Circadian assistant

The circadian assistant is an artificial body part that slows the rate at which pawns get tired.

Acquisition

Circadian assistants can be crafted at a fabrication bench once the circadian influence research project has been completed. Note that this research requires a techprint. Each requires 15 Plasteel, 4 Advanced components, 26,000 ticks (7.22 mins) of work modified by the general labor speed of the crafter, and a crafting skill of 8.

Pawns from ancient shrines may have this implant installed.

Summary

An installed circadian assistant decreases Sleep Fall Rate by −20%. This does not equal 20% less sleep. See Sleep Saved for the exact details. This modifier is applied before genes and drugs, so in most situations it is equivalent to a simple ×80% factor.

When a pawn with this implant is shocked with EMP, they will receive brain shock, knocking them unconscious temporarily.

Installation

Installing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, 2x medicine of herbal quality or better, and a Medical skill of 5.

Removing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, 1x medicine of herbal quality or better, and a Medical skill of 5.

If the operation fails, the part will be destroyed.

Analysis

The circadian assistant increases work hours without impacting Consciousness like the half-cycler. However, this implant is virtually always worse for productivity than either a bionic arm or bionic leg, depending on the type of work the colonist focuses on. The brain shock makes using EMP against mechs more difficult, but gives a way to safely down the pawn in case of a mental break or prison break.

With high quality beds, and/or other positive modifiers to rest, consider setting a pawn's schedule entirely to Anything. A pawn with greatly enhanced sleep will go beyond a 24 hour sleep schedule, which means that pawns will spend less time moving to/from their bed. Remember that being in darkness will reduce work speed by a significant percentage, unless there is something mitigating this.

Sleep saved

In essence, the circadian assistant only has an effect while the pawn is awake. Therefore, actual sleep saving will always be lower than expected values.

For example, a baseline pawn in a normal bed would spend 18.19 hours awake per 7.56 hours sleeping, to avoid being Drowsy. The assistant increases awake time to (18.19/0.8), or 22.74 hours awake, without impacting the sleep needed.

A baseline pawn in a normal bed spends (18.19 hr awake) / (7.56 + 18.19 hr total) = 70.6% of a day awake. Equal to 16.95 hr awake per 24 hour cycle, or 7.05 hours sleeping.
With the circadian assistant, this becomes (22.74 hr awake) / (7.56 + 22.74 hr total) = 75.04% of a day awake. Equal to 18.01 hr awake per 24 hour cycle, or 5.99 hours sleeping.

This means that, in a normal bed, the circadian assistant actually reduces sleep time by roughly −15%, or about 1.06 hours per day, rather than the expected -20%.

Alternatively, you could say that the circadian assistant increases awake time by ×106.3%. Increasing Rest Effectiveness or Rest Rate Multiplier will actually lower the time savings of this implant. For example, a quick sleeper installing a circadian assistant would end up increasing awake time by ×104.5%, saving about 0.853 hours per 24-hour day compared to quick sleeper on its own.

Comparison to other bionics

With a rough baseline of actual sleep saved calculated above, it is possible to compare the ciradian assistant to other bionics.

Bionic arms and bionic legs increase Manipulation or Moving by +12.5%, per part, which increase work speed / travel speed by that amount. While "awake time" would increase both time working and travel time, the other parts are more specialized and thus are generally better at increasing a specific work's speed. In addition, both bionic arms and legs have some functional benefit in combat. Rest does not impact combat until 0% rest, where exhausted pawns will collapse on the ground.

If 2 bionic arms and/or 2 legs have already been installed, then the assistant offers a decent functional benefit. Bionic hearts offer ×105% Moving and an approximate 0.3 hour per day sleep reduction, so the circadian assistant would be better for work. However, it still confers an EMP weakness.

Notes

Despite its description, it does nothing to mitigate toxic buildup.

Artificial body parts

Arm/Hand: Archotech arm • Bionic arm • Power claw • Prosthetic arm • Wooden hand • Drill arm • Elbow blade • Field hand • Hand talon • Venom talon • Flesh tentacle • Flesh whip
Head: Archotech eye • Bionic eye • Bionic ear • Bionic jaw • Bionic tongue • Cochlear implant • Denture • Aesthetic nose
Head implants: Joywire • Painstopper • Circadian assistant • Circadian half-cycler • Gastro-analyzer • Learning assistant • Mindscrew • Neurocalculator • Psychic harmonizer • Psychic reader • Psychic sensitizer • Venom fangs • Control sublink (Standard, High) • Mechlink • Mech gestation processor • Remote repairer • Remote shielder • Repair probe
Spine: Bionic spine • Revenant vertebrae
Stomach: Bionic stomach • Nuclear stomach • Reprocessor stomach • Sterilizing stomach • Fleshmass stomach
Heart: Bionic heart • Prosthetic heart • Heart • Adrenal heart • Corrosive heart • Metalblood heart
Lung: Lung • Detoxifier lung • Fleshmass lung
Kidney: Kidney • Detoxifier kidney
Organs: Liver
Visceral implants: Death acidifier • Aesthetic shaper • Coagulator • Healing enhancer • Armorskin gland • Stoneskin gland • Toughskin gland • Immunoenhancer • Love enhancer • Ghoul plating • Ghoul barbs
Leg/Foot: Archotech leg • Bionic leg • Prosthetic leg • Peg leg • Wooden foot • Knee spike
Related: Psylink neuroformer • Xenogerm
Deprecated: Scyther blade • Psychic silencer