Ghoul

Please note that due to technical limitations, a bite attack is missing from the infobox.

Ghouls are humans that have been warped into powerful, twisted combat entities with very few needs. Ghouls can appear as both enemy units and become a part of your colony.

Acquisition

Ghouls cannot be recruited. Enemy ghouls can only be killed or captured as part of operating a containment platform.

To create a friendly ghoul, you must research Ghoul Infusion in the Anomaly tech tree. A medical operation becomes available that irreversibly converts a colonist or prisoner into a ghoul at the cost of 30 bioferrite and 1 shard. This will damage relations with the faction of the patient, should they belong to one.

The Anomaly starting scenario begins with a ghoul colonist.

Summary

A ghoul is effectively a colonist that is limited to only melee attacks. Ghouls cannot wield weapons or apparel. All of the ghoul's skills are set to 0 except for Melee and Shooting (even though ghouls can't shoot). If a ghoul had a passion for Melee and Shooting in life, it retains it as a ghoul. Ghouls can't do any work. Ghouls retain the natural attacks of a human, but also gain a left, and a right claw attack and an additional bite attack.

All ghouls are given two hediffs that implement the majority of the stat changes experienced by ghouls. These hediffs are Ghoul" and "Regeneration".

Ghoul:

Pain: ×0%
Max Nutrition: 2
Psychic sensitivity: ×0%
Minimum Comfortable Temperature: −40
Maximum Comfortable Temperature: +40
Minimum Containment Strength: +35
Talking: ×0%

Regeneration:

Regenerate 100HP/day^{[Detail needed]}

Ghouls can only eat raw meat and fresh corpses. They will automatically try to eat available food in their assigned zone. Friendly ghouls that are not fed have an increasing chance to become hostile. Ghouls will happily eat insect meat, human meat, and twisted meat.

Ghouls require no sleep, no recreation, no comfort, and have no item needs besides food. They regenerate 100 health per day, automatically regrow lost limbs, and rapidly cure negative health effects. Ghouls can't have any relationships and don't have mood.

Ghouls can be restricted to zones and also drafted. In combat, they can be directly commanded to melee attack. Ghouls have their pain set to x0%, allowing them to fight until their health is fully depleted or they are incapacitated due to damage to their body. As mentioned however, damaged limbs and organs will regenerate even if downed, unless they are dead. Drafted Ghouls will also fight fires.

Ghouls retain the traits they had in life. While most won't be relevant to a ghoul, they can benefit from traits like Jogger and Brawler.

Ghouls will also retain their genes, though not all will remain effective. Genes that affect stats, traits, and aptitudes will remain active. Hemogenic genes, chemical dependencies, ability-granting genes, and violence disabled will become inactive. Additionally, a large number of still-active genes will become either redundant or ineffective due to the inherit qualities of ghouls, like reduced pain, aggressiveness, any non-violent aptitude, and any degree of psy-sensitivity. Cosmetic genes that add body parts will remain visible, while genes that change skin/hair color, hair type, head shape, or fur will not.

Entirely new xenogerms can be implanted into ghouls.

Ghouls can be assigned to travel as part of a caravan.

Despite the in-game description, colonists do not gain negative mood for being near a friendly ghoul, however they will experience a negative mood if a loved one becomes a ghoul or spawns as a ghoul.^[Detail]

Upgrading ghouls

Ghouls can have standard prosthetics such as bionic legs and Archotech arms installed via medical operations.

By researching the Ghoul enhancements technology in the Anomaly tech tree, you can add special bioferrite prosthetics to a ghoul:

Adrenal heart — An ability with a short cool down. Briefly provides a short burst of attack and movement speed at the cost of hunger
Corrosive heart — Allows the ghoul to spew acid
Ghoul barbs — Increases melee damage at the cost of speed
Ghoul plating — Increases damage resistance at the cost of speed.
Metalblood heart — Briefly increases the ghoul's damage resistance

Ghouls can also use serums. As ghouls aren't affected by mood, this can make juggernaut serum especially effective for them.

Analysis

Ghouls are very powerful guard dogs and melee attackers. They require nothing besides meat. Converting a colonist into a ghoul is a good way to make use of an otherwise terrible pawn or a colonist you can't save from death. The converted ghoul will quickly regrow lost limbs and self-cure detrimental health conditions.

A ghoul makes excellent bait to lure revenants and sightstealers, as they can remain patrolling outside forever.

While requiring direct control, Ghouls can still help with some work in colony. While drafted they can be used to hunt animals (though they will not carry the corpses back). They can also be used to fight fires. In Anomaly starting scenario the Ghoul allows you to skip early defences, indirectly reducing amount of work that needs to be done.

Be especially careful when engaging enemy ghouls in melee combat. They will not be forced down due to pain, so they will fight much longer than regular human raiders.

Ghouls can also make effective use of weapon implants like the elbow blade or the knee spike: As they cannot hold conventional weapons, ghouls can only make unarmed attacks. Implanted weaponry offers them a powerful upgrade, making their already powerful strikes terrifyingly effective in combat.

Hunger management

Ghouls don't get cancer, so the nuclear stomach is an ideal way to keep them from berserking from hunger.

The Robust digestion gene synergies very well with the Ghouls natural diet of raw meat, but may not work with corpses^[Verify]

Medical quirks

Because ghouls rapidly regenerate their organs, you can harvest a spare lung and kidney from a pawn before turning them into a ghoul. You can harvest all six organs from a sanguophage before converting them into a ghoul.

Becoming a ghoul does not remove duplication sickness. However, if you then euthanize the ghoul and revive them with a ghoul resurrection serum, it does remove the sickness.

Version history

Anomaly DLC Release - Added.