Ghoul

Ghoul

Ghouls are engineered murder machines, twisted by dark psychic influences.
Ghouls are very dangerous in melee combat. However, the process of their creation leaves them incapable of higher levels of thought, preventing them from holding weapons or tools. They cannot work and outside combat they wander in a half-conscious stupor.
Many people find the constant twitching of ghouls disturbing. More disturbing is their dependence on raw meat. If they go hungry they will turn hostile, even attacking their creators to sate their hunger.

Base Stats

Type

Entity

Pawn Stats

Diet

raw meat and corpses

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.

Summary

A ghoul is effectively a "zombie" colonist that is limited to only melee attacks. Ghouls cannot wield weapons. 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 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.

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. Genes from the Biotech DLC on a ghoul are all deactivated.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Version history

• Anomaly DLC Release - Added.