Psychic soothe pulser
Psychic soothe pulser
A psychic sooth pulser is a single-use artifact which gives a "Strange feeling" thought with a +15 mood buff and 24 hour duration to every colonist on the map when activated.
Acquisition
Psychic soothe pulsers cannot be crafted. Instead they can only be obtained through trade with faction bases or exotic goods traders, as a reward from quests, or by finding them in ancient shrines.
Summary
A psychic soothe pulser is a single-use artifact that can be activated by selecting a colonist, right-clicking the artifact, and selecting 'Activate'
The pulser gives the "Strange feeling" thought with a +15 mood buff to every human pawn on the map upon activation, including prisoners and raiders. The size of the mood bonus is scaled directly proportionally to each pawn's Psychic Sensitivity - a hypersensitive pawn will receive a +27 while a psychically deaf pawn will receive no buff at all. If the psychic sensitivity of the pawn changes while the thought is still present, the mood buff will change with it.
The psychic soothe pulser's bonus can be stacked up to 3 times. The second pulse will add an additional +11 before psychic sensitivity effects, and the third will add +9, for a total mood bonus of +35.
The mood buff lasts for 24 hours. Note that pawns entering the map after activation are not affected.
Once it has been used once, the pulser disappears completely. It cannot be reloaded, nor can any resources be salvaged from it.
Analysis
Psychic soothe pulsers are useful for any situation where a large number of colonists are suffering, or are likely to suffer, from a poor mood. Perhaps the most common example is long late-game raids, where colonists are deprived of rest, food, and recreation, in addition to seeing corpses or death - even of loved ones. Pulsers can keep pawns from breaking at inopportune times; mental breaks are dangerous for the pawn, and at the very least leaves the colony with 1 less defender.
Psychic soothe pulsers can be also be used to counteract psychic drones. A single pulser can completely nullify the effects of a low psychic drone and still have a +3 net effect on mood. Higher levels of drone will be reduced in intensity as well. Whilst doing so is expensive, it's possible to turn an extreme psychic drone's −40 effect on mood into a paltry −5 by activating 3 pulsers at the same time for the maximum soothe effect. By the time a colony is being affected by such extreme psychic events, it is likely in a position where it can afford to purchase multiple pulsers in preparation for such events.
If possible, gather/save a few soothe pulsers for the ship launch or royal ascent
endings. Not only are back-to-back raids quickly damaging to mood, but pawns often need to work to repair defenses when their needs are at their lowest.
Lore
Psychic effectors, like the psychic soothe pulser, are mentioned in the Lore Primer. They are described as archotech in origin, with a completely unknown method of operation
Version history
- 0.12.906 - Added
- 1.1 - received new visual and sound effects on use.