Venom fangs

Venom fangs are an artificial body part that gives a pawn implanted with them an additional attack that inflicts toxic buildup on the target.

Acquisition

Venom fangs can be crafted at a Machining table once the Poison synthesis research project has been completed. The required techprint can be obtained either by trade or completing quests for the Empire. They require 40 Steel, 7 Components, 15,000 ticks (4.17 mins) of work, and a Crafting skill of 5.

The required techprint can be obtained either through trade or can be earned as a quest reward. The part itself can be obtained by exotic traders, quests or found on raiders and visitors.

Summary

A venom fang is a prosthetic that can be installed into a pawn's natural jaw. It does not pawn's replace the functions of the jaw or the natural bite attack. Whenever the venom fangs deal damage, it applies toxic buildup, at a rate of 1.5% buildup severity per 1 HP damage dealt. The severity inflicted is multiplied by the Toxic Resistance of the target and is inversely proportional to the body size of the target.

Due to the melee verb selection mechanic, a pawns best possible attack will be used predominantly. This means that the venom fangs will be their primary weapon if they aren't wielding a melee weapon or have a physically stronger prosthetic. If a pawn does have a better melee attack, then venom fangs will still improve damage as it replaces "Mid" damage attacks like fists and handle hits.

Pawns will not use the venom fangs in social fights, instead using the baseline bite attack.

Installation

Installing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, 2x medicine of herbal quality or better, and a Medical skill of 5.

Removing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, 1x medicine of herbal quality or better, and a Medical skill of 5.

If the operation fails, the part will be destroyed.

Effectiveness

The venom fang is a somewhat weak melee implant that can inflict the toxic buildup debuff when used. It is weaker then a normal quality steel longsword against unarmored enemies, and falls even further away against armored foes due to its worse armor penetration. As a dedicated melee weapon it is outclassed by all other melee implants unlocked by the compact weaponry and poison synthesis techprint, and is massively outclassed by most dedicated melee weapons. It should not be considered as a pawn's primary offensive option.

The primary benefit of fangs over other implanted melee weapons is that it blocks neither artificial arms nor artificial legs from also being used.

Despite the fact that it is outclassed by all similar weapons in terms of melee capabilities, the ability to cause toxic buildup to enemies allows for some very specific but otherwise useful uses. When fighting an enemy raider there is a high, but random, chance they will be die upon being downed regardless of injuries if the reasons for it are going into painshock or having less than 15% movement. However, if they are downed through other means such as extreme toxic buildup it will bypass this dice roll and they will live. This allows you to capture specific enemy raiders alive in a fairly reliable way.

How to capture an enemy alive

This exact method is also applicable to the venom talon.

Method

This method requires both the skip and painblock psycasts. Other psycasts, such as invisibility and neural heat dump, are helpful but not strictly necessary. Make sure your venom fang pawns do not have melee weapons, as otherwise they they will select that more powerful weapon over the fangs.

You will need two groups of pawns, a psycaster and venom fang toothed pawn(s). While you can have your psycaster also be the one to have the venom fangs, this increases the neural heat cost greatly as more skip psycasts will have to be cast. Your psycaster should be well ahead of your colonists, able to cast their skip ability on the incoming raider beyond the range of your colonists guns to ensure they don't get hit due to friendly fire. Your venom fang pawns should be in a sectioned off area either behind a wall or within a bunker with a door held open, though if you have a high number of venom fang pawns such as 4 or 5, you can down raiders quickly and reliably enough such that separating them behind a wall/bunkeris not needed.

Find the raider you wish to capture alive and use the skip psycast to move them through the open doorway and in melee range of your venom fang pawns. You may have to use multiple skip psycasts to move them the appropriate distance, and if they are near the back of the enemy group invisibility may be needed to safely get in range. If your psycaster doesn't have enough neural heat capacity then you may have to disable the heat limiter or have a target to cast the neural heat dump psycast on. You must then cast the painblock psycast as otherwise they may go into pain shock before reaching extreme toxic buildup, which will cause the dice to roll likely killing them. Once this is done run, skip, or jump your psycaster to safety.

Have your venom fang pawns close the door that was held open to ensure the aren't disturbed by other raiders, and the melee the raider you skipped to them. After some attacks the raider should reach extreme toxic buildup and be downed, where you can then move your venom fanged pawns to fight the rest of the raid like normal.

Flaws

This method of capturing enemies alive is not without its flaws however. Firstly, depending on which psycasts you have available, your psycaster may have to place themselves dangerously close to the enemy in order to be able to reach the desired target with the skip psycast's modest range. This risk can be mitigated by the invisibility psycast allowing you to get closer without risk, or the mass chaos skip psycast to spread enemies out, though this can backfire by sending raiders where you don't want them to go.

Secondly, high levels of toxic buildup can cause dementia and carcinoma to form in the people you capture. After 500 tests from 90% toxic buildup there is a:

16.4% chance of dementia
6.8% chance of carcinoma

(Tested on version 1.2.2753)

Dementia causes a permanent -15% brain function, reducing all capacites by -15% while stacking an additional -25% hearing and speaking, bringing those stats down to 60%. Dementia is only curable by a healer mech serum or permanent use of luciferium. Carcinoma, on the other hand, causes extreme amounts of pain in later stages and will destroy the affected part once severity reaches 100%. Carcinoma, however, can be cured with a rather risky operation, costing 4 industrial or glitterworld medicine, a doctor with a skill of 10 or above, and only has a base chance of 70% to succeed.

Finally, there is a chance you may kill the raider you are trying to capture by having them reach 100% toxic buildup. After 500 tests with venom fangs there is a 9% chance of them dying this way. (Tested on version 1.2.2753)

You may want to consider all of these risks before using this tactic.

Version history

Royalty DLC Release - Addded.
Version 1.1.? - Buffed from 12% AP and 4.10 DPS to 22% AP and 7.5 DPS. Toxic build up was also improved.

Artificial body parts

Arm/Hand: Archotech arm • Bionic arm • Power claw • Prosthetic arm • Wooden hand • Drill arm • Elbow blade • Field hand • Hand talon • Venom talon • Flesh tentacle • Flesh whip
Head: Archotech eye • Bionic eye • Bionic ear • Bionic jaw • Bionic tongue • Cochlear implant • Denture • Aesthetic nose
Head implants: Joywire • Painstopper • Circadian assistant • Circadian half-cycler • Gastro-analyzer • Learning assistant • Mindscrew • Neurocalculator • Psychic harmonizer • Psychic reader • Psychic sensitizer • Venom fangs • Control sublink (Standard, High) • Mechlink • Mech gestation processor • Remote repairer • Remote shielder • Repair probe
Spine: Bionic spine • Revenant vertebrae
Stomach: Bionic stomach • Nuclear stomach • Reprocessor stomach • Sterilizing stomach • Fleshmass stomach
Heart: Bionic heart • Prosthetic heart • Heart • Adrenal heart • Corrosive heart • Metalblood heart
Lung: Lung • Detoxifier lung • Fleshmass lung
Kidney: Kidney • Detoxifier kidney
Organs: Liver
Visceral implants: Death acidifier • Aesthetic shaper • Coagulator • Healing enhancer • Armorskin gland • Stoneskin gland • Toughskin gland • Immunoenhancer • Love enhancer • Ghoul plating • Ghoul barbs
Leg/Foot: Archotech leg • Bionic leg • Prosthetic leg • Peg leg • Wooden foot • Knee spike
Related: Psylink neuroformer • Xenogerm
Deprecated: Scyther blade • Psychic silencer