Circadian assistant

The circadian assistant is an artificial body part that slows the rate at which pawns get tired.

Acquisition[edit]

Circadian assistants can be crafted at a Fabrication bench once the Circadian influence research project has been completed. The required techprint can be obtained either by trade or completing quests for the Empire. They require 15 Plasteel, 4 Advanced components, 26,000 ticks (7.22 mins) of work, and a Crafting skill of 8.

Pawns from ancient shrines may have this implant installed.

Summary[edit]

An installed circadian assistant decreases Sleep Fall Rate by −20%. This does not equal 20% less sleep. See Sleep Saved for the exact details. This modifier is applied before genes and drugs, so in most situations it is equivalent to a simple ×80% factor.

When a pawn with this implant is shocked with EMP, they will receive brain shock, knocking them unconscious temporarily.

Installation[edit]

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 will be destroyed.

Analysis[edit]

The circadian assistant increases work hours without impacting Consciousness like the half-cycler. However, this implant is virtually always worse for productivity than either a bionic arm or bionic leg, depending on the type of work the colonist focuses on. The brain shock makes using EMP against mechs more difficult, but gives a way to safely down the pawn in case of a mental break or prison break.

With high quality beds, and/or other positive modifiers to rest, consider setting a pawn's schedule entirely to Anything. A pawn with greatly enhanced sleep will go beyond a 24 hour sleep schedule, which means that pawns will spend less time moving to/from their bed. Remember that being in darkness will reduce work speed by a significant percentage, unless there is something mitigating this.

Sleep saved[edit]

In essence, the circadian assistant only has an effect while the pawn is awake. Therefore, actual sleep saving will always be lower than expected values.

For example, a baseline pawn in a normal bed would spend 18.19 hours awake per 7.56 hours sleeping, to avoid being Drowsy. The assistant increases awake time to (18.19/0.8), or 22.74 hours awake, without impacting the sleep needed.

A baseline pawn in a normal bed spends (18.19 hr awake) / (7.56 + 18.19 hr total) = 70.6% of a day awake. Equal to 16.95 hr awake per 24 hour cycle, or 7.05 hours sleeping.
With the circadian assistant, this becomes (22.74 hr awake) / (7.56 + 22.74 hr total) = 75.04% of a day awake. Equal to 18.01 hr awake per 24 hour cycle, or 5.99 hours sleeping.

This means that, in a normal bed, the circadian assistant actually reduces sleep time by roughly −15%, or about 1.06 hours per day, rather than the expected -20%.

Alternatively, you could say that the circadian assistant increases awake time by ×106.3%. Increasing Rest Effectiveness or Rest Rate Multiplier will actually lower the time savings of this implant. For example, a quick sleeper installing a circadian assistant would end up increasing awake time by ×104.5%, saving about 0.853 hours per 24-hour day compared to quick sleeper on its own.

Comparison to other bionics[edit]

With a rough baseline of actual sleep saved calculated above, it is possible to compare the ciradian assistant to other bionics.

Bionic arms and bionic legs increase Manipulation or Moving by +12.5%, per part, which increase work speed / travel speed by that amount. While "awake time" would increase both time working and travel time, the other parts are more specialized and thus are generally better at increasing a specific work's speed. In addition, both bionic arms and legs have some functional benefit in combat. Rest does not impact combat until 0% rest, where exhausted pawns will collapse on the ground.

If 2 bionic arms and/or 2 legs have already been installed, then the assistant offers a decent functional benefit. Bionic hearts offer ×105% Moving and an approximate 0.3 hour per day sleep reduction, so the circadian assistant would be better for work. However, it still confers an EMP weakness.

Notes[edit]

Despite its description, it does nothing to mitigate toxic buildup.

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