Philophagy

Philophagy

Psychically draw experiences from the victim's mind and transfer them to the invoker, targeting the victim's highest skill. The target will suffer brain damage, causing them to fall into a coma for several days.

Base Stats

Type

Psychic ritual

Creation

Required Research

Philophagy

Ritual Duration

10,000 ticks (2.78 mins)

Ritual Cooldown

300,000 ticks (83.33 mins)

Resources to make

1

Philophagy is a psychic ritual that transfers skill experience from the target's highest skill to the invoker.

Acquisition

The philophagy psychic ritual can be performed once every 300,000 ticks (5 in-game days) at a psychic ritual spot at the cost of  1 Shard, once the Philophagy research project has been completed. Note that this research requires dark study to unlock. The ritual takes 10,000 ticks (4 in-game hours) to complete.

Summary

• Transfer a percentage of the total experience of the victim's best skill to the invoker.
  • The victim's skill with the highest total XP is selected. If multiple skills are tied, the skill in which the invoker has the highest total XP is selected.
  • Base level of skill is taken into account, before modifiers from aptitude genes or inhumanized.
  • Both the victim and the invoker must be capable of a skill in order for it to be eligible.
• Inflict psychic damage to the brain, ranging from 3 to 5 damage in total.
  • This damage can kill the victim, and the victim is considered to have been executed if they're a prisoner.
• The victim will go into a dark psychic shock for 1 to 2 days. They'll also gain the drained my skills thought against the invoker for 20 days.
• The percentage of experience transferred is dependent on the ritual's quality - the higher the quality the higher the percentage.
  • At 100% quality, 80% of the victim's XP is transferred over.
• Applies a −3 / −6 / −10 guilt thought for participants.^{[Thought Template]} This thought is nullified by the Psychopath traits, being Inhumanized, as well as Psychic rituals: Exalted precept.

Percentage of XP transferred

Analysis

Philophagy is relatively niche since it costs a shard, only improves 1 skill at a time, and requires a sacrifical pawn that has a high level in the desired skill. Recuriting the pawn directly would keep 100% of the skill experience, and the cases where a pawn is outright unrecruitable is rare as brainwipe is able to remove resistance and unwavering loyalty.

Still, philophagy can be useful as recruiting the victim can be unideal for a number of reasons. The most obvious use of the ritual is to transfer skill XP from an undesirable yet skilled pawn (e.g, poor traits or creepjoiner downsides) into a more useful pawn. For instance, stacking skill XP onto an industrious pawn would allow tasks to be done faster than an average pawn. Children are good recipents as a properly raised child will often have good traits, but they don't start with any skill levels. Similarly, a slow learner or slow study pawn who is otherwise desirable can be a great recipient. Even if the philophagy victim would be a decent colonist, recruiting more colonists has its downsides. A higher colonist count will increase raid points and make it harder to recruit further colonists, so it can be more efficient (and computer-friendly) to transfer skills instead.

Furthermore, it can be beneficial to stack skill XP onto a single pawn. For example, three colonists with Crafting 9 isn't necessarily better than one colonist with Crafting 15, as having Crafting 15 would create higher quality items. It is also possible to create pawns good at every skill, as philophagy does not care about passions or Global Learning Factor.^[Verify] Doing this is particularly valuable for corrupted obelisk duplication.

It is not necessary to use prisoners as victims for this ritual. One strategy is to level up a slave or sacrificial colonist who has a passion in a desirable skill, either by using a skilltrainer or by having them continuously train the skill, then transfer the XP over to a desired recipient.

Overall, chronophagy will rarely be an immediate priority of a shard, but it should be considered once the colony has a decent supply of shards and suitable victims to steal XP from.

Experience table

The following table assumes 100% quality, no fractional skill levels before transfer, the recipient is skill 0, and no effect from Global Learning Factor or passions. Fractional levels represent progress from current level to the next.

Donor		Recipient
Level	Experience	Experience	Level
0	0	0	0
1	1000	800	0.8
2	3000	2400	1.7
3	6000	4800	2.6
4	10000	8000	3.5
5	15000	12000	4.4
6	21000	16800	5.3
7	28000	22400	6.2
8	36000	28800	7.1
9	45000	36000	8
10	55000	44000	8.89
11	67000	53600	9.86
12	81000	64800	10.82
13	97000	77600	11.76
14	115000	92000	12.69
15	135000	108000	13.61
16	157000	125600	14.53
17	181000	144800	15.45
18	207000	165600	16.36
19	235000	188000	17.27
20	265000	212000	18.18

Version history

• Anomaly DLC Release - Added.

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Psychic rituals

Psychic rituals

Void provocation • Draw animals • Draw shamblers • Chronophagy • Psychophagy • Skip abduction • Draw fleshbeasts • Provoke pit gate • Imbue death refusal • Philophagy • Pleasure pulse • Neurosis pulse • Blood rain • Brainwipe

Related

Psychic ritual spot • Void sculpture • Shard beacon