Go-juice

Go-juice is a potent hard combat drug that almost completely blocks pain and significantly improves a pawn's capabilities, at the risk of addiction and overdose.

Acquisition

Go-juice can be synthesized at a Drug lab once the Go-juice production research project has been completed. Each dose require 2 Neutroamine, 1 Yayo and 600 ticks (10 secs) of work. Its synthesis speed is dependent on the [[Skills#|]] skill.

It can also be found on raiders and purchased.

Summary

Go-juice is a potent combat stimulant 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 addicted to the drug.
While withdrawing from the drug.

Upon injection

A pawn taking go-juice will do so right where it stands without looking for a place to sit first. Go-juice is taken by injection, taking 80 ticks (1.33 secs). It has the following one time effects:

+40% Chemical recreation
+50% Go-juice high severity (see "Go-juice high" below)
+40% Rest
+15% Psyfocus
2.6% Addiction chance
0.5% Chance for a major overdose
+18% to +35% Overdose severity
If the pawn has an addiction already:
- +90% Go-juice need (see "Addiction" below)
- +20% Addiction severity (see "Withdrawal" below)

Go-juice high

"Go-juice in the bloodstream. It supercharges combat-related abilities, and instantly increases psyfocus when first injected."

While each go-juice injection increases the severity of the go-juice high by 50% (see "Upon injection" above), it decreases by 75% per day again, meaning that the high of a single dose lasts 16 hours. The maximum severity of a go-juice high is 100% which is reached with 2 go-juice. Regardless of the go-juice high severity, the effects are always the same. Only their duration changes accordingly:

+5 Mood ("I feel pumped but steady. I am the bullet in flight, ready to cut through you.")
×10% Pain (meaning all pain will be divided by ten)
+20% Consciousness
+35% Sight
+50% Moving

Tolerance

As of version 1.2.3005, go-juice no longer gives a pawn any tolerance at all when taken, despite the effects of tolerance still existing in-game. This has been confirmed as intended behaviour.^[1]

Addiction

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

Developing an addiction means a pawn has a go-juice need. The need for go-juice falls by 33.3% per day, consuming go-juice satisfies the need by 90% (see "Upon injection" above), meaning the pawn will need to consume go-juice at least every 2.7 days to prevent withdrawal symptoms.

Withdrawal

"Because of a go-juice addiction, this person needs to regularly consume the drug to avoid withdrawal symptoms."
— Need description

As soon as the go-juice need reaches 0%, the pawn will develop a go-juice withdrawal. From then on the addiction severity falls by 4.5% per day from the initial 100%, meaning it takes about 22.2 days to overcome the addiction. Consuming a go-juice during a withdrawal will increase the addiction severity by 20% again (see "Upon injection" above). During the withdrawal the pawn suffers from the following symptoms:

−22 Mood ("I'm all fuzzy and can't think straight. My limbs feel heavy, I'm tired and hungry, everything hurts. And why won't my eyes focus properly?")
×300% Pain (meaning all pain will be tripled)
−20% Consciousness
−50% Moving
−20% Sight
−20% Blood pumping
−10% Manipulation
+30% Rest fall factor (meaning the pawn needs to sleep about a 30% sooner)
+50% Hunger rate factor (meaning the pawn needs to eat about 50% sooner)
Mental break chances:
- Hard drug binge: on average every 10 days. This averages to 2.2 psychotic wanderings during each withdrawal.
- Psychotic wandering: on average every 40 days. This averages to 0.6 hard drug binges during each withdrawal.

Analysis

Go-juice acts as a potent stimulant and pain-killer. It has a significant impact on combat performance due to the mobility improvement, along with the enhancement to sight and consciousness which are vital for shooting accuracy. Similar to the painstopper, its reduction of pain in turn reduces the penalties to combat stats that come with it while also keeping the pawn up for longer. This means an affected pawn does more damage while injured and is doing that damage for longer. Coupled with the direct buffs from the other effects of the drug, this makes affected pawn significantly deadlier, but also puts them at risk by not going into shock as quickly meaning they will fight until very close to death or made physically unable.

Go-juice's consciousness boost also improves the odds of a doctor successfully performing surgery. This is more useful for the surgeries with less chance to succeed such as carcinoma removal, though is less useful for regular surgeries.

Tip: Unless you need an immediate and significant boost in chemical recreation, rest or psyfocus it is recommended to wait at least 4.8 hours between the first and the second dose of go-juice. Otherwise the overdose severity might build up resulting in a minor overdose (this is unrelated to the 0.5% chance for a major overdose that comes with each injection). Be particulary careful when using go-juice in combination with other drugs! The third dose and any dose after that shouldn't be taken earlier than 16 hours after the second to last dose. Otherwise some hours of the go-juice high will be wasted.

Assuming a healthy, but otherwise unaugmented pawn, the bonuses from consuming go-juice translates to:

A +50% increase to Move Speed, equivalent to an increase of 2.3 c/s on a healthy, unencumbered pawn.
A +20% increase in General Labor Speed.
A +30% increase in Medical Tend Quality at Medical skill 10. At Medical 20, this is a 27% increase, at Medical 5, a 32% increase
A 1.2x multiplier to Medical Surgery Success Chance.
An increase in Shooting Accuracy equivalent to +4.2 extra levels of Shooting.
An increase in Melee Hit Chance equivalent to +6.6 extra levels of Melee.
An increase in Melee Dodge Chance equivalent to +11.8 extra levels of Melee.

Version history

0.15.1279 - Added.
1.1.2647 - Rebalanced. Addiction risk and effects reduced, safe dose interval removed. Now instantly gives psyfocus when taken by psycasters.

References

↑ Rejected bug report: "[1.2.2753] Wake-up and go-juice do not cause tolerance". Unused tolerance effects: "A built-up tolerance to go-juice. The more severe this tolerance is, the more go-juice it takes to get the same effect." Starting at 45% tolerance the pawn could get moderate chemical damage in the brain reducing part efficiency by 50%, impairing the pawn in all jobs from combat to daily work. The chemical damage would be applied in a curve with the following points: a) At 45% tolerance on average every 99999 days. b) At 50% tolerance on average every 120 days. c) At 100% tolerance on average every 90 days. All values in between are calculated with linear interpolation. The go-juice tolerance would decrease by 1.5% per day.

Drugs

Social drugs: Ambrosia • Beer • Psychite tea • Smokeleaf joint

Hard drugs: Flake • Go-juice • Wake-up • Yayo

Medical drugs: Luciferium • Penoxycyline

Serums: Ghoul resurrection serum • Juggernaut serum • Metalblood serum • Mind-numb serum • Voidsight serum

[1] Rejected bug report: "[1.2.2753] Wake-up and go-juice do not cause tolerance". Unused tolerance effects: "A built-up tolerance to go-juice. The more severe this tolerance is, the more go-juice it takes to get the same effect." Starting at 45% tolerance the pawn could get moderate chemical damage in the brain reducing part efficiency by 50%, impairing the pawn in all jobs from combat to daily work. The chemical damage would be applied in a curve with the following points: a) At 45% tolerance on average every 99999 days. b) At 50% tolerance on average every 120 days. c) At 100% tolerance on average every 90 days. All values in between are calculated with linear interpolation. The go-juice tolerance would decrease by 1.5% per day.

[1]