Anima tree

The anima tree is a tree added by the Royalty DLC. It acts as a meditation focus and source of psylinks for pawns with the Natural focus type, but is sensitive to artifical structures around it.

Growth

One anima tree spawns on most landing site maps. On larger map sizes, up to two may spawn. The Extreme Desert, Ice Sheet, and Sea Ice biomes are too inhospitiable for anima trees to spawn.

Anima trees are immune to fire, toxic fallout, can survive up to -50 °C (-58 °F), and will survive in the absence of light. Thrumbos will not eat anima trees, but alphabeavers can. It is also susceptible to both defoliators and defoliator ships. Anima grass is vulnerable to fire, and will rot if left without light, but will not be eaten by grazing animals. Note that while the anima tree has no lifespan, any anima grass only lives for 60 days.

Regrowth

Destruction of the anima tree causes the −6 anima scream moodlet for 5 days, and stacking up to 3 times. The mood effect scales with Psychic Sensitivity.

After roughly 30 days, it will grow back in a random event at a random location away from artificial buildings. This can be used to move a tree from an inopportune location at the cost of mood.

Meditation mechanics

Meditating at an anima tree requires a Natural meditation focus, which a pawn can only from their childhood background. Only Tribal backstories can have the focus type, and several of them do not provide it. Pawns do not need to have psylink levels to meditate. Place a meditation spot so that your colonists will actively meditate near the tree.

Meditation at the tree serves two purposes; firstly, it grows anima grass for the granting of psylink. Secondly, it acts as second best meditation focus, after animus stones, for Natural meditation, increasing the rate at which psycasters meditating to the tree gain psyfocus.

Anima grass

Meditating near an anima tree creates anima grass around the base of the tree. Once at least 20 grass has been grown, a level of psylink can be granted to a pawn with the Natural meditation focus type. The linking ritual takes approximately 5 hours. This ritual can grant a psylink to a pawn without one or improve the level of an existing psylink; even one granted using a psylink neuroformer or through an Empire bestowing ceremony. Children cannot link to the anima tree. Once the ritual is complete, 20 anima grass will die reduced by an amount proportional to the number of participants. Any remaining grass can then be reused for future linking rituals, however note that the grass has a limited lifespan of 60 days.

Anima grass is created proportional to the pawn-hours spent meditating to it. Multiple pawns can meditate at the same time to speed up the spawning of the anima grass. It takes 1 pawn meditating for approximately 5 in-game hours to grow one anima grass. After 12 pawn-hours of cumulative meditation time, grass growth slows by 50%. After 24 pawn-hours of meditation time, it slows to 25%. Finally, it drops to 15% of the normal growth rate after 48 pawn-hours of meditation time. This counts all pawns that have meditated during a 24 hour period. The health, psylink level, and psychic sensitivity of the meditating pawns has no effect on the amount of grass generated.^[Verify]

This rate is also affected by the artificial buildings surrounding the tree.

Pawn-Hours/Day	Grass grown/Day	Graph
12 hours	2.4
24 hours	3.6
36 Hours	4.2
48 Hours	4.8
60 Hours	5.16

Meditation focus

Psycasters regain psyfocus at a base rate of +50% psyfocus per day spent meditating. Focuses in range of the psycaster's meditation spot and of a focus type they share increase this rate additively. Anima trees have a base meditation focus strength of +28% psyfocus per day. Each animus stone within 10 tiles increases the meditation effectiveness by +2%, while each small or large nature shrine within 10 tiles increases it by +1%. Up to 4 buildings can affect the tree, for a maximum bonus of +8% from 4 animus stones. This rate is also affected by the artificial buildings surrounding the tree.

The maximum meditation focus strength is thus +36% for an anima tree with no artificial buildings within 35 tiles and surrounded by 4 animus stones.

Artificial buildings

Building an artificial building will reduce the meditation strength and anima grass growth rate. Each building reduces the rate by −1% to −5%.^[Detail] The maximum penalty from buildings is −30%.

The following buildings are not considered artificial for this purpose:

Ruins also do not have any penalty so long as the ruins remain unclaimed; claiming the ruins will cause them to apply the usual penalty. Despite their similarity to other exempted objects, monument markers are considered artificial.

Selecting the tree displays two circles around the tree:

The smaller, green circle is the range at which animus stones and nature shrines can link to the tree.
The larger, red circle indicates where artificial structures will disrupt the tree. The "Build radius warning" option, turned on by default, will create a red line whenever you try and place a building.

Analysis

Building

There are two philosophies for building near the anima tree:

Leaving the anima tree clear from artificial structures. You can still install attractive floors and plant flowers (where grass won't spawn) to keep the area beautiful and meditators happy without affecting the tree. A bed and dining room just outside of the radius can help lower travel time - especially if you dedicate a colonist's entire day to meditation.

Creating your entire base near the anima tree. This makes the travel time much shorter, and keeps your pawns safer again raids during meditation. In biomes where the Beavers! event can happen (arid shrubland, tundra), it also keeps the tree safe. The decrease in travel time can make up for the -30% penalty, especially if multiple pawns are able to meditate.
- Make sure not to build a roof or floor over the tree, or where grass can spawn. Use the remove roof area tool in the Zoning tab so that your builders don't cut down the tree.
- While building close to the tree impacts the rate at which you gain psyfocus, the psyfocus gain provided by the tree is an "offset" on top of a pawn's base psyfocus gain of +50%/day. Even if the tree's psyfocus gain offset is at its minimum, a -2%/day penalty, pawns can still gain psyfocus by meditating at the tree at a rate of +48%/day.

In either case, a ring of flooring around the tree and grass spawning area can be useful to prevent wildfires destroying the grass.

Pawns

For maximum growth, schedule one or more colonists to just meditation, only stopping to eat or sleep. This also reduces travel time, useful if you have built away from the anima tree. Meditating will provide some recreation; while they will rapidly become bored with it, it will still keep the bar full if done all day. If a ruin or natural wall is within 6 tiles, consider roofing over their meditation spot to keep them out of the rain and toxic fallout.

If the anima tree is very nearby to the colony, then you can also schedule meditation for all colonists in place of recreation. Meditation does fill up the recreation meter, even if colonists will get bored of it. If a large portion of colonists are set to meditation, then you will quickly hit the soft limit for grass growth.

While the grass does not grow faster when meditated at by a psycaster, they are still ideal choices. The psyfocus gain from meditation not only replaces their need to meditate elsewhere; it also all but guarantees that they will be consistently at 100% psyfocus. This especially synergizes with high-psyfocus-cost, non-combat psycasts such as word of trust or word of inspiration, and is valuable for keeping casters combat-ready as well.

While meditation is slightly faster with anima stones for natural psycasters, having more psylinks available is almost always worth the tiny loss in psyfocus gains. This is especially true if Kill-focused persona weapons or rituals that refresh the psyfocus of participants are available.

Version history

1.1.2647 - Added.
1.1.2654 - Regrowth check cycle: 40 days -> 30 days. Added warning message when designating an anima tree for cutting and using it to give a psychically dull or deaf pawn psylink. Now sends a letter when enough anima grass is available for linking.
1.2.2719 - Anima trees are enhanced by nearby animus stones. Will no longer be destroyed by meteors, crashed ship parts, or shuttles. Anima grass progress rate now reduces after they're heavily used within a single day. All Psylink levels now take 20 anima grass instead of 18 for levels 1 and 2, 20 for 3 and 4, and 22 for 5 and 6. Soften anima tree glow. Remove anima grass glow.
1.3.3067 - Anima grass growth rate is now slowed, like the psyfocus penalty, when the tree is near artificial buildings.
1.3.3074 - Prevent thrumbos from eating anima trees.
1.3.3087 - Description updated.

Plants

Domesticated plants: Cocoa tree • Corn plant • Cotton plant • Devilstrand mushroom • Haygrass • Healroot • Hop plant • Potato plant • Psychoid plant • Rice plant • Smokeleaf plant • Strawberry plant • Tinctoria • Fibercorn • Gauranlen pod • Nutrifungus • Toxipotato plant
Decorative plants: Dandelions • Daylily • Rose • Bonsai tree
Wild plants: Agarilux • Agave • Alocasia • Ambrosia bush • Astragalus • Berry bush • Brambles • Bryolux • Bush • Chokevine • Clivia • Giant rafflesia • Glowstool • Grass • Low shrubs • Moss • Pincushion cactus • Tall grass • Wild healroot • Anima grass • Gauranlen moss
Trees: Bamboo tree • Birch tree • Cecropia tree • Cypress tree • Drago tree • Maple tree • Oak tree • Palm tree • Pine tree • Poplar tree • Saguaro cactus • Teak tree • Willow tree • Timbershroom • Gray pine tree • Pebble cactus • Rat palm tree • Witchwood tree
Special: Anima tree • Gauranlen tree • Polux tree • Harbinger tree
Tree stumps: Burned stump • Chopped stump (Gauranlen , Anima , Polux , Harbinger ) • Smashed stump (Gauranlen , Anima , Polux , Harbinger )