Psycasts
Psycasts are psychic powers available to pawns with Psychic amplifiers, added by the Royalty DLC.
Acquisition
A random psycast of the new level is gained when using a Psychic amplifier - i.e. a random level 1 psycast is gained when a pawn uses their first amplifier, a level 2 psycast is gained when using their second, etc. Further psycasts can be gained by using a Psytrainer which grants the specific psycast mentioned in their name.
Mechanics
A psycaster's effectiveness is controlled by two primary factors: their Psychic Entropy Limit and the Psychic Sensitivity of their target.
A psycaster's psychic entropy limit is the primary limitation to how many psycasts they can perform in a given period of time. Each psycast gives the caster a certain amount of entropy. The more they exert themselves, the closer they get to their limit and the more powerful the debuff they receive while recovering. Should they exceed the limit (by disabling the limiter) there is even a risk of permanent damage. While the default psychic entropy limit is 30 it modified by a number of factors including psychic sensitivity, the number of psychic amplifiers. The resulting value follows the equation
| Psychic Entropy Limit = 30 * Psychic Sensitivity * (0.66... + (0.33...*Number of Psychic Amplifiers)) |
Entropy naturally decreases over time, with faster rates provided by additional psychic amplifiers. The default rate of 5 every 30 seconds with no amplifiers (though this will only be seen when using Entropic Link as otherwise they cannot generate entropy). The first amplifier improves the rate by 4, to 9 per 30 seconds. Each additional amplifier improves it by an additional 0.5 to a limit of 11.5 at six amplifiers.
Psychic equipment such as Psyfocus shirt,vest, robe, helmet, and staff improve a psycaster's abilities by providing additional psychic sensitivity and directly increasing the Entropy recovery rate. In addition, each percent of pain increases the rate of recovery from psychic entropy by 1.5%.
The targets psychic sensitivity is important as well, with it acting as a modifier to the duration, and sometimes the magnitude, of the psychic effect. For example, a Psychically Hypersensitive (Sensitivity of 1.8) pawn will be affected by the Beserk psycast for 54 seconds instead of the normal 30, while a Psychically Dull (Sensitivity of 0.5) pawn would only be affected for 15 seconds, and a Psychically Deaf (Sensitivity of 0) pawn would be immune.
Psycasts
A psycast is the ability performed by the psycaster. A Psycaster can only perform psycasts of a level equal to or below the number of psychic amplifiers they have implanted. For example, to manifest Beckon, the psycaster would require 3 psychic amplifiers.
| Name | Level (Title) | Description | Effects | Entropy Gain | Casting Time | Duration | Range | Area of Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burden | 1 (Yeoman) | Slow the target for a short time by suppressing motor activity in the brain | Psychically-induced difficulty in locomotion
|
8 | 0.25s | 20s | 30 tiles | Target |
| Painblock | 1 (Yeoman) | Block pain pathways in the target's brain for a short time. This can allow a person to move and act even with grievous injuries which would normally incapacitate them | Psychically-induced pain insensitivity.
|
10 | 0.25s | 120s | 25 tiles | Target |
| Stun | 1 (Yeoman) | Momentarily disrupt motor function in target's [sic] brain, preventing any movement. |
Psychically-induced.
|
12 | 0.25s | 3s | 20 tiles | Target
|
| Blinding Pulse | 2 (Esquire) | Induce noise in the visual centers of the brain, obscuring vision of everyone near the target point. | Psychically-induced partial blindness.
|
20 | 1s | 30s | 20 tiles | 4 tiles |
| Entropy Link | 2 (Esquire) | Form a psychic link between caster and target, so that gain and loss of psychic entropy is shared between both equally. The link lasts for some time, but will break if the the two move far apart. | A psychic link with another individual. Gain or loss of psychic entropy incurred by one will be shared equally between both.
|
10 | 1s | 120s | 3.9 tiles | Target |
| Neural Heat Dump | 2 (Esquire) | Instantly dump all your neural heat into someone else. As a side effect, the target will fall into a debilitating but non-damaging coma for about a day. The target must actively accept the psychic invasion, so only conscious allies can be targeted. | Psychically induced neural heat cleansing.
|
0 | 1s | 1000s | 25 tiles | Target |
| Beckon | 3 (Knight/Dame) | Psychically command the target to approach the caster. | Psychically-induced.
|
20 | 0.25s | 8s | 20 tiles | Target |
| Chaos Skip | 3 (Knight/Dame) | Teleport the target to a random position near where he started. | Psychically-induced.
|
18 | 0.25s | Instantaneous | 25 tiles | Target |
| Vertigo Pulse | 3 (Knight/Dame) | Interfere with the spatial orientation sense of everyone near the target point, causing intermittent loss of balance. Flesh creatures will become extremely nauseous as well. | Psychically-induced loss of spatial orientation. This will cause flesh creatures to vomit.
|
30 | 1s | 20s | 20 tiles | 5 tiles |
| Smokepop | 4 (Praetor) | Skip dust particles up from under the ground surface to form a thick cloud. This reduces the accuracy of any shot fired through it, and preventing [sic] turrets from locking on entirely. | Psychically-induced.
|
30 | 1s | Instantaneous, Smoke dissipates in ~30 seconds | 20 tiles | Tile |
| Skip | 4 (Praetor) | Teleport the target to a desired position not too far from his starting point. | Psychically-induced.
|
25 | 0.25s | Instantaneous | 25 tiles | Target/Tile |
| Focus | 4 (Praetor) | Psychically focus the target's mind, boosting their sight, hearing and moving capacities. | Psychically-induced mental focus, increasing sight, hearing and movement capactities.[sic] | 15 | 0.25s | 60s | 25 tiles | Target |
| Wallraise | 4 (Praetor) | Form a temporary wall by skipping rubble and soil up from deep under the ground. | A fragile wall made of rubble. It will collapse in time.'
|
35 | 1s | Instantaneous, Wall disappears after ? seconds | 20 tiles | Tile |
| Berserk | 5 (Baron/Baroness) | Induce an angry psychosis in the target's mind, causing them to attack anyone nearby. | Psychically-induced.
|
40 | 0.25s | 15s | 15 tiles | Target |
| Invisibility | 5 (Baron/Baroness) | Psychically manipulate the visual centers of everyone nearby, rendering them unable to perceive a particular individual for a short time. | Psychically-induced invisibility. This actually affects others nearby, making their brains unable to percieve [sic] the sight of this individual, even if the eyes are unaffected.
|
45 | 1s | 15s | 15 tiles | Target |
| Berserk Pulse | 6 (Count/Countess) | Generate an overwhelming rush of undirected rage in everyone near the target point. | Psychically-induced.
|
60 | 1s | 60s | 25 tiles | 3 tiles |
| Mass Chaos Skip | 6 (Count/Countess) | Skip everyone near a target point to a random location nearby. | Psychically-induced.
|
40 | 1s | Instantaneous | 25 tiles | 8 tiles |
| Manhunter pulse | 6 (Count/Countess) | Drive nearby animals into a manhunting rage using a psychic pulse | Psychically-induced.
|
50 | 1s | 60s | 25 tiles | 28 tiles |
Tactics
Despite their lack of damage, psycasts can be used to a great tactical advantage- provided that you can get in range of the enemy to use them.
- Burden slows the target down.
- Very useful for getting one or two more shots on melee attackers before they close the distance. Effective for this reason with a Killbox setup as well. Also very useful for hunters in case of revenge.
- Painblock blocks pain, with an effect similar to go-juice.
- Stun stuns the target for a few seconds.
- Best used to support a melee attacker against another one.
- Help melee attackers close the distance to shooters.
- Peel melee attackers off ranged.
- Blinding Pulse reduces the Sight of enemies.
- This reduces accuracy, giving you the upper hand in combat.
- Entropy Link shares psychic entropy between two pawns.
- Good for helping your psycaster cast more.
- Can be cast on enemies to let you cast more for basically no cost.
- Note that if you link it onto allies you'll be sharing the psychic hangover debuff with multiple people.
- Beckon
- Best used to force enemies into melee range for engagement.
- Great for peeling enemy melee off a vulnerable friendly.
- Chaos Skip
- Use on enemies that already entered melee range to force them to break distance in a random direction. Be careful of skipping them into your base.
- Vertigo Pulse
- Smokepop is essentially a better version of the smoke launcher.
- Skip can be used to manipulate allies and enemies alike.
- Teleport allied fighters into position quickly, especially melee fighters.
- Skip long-ranged enemies into range.
- Keep enemy melee fighters away from allies.
- Focus
- Wallraise creates a wall of rocks in a cross shape.
- Creates impromptu cover for your shooters to shelter behind.
- Use to create LOS blocker against rocket launchers that are about to fire. If you are quick you can even block the rockets mid-flight.
- Berserk forces an enemy to attack nearby targets indiscriminately, including their allies.
- Have enemies aggro on each other while your ranged fighters pick them off.
- Cause friendly fire as enemies fire at the berserker.
- Invisibility makes enemies unable to target your allies.
- It is not broken on attacking making it a good choice for close-ranged attackers.
- Self-cast to allow your psycaster to safely get within range.
- Berserk Pulse is similar to Berserk but affects an area.
- It causes a dangerous increase in psychic entropy on all but the most well-equipped of psycasters.
- Mass Chaos Skip skips all units in the area randomly, friend or foe.
- Skip multiple enemies out of cover at once, exposing them to fire.
- Manhunter Pulse causes all animals in a large area to become manhunter.
Version History
- Royalty Initial Release: Introduced
- 1.1.2571: Major Rebalance to several psycasts.
- 1.1.2647: Overhaul to some mechanics. Empire no longer gets angry at psycast use, removed psychic hangover, added meditation mechanics, added new psychic abilities.