Psychic reader

The Psychic Reader gives a pawn that's been implanted with it a bonus of +50% Negotiation Ability and +10% Trade Price Improvement based on the pawn Social stat, both scaling proportionally with the user's psychic sensitivity. Negotiation Ability affects the speed of prisoner recruitment, impact on faction relations when giving gifts, and the outcome of peace talks, while Trade Price Improvement obviously improves trade prices.

Acquisition

Psychic Readers can only be acquired through trade or as a quest reward. They cannot be crafted.

Summary

The psychic reader applies an offset of +50% Negotiation Ability, and a multiplier of ×110% Trade Price Improvement of the pawn it is installed in. These bonuses are then multiplied by Psychic Sensitivity.

Note that the TPI increase is a multiplicative modifier of the Social skill. A Social 20 pawn at 100% Psychic Sensitivity will have its Trade Price Improvement go from 30% to 33%, equivalent to 2 extra levels of Social skill. At lower Social skills, the psychic reader has a smaller absolute effect. Other factors to TPI, such as the faction base bonus, are not impacted. The Negotiation is an offset, so if a pawn had 110% Negotiation Ability, it would be increased to 160%.

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

The psychic reader helps recruit prisoners, and increases trade profits by a small amount. Installing the psychic reader on your best Social pawn will generally the greatest benefit. Psychic Sensitivity helps, but a good Social pawn with 100% Psychic Sensitivity is a better trader than a 0 Social pawn with psychically hypersensitive.

For the sole purpose of trade, psychic readers are generally not profitable until the late game. Assuming you buy a psychic reader at 1000 silver, it takes a massive amount of trading to get a return on investment. At 20 Social skill, the psychic reader increases TPI by 3%. You'd have to buy/sell 33,333 silver^[1] worth of goods before you start making a profit. Even with high Psychic Sensitivity, you will have to trade a lot. You'll have to trade even more if Social skill is lower than 20. But in the late game, where you have lots of goods and can continuously call in traders with a comms console, this implant can be worth it.

The psychic reader can also be useful if you wish to recruit many prisoners, or many high resistance prisoners. For example, a New Arrivals colony may want to recruit Tribal pawns to exploit the anima tree for psycasting. This can save a few days on prisoner recruitment, per prisoner.

Overall, the benefits of the psychic reader are small, unless you are doing a massive amount of trading or large amount of prisoner recruitment. Therefore, it is usually not worth buying until the late game, where you can easily afford it. Should you happen to obtain a psychic reader through other means, you should also weigh the benefits of installing the reader, to the risk of brain damage in case of a failed surgery.

Notes

¹ You can buy 16,666 silver worth of goods, by selling 16,666 silver worth of goods, and the reader would result in a 1,000 silver gain. This number may be misleading, too. You'd have to buy/sell a total of 33,333 worth of goods, after considering the natural trade disadvantage (x0.6 price for selling, x1.4 for buying), but before considering other factors to TPI, including the TPI from having 20 Social skill in the first place.

Version history

Royalty DLC Release - Added.
1.3.3066 - Now improves Trade Price Improvement, previously it had no effect on trade prices.

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

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