, while reducing the chance of a breakup. Greatly increases relations between target(s), nearly guaranteeing a relationship forms if recursively casted on two pawns.	0	2s	8000s (8 days)	1 tile	Target	50%
	Word of Serenity	4	Use calming words and psychic suggestion to end a mental break on a person or animal. The target will fall into a short psychic sleep. The psyfocus cost depends on the intensity of the target's mental break.	Instantly ends any mental break by forcing the target into a 6 hour coma. The psyfocus cost depends on the level of the mental break; minor breaks cost 30% psyfocus, major breaks cost 50%, and extreme breaks cost 70%. Coma duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity	0	2s	250s (6 hours)	1 tile	Target	30-70%
	Word of Inspiration	5	Speak words encouraging creativity while psychically hypercharging the target's mind with new ideas. The target will experience a random inspiration appropriate to them.	Targeted pawn will receive a random inspiration based upon their passions and skills.	0	2s	Instantaneous Inspiration lasts its normal duration	1 tile	Target	80%
	Farskip	5	Skip the caster, along with anyone standing near him, to an ally at a distant location. This can send people far across the planet, but only works if there is a willing ally on the other side to use as a navigation beacon. The skipped people will always appear near a random ally on the target map.	Stuns for between 3 and 10 seconds; teleports allies within 5 tiles to distant colonist on map; if used while in caravan, whole caravan will be teleported (unusable if overburdened)	0	5s	Instantaneous	User	5 tile radius	70%
	Neuroquake	6	Find a discontinuity in the psychic field and unfold it, releasing a massive amount of psychic energy. Every creature on the map outside of a safe circle near the caster will be driven violently insane. Casting this takes three hours of meditation, and afterwards, the caster will go into a three-day psychic coma. The disturbing neuroquake echoes will inflict pain on everyone for many kilometers around, causing diplomatic consequences with all factions.	Causes map-wide berserk mental state outside of 5 tile safe radius. Causes -10 joy in all colonists. Reduces faction opinion by 10 for all factions, no matter the distance you are from their bases. Coma duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity	0	125 seconds (3 hours)	Instantaneous	User	Global Effect	50%

Tactics

Psycasts can be used to great tactical advantage- provided that you can get in range of the enemy to use them.

• Solar pinhole can be used to warm rooms during a cold snap if you don't have enough heaters.
• Burden slows the target down.
  • Very useful for getting one or two more shots on melee attackers before they close the distance. Effective for this reason with a killbox setup as well. **Useful for hunters in case of revenge.
• Painblock blocks pain, with an effect similar to go-juice.
• Stun stuns the target for a few seconds.
  • Best used to support a melee attacker against another.
  • Help melee attackers close the distance to shooters.
  • Peel melee attackers off ranged.
• Blinding Pulse reduces the Sight of enemies and thus their accuracy, giving you the upper hand in combat.
• Neural heat dump is good for burst casting psycasts, if you're willing to pay the price of putting a pawn out of action. Pacifists are a good choice if you don't need them to pull fallen allies out of battle.
• Beckon
  • Best used to force enemies into melee range for engagement.
  • Great for peeling enemy melee off a vulnerable friendly.
• Chaos Skip
  • Use on enemies that already entered melee range to force them to break distance in a random direction. Be careful of skipping them into your base.
• Vertigo Pulse
• Smokepop is essentially a better version of the smoke launcher.
• Skip is a versatile tool that can be used to manipulate allies and enemies alike.
  • Teleport allied fighters into position quickly, especially melee fighters.
  • Skip long-ranged enemies into range.
  • Keep enemy melee fighters away from allies.
• Focus is good for buffing allies prior to a battle,improving a doctor before an important surgery, or gaining an extra discount before trading ^{[Fact-check needed]}
• Wallraise creates a wall of rocks in a cross shape.
  • Creates impromptu cover for your shooters to shelter behind.
  • Use to create LOS blocker against rocket launchers that are about to fire. If you are quick you can even block the rockets mid-flight.
  • Blocking access to doors
  • Protecting Unstable power cells
• Berserk forces an enemy to attack nearby targets indiscriminately, including their allies.
  • Have enemies aggro on each other while your ranged fighters pick them off.
  • Cause friendly fire as enemies fire at the berserker.
• Invisibility makes enemies unable to target your allies.
  • It is not broken on attacking making it a good choice for close-ranged attackers.
  • Self-cast to allow your psycaster to safely get within range.
• Berserk Pulse is similar to Berserk but affects an area.
  • It causes a dangerous increase in psychic entropy on all but the most well-equipped of psycasters, but is capable of defeating entire raids using only this psycast.
• Mass Chaos Skip skips all units in the area randomly, friend or foe.
  • Skip multiple enemies out of cover at once, exposing them to fire. Only skips things to a location where it has line of sight from.
• Manhunter Pulse causes all animals in a large area to become manhunter.
• Neuroquake is a hail mary-style psycast that is good against a humanlike raid, provided you can protect your psycaster long enough.

Version History

• Royalty Initial Release: Introduced
• 1.1.2571: Major Rebalance to several psycasts.
• 1.1.2647: Overhaul to some mechanics. Empire no longer gets angry at psycast use, removed psychic hangover, added meditation mechanics, added new psychic abilities.
• 1.2: Added more psycasts.
• 1.2.2753: Bullet Shield renamed to Skipshield, prevent Farskip when caravan is overweight. Neural heat overload no longer causes psylink degradation or any other permanent damage.