Psycasts

Psycasts are psychic powers available to pawns with Psylink neuroformers, added by the Royalty DLC.

Acquisition

A random psycast of the new level can be gained when using a Psylink neuroformer - i.e. a random level 1 psycast is gained when a pawn uses their first neuroformer, a level 2 psycast is gained when using their second, etc. Further psycasts can be gained by using a Psytrainer which grants the specific psycast mentioned in their name. Additional psycasts are available for purchase from traders, with Empire bases and traders having the most, and tribals having the least.

Mechanics

A psycaster's effectiveness is controlled by two primary factors: their Psychic Entropy Limit and the Psychic Sensitivity of their target.

A psycaster's psychic entropy limit is the primary limitation to how many psycasts they can perform in a given period of time. Each psycast gives the caster a certain amount of entropy. The more they exert themselves, the closer they get to their limit and the more powerful the debuff they receive while recovering. Should they exceed the limit (by disabling the limiter) there is even a risk of permanent damage. While the default psychic entropy limit is 30 it modified by a number of factors including psychic sensitivity, the number of psychic amplifiers. The resulting value follows the equation

Psychic Entropy Limit = 30 * Psychic Sensitivity * (0.66... + (0.33...*Number of Psychic Amplifiers))

Entropy naturally decreases over time, with faster rates provided by additional psychic amplifiers. The default rate of 5 every 30 seconds with no amplifiers (though this will only be seen when using Entropic Link as otherwise they cannot generate entropy). The first amplifier improves the rate by 4, to 9 per 30 seconds. Each additional amplifier improves it by an additional 0.5 to a limit of 11.5 at six amplifiers.

Psychic equipment such as Eltex shirt,vest, robe, helmet, and staff improve a psycaster's abilities by providing additional psychic sensitivity and directly increasing the Entropy recovery rate. In addition, each percent of pain increases the rate of recovery from psychic entropy by 1.5%.

The targets psychic sensitivity is important as well, with it acting as a modifier to the duration, and sometimes the magnitude, of the psychic effect. For example, a Psychically Hypersensitive (Sensitivity of 1.8) pawn will be affected by the Beserk psycast for 54 seconds instead of the normal 30, while a Psychically Dull (Sensitivity of 0.5) pawn would only be affected for 15 seconds, and a Psychically Deaf (Sensitivity of 0) pawn would be immune.

Psycasts

A psycast is the ability performed by the psycaster. A Psycaster can only perform psycasts of a level equal to or below the number of psychic amplifiers they have implanted. For example, to manifest Beckon, the psycaster would require 3 psychic amplifiers.

Regular psycasts

Name	Level (Title)	Description	Effects	Heat Gain	Casting Time	Duration	Range	Area of Effect	Psyfocus Cost
Burden	1	Slow the target for a short time by suppressing motor activity in the brain	Psychically-induced difficulty in locomotion Maximum movement speed capped at 40% Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	8	0.25s	20s	30 tiles	Target	1%
Painblock	1	Block pain pathways in the target's brain for a short time. This can allow a person to move and act even with grievous injuries which would normally incapacitate them.	Psychically-induced pain insensitivity. Target Pain Factor x10%	10	0.25s	120s	25 tiles	Target	2%
Stun	1	Momentarily disrupt motor function in target's [sic] brain, preventing any movement.	Psychically-induced. Stuns the target -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	12	0.25s	3s	20 tiles	Target	1%
Chunk skip	1	Skip the 5 chunks of rock or slag to scatter them near the target point. This is useful for producing cover during offensive operations.	Skips the closest 5 chunks to scatter them near the target point. This is useful for producing cover during offensive operations.	14	1s	Instantaneous	25 tiles	Target	4%
Solar pinhole	1	Generate a mircoscopic skipgate linked to the core of a nearby star. Solar material leaks through the pinprick in spacetime, illuminating and warming the surrounding area until it closes. The light is enough to work by, but not enough to grow plants.	Psychically-induced. Creates light and heat	0	0.25s	5000s (5 days)	25 tiles	15 tiles	8%
Blinding Pulse	2	Induce noise in the visual centers of the brain, obscuring vision of everyone near the target point.	Psychically-induced partial blindness. Sight * 0.5 Duration scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	20	1s	30s	25 tiles	7 tiles	1%
Waterskip	2	Douse a target in water, extinguishing fires. The water is archotechnologically skipped from distant bodies of water or underground aquifers	Psychically-induced. Creates a 3 tile diameter water dump at the targeted location leaving water puddles behind.	25	1s	Instantaneous	25 tiles	3x3 tiles	1.5%
Neural Heat Dump	2	Instantly dump all your neural heat into someone else. As a side effect, the target will fall into a debilitating but non-damaging coma for about a day. The target must actively accept the psychic invasion, so only conscious allies can be targeted.	Psychically induced neural heat cleansing. Caster reduces their neural heat to 0 while allied target within line-of-sight falls into non-damaging coma within 10 tiles. Target does not require a psychic amplifier to receive neural heat. -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	0	1s	1000s (1 day)	25 tiles	Target	0%
Beckon	3	Psychically command the target to approach the caster.	Psychically-induced. Target is unable to make ranged attacks and is forced to follow the caster. Lasts full duration or until struck.	20	0.25s	8s	20 tiles	Target	1%
Chaos Skip	3	Teleport the target to a random position near where he started.	Psychically-induced. Target is teleported to a random tile between 7 and 25 tiles away from its starting location 1s Stun after teleporting -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	18	0.25s	Instantaneous	25 tiles	Target	2%
Vertigo Pulse	3	Interfere with the spatial orientation sense of everyone near the target point, causing intermittent loss of balance. Flesh creatures will become extremely nauseous as well.	Psychically-induced loss of spatial orientation. This will cause flesh creatures to vomit. Targets within the radius become dizzy and wander in a 3 tile radius from their initial position Living targets have a chance to vomit. -15 Faction Relations when used on allies	30	1s	20s	25 tiles	7 tiles	2%
Smokepop	4	Skip dust particles up from under the ground surface to form a thick cloud. This reduces the accuracy of any shot fired through it, and preventing [sic] turrets from locking on entirely.	Psychically-induced. Creates a 7 tile diameter smoke at the targeted location.	30	1s	Instantaneous, Smoke dissipates in ~30 seconds	25 tiles	Tile	2%
Skip	4	Teleport the target to a desired position not too far from his starting point.	Psychically-induced. Target is teleported to a selected tile visible to the caster. -15 Goodwill impact	25	0.25s	Instantaneous	28 tiles	Target/Tile	2%
Focus	4	Psychically focus the target's mind, boosting their sight, hearing and moving capacities.	Psychically-induced mental focus, increasing sight, hearing and movement capactities.[sic] Sight * 1.3 Hearing * 1.3 Moving *1.3	15	0.25s	60s	28 tiles	Target	3%
Wallraise	4	Form a temporary wall by skipping rubble and soil up from deep under the ground.	A fragile wall made of rubble. It will collapse in time.' Creates a cross-shaped set of wall 3 blocks across and 3 blocks wide at the target location. Wall has 100 HP and lasts for 4 hours.	35	1s	Instantaneous, Wall disappears after 4 hours	25 tiles	Tile	2%
Berserk	5	Induce an angry psychosis in the target's mind, causing them to attack anyone nearby.	Psychically-induced. Target goes berserk, attacking the nearest creature regardless of previous affiliation. -15 Faction Relations when used on allies.	40	0.25s	15s	20 tiles	Target	4%
Flashstorm	5	Use differential-pressure skipgates in the atmosphere to generate a localized flashstorm. The storm will strike the area with lightning for some time before dissapating.	Psychically-induced. Creates a storm at target location. -35 Goodwill impact.	65	1s	164s	20 tiles	14 tiles	4%
Invisibility	5	Psychically manipulate the visual centers of everyone nearby, rendering them unable to perceive a particular individual for a short time.	Psychically-induced invisibility. This actually affects others nearby, making their brains unable to perceive the sight of this individual, even if the eyes are unaffected. Targeted creature cannot be attacked or targeted by any non-AoE psychic powers. This includes psycasts on self.	45	1s	15s	20 tiles	Target	3%
Berserk Pulse	6	Generate an overwhelming rush of undirected rage in everyone near the target point.	Psychically-induced. All creatures within the radius go berserk, attacking the nearest creature regardless of previous affiliation. -75 Faction Relations when used on allies.	65	1s	10s	15 tiles	5x5 tiles	6%
Mass Chaos Skip	6	Skip everyone near a target point to a random location nearby.	Psychically-induced. Targets within radius is teleported to a random tile between 7 and 25 tiles away from its starting location -5 Goodwill impact.	40	1s	Instantaneous	25 tiles	17 tiles	3%
Bullet shield	6	Generate a spherical skipgate that sends all incoming and outgoing ground-level projectiles to some distant place. People and items are not affected.	Psychically-induced. Makes a circle that cannot be shot through.	65	1s	15s	25 tiles	9 tiles	4%
Manhunter pulse	6	Drive nearby animals into a manhunting rage using a psychic pulse	Psychically-induced. All animals within the radius go Manhunter, attacking the nearest human regardless of previous affiliation.	50	1s	60s	35 tiles	57 tiles	4%

Special psycasts

Officially added in 1.2, these psycasts cost a great amount of psyfocus in return for some useful utility, often outside combat.

Name	Level (Title)	Description	Effects	Heat Gain	Casting Time	Duration	Range	Area of Effect	Psyfocus Cost
Word of Trust	1	Speak to the prisoner while using psychic suggestion to reduce his resistance to recruitment. This psycast can only reduce a prisoner's [sic] resistance, but cannot recruit him.	Psychically induced. Resistance amount scales with target's Psychic Sensitivity. Base effect is to reduce resistance by 20.	0	2s	Instantaneous	30 tiles	Target	60%
Word of Joy	2	Speak happy, calming words to someone while using psychic suggestion to implant a joyfuzz loop in his mind. The joyfuzz will suppress uncomfortable thoughts and sensations in the target to improve mood. This has the side-effect of dulling sensation and decision-making, which reduces consciousness.	The affected pawn gains the Joybuzz status, providing 30 joy at the cost of -20% consciousness for 7 days.	0	2s	5000s (5 days)	1 tile	Target	40%
Word of Love	3	Speak about someone's romantic virtues while using psychic suggestion to implant romantic desire in the listener. For days afterward, the listener will feel psychically-induced romantic attraction towards the other person. This great increases opinion and makes them much more likely to attempt romantic advances and marriage proposals if they get the chance. This psycast can be used to connect two other people, induce love for the caster, or force oneself to love another.	Psychically-induced romantic desire. This increases an individual's opinion of someone else, and increases the likelihood of romantic advances and marriage proposals, while reducing the chance of a breakup. Greatly increases relations between target(s), nearly guaranteeing a relationship forms if recursively casted on two pawns.	0	2s	8000s (8 days)	1 tile	Target	50%
Word of Serenity	4	Use calming words and psychic suggestion to end a mental break on a person or animal. The target will fall into a short psychic sleep. The psyfocus cost depends on the intensity of the target's mental break.	Instantly ends any mental break by forcing the target into a 6 hour coma. The psyfocus cost depends on the level of the mental break; minor breaks cost 30% psyfocus, major breaks cost 50%, and extreme breaks cost 70%.	0	2s	250s (6 hours)	1 tile	Target	30-70%
Word of Inspiration	4	Speak words encouraging creativity while psychically hypercharging the target's mind with new ideas. The target will experience a random inspiration appropriate to them.	Targeted pawn will receive a random inspiration based upon their passions and skills.	0	2s	?s	1 tile	Target	80%
Farskip	5	Skip the caster, along with anyone standing near him, to an ally at a distant location. This can send people far across the planet, but only works if there is a willing ally on the other side to use as a navigation beacon. The skipped people will always appear near a random ally on the target map.	Stuns for between 3 and 10 seconds; teleports ally allies within 5 tiles to distant colonist on map	0	5s	Instantaneous	User	5 tile radius	70%
Neuroquake	6	Find a discontinuity in the psychic field and unfold it, releasing a massive amount of psychic energy. Every creature on the map outside of a safe circle near the caster will be driven violently insane. Casting this takes three hours of meditation, and afterwards, the caster will go into a three-day psychic coma. The disturbing neuroquake echoes will inflict pain on everyone for many kilometers around, causing diplomatic consequences with all factions.	Causes map-wide berserk mental state outside of 5 tile safe radius. Causes -10 joy in all colonists. Reduces faction opinion by 10 for all factions, no matter the distance you are from their bases	0	125 seconds (3 hours)	Instantaneous	User	Global Effect	50%

Tactics

Psycasts can be used to great tactical advantage- provided that you can get in range of the enemy to use them.

• Burden slows the target down.
  • Very useful for getting one or two more shots on melee attackers before they close the distance. Effective for this reason with a Killbox setup as well. **Useful for hunters in case of revenge.
• Painblock blocks pain, with an effect similar to go-juice.
• Stun stuns the target for a few seconds.
  • Best used to support a melee attacker against another.
  • Help melee attackers close the distance to shooters.
  • Peel melee attackers off ranged.
• Blinding Pulse reduces the Sight of enemies.
  • This reduces accuracy, giving you the upper hand in combat.
• Neural heat dump is good for burst casting psycasts, if you're willing to pay the price of putting a pawn out of action.
• Beckon
  • Best used to force enemies into melee range for engagement.
  • Great for peeling enemy melee off a vulnerable friendly.
• Chaos Skip
  • Use on enemies that already entered melee range to force them to break distance in a random direction. Be careful of skipping them into your base.
• Vertigo Pulse
• Smokepop is essentially a better version of the smoke launcher.
• Skip can be used to manipulate allies and enemies alike.
  • Teleport allied fighters into position quickly, especially melee fighters.
  • Skip long-ranged enemies into range.
  • Keep enemy melee fighters away from allies.
• Focus is good for gaining an extra discount before trading or buffing allies prior to a battle.
• Wallraise creates a wall of rocks in a cross shape.
  • Creates impromptu cover for your shooters to shelter behind.
  • Use to create LOS blocker against rocket launchers that are about to fire. If you are quick you can even block the rockets mid-flight.
• Berserk forces an enemy to attack nearby targets indiscriminately, including their allies.
  • Have enemies aggro on each other while your ranged fighters pick them off.
  • Cause friendly fire as enemies fire at the berserker.
• Invisibility makes enemies unable to target your allies.
  • It is not broken on attacking making it a good choice for close-ranged attackers.
  • Self-cast to allow your psycaster to safely get within range.
• Berserk Pulse is similar to Berserk but affects an area.
  • It causes a dangerous increase in psychic entropy on all but the most well-equipped of psycasters, but is capable of destroying entire raids by itself.
• Mass Chaos Skip skips all units in the area randomly, friend or foe.
  • Skip multiple enemies out of cover at once, exposing them to fire. Only skips things to a location where it has line of sight from.
• Manhunter Pulse causes all animals in a large area to become manhunter.

Version History

• Royalty Initial Release: Introduced
• 1.1.2571: Major Rebalance to several psycasts.
• 1.1.2647: Overhaul to some mechanics. Empire no longer gets angry at psycast use, removed psychic hangover, added meditation mechanics, added new psychic abilities.
• 1.2: Added more psycasts.