Psychic suppressor
 | This article relates to content added by Royalty (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
Psychic suppressor
An archotech device that generates a massive psychic suppression field tuned to a particular gender. People of that gender have their psychic activity suppressed, reducing their consciousness. The effect is modulated by an individual's psychic sensitivity.
Base Stats
- Type
- Building – Mechanoid cluster
- HP
- 1500
- Flammability
- 0%
Building
- Size
- 6 × 6
- Placeable
- False
- Passability
- impassable
- Cover Effectiveness
- 75%
- Blocks Wind
- True
- Destroy yield
60 + 
1 + 
10 + 
4
Psychic supressors are mechanoid cluster and quest condition causers added by the Royalty DLC. They reduce the Consciousness of all humans of a gender in a 10 world-tile radius.
Summary
A psychic suppressor sets a maximum Consciousness limit to humans of a specific gender, which is scaled by the individual's Psychic Sensitivity. At 100% sensitivity, a pawn's Consciousness will have a maximum of 50%. At 0% sensitivity, Consciousness will have a maximum of 100%, preventing any boosts beyond normal consciousness. Both colonists and raiders are affected by the suppressor. The consciousness reduction caps at 50% max consciousness - sensitivity higher than 100% will not reduce consciousness further.
Consciousness, in turn, affects a wide variety of stats. It directly impacts Manipulation, Moving, Talking Eating, which each have an impact on almost anything a pawn can do. See each page for more details.
Analysis
Psychic suppressors are massive threats if they affect multiple important pawns at once. A baseline pawn will move 50% slower, do most work 50% slower, and will be much less effective in combat. Affected doctors will tend wounds much slower, and cooks may no longer be able to cook meals fast enough for everyone. Reduced Consciousness makes it easier to down or kill any affected pawn. Conversely, if no colonist is currently affected by the suppressor, then it is purely beneficial due to the effect on raiders. However, it may not be desirable to keep the suppressor forever, as new recruits may be of the affected gender.
Ideally, you should use unsuppressed pawns to take out psychic suppressors. Suppressed pawns can still be useful for combat support via EMP grenades or smoke launchers. Both weapons are unaffected by the loss in Consciousness; their Aiming Time remains the same, while the reduced accuracy is irrelevant due to each weapon's blast radius. However, these pawns are still easier to down than normal.
If the condition causer has spawned inside your colony, then you can use mortars to shell it from a distance. Just watch out for mech high-shields.
If both a male and a female psychic suppressor spawn on the same map, whichever one spawned most recently takes priority for the suppression effect, disabling the other one. This means one gender is always guaranteed to be free from the suppression effect. However, a minor error occurs when this happens; the older suppressor will continue the more recent suppressor's effect even after the recent suppressor is destroyed. As an example:
A female psychic suppressor is deployed by a mechanoid cluster, suppressing female pawns. A male psychic suppressor is then deployed as well, causing male pawns to be suppressed and disabling the female suppression effect. Destroying the male psychic suppressor does not end the male suppression effect, because the female psychic suppressor is now suppressing males, despite the suppressor itself saying it is tuned to females. Destroying both suppressors correctly ends the effect.
Version history
- 1.4.3641 - Fix: Psychic suppression targeted by healer mech serum.