Power claw

Power claws are artificial hand replacements that also function as moderately powerful melee weapons at the expense of slowing a pawn's moving.

Acquisition[edit]

In the core game, the power claws cannot be crafted. Instead they can only be obtained via trade, given as a quest reward, found in quest item stashes. or found in ancient shrines.

With the Royalty DLC, Power claws can be crafted at a machining table once the Specialized limbs research project has been completed. Note that this research requires a techprint. Each requires 40 Steel, 8 Components, 15,000 ticks (4.17 mins) of work modified by the general labor speed of the crafter, and a crafting skill of 5.
Power claws can be bought from the following traders: Orbital exotic goods trader, Outlander base trader, Outlander exotic goods trader, Slave ship.

Summary[edit]

Body part[edit]

Power claws replace the user's organic hand, including the fingers. They are universal and can be installed on either the left or right. The power claw has a part efficiency of 100%. This fully replaces the functionality of a normal hand but provides no enhancement - when coupled with the hand body part having a Manipulation importance of 50%, it results in an increase in manipulation of up to 50% when replacing a missing or totally inoperable hand. Manipulation, in turn, affects a great many stats. For a full list of affected stats, see Manipulation

Other effects[edit]

Each power claw inflicts a −8% Moving penalty. Moving, in turn, affects the following stats: Hunting Stealth, Melee Dodge Chance, Move Speed. This results in a directly proportional change to a pawn's move speed, and a reduction in melee dodge chance equivalent to losing −1.44 levels of Melee skill per hand replaced.

Combat[edit]

A power claw replaces the natural "Fist" attack of the replaced hand with a significantly more powerful Scratch attack. When social fighting, colonists will not use the power claw to attack their opponent.

Name		Damage	DPS	AP	Damage Type
	Human Fist	8.2	4.1	12%	Blunt
	Power claw	22		33%	Scratch

Installation[edit]

A power claw can only be installed on a natural arm. It cannot be installed on artificial body parts that replace the entire arm, such as the bionic arm, and will cause the removal of any parts installed into the hand, such as the hand talon . It also will replace or be replaced by any other part that replaces the hand, such as the field hand . If a power claw is installed on an arm which then gets replaced with an artificial arm, the claw will be removed for later reuse.

Installing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, 2x medicine of herbal quality or better, and a Medical skill of 4.

Removing the part requires 2,000 ticks (33.33 secs) of work, 1x medicine of herbal quality or better, and has no Medical skill requirements.

If the operation fails, the part will be destroyed, like other prosthetics.

Analysis[edit]

In terms of DPS, the power claw is the strongest body part weapon in the game, and the only dedicated example available without either the Royalty or Anomaly DLC. Overall, the power claw offers a way for ranged pawns to defend themselves in melee, at the cost of their Moving. It can also be used as a dedicated melee weapon during the early game.

Ignoring the Moving penalty, a single power claw, on its own, is competitive with a normal quality plasteel longsword, even after considering the impact of the unique effects of the Scratch and Cut damage types and melee verb selection mechanics. Under the same considerations, two claws approximate an excellent plasteel longsword. Claws can also be obtained very early in the game, even before Smithing, through trade or quests. This makes the claw a powerful melee weapon in the early game, both strong and cheap. But as power claws are not impacted by quality, they will fall behind dedicated melee weapons which do more DPS and don't decrease Moving or Melee Dodge Chance. Regular weapons are also not incompatible with bionic and archotech arms, both of which increase Melee Hit Chance instead. Finally, note that power claws require surgery, which is risky without a good doctor and a clean hospital.

If a pawn is already holding a stronger melee weapon, adding a power claw would only offer a marginal benefit. Because of the melee verb selection mechanic, pawns will use one of their "Best" attacks 75% of the time, and one of their "Mid" attacks the rest of the time. The power claw falls into the "Mid" category alongside fist and/or handle attacks even when wielded with relatively accessible melee weapons such as normal quality plasteel longswords or good quality uranium maces. The end result in a DPS improvement of only +5.6% and +5% respectively, and the relative improvement only shrinks with higher qualities. On weapons such as masterwork persona monoswords, this becomes a negative as the primary attack is sufficiently good to reduce the handle and regular fist attacks to the never-used "Worst" category of attacks while the power claw stays in Mid. Not having the power claw would therefore allow the powerful primary attacks of the weapon to be used exclusively. Also note that these changes also come at the cost of Moving and Melee Dodge Chance.

The melee verb system also means that installing 2 claws is rarely worthwhile. If it is the "Best" category and no weapon is carried, installing a second will increase the base DPS from 9.28 to 11 by removing the remaining fist attack, but at the cost of doubling the penalties, while the same attack can be removed with the cheaper wooden hand, with a minor hit chance penalty that is more than accounted for in the improvement in DPS over one claw and well worth avoiding the move penalty of two, or a flesh tentacle which provides a hit chance improvement in addition to removing the attack. If the claw attack is in "Mid", the actual effect on DPS of further diluting the handle attacks is tiny and similarly not worth the penalty.

Niches[edit]

One of the key advantages of body part weapons is that they can be "wielded" with a ranged weapon, allowing a gunner to also be effective in melee. Shooting Accuracy also doesn't benefit from bionic arms, and Moving is less important to ranged fighters, reducing the tradeoffs associated with the power claw.

Slaves represent a unique use case for body part weapons. As proper melee weapons increase chance of rebellions, arming slaves is often inadvisable, but combat slaves can be very useful. Body part weapons do not have this downside - while they are still more dangerous when they do rebel, slaves implanted with these weapons are no more likely to rebel in the first place, and in the case of the power claw, they are slightly less likely to rebel, due to the moving malus. The easy acquisition and disposable nature of slaves also means that the power claw's inferiority to dedicated melee weapons is also less relevant.

Power claws and other body part weapons (as well as fists) are not included in any venerated or despised preference categories and can accommodate brawlers in ranged-venerating ideoligions.

In terms of wealth management, power claws costs much less than similar strength longsword but are about the same as knife. Bioferrite weapons are exception from this rule because of the material's low value.

Ghouls are also uniquely dependent on body part weapons, and a power claw is one of the premier options for them. For further analysis on this use cases, see the Ghoul page.

Compared to other artificial body parts[edit]

In the Royalty DLC, there are many other options for a "sidearm" artificial body parts. The main differences between the various options are: DPS, AP, and which part it attaches to. In addition, the power claw is the only body part weapon that reduces Moving, which has an impact on melee combat.

Hand talons provide very similar DPS, but at −17% AP. However, they do not slow down the user at all. They are attached on the hand and require an organic hand to do so.
Elbow blades attach to the organic arm, and is not incompatible with the field hand. They are weaker than the hand talon but offer slightly more AP.
Knee spikes attach to the organic leg. They are weaker than the hand talon but offer slightly more AP.
Venom fangs attach to the jaws, which no other body part weapon does. They are one of the weaker options, but do not impede the arm or leg. They also cause toxic buildup.

As the power claw incurs a Melee Dodge Chance penalty, other body part weapons may be worth considering. For a ranged fighter, raw DPS may not be a primary concern. Many ranged pawns will rarely need to melee, and the Moving penalty impedes kiting. So if a hand talon is sufficient to distract (and eventually defeat) a melee enemy, then there's no need to install a power claw that penalizes you.

Bionic arms and archotech arms offer a "fist" attack, which are much weaker to the power claw. However, each bionic arm increases Melee Hit Chance by +0.96 Melee levels, and an archotech arm offers double the benefit. Both bionics also offer an increase in Manipulation and no decrease in Moving, which helps with general work tasks.

Unlike hand talons, but like bionic/archotech arms, power claws replace the entire hand. This can be used to replace a missing hand. Compared to the wooden hand, the power claw gives +10% Manipulation for −8% Moving. If you later install a bionic arm (or other hand/full arm replacement), then the power claw will be retrieved safely, so long as the surgery succeeds.