Labyrinth

The labyrinth is a large, grayscale maze located within an alternate dimension, accessed by provoking, attacking, or suppressing the warped obelisk.

Summary

In order to access the labyrinth, the colony must have a warped obelisk crash down in a prior event. The labyrinth is not a conventional quest site and does not appear on the world map, meaning you cannot caravan inside. There are multiple methods of entering the maze:

• Let the warped obelisk reach 100% Activity. Attacking it will speed up this process. Upon reaching the max value it will teleport colonists in at random.
• When a colonist interacts with the obelisk (studying/suppressing) there is a chance they will begin vanishing into thin air, after which that colonist will arrive inside.
• After 10 Anomaly research points from studying the obelisk, a teleport button will appear to enter the maze willingly^[verify]. (15-80 day cooldown)
• (Verify alternate methods of entry if applicable)

A map for the encounter will be created once the first colonist is sent inside, willingly or not. Attacking the obelisk with multiple colonists can send more than one into the labyrinth. There is no guarantee they will spawn alongside each other, though they will be on the same map. This may speed up exploration and increase safety within at the cost of leaving the home tile undefended.

Just as you cannot normally send a caravan into the maze, the same is also true for exiting. Safely leaving the maze requires locating another 'mirrored' warped obelisk inside one of the many gray rooms. A pawn can interact with it to be teleported back to the original tile.

Once activated, any creatures, corpses, and unattended items taken from within loot containers^[verify] will be begin to be randomly distributed throughout the map tile^{[Add Details]}. Each valid object is selected at random^[verify] and a white orb will envelop the space it occupies. The object will then be placed in a random tile on the home map. This process repeats until there are no longer valid targets, at which point the original warped obelisk will vanish, preventing reentry. This teleportation includes enemies, even ones which were not necessarily encountered within the maze^[verify], which can cause dangerous scenarios where many enemies single out a stranded colonist.

Design

Upon entering the maze all rooms not currently inhabited by colonists will be hidden. All rooms are surrounded by gray walls with gray doors connecting them. Some of these doors require colonists to force them open open. To reveal these areas, a pawn must path to a connecting door, then take 60 seconds^[Verify] to open it. Any doors opened are left open permanently.

All walls and doors are completely indestructible. They may still be targeted by weaponry, but cannot be selected and have no visible hit points or info box. Jammed doors cannot be bypassed unless an alternate route into the same room is found or the jam is unblocked.

Most floors found within The labyrinth are made up of a gray surface with a slightly slower walk speed of 87%. Additionally, some rooms contain soil with trees^{[Add Details]} growing on it. Strangely, these trees may or may not have leaves (sometimes both variants spawn on the same map) regardless of the constant temperature.

Soil found here may be used to grow crops, as the labyrinth is unroofed and a constant, comfortable temperature(25°C/77°F)for growing. As every pawn within the labyrinth is warped out with no return upon activating the exit obelisk, unharvested crops will be lost forever.

Roofed areas may be built at any point within the maze where designated. Use of an incendiary weaponry or campfire can raise temperatures above the "outside" levels. Due to doors permanently being open, it can be difficult to maintain without building a roof over every explored room.

Every labyrinth will have two guaranteed boxes within the obelisk room containing varied loot. The obelisk itself is surrounded by a small patch of void metal, the only flooring in the maze with 100% walk speed.

Structures

All of the following structures may be found within the labyrinth:

• Endless pit - has no function beyond being a terrain obstacle. The Endless pit blocks movement across it while allowing sightlines and projectiles. Can be 2x2, 2x3, or 3x3 in size.
• Floor etching - small runes scratched into the floor of The Labyrinth in various places. A Pawn may spend a few seconds analyzing the rune, which may provide the relative direction of the exit Obelisk.
• Bedroll - a room may spawn containing a single cloth bedroll with or without a torch lamp, helpful for pawns who need comfort and sleep needs met.
• Gray statue^{[Add Details]} - One-time effect triggers when a pawn comes nearby. A few patterns seen:
  • Gray statue in empty room: Teleports your colonist to an apparently random room in the Labyrinth.
  • Gray statue with corpses nearby: Emits a cloud of deadlife dust, turning the corpses into shamblers (with a 6-hour lifetime).
• Gray box - containers made from the same indestructible Gray material as the walls and floors of The Labyrinth. Two are guaranteed to spawn within the exit room. A Pawn may open the container which will then drop its contents on the floor nearby.
• TBD (compile any other unique structures found within the maze here)^{[Add Details]}

Loot

Optional loot may be found within the many rooms of the maze. These can include relics, meals, weapons, organs, serums and more^[Verify]. These items can be found laying on the floor of some rooms, within Gray boxes (Much like the Hermetic crate or Flesh sack), and in the inventories of corpses strewn about the entire map. All clothing will be marked as tainted aside from utility items.

Animal corpses also have a chance of spawning, although these do not contain any valuables.

Additionally, another type of loot relevant to the player can appear in the form of custom, player-designed Xenotypes, potentially assigned to the corpses within the Labyrinth. Since these corpses are often not dessicated, and can thus be resurrected via resurrector mech serum, they seem to be one of the few, or possibly only(?) ways to acquire player-designed Xenotypes that existed at game start, but are not referenced directly by an Ideoligion, or assigned to a starting colonist^[Verify].

Dangers

Some rooms can be entirely empty, while others might contain enemies. These foes may be asleep upon discovery and might wake up if the room is entered or a disturbance is caused^[Verify]. Enemies that can possibly spawn within the labyrinth:

• Fingerspike - often found resting in a room full of corpses
• Shambler - corpses spawn with certain rooms of The labyrinth and may be animated by certain Gray Statue when triggered by Pawn proximity)
• TBD (compile any other hostile entities found within the maze here)

Other dangers which may be present:

• Gray statue - strange sculptures which can cause a variety of effects when a Pawn moves nearby, including teleporting the activating Pawn to a random place within the labyrinth or creating a gray cloud which animates corpses nearby the Statue. Statues will only trigger one time before becoming inert.

Analysis

While a daunting challenge at first glance, navigating the labyrinth can be extremely profitable. The amount of high value loot found within can easily be worth the risk of extra exploration if an immediate extraction is not necessary. While a single pawn is unlikely to carry out a large amount of loot, multiple colonists can convene within and help carry the burden. Note that additional pawns sent to explore the maze may not necessarily start nearby a colonist in need of rescue, and if unlucky may quickly become endangered themselves. Also, the more colonists sent inside to explore and help with combat, the less there are outside in case a real threat hits the colony in everyone's absence.

Care should be taken when choosing to study the warped obelisk as even when at low activity it is possible for a random teleport. Any pawns assigned to this anomaly should be either heavily armed or highly skilled in combat, preferably both if possible.

While the maze contains many resources to help with traversal, it may be possible to become stranded without food. A combination of many jammed doors, obstructive enemy spawns, low food drops from corpses, and/or the inability to find the exit room can leave an underprepared group stranded. A caravan loading method can be used to pick desired supplies before willing entry.

As any items left in the labyrinth are teleported out, the tainted clothing of all corpses stripped within the maze will be randomly distributed across the home tile. This includes within a colony home area, which may require a clean up afterwards.