Psycasts

Psycasts are psychic powers available to pawns with psylink levels, added by the Royalty DLC.

Lore

An organic connection to a larger psychic field. This allows a person to use specific psychic powers that they have learned to influence reality in ways that seem impossible. Higher levels of psylink permit the use of more powers. Regardless of psylink level, a person can only use specific powers that they have learned. Psylink comes from a variety of sources. Single-use psylink neuroformer devices can create a psylink. Tribal peoples also know how to develop it through ritual linking with psychically-connected lifeforms. As a physical phenomenon in the brain, psylink is poorly-understood by scientists, not least because it seems to actively conceal itself if studied too closely. One thing most agree on is that it somehow connects people to archotechs and harnesses their power, possibly through some sort of negotiation or sympathy mechanism.

Acquisition

To use psycasts, a pawn must first have a Psylink level equal or greater than the level of the chosen psycast. A pawn may have up to 6 levels of psylink, and these levels can be gained through several different methods:

1. Acquire a Psylink neuroformer through questing
2. Gain Royalty Titles by accepting Honor as a quest reward.
3. Pawns can meditate at an Anima tree to grow anima grass. Once 20 grass has a grown, a ritual can be performed, consuming the grass and granting one Psylink level to a pawn with the "Natural" Meditation focus type
4. Pawns who get blinded through a Satisfying or Spectacular Blinding Ceremony have a chance to get a psylink level, even if the pawns in question have a different Ideoligion without the Blindsight meme. The ceremony can be performed again if the pawns regain their sight through any means including: a bionic eye, healer or resurrector mech serum, or biosculpter pod. Note that pawns with pro-Blindness ideoligions at the time of their biosculpting will not have their eyes repaired.

A random psycast of the new level will be learned when gaining a new level of Psylink - i.e. a random level 1 psycast is gained when a pawn gains their first level, a level 2 psycast is learned when gaining 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. A psycaster can learn any number of psycasts through psytrainers, up to and including every psycast in the game and limited only by the availability of psytrainers themselves. N.b. if using a psytrainer for a level higher than the current psylink level of the user, the learned psycast will replaced the one usually gained for that level when that level is acheived. Given using the psytrainer after gaining that level either grants an additional power or does not work and thus does not consume the psytrainer, it is always best to only use psytrainers after the required psylink level has been achieved.

Also note, if a Psylink neuroformer or Anima ritual has been used to gain a psylink level above what is given for the current title, additional titles will not grant psylinks beyond what they normally do for that title. So if a neuroformer has been used to gain psylink level 1, and then the title of Yeoman is gained and bestowed, the pawn will still only have psylink level 1. This means using neuroformers or rituals on pawns that will gain titles is ultimately a waste, or vice versa.

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

Despite being called "heat", neural heat is not a measure of temperature. It refers to a type of chaotic psychic energy in the mind which is built up when using psychic powers and dissipates over the course of a few seconds or minutes. If neural heat is pushed past normal limits, it may cause temporary psychic breakdown and unconsciousness due to psychic shock. These conditions don't cause permanent damage.

— Neural heat description

Neural Heat Limit

Neural Heat Limiter Off

Neural Heat Limiter On

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. As long as a pawn stays within their neural heat limit, they'll suffer no ill effects. By default, a pawn will not use a psycast if the neural heat gain would cause them to exceed their limit. This will be represented by the psycast's icon being greyed out on the UI. A pawn can be instructed to ignore their normal heat limit by clicking on the "Neural Heat Limiter", but exceeding the limit can cause psychic breakdown.

The neural heat limit is affected by both the psycaster's psychic sensitivity and psylink level. A pawn with a level 1 Psylink and 100% psychic sensitivity will have a neural heat limit of 30.

The equation for a pawn's neural heat limit is:

Neural Heat Limit = 30 * Psychic Sensitivity * (0.66... + (0.33... * Psylink level)

or simpler:

Neural Heat Limit = (2 + Psylink level) * 10 * Psychic Sensitivity

Assuming 100% psychic sensitivity, this in the following:

Psylink Level	Limit
1	30
2	40
3	50
4	60
5	70
6	80

The in-game meter for neural heat is rounded to the nearest integer, but in-game behavior suggests that the actual decimal value of heat is tracked by the game, as psycasts may sometimes say they have insufficient heat limit to cast even when the spare heat displayed on the pawn's neural heat meter exactly equals the casting cost.

Neural Heat Recovery Rate

Heat naturally decreases over time, with faster rates provided by additional levels of psylink. Unlike the neural heat limit, it is not affected by the pawn's psychic sensitivity. The default rate of reduction for a pawn without a psylink or with a level 1 psylink is 0.54/s. Every additional psylink level increases the rate by 12.5%. In addition, the pain currently felt by the psycasting pawn adds an additional increase in rate proportional to the primary rate multiplied by three times the pain percentage e.g. at 100% pain, the psycaster will recover neural heat at 400% of their normal rate.

Note: Offsets to this value, such as from eltex items, occur to the base recovery rate and are thus subject to the multiplier from the psylink level and pain level. i.e. a normal quality eltex skullcap will improve a Psylink Level 1 Psycaster's recovery rate by 0.091/s but increase the rate of a Psylink Level 6 Psycaster's by 0.148/s.

The resulting value follows the equation, assuming at least 1 level of psylink.

Neural Heat Recovery Rate = ((0.54+Gear Offsets)*(0.875 + 0.125*Psylink level)) * (1+3*Pain percentage)

Psylink Level	Multiplier	Base rate
1	1.000x	0.5400/s
2	1.125x	0.6075/s
3	1.250x	0.6750/s
4	1.375x	0.7425/s
5	1.500x	0.8100/s
6	1.625x	0.8775/s

Psychic breakdown

Deep psychic destabilization of the mind. Psychic breakdown last for days, causing mental disturbances of various kinds. It resolves itself with time.

— Psychic breakdown description

A pawn can be instructed to exceed their neural heat limit clicking the icon next to the neural heat gauge to disable the limit. Exceeding the pawn's neural heat limit can cause an effect called Psychic Breakdown. The severity of the Psychic breakdown has elements of randomness to it, but will generally be more severe the farther past the neural heat limit a pawn goes, and the longer they are past their heat limit.

Heat level	Heat Range	Breakdown gain
Safe	0% - 99%	-
Overloaded	100% - 132%	+2 Breakdown severity, MTB 2 hours
Very overloaded	133% - 165%	+4 Breakdown severity, MTB 2 hours
Extreme	166% - 199%	+6 Breakdown severity, MTB 2 hours
Overwhelming	200%+	+8 Breakdown severity, MTB 2 hours. Psychic shock (10% max Consciousness for 7,500 ticks (2.08 mins))

For example, this means that if a pawn is consistently kept at 170% of the neural heat limit, they will, on average, increase the severity of their psychic breakdown by +4 every 2 hours. Note that this is only an average value over time.

In addition, if a pawn reaches twice their normal neural heat limit, they'll immediately be incapacitated by psychic shock for 3 in-game hours, in addition to the effects of any psychic breakdown that may develop.

Psychic breakdowns come in 3 levels of severity:

Name	Severity Range	Consciousness	Mood	Mental breaks
Minor	0 - 4	-25%	-6	Minor mental break, MTB 5 days
Major	5 - 10	-50%	-12	Minor or Major mental break, MTB 5 days
Total	10 - 15	10% max (Unconciousness)	-18	-

Psychic breakdowns last a variable number of days, depending on the severity. Severity decreases at a rate of 1 per day. Thus, minor breakdowns last from 1-5 days, major breakdowns last from 6-10 days, and total breakdowns last from 11-15 days.

Because the severity and duration of the psychic breakdown, as well as the chances of it in the first place, depend on how long and by how much your pawn has exceeded their heat limit using equipment that improves psychic sensitivity or neural heat loss can help minimize or even avoid psychic breakdowns even if you have to turn off the neural heat limit during combat.

Psyfocus

Psyfocus is a special type of mental structuring which is necessary to use psychic powers. Psyfocus dissipates over time, and must be built by regular meditation. Losing all psyfocus makes someone unable to use psychics, but has no other consequences. Higher levels of psyfocus permit higher-level powers, but also increase the rate of psyfocus dissipation

— In-game Description

Main article: Psyfocus

In addition to the neural heat increase, each psycast consumes a certain percent of psyfocus. Unlike neural heat, psyfocus costs are the same for every caster, and there is no way to exceed or bypass a psyfocus cost. If the psycaster has insufficient psyfocus for the psycast, it cannot be cast at all. Level 3+ psycasts also require the user to have a minimum level of psyfocus stored in order to be useable:

• Level 3-4: 25% psyfocus minimum
• Level 5-6: 50% psyfocus minimum

Even without psycasting, psyfocus will naturally degrade by a small amount per day, relative to the amount of psyfocus the psycaster currently has. Below 25% psyfocus, the psyfocus falls at 3.5% per day, between 25 and 50%, psyfocus falls 5.5% per day, and above 50% it falls at 7.5% per day.

Meditation

Main article: Psyfocus#Meditation

In order to replenish psyfocus, a pawn can spend time meditating. Each pawn will gain a base of 50% psyfocus per day, or 2.08% psyfocus an hour. Meditation foci further improve these rates by adding their listed strength. For exaple, a meditation foci of +44% would have mediation give 94% psyfocus per day.

There are 6 different types of objects that a pawn can meditate to:

• Natural: Available to most, but not all, Tribal backstories. Natural meditation objects are most effective when no artifical buildings are nearby. Uniquely, a pawn with natural meditation can grow anima grass and perform the anima tree linking ritual, allowing pawns to gain psylink levels independent from psylink neuroformers.
• Minimal: Available to Ascetic pawns only. Allows meditation at any wall.
• Artistic: The default meditation type, available to any non-tribal that is not Ascetic. Meditate at sculptures - the higher the quality, the better.
• Morbid: Available to pawns with certain traits, like Psychopath or Jealous. Meditate at graves and sarcophagi - deceased family members or loved ones give a bonus.
• Dignified: Available to anyone holding a royal title. Meditation thrones are improved by having a throne room befitting of the pawn's title.
• Flame: Available to Pyromaniacs. Meditate at lit campfires and other burning light sources.

Meditation Focus	Focus Type	Base Strength	Psyfocus/Hour @ Base	Max Strength	Psyfocus/Hour @ Max
Anima tree	Natural	+28%	3.3%	+36%	3.6%
Animus stone	Natural	+34%	3.5%	+42%	3.8%
Small nature shrine	Natural	+22%	3%	+30%	3.3%
Large nature shrine	Natural	+30%	3.3%	+38%	3.7%
Grave	Morbid	+6%	4.6%	+34%	3.5%
Sarcophagus	Morbid	+10%	2.5%	+38%	3.7%
Small sculpture	Artistic	+12 - 28%	2.6 - 3.3%	+44%	3.9%
Large sculpture	Artistic	+12 - 28%	2.6 - 3.3%	+44%	3.9%
Grand sculpture	Artistic	+12 - 28%	2.6 - 3.3%	+44%	3.9%
Terror sculpture	Artistic	+12 - 28%	2.6 - 3.3%	+44%	3.9%
Large stele	Artistic	+15%	2.7%	+15%	2.7%
Grand stele	Artistic	+18%	2.8%	+18%	2.8%
Walls	Minimal	+22%	3%	+22%	3%
Brazier	Flame	+15%	2.7%	+31%	3.4%
Darklight brazier	Flame	+15%	2.7%	+31%	3.4%
Campfire	Flame	+12%	2.6%	+28%	3.3%
Torch lamp	Flame	+10%	2.5%	+18%	2.8%
Darktorch	Flame	+10%	2.5%	+18%	2.8%
Fungus darktorch	Flame	+10%	2.5%	+18%	2.8%
Meditation throne	Dignified	+15%	2.7%	+33%	3.5%
Grand meditation throne	Dignified	+15%	2.7%	+33%	3.5%

Many meditation foci can be improved by having other buildings in its radius. For example, a sculpture can be improved by having other, high quality sculptures in its radius. Conversely, most natural foci are weakened by nearby artificial structures.

In any case, foci will never truly "add up". Each nearby sculpture past the first only increases psyfocus by +1-2%, rather than its full psyfocus value. Having multiple unrelated foci together will not have an extra effect. For example, a pawn cannot use a meditation throne and brazier at the same time, even if they have access to both the Dignified and the Flame meditation types. The better of the two foci will be used in any scenario.

Alternative psyfocus

Other than meditation, the following methods will increase a pawn's psyfocus:

• Using Go-juice instantly gives 15% psyfocus when taken by psycasters.
• Using Wake-up increases the psyfocus gain from meditation by 20% per day for the duration of the effect.
• The Psy-meditative persona trait grants an additional +10% psyfocus gain per day of meditation, while the weapon is held in hand.
• The Kill-focused persona trait grant an instant +20% psyfocus on killing an enemy. Note that psyfocus is gained for the killing blow, even on friendlies, so finishing off downed hostiles and even slaughtering colony animals will grant psyfocus as long as the weapon is held in hand whilst doing so. Animal age and body size do not affect this rate either. This can be used to turn excess colony animals, especially from rapidly-breeding animals such as chickens, geese, and ducks into massive psyfocus gain, which can then be leveraged for high-psyfocus-cost utility psycasts such as Word of Inspiration or Word of Trust.
• Certain rituals grant full psyfocus to all participants when completed with sufficient quality.

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.

Psycasting stat modifiers

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	Neural Heat Limit	Recovery Rate Bonus
	Sight	Capacity	+0 - 50%	+0 - 40	-
	Psychically Hypersensitive	Trait	+80%	+64	-
	Psychically Sensitive	Trait	+40%	+32	-
	Psychically Dull	Trait	-50%	-40	-
	Psychically Deaf	Trait	-100%	-80	-
	Psychic foil helmet	Apparel	-90%	-72	-
	Prestige recon armor	Apparel	+5%	+4	0.033
	Prestige recon helmet	Apparel	+5%	+4	0.033
	Prestige marine armor	Apparel	+5%	+4	0.033
	Prestige marine helmet	Apparel	+5%	+4	0.033
	Prestige cataphract armor	Apparel	+5%	+4	0.033
	Prestige cataphract helmet	Apparel	+5%	+4	0.033
	Eltex shirt	Apparel	+10%	+8	0.033
	Eltex vest	Apparel	+15%	+12	0.05
	Eltex robe	Apparel	+20%	+16	0.083
	Eltex helmet	Apparel	+15%	+12	0.066
	Eltex skullcap	Apparel	+40%	+32	0.091
	Eltex staff	Weapon	+50%	+40	0.083
	Psychic Hypersensitizer persona weapon	Weapon	+40%	+32	-
	Psychic Sensitivity persona weapon	Weapon	+20%	+16	-
	Psychic Quiet persona weapon	Weapon	-15%	-12	-
	Psychic Fog persona weapon	Weapon	-30%	-24	-
	Neural Cooling persona weapon	Weapon	-	-	0.15
	Psychic sensitizer	Implant	+25%	+20	-
	Blinded with blind psysense	Condition	+30%	+24	-
	Psychic bonding	Gene	+5 - 10%	4 - 8	-
	Psy-sensitive	Gene	+20%	+16	0.1
	Super psy-sensitive	Gene	+40%	+32	0.2

^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

^B Sight capacity provides is a 1% bonus for each percentage point below 50% sight. i.e. 20% Sight results in a bonus of +30% psychic sensitivity, while total blindness at 0% Sight provides +50% sensitivity.

^C Neural heat limit increase from the increased psychic sensitivity, assuming psylink level 6.

^D Note that this stacks with the +50% to psychic sensitivity provided just by being having Sight of 0%, for a total of +80% to sensitivity and a +64 to neural heat limit.

^E When psychically bonded to a pawn, +10% to psychic sensitivity and +8 to neural heat limit while they are on the same map, otherwise +5% and +4.

^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

Thus the maximum psychic sensitivity possible would be a psychically hypersensitive pawn, genetically modified with super psy-sensitivity, psychically bonded to a pawn on the same map, blinded and with the Blind psysense precept, with a legendary Eltex staff, vest, shirt, robe and skullcap and an implanted psychic sensitizer for a total value of 538% psychic sensitivity and a neural heat limit, assuming psylink level 6, of 430.

Psycasts

A psycast is the ability performed by the psycaster. A Psycaster can only perform psycasts of a level equal to or below their psylink level. For example, to manifest Beckon, the psycaster would require psylink level 3.

Regular psycasts

Image	Name	Level	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 Moving capped at 40% -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	8	0.25s	120s	25 tiles	Target	2%
	Stun	1	Momentarily disrupt motor function in the target's 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. Lights up a 11.58 tile area around it. Creates heat at a rate of 10 heat per second (compared to the 21 heat per second of a heater or campfire), but only when the temperature is below 20°C.	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 Effect scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity -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 Selected allied target within line-of-sight and 25 tiles falls into coma. Target does not require psylink 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, pawn or item, 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 prevents turrets from locking on entirely.	Psychically-induced. Creates a 7 tile diameter smoke cloud 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, pawn or item, 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 or 10,000 ticks (2.78 mins). Walls cannot intersect other walls, but will shunt items out of the way.	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 flashstorm 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 4.9-tile radius circle that cannot be shot through, into, or out of. See below for image. Does not block non-ground-level projectiles.	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 Makes faction hostile when used on animals of allied caravans	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 -25 Faction Relations when used on allies.	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; social fights and 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 in range but outside of the safe, inner, circle will be driven violently insane. Casting this takes 12 seconds of meditation, and afterwards, the caster will go into a five-day psychic coma. The disturbing neuroquake echoes will inflict pain on everyone for many kilometers around, causing diplomatic consequences with all factions.	Causes berserk mental state in a 60-tile radius, outside of 5 tile safe radius. -12 mood for all pawns present -10 Faction Relations for all factions, no matter the distance you are from their bases. -75 Faction Relations if berserk affects allies. Caster put in coma for 5 days.	0	12s	Instantaneous 5 day coma	User	60 tile radius	50%

Tactics

Radius of the skipshield with unshielded area denoted in red, partially shielded areas in gold (see Note left).
Note that despite the shield visually extending beyond the tiles, it does not protect them.

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

• Skipshield is most obvious to use to cover your own pawns, allowing melee pawns to close, or giving a respite from attacks. If used for this purpose, keep in mind that it doesn't just stop shots going into the shield, but also from going out the other side. This creates a "shadow" - an expanding cone of area on the opposite side of the shield to the shooter where they can't hit. As the psycast can be positioned whereever you like, unlike the low-shield pack, a single shield can effectively cover a greater area with clever position. Also consider that it prevents firing out of as well. This can allow you to "switch off" any pawn's ranged attacks, even if you couldn't cover all of your pawns with a single or even multiple casts. This is especially useful when a doomsday rocket launcher-armed raider drop-pods into the middle of your pawns.
  • The radius of the shield is not blocked by walls. Therefore it can be cast on the inside of a fortification and prevent attacks from the outside doing damage to the walls. This is exceedingly useful for protecting against termites and other breach raids for a short period to prevent breaches, or buy time.
  • Note: Pawns on the tiles shown in gold in the image to the right are shielded from attacks directly targeted at them however, due to a bug, they can still be hit by attacks aimed at other nearby pawns that miss.
• Solar pinhole can be used to warm rooms during a cold snap if you don't have enough heaters. Since solar pinholes are relatively inexpensive psyfocus-wise, multiple can be casted if needed.
  • Use it when mining deep underground to avoid the darkness work speed penalty.
• 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.
• Farskip Can be used from the World map. Can't be used while forming a Caravan but can be used if you Draft after you've collected all your gear.
• 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.
• Chunk skip skips 5 nearby rock or steel slag chunks to a 5x5 target area in a random pattern.
  • Can be used to create some cover if fighting on open terrain where natural cover is sparse or is in inconvenient locations. The chunks can be quickly rearranged with a stockpile.
  • Sometimes can be used to steal cover from enemies, provided that your psycaster can target the desired chunks. This ability tends to skip chunks closest to the psycaster, so this might only be possible if they are a melee fighter and can get close to enemy positions.
  • Can be used outside of combat to quickly relocate chunks around your base right to the stonecutter's table or electric smelter. This can speed up production if a worker has to walk a sizable distance each time to get a new chunk.
  • A situational use would be to place chunks behind walls or in open doorways, therefore possibly preventing enemies from using superior 75% cover and forcing them to use chunks as inferior cover or to move to a different spot. This is unreliable due to the random pattern in which chunks are skipped to the target area, as well as the fact that pawns are not immediately forced to move if a chunk is placed on them - they are only prevented from standing on that tile again if they move.
• Blinding Pulse reduces the Sight of enemies and thus their accuracy, giving you the upper hand in combat. Especially useful against clustered ranged tribals. Using this against melee fighters is useful as well, reducing their hit chance.
• Neural heat dump is good for burst-casting expensive combat psycasts such as berserk pulse, 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.
  • The side effect, putting a pawn into a coma for a day, can also be useful to save a pawn from getting mauled by animal revenge, to prevent a sick pawn from having a mental break while they are in bed, and in various other situations.
• Beckon
  • Can force enemies into melee range for engagement, or simply pull them out of cover into the open so your ranged attackers can destroy them.
  • Great for peeling enemy melee off a vulnerable friendly.
  • Can also be useful to pull an enemy ranged out of an ancient danger.
• 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 will force a group of enemies out of cover for a few seconds while preventing them from firing at your own pawns while they vomit uncontrollably.
• Smokepop is essentially a better version of the smoke launcher.
• Skip is a versatile tool that can be used to manipulate allies, enemies, inanimate objects and the self alike.
  • Teleport allied fighters into position quickly, especially melee fighters.
  • Skip long-ranged enemies into range.
  • Keep enemy melee fighters away from allies.
  • Using skip on an ally harms your faction relations, even when used for benevolent purposes. To get around this when rescuing allies, have a colonist rescue the ally and then skip the colonist. This will not give a penalty.
  • Teleport a raider near a mechanoid cluster to make them fight each other.
  • Can be used on self to quickly escape danger or to urgently move to a location.
  • Move downed pawns, allies or enemies, out of danger to safely rescue or capture them.
  • Teleport chemfuel away just before it blows up.
  • Steal supplies from Sieges.
    • Sieges will continuously receive supplies of Packaged survival meals and Mortar shells as they are removed from the siege, but they won't receive additional components. Stealing components before Mortars are built will halt the siege and it potentially allows the unlimited theft of additional supplies.
  • Safely capture bleeding fleeing enemies by repeatedly skipping them away from the map's edge until they colapse from blood loss.
• Focus is good for buffing allies prior to a battle, improving a doctor by giving them boosted tend quality and speed (but not success chance or speed of a surgery, as the bonus from Sight for these caps at 100%).
• 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 (note the 1.0s casting time, however).
  • Blocking access to doors.
  • Temporarily plug gaps made in animal pens during raider attacks (best used by positioning a rock wall adjacent to the gap, not directly in it, so that the pen is enclosed while still leaving the gap itself accessible for rebuilding).
  • Protecting Unstable power cells while in mech clusters from mortar fire, gunfire, and secondary explosions.
  • Casting Wallraise on fire will extinguish it and prevent it from spreading again, although it's strictly worst than Waterskip in that regard.
  • Walling in vulnerable pawns far from the base (requires two)
• 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.
  • Offers an alternative way to hunt dangerous animals like Thrumbos. Note that once animals have begun fighting each other, they will continue fighting until one of the two is downed or dies, even after Berserk has expired. Damage incurred from each other also will not cause them to go manhunter.
  • Extremely powerful against tanky enemies, who can kill non-affected enemies for an extended period of time.
• Invisibility makes enemies unable to target your allies.
  • It is not broken on attacking making it a good choice for close-ranged attackers.
    • Can be used to protect a single melee blocker against medium and large enemies, but won't block small enemies.
  • Self-cast to allow your psycaster to safely get within range.
  • Cast on snipers to aggro sieges or mech clusters.
  • Cast on wielders of doomsday rocket launchers and the like to give them time to fire.
• Berserk Pulse is similar to Berserk but affects an area.
  • It causes a dangerous increase in neural heat on all but the most well-equipped of psycasters, but is capable of defeating entire raids using only this psycast. Only the best psycasters can use this twice in a row, unless they have neural heat dump (or are willing to risk heat overflow).
  • Extremely powerful against tanky enemies, who can kill non-affected enemies for an extended period of time.
  • Works through walls! The target cell must be within line-of-sight (but can be cast on the wall itself), but the effect also applies to targets in range on the other side of the wall. This can be used to great effect by funneling enemies into a U-shaped pathway around another (unconnected or blocked-by-door) hallway with your caster in it. Berserk Pulse can be targeted at the end of the hallway your pawn is in and hit 13 cells in the U-shaped hallway surrounding it. Since enemies do not have collision with each other until they enter combat, this can potentially catch a very large number of hostiles in the area. Best use is alternating sandbags or stone chunks in that section of the U-shaped hallway to slow down the invading army specifically at that point, causing them to bunch up even more.
• Mass Chaos Skip skips all units in the area randomly, friend or foe, as well as briefly stunning them on arrival at their new location.
  • Skip multiple enemies out of cover at once, exposing them to gunfire.
  • Only skips things to a location within line of sight of their starting position. However, it does not require line of sight from the caster to a pawn to initiate the skip (ie. it'll skip a pawn that's on the other side of a wall, but they'll still be on the other side of that wall afterwards).
  • Note that "line of sight" operates based on actual sight mechanics (ie. the ability to see an area for the purposes of shooting it, using psycasts, etc), _not_ being able to path to it. Buildings that do not permit pathing but do permit being shot over/through will not block Chaos Skip.
  • Be careful: you may accidentally skip the enemies behind or even right next to your pawns. The brief stun when the target arrives at the new location can permit time to react, however.
• Manhunter Pulse causes all animals in a large targeted area to become manhunter.
  • Can be used to defend against raiders, or act as an offensive weapons on raids on enemy bases.
  • If you also have a pawn with the Wallraise psycast, you can stack all colonists into the gap between two wall raises. The resulting carnage is entertaining.
• Flashstorm lightning strikes can be targeted down to a specific tile by roofing the entire area of effect except for the single tile that is targeted. Lightning will still strike at the same rate, but will only strike that unroofed tile. Multiple flash storms can be stacked on top of each other with the number and frequency of strikes stacking directly
  • Without roofs, these are wildly inaccurate and only should be used: A) In a killbox with a single unroofed tile, or B) against massive stacks of tribals.
  • Note that there is a substantial delay (60-180 seconds, at random on each cast) before the first strike, after which the ability lasts a fixed duration (164s).
• Neuroquake is a hail-mary-style psycast that is good against a large raid, provided you can protect your psycaster long enough. It is advised to limit all of your pawns, including animals, to the 5 tile radius around the caster, and lock all doors. Reducing psychic sensitivity to reduce coma time no longer is an option in 1.3, as the neuroquake coma no longer scales with a pawns psychic sensitivity. 1.3 also reduced the range from the entire map to a 60-tile radius around the caster.
• Word of Serenity will not prevent the a Tortured Artist pawn from gaining an inspiration when used to end a mental break, allowing relatively risk-free Legendary farming. It can also end social fights early by casting it on either combatant, at a cost of 30 psyfocus.
• Word of Inspiration can be used to great effect when combined with a persona weapon with the Kill-focused trait.
  • Since this trait counts it as a "kill" when the bonded pawn slaughters an animal with the weapon equipped and held, rapidly-breeding animals such as geese, chickens, and ducks (which lay an egg every 1.6, 2.0, and 3.5 days, respectively) can be turned directly into inspirations by hatching the eggs, then slaughtering the chicks, at a ratio of 4 animal slaughters per inspiration.
  • This means that that, after a warm-up period while the first eggs incubate, each female goose (provided they have a male to fertilize the eggs) is worth 0.15625 inspirations per day.

Version history

• Royalty DLC Initial Release - Introduced.
• 1.1.2559 - Burden range 25->30. Stun entropy cost 10->12. Stun range 25->20.
• 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.
• 1.1.2654 - Desired psyfocus level now configurable and pawns will meditate enough to maintain it without needing scheduling. Reduce psyfocus decay rates 0.5% at each level. Wall, Grave, Sarcophagus, Animus stone, Sculptures and Nature Shrine psyfocus gain increased.
• 1.2.2719 - Solar Pinhole, Chunk Skip, Farskip, Neuroquake and Word of Trust/Joy/Inspiration/Love/Serenity added. Meditation focus objects now enhanced by objects placed nearby. Added visual effect for wallraise rocks expiring.
• 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.
• 1.3.3066 - Neuroquake rebalance: Neuroquake lists duration in the casting warning. Coma duration increased from 3 days -> 5 and no longer scales with psychic sensitivity. The negative moodlet to friendly bystanders applies whether they are conscious or not and is increased from -10 to -12. Casting warmup decreased from 125s -> 12s. Berserk radius decreased from entire map -> 60 tiles.
• 1.3.3387 - Word of serenity now works on catatonic breakdown.
• 1.4.3555 - Fix: Tribal children who grow up in a colony don't get the 'natural' meditation focus type.