Golden cube

This article is about the miscellaneous object added by the Anomaly DLC. For the object used in an Ideoligion's Reliquary, see Relic.

The golden cube is an entity and item obtained from quests or Void Provocation spell in the Anomaly DLC.

Acquisition

There are two ways to acquire the golden cube:

The Mysterious cargo quest involves either a friendly planetary faction^{[Which factions?]} or an anonymous AI asking you to take an unspecified item off their hands, along with a sizable payment. One of the randomly selected options for the cargo is the golden cube. For further information about the quest, see that page. The Unnatural Corpse appears with a blue "Mysterious Cargo" letter when it lands on your map.
Performing the Void Provocation ritual can result in the appearance of a Unnatural Corpse on your map. The monolith must be at least at Level 2 for the Unnatural Corpse to appear after a Void Provocation. The Unnatural Corpse appears with an orange "Strange Corpse" letter when it appears on your map via Void Provocation.

Summary

At first glance, the golden cube is a harmless - if useless - item, which can be hauled, stockpiled, carried, and caravaned with no apparent effect. However, its presence on the map will gradually produce a powerful, deleterious influence on your colonists. This influence will only stop once the cube has been deactivated, though not without further consequences. The cube cannot be destroyed until it has been deactivated, and despite its significant market value, it cannot be sold under any circumstances.

Containment

Unlike most anomalous entities, the cube does not need to be contained or suppressed. It can simply be kept in storage until pawns move to study or play with it. Each study session produces a total of 2 advanced knowledge, and it can be studied every 2 days. You can, however, prevent pawns from interacting with it by forbidding it. This prevents obsession from worsening, but will not stop the cube from choosing new victims.

Cube obsession

"This person is drawn to the golden cube. If separated from the cube for too long, they'll start to experience negative effects."

When the cube spawns on the map, one colonist will immediately gain the cube obsession health effect. Over time, other colonists will become afflicted as well. On average, another colonist becomes cube obsessed every 12 days. Once a pawn becomes obsessed, however, they will experience a series of buffs and debuffs that get more severe as the affliction progresses, and severe negative thoughts if they don't interact with the cube regularly.

Initially, the effects are fairly benign; a cube-curious pawn will begin at 10% obsession, and will stop work to play with the cube roughly once a day. This takes one in-game hour and cannot be interrupted once it begins except by drafting them. Additionally, all social interactions they engage in will now involve talking about the cube, but this is a purely cosmetic effect. In exchange, the pawn experiences the +15 Cube Joy mood for 1 day. Each interaction with the cube increases a pawn's obsession level by 6%, progressing the pawn to more disruptive behaviors. You will receive a notification each time a pawn's obsession worsens.

At any obsession level over 10%, your affected pawns will occasionally stop work to build cube sculptures, curious artistic objects that provide a small amount of beauty but require no resources. Although the sculptures are marginally useful, these mental breaks can occur at any time, including in the middle of combat. Frequency of these events is tied to the obsession level, occurring rarely at first but multiple times a day as a pawn's obsession reaches its later stages. Also, be aware that destruction of these sculptures can result in severe mood penalties and berserker mental breaks.

Obsession over 33% is considered "Fascinated." Along with the previous effects, these pawns now have a small chance^[Frequency?] of suffering random mental breaks during which they wander in a daze, thinking about the cube. They are also distracted from their tasks the rest of the time, working at only 90% normal speed. This is balanced out slightly by the fact that their Sleep level falls at 80% its normal rate.

The final stage - "Obsessed" - sets in once obsession level reaches 66%. At this stage, the sculpture and daze events occur more frequently,^[Frequency?] and the modifiers your pawns experience are doubled: 60% Sleep fall rate and 80% work speed. On top of that, your pawns suffer a +4% penalty to their mental break threshold. Given how much time your pawns spend doing cube-related activities - none of which have any impact on Recreation - your pawns will soon find themselves either miserable and Recreation-deprived or unable to find time to do actual work.

The alternative to allowing your pawns to progress their obsession is to forbid the cube. So long as the item is forbidden, your pawns will be unable to worsen their obsession, instead going into cube withdrawal.

Level	Severity	Sleep Fall Rate	Global Work Speed	Other effects
Curious (Initial)	0-10%	x100%	x100%	Occasionally play with cube or suffer withdrawal.
Curious	>10%	x100%	x100%	Same as above, plus chance of cube sculpture mental break.
Fascinated	>33%	×80%	×90%	Same as above, plus chance of cube daze mental break.
Obsessed	>66%	×60%	×80%	Same as above with greater frequency, plus +4% Mental Break Threshold.

Cube sculptures

Main article: Cube sculpture

Cube-Fascinated colonists will go on periodic mental breaks ^[MTB?] during which they will build a sculpture related to the cube. The building speed and quality of the sculpture is affected by construction skill. The quality can be of any value, starting at awful for a 0 beauty score. 2 for poor, 4 for normal, 8 for good, 12 for excellent, and 20 for masterwork. Be aware that this sculpture will use up a Inspired creativity inspiration, if the colonist has one.

The type of sculpture generated depends on the terrain or flooring the colonist is standing on or by - no material is actually consumed to create the sculptures. The sculpture types and the related terrains are listed in the table below:


Sculpture type	Terrains
Dirt cube sculpture	Marshy soil Mud Packed dirt Rich soil Lichen-covered soil Soil
Sand cube sculpture	Sand Soft sand
Stone cube sculpture	Rough stone Rough-hewn stone Smooth stone
Scrap cube sculpture	All other terrains and floors

The different types of cube sculpture vary in name and textures, but are statistically identical. The sole exception to this is the scrap cube sculptures flammability of 40%, compared to the 0% of all other types.

The sculpture, once complete, can be freely minified and moved, but it cannot be deconstructed. It must be destroyed with attacks.

While the cube statue is placed ^[Minified?] its sculptor gets +1 Cube Sculpture mood. This stacks with each cube sculpture they've created, without an apparent limit. If the sculpture is destroyed, the sculptor will get −5 My Cube Sculpture Destroyed mood for 5 days and an increase in severity to a hidden "Cube anger" hediff. Each destroyed sculpture yields an increase in Cube Anger severity that scales with the current cube interest of the pawn. This hediff is hidden, and so its progress cannot be normally tracked.

The increase in severity is controlled by the following relationship:

Once the Cube Anger hediff reaches 100% severity, the pawn will go into a Berserk mental state with an MTB of 2,400 ticks (40 secs) along with a custom letter detailing the cause. Once the pawn has gone into the rage, the Cube Anger hediff is reduced to 0% and removed. The only other way to remove the accrued Cube Anger besides an eventual berserk state, is for the affected pawn to die. The hediff will no longer be present upon resurrection.

Cube withdrawal and coma

"This person obsessively wants to find their golden cube. Their skin itches and their mind races, thinking of ways to get closer to the cube. Their symptoms will get worse until they play with the cube."

"This person was connected to a golden cube and then separated from it. Severing the link this way has put them in a coma."

If an obsessed colonist is prevented from playing with the cube for an extended period of time, they start going through withdrawal. When they do, they get the "Cube Withdrawal" health condition. Cube withdrawal worsens more quickly for colonists with advanced cube obsession^{[Detail needed]}. Cube withdrawal inflicts a gradually increasing penalty to consciousness, accompanied by a potent −15/−20/−30 Cube Withdrawal mood debuff. If cube withdrawal is allowed to progress to 100%, the colonist will fall into a cube coma, multiplying their consciousness level by 10%. The coma can last anywhere from 3 to 24 days, depending on the colonist's obsession level. Upon waking up from the coma, the colonist will no longer be obsessed with the cube. However, nothing prevents the recently woken colonist from becoming obsessed with the cube again.

Level	Severity	Consciousness	Mood	Notification
Initial	>10%	−10%	−15	[Name] is experiencing cube withdrawal.
Moderate	>35%	−15%	−20	[Name]'s cube withdrawal has worsened.
Extreme	>65%	−20%	−30	[Name]'s cube withdrawal has worsened.

Deactivation and destruction

Once at least 4 research has been gained from the cube, you will receive a letter hinting at the cube's addictive impact on your pawns. It further states that the cube can be destroyed, but more research is needed to determine how. Although the letter says that the pawn studying it needs to study it to learn more, any pawn may perform research to further the investigation. Studying the cube has no risk of addiction.

"{PAWN_nameDef}'s investigation of the golden cube has revealed more. It is able to psychically influence anyone who interacts with it. Those under the cube's influence will experience extreme withdrawal if they're separated from it.\n\n{PAWN_nameDef} thinks that there may be a way to deactivate the cube, but {PAWN_pronoun} will need to study it further."

Once a total of 24-40 research has been gained from the cube, an option to permanently deactivate it becomes available. Doing so requires 1 Archotech Shard and can only be done by a pawn not currently suffering from cube obsession, destroying the cube and breaking its hold over your colony. However, doing so will send any colonists under its influence who are not already in a cube coma into Berserk Mental Breaks, even if on other map tiles. Pawns in caravans at the time of this deactivation instead leave your colony permanently, so be sure to avoid deactivation while addicts are travelling. If you intend to destroy the cube with conscious addicts present, expect to lose pawns and keep your doctors safe so they can treat the injured.

There are simple measures you can take to avoid these violent mental breaks. Colonists in a cube coma will simply wake up, cured of their addiction. Any obsessed colonist that is anesthetized when deactivation occurs will ignore the event and be free of cubic influence when the anesthesia wears off. It is not yet confirmed if mind-numb serum can prevent these mental breaks^[Mindnumb?].

Be aware that colonists in cryptosleep caskets are not protected. They will immediately wake up, escape, and begin rampaging. One unorthodox but effective method to keep your colony safe without preventing the tantrum is to draft the afflicted pawns and trap them in a isolated 3x3 square of walls. When they go berserk, they will be unable to inflict any damage before the state wears off. Although time-consuming to set up, it only costs a small amount of wood.

If your entire colony is afflicted, deactivation of the cube is still possible with the help of temporary pawns from quests^{[Detail needed]}. Alternatively, you can dispose of the cube via caravan dumping or transport pod, but doing so does not remove your colonists' obsession. Unless the cube is deactivated and destroyed, your colonists will have to go through withdrawal, coma, and recovery.

Upon deactivation the golden cube drops 144-167 Gold^[Verify].

Deathrest and Anesthesize prevents a pawn to becoming berserk when the cube is deactivated.

Analysis

As with any anomalous object, care should be taken when a cube arrives. It is one of the safest advanced entities you can encounter, but can still prove frustrating as it drags productivity to a crawl. This is especially true for colonies with low populations: the loss of two or three pawns to low productivity is much easier to bear when you have others to handle their burden. So long as you have your researchers aggressively studying the cube every two days, you should be able to deactivate it before it influences many of your colonists. Keep them anesthetized upon deactivation and the threat will be safely dealt with.

However, if you decide you wish to roleplay as a cube cult and keep it around, this is not entirely impossible. The introduction of the cube will gradually cut into your overall productivity, but will also grant a substantial mood bonus to any colonist allowed to consistently interact with it. Colonies with many pawns who are constantly in danger of mental breaking may find this useful, as the sizable mood buffs will change potentially dangerous mental breaks into smaller sculpture creation breaks. However, constant sculpture making can prove troublesome as it not only wastes a pawn's time, but also takes up space with relatively low value sculptures which cannot be broken without a mood penalty.

The cube itself has a considerably high beauty value (about on par with a Good quality golden statue) which can even increase the mood of pawns who are not obsessed but simply share the same room as the cube. This can quickly increase the beauty value within a room colonists frequent, such as a rec room or dining room. Keeping the cube on display may prove difficult though, as many of your pawns may attempt to play with it constantly. This may limit the display time and relocate the golden cube afterwards. Placing a dedicated 1x1 Stockpile zone or a shelf for the cube can ensure that it always returns to a specific viewing point.

Caravans are made substantially more difficult to form and maintain as any affected colonists will eventually be plagued with constant mood penalties due to undergoing cube withdrawal^[Verify]. Often, you may be restricted to keeping any obsessed colonists at home while unaffected pawns can safely do quests on the world map.

Version history

Anomaly DLC Release - Added.