Ghoul barbs

Ghoul barbs are an artificial body part added by the Anomaly DLC that improves the melee damage of ghouls at the cost of slowing Move Speed.

Acquisition[edit]

Ghoul barbs can be crafted at a crafting spot or bioferrite shaper once the Ghoul enhancements research project has been completed. Note that this research requires dark study to unlock. Each requires 35 Bioferrite and 6,000 ticks (1.67 mins) of work modified by the general labor speed of the crafter.

Summary[edit]

When installed into the torso of a ghoul, ghoul barbs multiply their Melee Damage Factor by ×150%, stacking multiplicatively with other increases to the factor. They also reduce the ghoul's base move speed by −0.25 c/s. As offsets such as these apply before multiplicative effects such as from Moving capacity, the actual impact on move speed can be larger or smaller than this value. For example, a pawn with 125% Moving would have their speed decreased by −0.3125 c/s, while a pawn with only 50% Moving would only have their speed decreased by −0.125 c/s. See Move Speed for details.

Installation[edit]

Ghoul barbs can only be installed in ghouls. Note that despite the description noting pain as the reason it cannot be installed in other pawns, methods of pain nullification such as painstoppers do not allow the barbs' installation into other pawns.

Installing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work. It doesn't anesthetize the ghoul, requires no medicine, cannot fail and has no skill requirements.

Analysis[edit]

While ghouls are fairly powerful by default, ghoul barbs are one of the key ways that they can compete with end-game human melee pawns, elevating body part weapons, normally outclassed by traditional melee with quality multipliers, to a point where they are sufficent for the ghouls other advantages to make them the premier melee choice. Every ghoul should have ghoul barbs equipped, and besides a body part weapon and some select gene options, it should be the prioritised over most other upgrades.

Because of the impact on move speed, and because other upgrades will reduce it further, ways to counter the penalty should also be sought for ghouls, including bionic legs and move speed genes.