Anima tree

The anima tree is a tree added by the Royalty DLC. It acts as a meditation focus and source of psylinks for pawns with the Natural focus type, but is sensitive to artifical structures around it.

Growth

One anima tree spawns on most landing site maps. On larger map sizes, up to two may spawn. The Extreme Desert, Ice Sheet, and Sea Ice biomes are too inhospitiable for anima trees to spawn.

Anima trees are immune to fire, toxic fallout, can survive up to -50 °C (-58 °F), and will survive in the absence of light. Thrumbos will not eat anima trees, but alphabeavers can. It is also susceptible to both defoliators and defoliator ships. Anima grass is vulnerable to fire, and will rot if left without light, but will not be eaten by grazing animals. Note that while the anima tree has no lifespan, any anima grass only lives for 60 days.

Regrowth

Destruction of the anima tree causes the −6 anima scream moodlet for 5 days, and stacking up to 3 times. The mood effect scales with Psychic Sensitivity.

After roughly 30 days, it will grow back in a random event at a random location away from artificial buildings. This can be used to move a tree from an inopportune location at the cost of mood.

Archonexus Quest

This section contains spoilers for the Archonexus quest. If you wish to enjoy this quest first hand, you probably shouldn't read this section.

The first two archonexus structures, the major archotech structure and grand archotech structure, spawn anima grass continuously, up to a cap of 35. ^{[Verify cap for both]}^{[Can this grass be used for linking rituals?]}

The final structure, the archonexus core, spawns full anima trees, as well as grass, sometimes as many as 200 trees on a single map.^[Cap?] However this is unlikely to be useful, as the game can ended as soon as the archonexus core is discovered.

Meditation mechanics

Meditating at an anima tree requires a Natural meditation focus, which a pawn can only gain from their childhood background. Only Tribal backstories can have the focus type, and several of them do not provide it. Pawns do not need to have psylink levels to meditate. Schedule meditation and place a meditation spot so that your colonists will actively meditate near the tree.

Meditation at the tree serves two purposes; firstly, it grows anima grass for the granting of psylink. Secondly, it acts as the second best meditation focus, after animus stones, for Natural meditation, increasing the rate at which psycasters meditating to the tree gain psyfocus.

Anima grass

Meditating near an anima tree creates anima grass around the base of the tree. Once at least 20 grass has been grown, a level of psylink can be granted to a pawn with the Natural meditation focus type.

Anima grass is created proportional to the pawn-hours spent meditating to it. Multiple pawns can meditate at the same time to speed up the spawning of the anima grass. At 100% effectiveness, one pawn-hour of meditation grows approximately 16% of one anima grass patch. After 12 pawn-hours of cumulative meditation time, grass growth slows by 50% to 8% of growth per pawn-hour. After 24 pawn-hours of meditation time, it slows to 25%, or 4% of growth per pawn-hour. Finally, it drops to 15% of the normal growth rate after 48 pawn-hours of meditation time. This counts all pawns that have meditated during a 24 hour period. This rate is also affected by the artificial buildings surrounding the tree, up to a -30% of the growth. A full -30% penalty does not stop growth after 24 pawn-hours, suggesting that factor is applied multiplicatively. If there are multiple trees on a map, each will have its own anima grass and threshold, allowing more grass to be grown before hitting diminishing returns.

The pawn must have Natural meditation available in order to grow anima grass. However, the health, psylink level, and psychic sensitivity of the meditating pawns has no effect on the amount of grass generated, even if they are psychically deaf.

Pawn-Hours /Day	Grass grown /Day	Graph
12 hours	2.4
24 hours	3.6
36 Hours	4.2
48 Hours	4.8
60 Hours	5.16

Linking ritual

The linking ritual takes approximately 5 hours and requires 20 anima grass.

This ritual can grant a psylink to a pawn without one or improve the level of an existing psylink; even one granted using a psylink neuroformer or through an Empire bestowing ceremony. This only works on pawns with the Natural meditation type and a non-zero psychic sensitivity.^[Verify] Children cannot link to the anima tree. Once the ritual is complete, 20 anima grass will die, and one new grass will sprout for every participant of the ritual. Any remaining or regrown grass can then be used for future linking rituals, however note that the grass has a limited lifespan of 60 days.

Meditation focus

Psycasters regain psyfocus at a base rate of +50% psyfocus per day spent meditating. Foci in range of the psycaster's meditation spot and of a focus type they share increase this rate additively. Anima trees have a base meditation focus strength of +28% psyfocus per day. Each animus stone within 10 tiles increases the meditation effectiveness by +2%, while each small or large nature shrine within 10 tiles increases it by +1%. Up to 4 buildings can affect the tree, for a maximum bonus of +8% from 4 animus stones. This rate is also affected by the artificial buildings surrounding the tree.

However, the anima tree will still grow grass with 5 animus stones in the vicinity. With 5 animus stones, a psycaster will gain psyfocus at a rate of 92% per day without interference from buildings while also being able to grow anima grass. Similarly, in practice an anima tree with 4 animus stones will recharge psyfocus at a rate of 90% per day, +40%, assuming all objects are within range of each other. They will technically be meditating at the animus stone and not the anima tree. The anima tree is ignored for psyfocus gain but not for anima grass growing.

The maximum meditation focus strength is thus +42% for an anima tree with no artificial buildings within 35 tiles and surrounded by 5 animus stones.

Artificial buildings

Building an artificial building within the 35 tile build radius will reduce the meditation strength and anima grass growth rate. Buildings create a flat reduction in per-day psyfocus gain based on the number of buildings within range. The first 10 buildings provide the most reduction per building. Buildings 11-50 reduce the rate linearly as well but at a much slower rate. Each wall section counts separately. The maximum penalty from buildings maxes out at 50 buildings but does not apply to bonus giving natural buildings, such as nature shrines. Keep in mind that a pawn will preferentially meditate at the highest rate natural building, so two animus stones next to an anima tree will give +4% (+28%-28%+2%+2%) but two animus stones on their own will only give +2% (+34%-34%+2%). Without the artificial building penalty, both situations would be equivalent +36% (+34%+2%) as a pawn would always meditate at the animus stone and the anima tree would be ignored, though grass still grows.

The following buildings are not considered artificial for this purpose:

Ruins also do not have any penalty so long as the ruins remain unclaimed; claiming the ruins will cause them to apply the usual penalty. Despite their similarity to other exempted objects, monument markers are considered artificial.

Selecting the tree displays two circles around the tree:

The smaller, green circle is the range at which animus stones and nature shrines can link to the tree.
The larger, red circle indicates where artificial structures will disrupt the tree. The "Build radius warning" option, turned on by default, will create a red line whenever you try and place a building.

Analysis

Buildings

There are two philosophies for building near the anima tree:

Option 1: Leaving the anima tree clear from artificial structures. You can still install attractive floors and plant flowers (where grass won't spawn) to keep the area beautiful and meditators happy without affecting the tree. A bed and dining room just outside of the radius can help lower travel time. This method is ideal if you dedicate a colonist's entire workday to meditation. Psycasters can gain psyfocus at the maximum rate of 92% per day, or 3.83% per hour.

Option 2: Ignoring the artificial penalty entirely. Create your entire base right next to the anima tree, and surround the tree with walls. This makes the travel time much shorter, and keeps your pawns safer against raids during meditation. In biomes where the Beavers! event can happen (arid shrubland, tundra), it also keeps the tree safe.
- Make sure not to build a roof or floor over the tree, or where grass can spawn. Use the remove roof area tool in the Zoning tab so that your builders don't cut down the tree.
- While building close to the tree impacts the rate at which you gain psyfocus, the psyfocus gain provided by the tree is an "offset" on top of a pawn's base psyfocus gain of 50%/day. With 50 buildable items in the vicinity, the anima tree will not provide any bonus to meditation but any items providing bonuses will still provide the benefit. The lowest possible psyfocus gain is 50% per day while the maximum amount lost is -34% per day, if a single animus stone is used. A pawn will actually meditate at the animus stone over the anima tree but anima trees do not provide a bonus to animus stones, 2 animus stones are needed to see any bonus beyond 50% psyfocus gain per day. This will generate psyfocus at a rate of 2.08% per hour. With 5 animus stones, the rate will be 58% per day, or 2.42% per hour.

In either case, a ring of flooring around the tree and grass spawning area can be useful to prevent wildfires destroying the grass.

Psycasters lose psyfocus at a maximum rate of 7.5% per day. The least a psycaster will need to meditate using option 1 is for 1.95 hours with 5 animus stones. The least a psycaster will need to meditate using option 2 with 5 animus stones is for 3.10 hours. During that additional 1.15 hours or 2875 ticks, a pawn with default movement speed of 4.6 cells per second, or 0.077 cells per tick, could walk 221 cells. Since a return trip is required, anima trees outside of 110 cells from the likely point of travel experience a time penalty greater or equal than the penalty caused by artificial buildings.

If only using small nature shrines (as 5 animus stones are expensive and difficult to acquire, especially at the stage of game when anima grass is most desired) the times to meditate become 3.42%/hr vs. 2.17%/hr (note that the addition of shrines allows the full -30% penalty). During that additional 1.26 hours or 3150 ticks, a pawn with default movement speed of 4.6 cells per second, or 0.077 cells per tick, could walk 242 cells. Since a return trip is required, anima trees outside of 121 cells from the likely point of travel experience a time penalty greater or equal than the penalty caused by artificial buildings.

On the default map size of 250x250, the furthest point from the center is 125 to 176 cells depending on direction. However, trees on the far edge of the map should probably be chopped in hopes of a better location as those locations will likely not be built around anyways. An anima tree in a central location should left building free, with likely starting locations such as dining halls and bedrooms placed within 86 cells of the edge of the build radius warning.

With longer meditation times, the travel time becomes less significant but the building penalty still applies to anima grass growth. It becomes difficult to see any advantage to a tree being enclosed by buildings for the purposes of creating psycasters or using high cost psycasts. It is also easier to make a pawn move faster than it is to place an anima tree for a slow pawn. Colonist risk far from safety is still a factor.

Pawns

For maximum growth, schedule one or more colonists to just meditation, only stopping to eat or sleep. This also reduces travel time, useful if you have built away from the anima tree. Meditating will provide some recreation; while they will rapidly become bored with it, it will still keep the bar full if done all day. If a ruin or natural wall is within 6 tiles, consider roofing over their meditation spot to keep them out of the rain and toxic fallout.

If the anima tree is very nearby to the colony, then you can also schedule meditation for all tribal colonists in place of recreation. Meditation does fill up the recreation meter, even if colonists will get bored of it. If a large portion of colonists are set to meditation, then you will quickly hit the soft limit for grass growth.

While the grass does not grow faster when meditated at by a psycaster, they are still ideal choices. The psyfocus gain from meditation not only replaces their need to meditate elsewhere; it also all but guarantees that they will be consistently at 100% psyfocus. This especially synergizes with high-psyfocus-cost, non-combat psycasts such as word of trust or word of inspiration, and is valuable for keeping casters combat-ready as well.

Gallery

Anima tree variant A
Anima tree variant B
Anima tree variant C
Anima tree variant D
Anima tree variant E

Version history

1.1.2647 - Added.
1.1.2654 - Regrowth check cycle: 40 days -> 30 days. Added warning message when designating an anima tree for cutting and using it to give a psychically dull or deaf pawn psylink. Now sends a letter when enough anima grass is available for linking.
1.2.2719 - Anima trees are enhanced by nearby animus stones. Will no longer be destroyed by meteors, crashed ship parts, or shuttles. Anima grass progress rate now reduces after they're heavily used within a single day. All Psylink levels now take 20 anima grass instead of 18 for levels 1 and 2, 20 for 3 and 4, and 22 for 5 and 6. Soften anima tree glow. Remove anima grass glow. Fix: Anima tree doesn't heal properly. Fix: Just claimed artificial structures don't affect nature focus objects.
1.3.3066 - Fix: Anima trees can display negative meditation values. Fix: No feedback on anima tree right click if pawn cannot use natural focus or already is max level.
1.3.3067 - Anima grass growth rate is now slowed, like the psyfocus penalty, when the tree is near artificial buildings. Fix: Typo on anima tree linking ritual.
1.3.3074 - Prevent thrumbos from eating anima trees.
1.3.3087 - Description updated.

Plants

Domesticated plants: Cocoa tree • Corn plant • Cotton plant • Devilstrand mushroom • Haygrass • Healroot • Hop plant • Potato plant • Psychoid plant • Rice plant • Smokeleaf plant • Strawberry plant • Tinctoria • Fibercorn • Gauranlen pod • Nutrifungus • Toxipotato plant
Decorative plants: Dandelions • Daylily • Rose • Bonsai tree
Wild plants: Agarilux • Agave • Alocasia • Ambrosia bush • Astragalus • Berry bush • Brambles • Bryolux • Bush • Chokevine • Clivia • Giant rafflesia • Glowstool • Grass • Low shrubs • Moss • Pincushion cactus • Tall grass • Wild healroot • Anima grass • Gauranlen moss
Trees: Bamboo tree • Birch tree • Cecropia tree • Cypress tree • Drago tree • Maple tree • Oak tree • Palm tree • Pine tree • Poplar tree • Saguaro cactus • Teak tree • Willow tree • Timbershroom • Gray pine tree • Pebble cactus • Rat palm tree • Witchwood tree
Special: Anima tree • Gauranlen tree • Polux tree • Harbinger tree
Tree stumps: Burned stump • Chopped stump (Gauranlen , Anima , Polux , Harbinger ) • Smashed stump (Gauranlen , Anima , Polux , Harbinger )