Ghoul

Ghouls are humans that have been warped into powerful, twisted combat entities with very few needs. Ghouls can appear as enemy units or be created by the player as part of the colony.

Acquisition[edit]

Ghouls can appear in games with the AI storyteller's monolith setting set to either "Standard with Monolith" and the "Ambient Horror" enabled. "The Anomaly" starting scenario begins the player with one friendly player-controlled ghoul.

Wild ghouls can be encountered as a basic entity at any level of void monolith activity, meaning the monolith does not have to have been interacted with for them to appear. Any ghoul encountered in the wild will be permanently hostile to the player. These ghouls can be captured for study or to extract bioferrite from, like any other entity. Capturing a wild ghoul alive can be difficult, as they cannot be downed by pain and psychic weaponry is ineffective.

Once a ghoul has been encountered, the ghoul infusion research project becomes available. After completing the research, the player can schedule the ghoul infusion operation on any colonist, prisoner, or slave for 30 bioferrite and 1 shard, permanently turning that pawn into a ghoul. Regardless of whether the pawn was a member of your colony, they will be under the player's control once the operation is completed - there is no need to recruit them beforehand.

Summary[edit]

A ghoul is a colonist that is limited to only melee combat. They cannot wield weapons or apparel, do any work, take drugs or use any special abilities they would have in life. Ghouls can be restricted to zones and drafted like normal colonists. In combat, they can be directly commanded to melee attack or use the ability provided by ghoul-specific body parts. Ghouls will fight adjacent fires, but do not seek out fires to extinguish. All ghouls are capable of violence no matter their backstories, traits, or genes.

Properties[edit]

Ghouls do not age at all, even if not yet at maturity. Note that this means that ghouls created from younger pawns will never have the full body size and body part health of an adult. They retain most properties they had in life:

Melee and Shooting skills (even though ghouls can't shoot) and passions are retained. Other skills and passions are disabled.
Traits and backstories are retained, which can cause a ghoul to be incapable of firefighting.
Some hediffs are retained, including void touched. Luciferium need and the luciferium hediffs are not retained. ^[Check]
Body types and non-cosmetic genes are retained. After converted, they can still undergo gene extraction or be implanted with new xenogerm.
The natural attacks of a human are retained, but ghouls also gain a left and right claw attack and an additional bite attack.

Ghouls have 100% vacuum resistance, meaning they can survive in space.

All ghouls are given two hediffs that implement the majority of the stat changes experienced by ghouls. These hediffs are "Ghoul" and "Regeneration".

Ghoul:

Pain: ×0%
Max Nutrition: 2
Psychic sensitivity: ×0%
Minimum Comfortable Temperature: −40 °C (72 °F)
Maximum Comfortable Temperature: +40 °C (72 °F)
Minimum Containment Strength: +35
Talking: ×0%

Regeneration:

Regenerate 100 HP/day

Separate from these hediffs, ghouls also don't bleed when injured. The regeneration hediff will heal any wound, including missing limbs or scars that the ghoul has, at a rate of 0.1 HP/60 ticks (1 sec). Ghoul regeneration heals wounds in the order they were received, one wound at a time, until that wound is fully healed. The one exception is fully missing body parts: these will be converted into a generic "wound" and healed after all other injuries. Regeneration prevents wounds from scarring, even eye and brain injuries that would otherwise always scar, but does not prevent or cure trauma savant. Note that if the ghoul regeneration has already began to heal the missing body part when another injury is dealt, it will not switch targets; it will continue to heal the missing limb once it has begun.

Ghoul regeneration is separate from a pawn's normal healing rate. The ghoul continues to heal the same as a regular pawn, separate from ghoul regeneration. As with normal human pawns, a ghoul's natural healing is affected by genes, healing enhancers, and juggernaut serum. Ghoul regeneration is not affected by these factors. See healing for more information on healing mechanics for all pawns.

A ghoul won't get sick like a regular pawn from infection or other diseases. They are immune to rotstink gas, but not tox gas or toxic buildup.

Needs[edit]

Ghouls can only eat raw meat and fresh corpses. They will automatically try to eat available food in their assigned zone. Friendly ghouls that are not fed will eventually^[When?] go berserk, betraying the colony and never becoming friendly again. Once their food need reaches 0, a hidden meat hunger hediff will be applied and worsen over roughly 24 hours. The more extreme this hediff is, the more likely the ghoul will betray.^{[Detail needed]}

Other than food, ghouls have no other needs, mood, or relationships. Other needs created by genes or addiction will be disabled. They can't have mental breaks and won't be counted as a colonist for things like pawn death, the recluse trait or diversity of thought precepts. They also can't be part of any kind ritual. Despite the in-game description, colonists do not gain negative mood for being near a friendly ghoul. However, they will experience a negative mood if a loved one becomes a ghoul or spawns as a ghoul.^{[Detail needed]}

Captured ghouls do not require food.

Ghoul-specific upgrades[edit]

Ghouls can have all types of normal human body parts installed. However, there are also some ghoul-specific upgrades available by researching ghoul enhancements in the Anomaly tech tree:

Adrenal heart: Passively increases hunger and grants an ability to gain a burst of ×0.7 attack cooldown and +4.00 movement speed for 15 seconds. The cooldown is 29.17 seconds.
Corrosive heart: Allows the ghoul to spew acid on a 2 hour cooldown, but only has 85% part efficiency.
Ghoul barbs: Increases melee damage by ×150% at the cost of −0.25 speed.
Ghoul plating: Incoming Damage Multiplier ×0.5 at the cost of −0.75 speed.
Metalblood heart: On a 6 hour cooldown, gain the metalblood hediff for 40 seconds, which gives ×50% damage resistance and ×400% fire and burn vulnerability. This hediff does not stack with the metalblood serum.
Blood warmer: A prosthetic that actively heats the ghoul's blood. Lowers Min Comfortable Temperature to −26 °C (−46.8 °F).

Ghouls can be administered serums including their exclusive ghoul resurrection serum, but not drugs. They aren't affected by any mood effect from a serum.

Analysis[edit]

Ghouls are very powerful guard dogs and melee attackers:

With melee upgrades of ghoul barbs, power claws, juggernaut serum, and the strong melee damage gene, their attacks will destroy any body part of any human they hit (no matter the armor), frequently one-hit killing enemies in cataphract armor.
With metabolic upgrades of nuclear stomach, +5 metabolic efficiency, and robust digestion gene, they need less than 4 twisted meat per day to survive.
Due to their regeneration and the affordability of ghoul resurrection serum, it's safe to use ghouls as tanks, or even let them die in combat.

Converting a colonist into a ghoul is a good way to make use of an otherwise terrible pawn or a colonist you can't save from death. The converted ghoul will quickly regrow lost limbs and remove detrimental health conditions.

A ghoul makes excellent bait to lure sightstealers, as they can remain patrolling outside forever.

While requiring direct control, ghouls can still help with some work in colony. While drafted they can be used to hunt animals (though they will not carry the corpses back). They can also be used to fight fires. In the Anomaly starting scenario, the ghoul allows you to skip early defences, indirectly reducing amount of work that needs to be done.

Be especially careful when engaging enemy ghouls in melee combat. They cannot be downed due to pain, so they will fight much longer than regular human raiders.

Ghouls can benefit from the frenzy inducer and the pollution stimulus gene. You can build a room with pollution and a frenzy inducer for your ghouls to take advantage of their effects. Additionally, this can double as a freezer for your twisted meat, a containment cell for the fleshmass nucleus, and a frostbite chamber for toughspikes.

Hunger management[edit]

Hunger is the primary cost of ghouls and their inability to eat anything but raw meat and corpses means that traditional sources of nutritional efficiency are unavailable. However, with some upgrades, ghouls require less resources to maintain than humans in every way. These are:

The nuclear stomach: An artificial body part which multiplies hunger rate by ×25%. Note that cancer, the primary downside of the nuclear stomach, is not a concern for ghouls.
The robust digestion gene: A gene that multiplies the nutrition gained from raw meat, but not corpses, by ×1.8.
A metabolic efficiency of 5+: This multiplies hunger rate by ×50%.

These stack to make for a ghoul that only requires as little as 2.22 meat per day and significantly increases the time that can be safely spent between meals.

Ideally, all corpses should be butchered by a competent cook for maximum nutrition, but preventing beserking is more important.

Ghouls made from body mastery creepjoiners don't need to eat at all. However, this significantly reduces the trait options available for the sake of removing an almost negligible cost in the mid- and late-game.

Body parts[edit]

Due to their massive improvement to resilience and damage, ghoul barbs and ghoul plating are essential upgrades for ghouls. For the heart upgrade, get the metalblood heart if you don't plan to produce metalblood serums. But if you do, instead upgrade your ghoul with the adrenal heart to improve combat power or the corrosive heart for the painful acid spray attack.

Ghouls can also make effective use of body part weapons. As they cannot hold conventional weapons, implanted weaponry offers them a powerful upgrade, and in combination with ghoul barbs ghouls offer DPS comparable to high-tier melee options. The ghoul can then be enhanced similarly to other melee pawns, such as with juggernaut serum and the strong melee damage gene.

Power claws offer the highest damage, albeit with a small moving penalty per claw. Note that combining one power claw and a flesh tentacle on the other arm will result in the same base DPS as two power claws while retaining more of the pawn's moving capacity due to how the melee verb system selects and disregards certain attacks. The DPS is higher due to the manipulation bonus to melee hit chance from the tentacle. A similar effect can be obtained by replacing the other hand with a wooden hand instead of the tentacle; however, it will likely slightly reduce melee hit chance due to the hand's manipulation penalty - the DPS is still close to that of two claws. Other hand and arm replacements will not work.

Flesh whips come in a close second in term of DPS and offer no moving penalty. The above strategy of combining with a flesh tentacle for superior DPS also applies to the flesh whip, but with no penalties there is no reason to combine it with a wooden hand unless another flesh whip and a flesh tentacle are both unavailable. Note that while the flesh whip has superior base AP to the power claw, its AP is not affected by the melee damage factor (MDF) of the ghoul, meaning any MDF of 182% or more will result in the power claw having more AP. Ghoul barbs and the strong melee damage gene result in an MDF of 225%.

Because installing ghoul enhancements does not require any medicine and there isn't any chance of the ghoul dying, you can set up a system to increase your doctors' medical skills very quickly and cheaply. By getting two different types of ghoul heart enhancements, you can swap out one for the other repeatedly to quickly gain large amounts of medical points. One requirement is that your colonist must have a medical skill of 4, but you can get to this level with relatively low amounts of medicine by installing and removing peg legs on your ghouls; keep in mind that a ghoul takes a long time to regenerate a leg because of all the components.

Note that ghouls cannot be targeted by the twisted obelisk, and so flesh parts should be acquired before ghoulification occurs. Afterwards, only flesh tentacles are accessible through unnatural healing.

Ghoul melee damage at melee level 20 and no other hediff or gene
Upgrades	Move Speed	Melee DPS	Melee AP
None	4.6 c/s	3.29	11%
1 Power claw	4.23 c/s	8.28	28%
2 Flesh whips	4.6 c/s	9.22	60%
Power claw + Wooden hand	4.23 c/s	9.64	33%
2 Power claws	3.86 c/s	9.90	33%
Ghoul barbs + 1 Power claw	4.00 c/s	12.42	41%
Ghoul barbs + 2 Flesh whips	4.35 c/s	13.84	60%
Ghoul barbs + Power claw + Wooden hand	4.00 c/s	14.45	49%
Ghoul barbs + 2 Power claws	3.65 c/s	14.85	49%
Barbs + Juggernaut + Strong Melee Damage + 1 Power claw	4.46 c/s	27.72	92%
Barbs + Juggernaut + Strong Melee Damage + 2 Flesh whips	4.85 c/s	31.13	60%
Barbs + Juggernaut + Strong Melee Damage + Power claw + Wooden hand	4.46 c/s	32.52	111%
Barbs + Juggernaut + Strong Melee Damage + 2 Power claws	4.07 c/s	33.52	111%

Genetics[edit]

Ghouls primarily benefit from genes that improve their Incoming Damage Multiplier, melee skill and damage, movement speed, and achieving a good metabolic rate to reduce meat consumption. Ghouls will inherit genes from their underlying xenotypes, meaning that some make for better ghoul candidates than others.

Below are all genes that have positive effects on ghouls. Other genes either have negative effects, no effects, or only positive in term of metabolic efficiency.

Good Genes
Gene	Improves	Metabolic Cost	Commentary
Robust	×75% Incoming Damage Multiplier	−2	Reduces damage taken by ghouls, improving their capability to soak incoming damage for longer.
Strong melee damage	×150% Melee Damage Factor	−2	Increases damage dealt by ghouls
Naked speed	+0.1 Movement speed	+2	Slight increase to movement speed while giving free metabolic efficiency
Fast runner	+0.2 Movement speed	−3	Double the movement speed bonus of Naked Speed
Very fast runner	+0.4 Movement speed	−5	Huge increase to movement speed, but very metabolically costly.
Strong melee	Melee Skill +4	−1	Improves Melee skill which boosts melee hit chance and melee dodge chance
Great melee	Melee Skill +8	−3	Larger Improvement to Melee skill
Unstoppable	Stagger Time Multiplier ×0%	−2	Removes stagger from receiving damage
Fire resistant	Flammability ×10%, Flame damage ×25%	−2	Resist flame damage and avoid being set on fire
Partial antitoxic lungs	Toxic Environment Resistance +50%	−1	Resist toxic fallout and tox gas
Total antitoxic lungs	Toxic Environment Resistance +100%	−2	Immune to toxic fallout and tox gas
Cold tolerant	Minimum Comfortable Temperature −10 °C (36 °F)	−1	Resistance to hypothermia
Cold super-tolerant	Minimum Comfortable Temperature −20 °C (36 °F)	−2	Larger resistance to hypothermia
Heat tolerant	Maximum Comfortable Temperature +10 °C (36 °F)	−1	Resistance to heatstroke
Heat super-tolerant	Maximum Comfortable Temperature +20 °C (36 °F)	−2	Larger resistance to heatstroke
Robust digestion	Raw Nutrition Multiplier ×180%	−2	Increase nutrition given by raw meat
Elongated fingers	Manipulation ×110%	−1	Slightly increase manipulation, which affects melee hit chance
Smooth tail	Manipulation +5%	−1	Slightly increase manipulation
Superfast wound healing	Injury Healing Factor ×400%	−3	Quadruple the normal healing factor to roughly 25 HP/day
Pollution stimulus	Up to consciousness +5% and move speed ×120%	−1	Speed boost when exposed to pollution

There are many genes whose negative effects don't affect ghouls at all; thus they can be used to improve their metabolic efficiency. Some of the notable genes are:

Free Metabolic Efficiency
Gene	Changes	Metabolic Cost	Commentary
Awful Skill	Skill −8	+2	Ghouls only use Melee skill, any other skill can be ignored
Poor Skill	Skill −4	+1	Ghouls only use Melee skill
Hyper-aggressive	Mental Breaks and Social Fights	+3	Ghouls don't social fight or have mental break
Aggressive	Mental Breaks and Social Fights	+2	Ghouls don't social fight or have mental break
Very sleepy	Sleep Fall Rate	+4	Ghouls don't need rest
Sleepy	Sleep Fall Rate	+2	Ghouls don't need rest
Very unhappy	Mood Penalty	+5	Ghouls are unaffected by mood penalties
Unhappy	Mood Penalty	+3	Ghouls are unaffected by mood penalties
Deathrest	Need for deathrest	+6	Ghouls don't need deathrest
Hemogen drain	−8 Hemogen per day	+6	Ghouls don't need hemogen
Pyrophobia	Fleeing fire mental break	+4	Ghouls don't have mental breaks
Kill thirst	Causes need to kill humanoids	+4	Ghouls don't have needs beyond hunger
Extra pain	Increases pain	+2	Ghouls don't feel pain
Nearsighted	Decreases shooting accuracy	+2	Ghouls can't shoot
Weak immunity	More likely to die from diseases	+2	Ghouls are immune to diseases
Psychically deaf	Psychic sensitivity −100%	+2	Ghouls have no psychic sensitivity
Psychically dull	Psychic sensitivity −50%	+1	Ghouls have no psychic sensitivity
Drug dependency	Need for a specific drug	+3 or +4	Ghouls have no drug needs and can't take drugs

Archite genes[edit]

Archite genes are generally not worth adding to a ghoul xenogerm. The benefits of Scarless, Non-senescent, Ageless and Perfect immunity are redundant in a ghoul. Gene implanter cannot be activated from ghouls. Deathless could be considered before having access to ghoul resurrection serums, but once the serums are available their shorter coma period is preferable. Archite metabolism can be an option if not enough positive metabolism genes have been yet gathered, but maximum metabolism efficiency can be eventually achieved while using all the beneficial genes. The main draws of Breathless on ghouls are the bonus to minimum comfortable temperature and immunity to tox gas, as ghouls are already immune to vacuum exposure. However toxic buildup and gas immunity can also be achieved by a combination of toxic resistance genes and detoxifier lungs. The temperature bonus could have an use when stacked will all other genes that improve cold resistance for ghouls in polar biomes or orbit, but those require more metabolism points that could be spent on more impactful genes. For cold protection blood warmers are cheaper and more accesible for a miniscule DPS penalty.

Medical quirks[edit]

Because ghouls rapidly regenerate their organs, you can harvest their organs before turning them into a ghoul:

Harvesting a spare lung and kidney is possible for normal pawns.
- You can harvest all six organs from a sanguophage.
- If you have a detoxifier lung and kidney, you can install them to the pawn and harvest the second natural lung and kidney. After the ghoul has finished regenerating one of each organ, you can then safely remove the artificial organs.
- By spending a ghoul resurrection serum afterwards, you can also harvest the heart in the same manner as above.
Ghouls can still have genes implanted or harvested.

Becoming a ghoul does not remove duplicate sickness, paralytic abasia, cirrhosis or lung rot. However, if you then kill the ghoul and revive them with a ghoul resurrection serum, it will remove the sickness but not the paralytic abasia or the cirrhosis. Lung rot can be "cured" by removing one lung at a time and letting them regenerate.

The ideal ghoul[edit]

Here is a setup for an ideal ghoul. The following features are very hard to achieve; but once achieved, they can be duplicated using the Corrupted obelisk any number of times:

Void touched: available during the Anomaly ending, gives 100 hp/day regeneration on top of ghoul regeneration and natural generation.
Level 20 melee skill: massively improves melee hit and dodge chance.
All keystone and good genes listed above. Other metabolically-efficient genes should be included to bring the efficiency up to +5.
Tough trait: Incoming Damage Multiplier x50%.
Jogger trait: Move Speed +0.4.
Nimble trait: Melee Dodge Chance +15. This gives a small increase in the final melee dodge chance.
Trauma savant: arguably the hardest to achieve, while only giving a very small improvement for melee hit chance.
Fleshmass lung: will give some tox resistance for the ghoul if you don't install detoxifier lungs for them.
Flesh whip: will give some melee damage for the ghoul if you don't install a power claw.

Once you have a colonist or slave with these features, duplicate them using the corrupted obelisk and turn the duplicate into a ghoul, keeping the original. The ghouls can have these body parts installed to upgrade them further:

Ghoul plating: Incoming Damage Multiplier x50%, while Move Speed -0.7.
Ghoul barbs: Melee Damage Factor x150%, while Move Speed -0.25.
Adrenal heart: gives a massive buff for move speed and melee damage when used.
Power claws, or power claw and wooden hand: greatly improves a ghoul's melee damage. This is optional if the ghoul already has 2 flesh whips.
Detoxifier lungs: gives tox resistance and a slight boost for move speed.
Nuclear stomach: Food Consumption x25%.
Stoneskin gland: sharp armor +70%, blunt armor +30%, heat armor +50% while moving x85%. This will also be the final armor values of the ghoul.
Regular juggernaut serum administering: Move speed +0.5, Melee Damage Factor x150%, Injury Healing Factor x200%.
Metalblood serum administering: Incoming Damage Multiplier x50%, while flame and burn weakness x400%. The flame weakness is cancelled out by the fire resistant gene.
Frenzy inducer's field: +0.4 move speed.
Pollution stimulus: x120% move speed.
Healing enhancer: natural healing factor x150%.
Bionic eyes and legs: improve melee hit and dodge change, and also move speed. These can also be skipped without reducing the power of the ghoul by much. Archotech eyes and legs could be used instead, but the sheer amount of punishment you will likely have your ghoul be taking means that they will break eventually. Giving them to a ranged pawn to help them better support the ghoul is a better use of resources.

Note that power claws, bionic eyes, and bionic legs may be destroyed in combat if they take too much damage, so be ready to replace them if you decide to give them to the ghoul. Other body parts are less likely to be lost as the ghoul are more likely to be downed or die before that. Overall, the ghoul would have these stats:

Daily Food Consumption 0.32 with Raw Food Multiplier x180%: this means they need only 3-4 twisted meat per day to live.
Healing 200 hp/day, plus roughly 96 hp/day (208 HP/day when lying on hospital bed) from the 800% Injury Healing Factor and 150% Natural Healing Factor.
Incoming Damage Multiplier 9.4%: this improves the amount of damage ghouls can take by over 10 times, which means it can take roughly 2925 damage points/day, or 2.9 points/s (after armor and melee dodge) just to negate the healing effect of the ghoul. In practice, the ghoul can fight an infinite number of chimeras one at a time.
Melee Dodge Chance 38%.

Weapon[edit]

As mentioned above, there are multiple choices for the weapon, each with its own tradeoff between damage and move speed:

Ghoul weapon combos
Weapons	Move speed	Move speed (ghoul frenzy)	Melee hit damage	Melee DPS	Melee AP
2 flesh whips	6.93 c/s	12.02 c/s	69.19	32.07	60%
1 power claw + 1 wooden hand	6.47 c/s	11.23 c/s	74.25	34.39	111%
2 power claws	6.08 c/s	10.55 c/s	74.25	34.41	111%

Gallery[edit]

Hairs[edit]

Furious, facing south
Furious, facing east
Furious, facing north
Hungry, facing south
Hungry, facing east
Hungry, facing north
Ravenous, facing south
Ravenous, facing east
Ravenous, facing north
Twisted, facing south
Twisted, facing east
Twisted, facing north
Vengeful, facing south
Vengeful, facing east
Vengeful, facing north
Warped, facing south
Warped, facing east
Warped, facing north
Wicked, facing south
Wicked, facing east
Wicked, facing north

Heads[edit]

Heavy, facing south
Heavy, facing east
Heavy, facing north
Narrow, facing south
Narrow, facing east
Narrow, facing north
Normal, facing south
Normal, facing east
Normal, facing north
Wide, facing south
Wide, facing east
Wide, facing north

Bodies[edit]

Fat, facing south
Fat, facing east
Fat, facing north
Female, facing south
Female, facing east
Female, facing north
Hulk, facing south
Hulk, facing east
Hulk, facing north
Male, facing south
Male, facing east
Male, facing north
Thin, facing south
Thin, facing east
Thin, facing north

Trivia[edit]

Ghouls cannot get pregnant through any method. A pregnant pawn that is turned into a ghoul will have the pregnancy removed. A pawn that is in labor when being turned into a ghoul will have the labor hediff removed, but a non-ghoul baby will also be produced normally.

Version history[edit]

Anomaly DLC release - Added.

Entities

Basic: Void monolith • Harbinger tree • Fleshbeast (Fingerspike, Trispike, Toughspike, Bulbfreak) • Sightstealer • Shambler • Ghoul • Gorehulk • Death pall

Advanced: Pit gate • Dreadmeld • Fleshmass heart • Fleshmass nucleus • Chimera • Devourer • Noctolith • Noctol • Revenant • Metalhorror • Nociosphere • Blood rain • Twisted obelisk • Corrupted obelisk • Warped obelisk • Golden cube • Unnatural corpse

Ultimate: Void structure • Void node