Smokeleaf joint

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Smokeleaf joints are social drugs that are relatively safe to use, easy to produce, and provide a moderately potent mood and recreation buff, balanced by some drawbacks. Care should be taken however, as the consciousness debuff its high inflicts can cause death in pawns with already lowered consciousness.

Acquisition

Smokeleaf joints can be cooked at a Crafting spot or Drug lab. No research is required to craft smokeleaf joints. Each joint requires 4 Smokeleaf leaves and, when made at a drug lab, 450 ticks (7.5 secs) of work. Cooking smokeleaf at a crafting spot doubles the work required, to 900 ticks (15 secs). The actual cooking speed is dependent on the Cooking skill.

Despite being Cooking-based, the Crafting work-type must be enabled in the Work menu in order to perform this activity.

It can also be found on raiders and purchased.

Summary

Smokeleaf is a moderately potent mood enhancing social drug that has a variety of effects. These can be broken into effects that occur:

Instantaneously and one time upon using the drug.
While high on the drug.
While having a built-up tolerance to the drug.
While addicted to the drug.
While withdrawing from the drug.

Upon smoking

A pawn smoking a smokeleaf joint will look for a place to sit first, but is still able to smoke without one. Smokeleaf joints are smoked, taking 720 ticks (12 secs). It has the following one time effects:

+80% Chemical recreation
If the pawn has the chemical interest or chemical fascination trait:
- +20% Chemical need
−10% Rest
+12.5% to +50% Stoned on smokeleaf severity, depending on tolerance (see "Stoned on smokeleaf" below)
+3% Tolerance severity, divided by body size (see "Tolerance" below)
If the pawn has 15% tolerance already:
- 4.4% to 30% Addiction chance (see "Addiction" below)
If the pawn has an addiction already:
- +90% Smokeleaf need (see "Addiction" below)
- −6% Addiction progress (see "Addiction" below)

Stoned on smokeleaf

"Smokeleaf's active chemical in the bloodstream. Generates a soft feeling of fuzzy well-being."
— Stoned on smokeleaf description

Each joint smoked increases the stoned on smokeleaf severity by the following formula:

Increase in severity = 0.5 * (100 - (tolerance * 75 round 0))

Therefore with 0% tolerance the severity increases by 50%, with 100% tolerance by 12.5%. It decreases by 100% per day again, meaning that the high of a single dose lasts between 3 and 12 hours. The maximum severity of a smokeleaf high is 100% which is reached with 2 to 8 joints. Regardless of the smokeleaf high severity, the effects are always the same. Only their duration changes accordingly:

+13 Mood ("I'm, like, stoned, man.")
−30% Consciousness (WARNING: If a pawns consciousness drops to 0% they die.)
−10% Moving
+30% Hunger rate factor offset. (Note: The offsets to the factor are additive with each other, while the factor itself is multiplicative with the hunger rate.)
−20% Pain

Without any tolerance, a smokeleaf joint will last for 12 hours.

Tolerance

Main article: Tolerance

"A built-up tolerance to smokeleaf. The more severe this tolerance is, the more smokeleaf it takes to get the same effect."
— Tolerance description

Each smokeleaf joint consumed increases the tolerance of the pawn by the following formula:

Increase in tolerance = 3% / body size^2

Thus smaller or not fully grown pawns gain more tolerance per drug use then bigger or fully grown ones. An adult human has a body size of 1. Tolerance decreases at a rate of 1.5% per day.

See sections "Stoned on smokeleaf" and "Addiction" for how tolerance affects stoned on smokeleaf severity and addiction chance respectively.

If the tolerance is above a certain thresholds it imposes a chance over time to gain the following ailments:

Carcinoma
Tolerance above 36% imposes a chance to get carcinoma proportional to the tolerance held. Carcinoma gained this way will affect only lungs and only one lung at a time.

Tolerance Average carcinoma interval Graph

36% 99999 Days

40% 180 Days

100% 135 Days
Asthma
Tolerance above 45% imposes a chance to get asthma proportional to the tolerance held. Asthma gained this way will affect both lungs.

Tolerance Average asthma interval Graph

45% 99999 Days

50% 180 Days

100% 135 Days

Addiction

"A chemical addiction to smokeleaf. Long-term use of smokeleaf has caused neurological adaptations at the cellular level, so the brain can no longer function properly without the drug. Without regular doses of smokeleaf, withdrawal symptoms will begin. However, extended abstinence will force the brain to adapt back to its normal state, resolving the addiction."
— Addiction description

Once a pawn has a tolerance of 15% or above, each dose carries a chance of addiction that scales with tolerance. Due to the minimum tolerance to addict, smokeleaf joints can be safely consumed once every 2 days without risking addiction, so long as the pawn has a body size of 1 or higher and their tolerance is not already elevated before starting the schedule.

The chance of addiction is as follows:

Tolerance	Addiction chance	Graph
0%	0%
15%	4.4%
50%	10%
80%	30%

The addiction progresses by 3.33% per day from the initial 50%. Once it reaches 100% the addiction is healed, meaning it takes about 15 days to overcome the addiction. Consuming smokeleaf during an addiction will reduce the addiction progress by 6% again (see "Upon smoking" above).

Developing an addiction means a pawn has a smokeleaf need. The need for smokeleaf falls by 50% per day, consuming smokeleaf satisfies the need by 90% (see "Upon smoking" above), meaning the pawn will need to consume smokeleaf at least every 1.8 days to prevent withdrawal symptoms.

Withdrawal

"Because of a smokeleaf dependence, this person needs to regularly consume the drug to avoid withdrawal symptoms."
— Need description

As soon as the smokeleaf need reaches 0% the pawn suffers from the following withdrawal symptoms:

−20 Mood ("I really wish I could smoke. I feel jittery, and my gut has that anxious sensation all the time.")
−20% Consciousness (WARNING: If a pawns consciousness drops to 0% they die.)
−15% Moving
Mental break chances:
- Food binge: on average every 30 days. This averages to 1 food binge during each withdrawal.
- Hard drug binge: on average every 50 days. This averages to 0.6 hard drug binges during each withdrawal.

Analysis

Smokeleaf joints are a relatively safe drug that's easy to acquire. Adult humans can safely take smokeleaf once every 2 days without getting addicted or facing any adverse health effect.

However, smokeleaf comes with significant penalties to Consciousness and Moving. The Consciousness penalty will make pawns slower at nearly every task in the game, and lowers their effectiveness in combat. This makes smokeleaf poor as a "general" mood-boosting drug - you don't want your soldiers stoned just before a battle. It is best used when you don't care about productivity. Prisoners and noble guests don't work, for example. It can also be great for mood emergencies.

Since smokeleaf lowers Consciousness, it also puts pawns at a slightly higher risk of death. Pawns will die if they reach 0% Consciousness, so the combination of injury and smokeleaf could kill them. And don't administer smokeleaf to pawns below 30% Consciousness, as it will instantly kill them. However, putting a pawn under anesthetic while they are stoned on smokeleaf will not kill them, despite anesthetic reducing a pawn's consciousness to 1%.

It is recommended to set a drug policy to disable "For Recreation". Otherwise, pawns will take smokeleaf joints freely, and run the risk of getting addicted.

Trade

Smokeleaf is one of the better drugs for trade. Unlike beer or psychite, you technically don't need research to create smokeleaf joints. However, a drug lab does require research, and it makes smokeleaf twice as fast to create.

For work efficiency, smokeleaf is mostly inferior to flake. Smokeleaf takes more work to harvest (+11.1% work per drug), more base work to synthesize (+80% work per drug), and each joint is worth less (78.6% value per drug). Smokeleaf joints use Cooking, while Flake uses Intellectual.

Without the Psychite Refining research, smokeleaf is one of the better drugs. If you have drug labs available, smokeleaf is around as efficient as beer. Beer will take more work to plant and harvest, while smokeleaf will take more time to cook.

For growth efficiency or speed, smokeleaf is arguably the best plant in the game. In rich soil or hydroponics, smokeleaf will give the most money, per tile, per day growing. In regular soil or worse, hop plants (beer) will be slightly better.