Painstopper
Painstopper
A brain implant which inhibits nociception, or pain sensation. While it does allow the user to accomplish more, it turns out pain has a purpose. When you don't feel it, you can get hurt really bad really easily.
Base Stats
- Type
- Medical Items – Body Parts
- Tech Level
- Industrial
- Flammability
- 70%
Creation
- Required Research
- Brain wiring
- Skill Required
- Crafting 5
- Work To Make
- 15,000 ticks (4.17 mins)
- thingSetMakerTags
- RewardStandardLowFreq
- techHediffsTags
- Advanced
- tradeTags
- TechHediff
A Painstopper is a brain implant that will completely eliminate a colonist's pain and any pain-related mood effects.
Acquisition
In the base game, painstoppers cannot be crafted. Instead they can only be obtained via trade or found in ancient shrines.
With the Royalty DLC, painstoppers can be crafted at a Machining table once the Brain wiring research project has been completed. They require 20 Steel, 4 Components, 15,000 ticks (4.17 mins) of work, and a Crafting skill of 5.
Summary
Painstoppers multiply pain by ×0%, meaning that a pawn will never have pain and never go through pain shock.
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
Pain reduces consciousness, which in turn reduces manipulation, moving and talking. Thus, it directly and significantly impacts almost every activity a pawn can perform. It also inflicts a significant mood debuff. Most kinds of pain are temporary and not worth installing a Painstopper for that reason alone. However, pain from scars is permanent, and some painful diseases such as sensory mechanites can linger for long periods of time.
The painstopper can be a huge boon in combat, preventing the Consciousness loss of pain, improving DPS output when injured. As the Pain Shock Threshold is never crossed, the pawn can fight for longer as well. But this carries a significant risk - pawns that don't feel pain will never be downed from it, meaning that pawns will keep fighting until they either win, die or, less likely, become incapacitated from serious leg, spine, pelvis or brain injury. Maintaining high damage output for longer can help end fights sooner, allowing you to win a fight before risking serious injury. However, it is important to keep an eye on them, so you can get them to retreat in time before they receive fatal damage - especially while hunting or in melee.
Colonists with the Masochist trait or following an Ideoligion with the Pain: Idealized precept gain mood bonuses from pain, which will be eliminated by the painstopper. Psycasters also dissipate neural heat faster while in pain.
Painstoppers are useful for negating the Wimp trait, though with the usual downsides. As the Extra pain gene forces the Wimp trait but adds +2 metabolic efficiency, the two can be combined for free metabolic efficiency for painstopped pawns.
Temporary alternatives to reduce pain include Go-juice and the Painblock psycast , which reduces the long term risk. However, these come with their own drawbacks including addiction, chemical damage, short duration and cost. Both of these options reduce pain by 90%, rather than eliminating it completely.
Version history
- 0.12.906 - Added. At this point it prevents pain, but reduces consciousness