Psychic reader

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Psychic reader

Psychic reader

Gives limited mind-reading ability, improving the user's ability to get the upper hand in negotiations and social situations. The effect is proportional to the user's psychic sensitivity.

Base Stats

Type
Medical ItemsBody Parts
Tech Level
Archotech
Market Value
1000 Silver
Mass
4 kg
HP
50
Flammability
100%
Technical
thingSetMakerTags
ImplantEmpireRoyal
techHediffsTags
ImplantEmpireRoyal
tradeTags
ImplantEmpireRoyal


The Psychic Reader gives a pawn that's been implanted with it a bonus of +50% Negotiation Ability and +10% Trade Price Improvement based on the pawn Social stat, both scaling proportionally with the user's psychic sensitivity. Negotiation Ability affects the speed of prisoner recruitment, impact on faction relations when giving gifts, and the outcome of peace talks, while Trade Price Improvement obviously improves trade prices.

Acquisition

Psychic Readers can only be acquired through trade or as a quest reward. They cannot be crafted.

Summary

The psychic reader applies an offset of +50% Negotiation Ability, and a multiplier of ×110% Trade Price Improvement of the pawn it is installed in. These bonuses are then multiplied by Psychic Sensitivity. Note that the TPI booster is a multiplicative modifier of the Social skill. A Social 20 pawn at 100% Psychic Sensitivity will have its Trade Price Improvement go from 30% to 33%, equivalent to 2 extra levels of Social skill. At lower Social skills, the psychic reader has a smaller absolute effect.

Other factors to TPI, such as the faction base bonus, are not impacted.

Installation

Installing the part requires ??[Detail needed] of work, 2x medicine of herbal quality or better, and a Medical skill of 5.

Removing the part requires ?[Detail needed] of work, 1x medicine of herbal quality or better, and a Medical skill of 5.

If the operation fails, the part has a chance[What Chance?] to be destroyed.

Analysis

The psychic reader helps recruit prisoners, and increases trade profits by a small amount. Installing the psychic reader on your best Social pawn will generally the greatest benefit. Psychic Sensitivity helps, but a good Social pawn with 100% Psychic Sensitivity is a better trader than a 0 Social pawn with psychically hypersensitive.

For the sole purpose of trade, psychic readers are generally not profitable until the late game. Assuming you buy a psychic reader at Silver 1000 silver, it takes a massive amount of trading to get a return on investment. At 20 Social skill, the psychic reader increases TPI by 2%. You'd have to buy/sell Silver 50,000 silver[1] worth of goods before you start making a profit. Even with high Psychic Sensitivity, you will have to trade a lot. You'll have to trade even more if Social skill is lower than 20. In the late game, where you have lots of money and can continuously call in traders with a comms console, this implant can be worth it.

Therefore, for most of the main value of the psychic reader is the boost on prisoners. It can be useful if you wish to recruit many prisoners, or many high resistance prisoners. For example, a New Arrivals colony may want to recruit Tribal pawns to exploit the anima tree for psycasting. This can save a few days on prisoner recruitment, per prisoner.

As the benefits of a psychic reader are small, it is usually not worth buying until it is easily afforded. Should you happen to obtain a psychic reader through other means, you should also weigh the benefits to the risk of brain damage, in case of a failed surgery.

1 For example, you can buy 25,000 silver worth of goods, by selling 25,000 silver worth of goods, and this results in a 1,000 silver profit. This number can be confusing. You'd have to buy/sell 50,000 worth of goods, after considering the natural trade disadvantage (x0.6 price for selling, x1.4 for buying), but before considering other factors to TPI, including the TPI from having 20 Social skill in the first place.

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