Deadlife pack

Deadlife pack

A single-use pack that launches a capsule which explodes into deadlife dust. The dust animates human and animal corpses as shamblers that will only attack your enemies. Deadlife dust is composed of microscopic machine-like archites which hang in the air. Where they touch a corpse, they induce a chaotic and violent resurrection.

Base Stats

Type

Gear – Utility

Market Value

445 

Mass

3.00 kg

HP

100

Flammability

60%

Apparel

Clothing For Nudity

False

Coverage

Waist

Layer

Belt

Ranged Combat

Range

24 tile(s)

Creation

Crafted At

Required Research

Deadlife dust

Skill Required

Crafting 4

Work To Make

6,500 ticks (1.81 mins)

Work Speed Stat

General Labor Speed

Resources to make

30 + 1

Technical

Has Quality

False

The Deadlife pack is a single-use utility item added the by Anomaly DLC. It allows the user to deploy an area of Deadlife dust that will resurrect any organic corpse in its range into a friendly shambler that will fight for you.

Acquisition

Deadlife packs can be crafted at a bioferrite shaper once the deadlife dust research project has been completed. Note that this research requires dark study to unlock. Each requires  30 Bioferrite,  1 Shard, 6,500 ticks (1.81 mins) of work modified by the general labor speed of the crafter, and a crafting skill of 4.

Alternatively, they can be received as a quest reward.

Summary

When equipped, a Deadlife pack is worn in the waist Utility slot. Once the wearer is drafted, it can be manually activated by the player to target a tile within 24 tiles and within line of sight. The pack has a single charge and when the charge is expended, the item disappears completely and no resources be salvaged from it.

When deployed, the Deadlife pack will fire a Deadlife shell at a selected location and release Deadlife dust which will expand into a roughly 4.1 tile radius expanding outwards from the shell and dissipating inwards, the dust will persist for about an hour before dissipating completely.

Any organic corpse within the Deadlife dust will be resurrected as a friendly shambler that will fight for you. A shambler cannot be controlled directly and will die 6 hours after being resurrected.

Shamblers created in this way cannot be studied.

Like all utility items, a deadlife pack is treated largely like any piece of apparel, however some exceptions exist. Utility items are worn on the waist and are mutually exclusive only with each other, regardless of the layer or coverage of other apparel worn. Additionally, utility items never become tainted, deteriorate from being worn, or inflict a worn-out or tattered mood debuff when damaged.

Analysis

The Deadlife pack has multiple competitors to compare to; deadlife shells and IED deadlife traps for Deadlife dust deployment, as well as other Utility items competing for the same equipment slot.

Compared to deadlife shells, the pack is significantly more expensive due to the shard cost which will be lost along with the pack on use. While this may make the pack rather unappealing early on when structures with shard costs are also desired, by mid to late game shards will mostly be used for consumable items anyway.

IED deadlife traps have a much larger radius, a single trap likely being all that will be needed for a given encounter. However they need to be built first and may be triggered by the enemy, making them more dependent on having corpses gathered beforehand, limiting their use to defensive chokepoints.

Where the Deadlife Pack shines is with its flexibility, precision, and response time. IEDs require being set up at a fixed location in advance while Shells need to be launched from a Mortar and will likely be less effective unless there are a lot of corpses in the area to compensate for the forced missed radius, while the projectile fired from the pack will land exactly where aimed for optimal coverage. Worn on a colonist, the pack is most suitable for underground areas where mortars can't reach and offensive operations. Though using Deadlife Dust offensively may not be the most ideal use case compared to its defensive applications, one of these packs can potentially change the outcome of a fight against a stronger or unexpected enemy force by raising a handful of enemy-turned-reinforcements to draw fire and lock remaining shooters in melee combat.

However, it can be difficult to justify the use of Deadlife packs when considering other items that use the same Utility slot. Melee fighters and Mechanitors are off the table. turret packs have less potential but don't require corpses and may be cheaper to build. Low-shield packs typically provide greater protection particularly for your shooters, though Shamblers risen by Deadlife have a longer lifespan and may work better alongside melee fighters. Psychic insanity and shock lances allow for the removal of high priority targets such as raiders with doomsday rocket launchers and compete for the use of shards after the appropriate Anomaly research. One of the best use cases for Deadlife packs is against Manhunter packs which can come in overwhelmingly large sizes even with strong melee blockers holding a chokepoint. Fielding at least one Deadlife pack is generally worthwhile especially if other utility options are limited.

It is also possible for a creepjoiner to have the ability to spread Deadlife Dust as an ability once per day.

Version history

• Anomaly DLC Release - Added.

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Utility

Utility

Firefoam pop pack • Orbital bombardment targeter • Orbital power beam targeter • Psychic shock lance • Psychic insanity lance • Shield belt • Smokepop pack • Tornado generator • Low-shield pack • Jump pack • Orbital mech cluster targeter • Bandwidth pack • Control pack • Tox pack • Biomutation lance • Biomutation pulser • Deadlife pack • Disruptor flare pack • Shard animal pulser • Shard insanity lance • Shard shock lance • Turret pack