Beckon
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Beckon
Beckon is a level 3 psycast that causes the target to walk towards the caster until either damaged or the duration expires.
Acquisition
There are two ways to acquire the beckon psycast:
- Upon reaching psylink level 3, a random psycast of level 3 is granted regardless of how this level up is achieved. This won't apply if the psycaster already knew one or more level 3 psycast.
- Beckon can also be acquired from a psytrainer naming it. See the psytrainer page for further details.
Summary
Upon casting, Beckon forces the target pawn to move towards the caster for 480 ticks (8 secs), modified by Psychic sensitivity. More specifically, Beckon forces the target to path to an adjacent tile at the caster's current location at the time of casting - even if the caster moves after casting, the target pawn will not update their path to move towards the caster's new location. While moving towards their selected tile, the target pawn is prevented from taking any other actions besides moving towards their selected location. Upon reaching their target destination, they will stand in place, taking no further action until the duration expires. However, if the affected pawn is hit by an attack (the attack does not need to deal damage), or moves directly adjacent to the caster (or vice versa), the effects of Beckon will immediately end. Valid targets for Beckon include any psychically sensitive, non-downed pawns within 20 tiles of the caster, respecting line of sight.
Pathing logic
When casting Beckon, the tile selected for the target pawn to path to is determined by a simple sequence. The default destination tile is the one directly above the caster. However, if this tile is either impassable or not standable, such as being occupied by a wall, or a tree, the selected tile will instead be the one directly right of the pawn, continuing clockwise until all 4 cardinal directions are disqualified. If this is the case, then the selected destination will be the tile down and right of the pawn, continuing anti-clockwise thereafter until all 4 diagonal tiles are disqualified. If all tiles surrounding the pawn are non-standable/impassable, the selection process will repeat from the uppermost tile while no longer disqualifying non-standable tiles. If a non-standable tile is selected as a destination, the pawn will stand on the tile upon reaching their destination, but will be forced to move off of it once the effects of Beckon end, as usual.
Analysis
Beckon is a fairly useful psycast, though it faces competition in its role from other psycasts in or near its tier, and somewhat encumbered by a few quirks of its design. Nevertheless, it can be an effective tool to reposition and disable enemies.
The primary and most obvious use for Beckon is to neutralize enemy ranged attackers. Not only does Beckon prevent them from firing on you for the duration, but it also forces them out of any cover they have likely taken, rendering them trivially easy to dispatch with your own pawns, whether that be with your ranged attackers gunning down their now-exposed form, or your melee fighters meeting them as they approach. However, note that due to the effects of Beckon being broken the instant an affected pawn receives an attack, it tends to be dispelled immediately upon leaving cover, giving the pawn time to return to cover and resume fighting back. Of course, with sufficiently damaging weapons and/or a sufficiently large wall of fire, this tendency becomes a minor inconvenience at worst, but can be problematic in the earlier days of a colony, with less pawns and more protracted combat. It is also worth noting Beckon's range of only 20 tiles is inferior to nearly all conventional ranged weapons, requiring you to either force engagements within said range, or to push forwards into enemy fire and potential injury.
While potent against ranged attackers, Beckon can also be used to divert melee attackers, though they tend to be less hindered by Beckon than ranged pawns, as they want to approach your pawns to attack them regardless. Additionally, melee attackers will tend to receive many more attacks than their ranged counterparts due to not using cover, which means that any Beckons cast on them will likely last a second or two at most without direct micromanagement on the players part, rendering the effects minimal if not inconsequential. However, if one needs to remove a melee attacker from their backline, and few other options are available, Beckon can perform the task adequately. However, remember that the effects of Beckon are also broken if the caster and target are adjacent to one another. As such, it is wise to move the caster after using Beckon to ensure the enemy melee attacker does not simply begin attacking them instead once they arrive at their destination.
Beckon can also see some use as a long-lasting alternative to Stun, though significantly more cumbersome to use. While the effects of Beckon and Stun are fundamentally unique, they both prevent the targeted pawn from taking any offensive actions for the duration. As such, Beckon has some overlap with Stun's use cases, such as temporarily disabling dangerous targets - centipedes or pawns armed with triple or doomsday rocket launchers, to name a few. However, Beckon is largely inferior to Stun for these purposes, as not only are the effects contingent on you not damaging said threatening foes, which slows your task of permanently putting them out of action, but Beckon's aforementioned range of only 20 tiles is noticeably inferior to Stun's 25, and can limit or prevent its use entirely. However, one enemy which Beckon can be of particular use against is the unnatural corpse
. While generally inferior to other options like Skip or Chaos skip due to being broken on damage, it is one of the few psycasts that can interrupt the corpse's lethal psychic attack against its living counterpart, preventing a gruesome demise for a colonist should it manage to close the gap between it and its prey. Additionally, the 8 second duration can give your pawns some much needed time to relocate and make distance, which can be invaluable as its speed increases.
Version history
- Royalty DLC Release - Added.
- 1.1.2571 - Range reduced from 25 to 20, duration reduced from 10 to 8.
- 1.5.4062 - Fix: Beckon ability doesn’t wake up dormant mechs.