Barkskin

Barkskin are a caste of Dryads, a type of animal added by the Ideology DLC. Slow but tough, the barkskin soaks hits for your other fighters.

Summary

All dryads, including the barkskin, are produced by a gauranlen tree. They have no need to eat, are immune to disease events, and have a Toxic Sensitivity of 0%, rendering them immune to Toxic fallout and Toxic buildup. Dryads cannot die from blood loss, so in practice will survive virtually any damage that doesn't immediately kill them. Dryads can retreat to a healing pod in order to regenerate wounds; this takes 3 days and heals all permanent injuries and bad conditions.

Attacks

Barkskin dryads are fairly weak combatants. Even with their amazing armor, they are roughly on par with most dogs as individual fighters.

Melee Attacks	Damage Amount	Cooldown
[[Injury#Scatch}Scratch]]	8	2 sec
Bite	9	2.0 sec
Blunt	4	2.0 sec

Armor

Armor

Barkskins have similar armor to a thrumbo (with more Sharp armor), but they don't quite compare - dryads have a health scale of 0.9, similar to a human and over 8x less than a proper thrumbo.

Analysis

Barkskins do one thing well: tank hits for your colonists. While your pawns fire from a distance, barkskins can face enemy attacks. Thanks to the unique properties of dryads, they can heal up permanent injuries in 3 days, and don't need immediate tending, making them very cheap blocking animals. Barkskins will also engage enemies in melee, which means that they won't be firing their gun. Friendly fire is a possibility, but barkskins are small (avoiding hits), or can be used as direct cover.

Version history

Ideology DLC Release - Added.
1.3.3076 - Fix: Dryads are affected by disease incidents.
1.3.3101 - Blunt armor increased from 30% to 40%, sharp armor increased from 60% to 70%.

Animals