Stoneskin gland

The Stoneskin Gland is an implant added by the Royalty DLC that gives the host pawn natural armor, in exchange for making them uglier and slower. It is the most protective and has the largest penalties of the three skin gland implants, being stronger than both the toughskin and armorskin glands.

Acquisition[edit]

Stoneskin glands can be crafted at a fabrication bench once the Skin hardening research project has been completed. Note that this research requires a techprint. Each requires 25 Plasteel, 8 Advanced components, 26,000 ticks (7.22 mins) of work modified by the general labor speed of the crafter, and a crafting skill of 8.

Summary[edit]

Pawns with a stoneskin gland implanted in their torso^[Verify] gain an offset to their intrinsic Sharp/Blunt/Heat stone by 70/30/50% respectively. All skin glands, including vacskin glands, are mutually exlusive and there are no other sources of intrinsic stone for humans as of the time of writing. As such, the base values before the offset is always 0%/0%/0%. Intrinsic stone is considered as its own layer for the purposes of stone calculations and is the final layer considered after all apparel. Intrinsic stone still protects body parts replaced by artificial body parts and body parts that they would not logically have skin, such as eyes.

It also reduces pawn beauty by −2, potentially resulting in an opinion malus with other humans that are not ascetic, kind, and blind depending on other beauty effects. It also multiplies the pawn's moving by a factor of ×85%.

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 change in melee dodge chance equivalent to losing −2.7 levels of Melee skill. Due to how the stat is fit to a post-process curve, this can result in the melee dodge chance dropping to 0% for pawns with skill under 8, when replacing one leg, or under 11 for both legs.

As an artificial part, stoneskin glands will give a mood buff to anyone with the Body modder trait, and a mood penalty to anyone with the Body purist trait.

Installation[edit]

Installing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, 2x medicine of herbal quality or better, and a Medical skill of 5. Removing the part requires 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, 1x medicine of herbal quality or better, and a Medical skill of 5. If the operation fails, the part will be destroyed.

Analysis[edit]

Stoneskin glands give pawns slighly better protection that normal steel plate armor while also stacking with any armor option. By itself, this makes it ideal for pawns in melee combat who require prioritizing sustainability over speed, or those who are capable of brushing off the move speed penalty altogether, allowing them to fight and soak off damage for longer as well as keeping them more healthy overall and thus remaining more competent in a fight while hopefully giving less work to their medical pawns.

Do not underestimate the added armor your colonist gets with this implant: Against human raids, you will usually face ranged weaponry whose AP will be lower than 30%; unless you are under fire from a sniper rifle, charge rifle or charge lance you will have a least a 40% chance to reduce the damage taken in half (Check Apparel#Protection for more details), which is quite high compared to most non-armor apparel.

Still, it's worth noting that armor is applied separately for each layer of apparel, starting from the Outer layer; the stoneskin gland is great for giving another layer of defense as a "safety net", but if you wish to outright negate any incoming damage from ranged attacks, consider equipping any form of power armor instead, especially cataphract armor. It also gives decent protection against melee weapons using sharp damage, but its Blunt armor will likely be largely or completely nullified by most blunt weapons, so it's recommended to be careful against enemies carrying them.

It is not recommended for ranged colonist to have it unless you nullify the move speed penalty, since it will become harder for them to position, reposition or escape from any danger, and will likely complicate hit-and-run tactics or outright make them impossible, such as kiting; not to mention that you are better off using cover to prevent any damage whatsoever and drawning away aggro from them if possible, likely by the meleeist who will have the stoneskin gland instead, making them less neccesary for ranged colonists. If defense is still a concern, consider using either recon armor or marine armor, or a combination of devilstrand duster and flak vest, as they will give more armor and less movement speed penalty.

It's worth noting that ghouls cannot wear any form of apparel at all, but can be implanted with a gland; this makes the stoneskin gland and it's other variants the only way to give ghouls any form of armor as of now. The stoneskin gland, as the one giving the most protection, comes in handy to complement a ghoul already capable of absorbing huge amounts of damage provided it's equipped with any damage reduction upgrades such as ghoul plating, the Robust gene, the tough trait or even the metalblood heart or a metalblood serum, as the damage reduction still allows chip damage to eventually down or kill the ghoul but can be mitigated thanks to the gland's armor preventing some of said damage.

Beauty effects[edit]

A stoneskin gland severely reduces the beauty of a pawn, which causes a −40 opinion debuff from other pawns. However how problematic this is depends on a number of factors. Firstly, pawn beauty is purely additive, so traits such as Beautiful, implants such as aesthetic shapers, genes such as attractive can mitigate the effect of the gland in part or totally. Additionally, beauty's effects only stack to a maximum of +2 so a combination of them allows even stoneskin-implantees to have the maximum possible effective beauty.

Secondly, pawns that are ascetic, kind, or blind ignore beauty effects. As such, if the whole colony meets these criteria, such as by restrictive recruiting, gene editing everyone with kind instinct or running a blindsight colony, the beauty penalty may be irrelevant.

Lastly, the opinon malus may be a benefit. While ugly pawns may have more social fights and are less likely to mood boosting social relationships, they will be disliked by most other pawns. For disposable pawns this means that their deaths may be a net positive mood, as other pawns get the "Rival Died" thought.^{[Thought template]}

Gland comparisons[edit]

Comparison table of the different types of skin gland:

Type	Armor			Moving	Beauty
Type	Sharp	Blunt	Heat	Moving	Beauty
Toughskin gland	35%	10%	30%	×95	-
Armorskin gland	52%	20%	40%	×90	−1
Stoneskin gland	70%	30%	50%	×85	−2
Vacskin gland	0%	0%	0%	×90	-

Sharp

Blunt

Heat

Version history[edit]

Royalty DLC Release - Added.
1.1.2563 - Toughskin, armorskin, and stoneskin glands no longer stack
1.1.2598 - Adjusted from 50/40/70% to 70/30/50%

Artificial body parts

Arm/Hand: Archotech arm • Bionic arm • Power claw • Prosthetic arm • Wooden hand • Drill arm • Elbow blade • Field hand • Hand talon • Venom talon • Flesh tentacle • Flesh whip
Head: Archotech eye • Bionic eye • Bionic ear • Bionic jaw • Bionic tongue • Cochlear implant • Denture • Aesthetic nose
Head implants: Joywire • Painstopper • Circadian assistant • Circadian half-cycler • Gastro-analyzer • Learning assistant • Mindscrew • Neurocalculator • Psychic harmonizer • Psychic reader • Psychic sensitizer • Venom fangs • Control sublink (Standard, High) • Mechlink • Mech gestation processor • Remote repairer • Remote shielder • Repair probe • Pilot assistant
Spine: Bionic spine • Revenant vertebrae
Stomach: Bionic stomach • Nuclear stomach • Reprocessor stomach • Sterilizing stomach • Fleshmass stomach
Heart: Bionic heart • Prosthetic heart • Heart • Adrenal heart • Corrosive heart • Metalblood heart
Lung: Lung • Detoxifier lung • Fleshmass lung
Kidney: Kidney • Detoxifier kidney • Blood warmer
Organs: Liver
Visceral implants: Death acidifier • Aesthetic shaper • Coagulator • Healing enhancer • Armorskin gland • Stoneskin gland • Toughskin gland • Immunoenhancer • Love enhancer • Ghoul plating • Ghoul barbs • Vacskin gland
Leg/Foot: Archotech leg • Bionic leg • Prosthetic leg • Peg leg • Wooden foot • Knee spike
Related: Psylink neuroformer • Xenogerm
Deprecated: Scyther blade • Psychic silencer