Stoneskin gland

Stoneskin gland

This bionic gland releases chemicals and nanomachines that transform the user's skin into a built-in suit of armor. The whole epidermis thickens and hardens to resist burns, while jointed exterior keratin plates form everywhere they can - including the head and face. While it's very difficult to physically hurt someone using this implant, the plates and hard skin significantly reduces the user's physical attractiveness.

Base Stats

Type

Medical Items – Body Parts

Tech Level

Spacer

Market Value

1920 

Mass

4 kg

HP

50

Armor

Armor - Sharp

70%

Armor - Blunt

30%

Armor - Heat

50%

Coverage

Head, Left Ear, Right Ear, Left Eye, Right Eye, Nose, Jaw, Torso, Neck, Left Shoulder, Left Arm, Left Hand, Left Fingers, Right Shoulder, Right Arm, Right Hand, Right Fingers, Left Leg, Left Foot, Left Toes, Right Leg, Right Foot, Right Toes

Layer

Internal

Creation

Crafted At

Required Research

Skin hardening

Skill Required

Crafting 8

Work To Make

26,000 ticks (7.22 mins)

Resources to make

25 + 8

Technical

thingSetMakerTags

RewardStandardMidFreq

tags

ArmorGland

techHediffsTags

Advanced, ImplantEmpireCommon

tradeTags

Bionic, ImplantEmpireCommon

The Stoneskin Gland is an implant added by the Royalty DLC that gives the host pawn natural armor, in exchange for making them uglier and slower. It is the most protective and has the largest penalties of the three skin gland implants, being stronger than both the toughskin and armorskin glands.

Acquisition

Stoneskin glands can be crafted at a fabrication bench once the skin hardening research project has been completed. Note that this research requires a techprint. Each requires  25 Plasteel,  8 Advanced components, 26,000 ticks (7.22 mins) of work modified by the general labor speed of the crafter, and a crafting skill of 8.

Summary

Pawns that are implanted with a stoneskin gland gain a bonus to Sharp/Blunt/Heat Armor by 70/30/50% respectively, considered as its own layer for the purposes of armor calculations. It also reduces pawn beauty by 2 and multiplies moving by 85%, a 15% reduction; the equivalent of a pawn with a prosthetic leg installed in both of it's legs. In turn, the penalty to moving reduces the move speed, hunting stealth, and melee dodge chance of a pawn.

The armor rating of the gland still protects body parts replaced by artificial body parts, even if they would not logically have skin. This is likely to prevent them from being a detriment to survivability.

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.

Analysis

Stoneskin glands give pawns slighly better protection that normal steel plate armor while also stacking with any armor option. By itself, this makes it ideal for pawns in melee combat who require prioritizing sustainability over speed, or those who are capable of brushing off the move speed penalty altogether, allowning them to fight and soak off damage for longer as well as keeping them more healthy overall and thus remaining more competent in a fight while hopefully giving less work to their medical pawns.

Do not underestimate the added armor your colonist gets with this implant: Against human raids, you will usually face ranged weaponry whose AP will be lower than 30%; unless you are under fire from a sniper rifle, charge rifle or charge lance you will have a least a 40% chance to reduce the damage taken in half (Check Apparel#Protection for more details), which is quite high compared to most non-armor apparel.

Still, it's worth noting that armor is applied separately for each layer of apparel, starting from the Outer layer; the stoneskin gland is great for giving another layer of defense as a "safety net", but if you wish to outright negate any incoming damage from ranged attacks, consider equipping any form of power armor instead, especially cataphract armor. It also gives decent protection against melee weapons using sharp damage, but it's Blunt armor will likely be largely or completely nullified by most blunt weapons, so it's recommended to be careful against enemies carrying them.

It is not recommended for ranged colonist to have it unless you nullify the move speed penalty, since it will become harder for them to position, reposition or escape from any danger, and will likely complicate hit-and-run tactics or outright make them impossible, such as kiting; not to mention that you are better off using cover to prevent any damage whatsoever and drawning away aggro from them if possible, likely by the meleeist who will have the stoneskin gland instead, making them less neccesary for ranged colonists. If defense is still a concern, consider using either recon armor or marine armor, or a combination of devilstrand duster and flak vest, as they will give more armor and less movement speed penalty.

It's worth noting that ghouls cannot wear any form of apparel at all, but can be operated and implanted; this makes the stoneskin gland and it's other variants the only way to give ghouls any form of armor as of now. The stoneskin gland, as the one giving the most protection, comes in handy to complement a ghoul already capable of absorbing huge amounts of damage provided it's equipped with any damage reduction upgrades such as ghoul plating, the Robust gene, the tough trait or even the metalblood heart or a metalblood serum, as the damage reduction still allows chip damage to eventually down or kill the ghoul but can be mitigated thanks to the gland's armor preventing some of said damage.

Comparison table of the three types:

Type	Armor			Moving	Beauty
	Sharp	Blunt	Heat
Toughskin gland	35%	10%	30%	×95	-
Armorskin gland	52%	20%	40%	×90	−1
Stoneskin gland	70%	30%	50%	×85	−2

Sharp	Blunt

A stoneskin gland severely reduces the beauty of a pawn, which causes a −40 opinion debuff from other pawns.

Disfigurement adds -15 opinion and while it doesn't affect the beauty stat of a pawn, it disables the effect of positive beauty on the pawn. Disfigurement stacks with the effect of negative beauty possibly leading to -55 opinion on a pawn with less than or equal to -2 beauty.

It should be noted that a beauty greater than +/− 2 does not have any effects on gameplay, aside from the above mentioned disfigurement.

Here is a table of the total effects of the stoneskin gland, combined with other things that modify beauty.

Effect	Type	Beauty Change	Opinion Change
Beautiful	Trait	0	0
Pretty	Trait	−1	-20
Ugly	Trait	−3	-40
Staggeringly ugly	Trait	−4	-40
Aesthetic nose	Artificial body part	−1	-20
Aesthetic shaper	Artificial body part	−1	-20
Very attractive	Gene	0	0
Attractive	Gene	−1	-20
Unattractive	Gene	−3	-40
Very unattractive	Gene	−4	-40

Version history

• Royalty DLC initial release - Added.
• 1.1.2563 - Toughskin, armorskin, and stoneskin glands no longer stack
• 1.1.2598 - Adjusted from 50/40/70% to 70/30/50%

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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