Psychic animal pulser
Psychic animal pulser
A one-use broad-wave psychic effector. The psychic pulse fills lower minds with terrifying imagery, driving all animals in the region into a manhunting rage. Animals currently under your control will not be affected.
Base Stats
- Type
- Artifact
- Market Value
- 700
- Mass
- 0.5 kg
- HP
- 80
- Flammability
- 0%
A psychic animal pulser is a single-use artifact, which can be used to drive all wild animals on the map into a manhunter rage, attacking every human or mechanoid they see, regardless of faction.
Acquisition
Psychic animal pulsers cannot be crafted. Instead they can only be obtained through trade with faction bases or exotic goods traders, as a reward from quests, or by finding them in ancient shrines.
Summary
A psychic animal pulser is a single-use artifact, which can be used to drive all non-player-owned animals on the map into a manhunter rage. Animals belonging to the player are not affected.
It can be used by right-clicking the artifact and selecting 'Activate'. Animals will attack any humans and mechanoids they see, but will not attack closed doors unless they see an target pass through them. Even if this occurs, they will rapidly lose interest in attack the door.
The effect lasts from several hours to up to 24 hours, dependent on the animal.[Fact check]
Once it has been used once, the pulser disappears completely. It cannot be reloaded, nor can any resources be salvaged from it.
Analysis
By enclosing all your colonists in a closed room with no doors, you can safely use this item to devastate enemy outposts that are in animal-rich areas.
In animal-rich biomes, you may use this for additional power to defeat raids, though be aware that the mad animals are just as likely to target your colonists as well. This can only be relied on exclusively until midgame (or early-midgame on higher difficulties), after which enemies will be too numerous for wildlife to take care of alone. However, even after this point it is often useful to soften or disrupt enemies before employing the primary defensive strategy.
The utility of the pulser depends heavily on the biome it is used in, it will obviously be of little on Sea Ice where few animals are found, but can be very effective in temperate biomes. Additionally, it is important to check and consider the animals that are present before use - if a herd of elephants just arrived it will be very potent but if every animals larger than a squirrel has been hunted for food it doesn't matter what biome it used in.
Lore
Psychic effectors, like the psychic animal pulser, are mentioned in the Lore Primer. They are described as archotech in origin, with a completely unknown method of operation