Twisted obelisk

The twisted obelisk is one of three obelisks that can appear in the Anomaly DLC. It is able to give your pawns fleshmass mutations.

Occurrence[edit]

An obelisk can ^{[Spawn Chance]} spawn in the map as a major threat event sometime after day 50 when the void monolith level is 1 or greater. An obelisk has a chance to spawn 120 days after the last of any type.

Summary[edit]

Obelisk mechanics[edit]

Like the other obelisks, the twisted obelisk has an activity level, which can be supressed as wardening work. Reaching 100% activation will cause a special, dangerous event and cause the obelisk to be destroyed afterwards. At full HP, an obelisk gains +20% activity per day, but damaging it will raise activity, and once it falls below 80% HP, the daily rate will rapidly increase.

Obelisks can be studied for advanced anomaly research, with the rate of study increasing with activity level.

Mutation[edit]

Gizmo for mutating (once the obelisk has been studied for 10 points of research)

When supressing or studying the twisted obelisk, there is a chance of a mutation happening, occuring on average every 24 hours of interaction.

There are 6 possible occurrences with equal chance and one is selected randomly when the obelisk is triggered. The first four options will mutate the pawn that supressed or studied the obelisk:

Flesh whip (arm): Provides a 20.5 damage, 60% AP, DPS Cut attack and -1 Beauty, 30 HP
Flesh tentacle (arm): 120% Part Efficiency, -1 Beauty, 30 HP
Fleshmass lung (lung): +6% Pain, +30% Toxic Environment Resistance, and immunity to Lung rot and Asthma. Only mutates 1 lung at a time.
Fleshmass stomach (stomach): +8% Pain, 0% Food Poisoning chance Factor, immunity to gut worms.
Turn a random tree within a radius of 100 tiles from the obelisk into a harbinger tree
Turn a random animal on the map into a fleshbeast

Alternatively, after gaining 10 anomaly research from the obelisk, mutation can be manually triggered via the "Mutate" gizmo, which allows the player to choose a controllable human (including guests and ghouls) pawn to target and mutate. This will cause one of first four options, although the mutation remains randomly chosen. This has a 5 day cooldown.

"You've learned more about the obelisk. It is an archotech machine that transforms flesh creatures into different forms. The device is damaged, so the new forms would be chaotic and unstable - a person or animal so transformed would become something totally unrecognizable. The obelisk's energy level rises unless suppressed. If it fully activates, it could transform an endless number of creatures, creating a nightmarish horde of flesh mutants. {PAWN_nameDef} thinks that it may be possible to safely shut down the obelisk but this will need significantly more study. You can now intentionally provoke a response from the twisted obelisk."

The flessmass parts can replace missing limbs and organs. The new flesh part cannot replace an artificial part, but can replace a part with an artificial part attached, such as a natural arm with a wooden hand. If an artificial or already mutated body part is chosen as the target, the obelisk trigger will fail. The obelisk will still go on cooldown if the mutation attempt fails.

Full activation[edit]

If the activity level of the twisted obelisk reaches 100%, it will explode, dropping a shard and causing some wildlife in the area to turn into hostile fleshbeasts. The amount depends on raid points. If there are insufficient animals, fleshbeasts will emerge from the ground.

The explosion covers 4.9 tiles out from the obelisk with the damage type of vaporize. ^[Detail] Tamed and allied animals remain unaffected.

Destruction[edit]

After obtaining 30 anomaly research from the twisted obelisk, it can be safely deactivated at the cost of 2 shards. A deactivated obelisk will not need to be suppressed, but can no longer mutate pawns.

"{PAWN_nameDef} has completed {PAWN_possessive} investigation of the twisted obelisk. {PAWN_pronoun} has discovered a method for safely deactivating the obelisk using shards of archotechnology. You can no longer study the obelisk after deactivating it."

Analysis[edit]

In terms of effectiveness, fleshmass limbs and organs are typically inferior to bionic or detoxifer parts that can be crafted, the exception being the flesh whip, which has a slightly better DPS than the elbow blade. However, they are effectively free upgrades, requiring only waiting for the cooldown and some patience with the RNG. For colonists with the masochist trait or a colony with the Pain: Idealized precept, the pain that comes from the fleshmass lungs and stomach might even make them preferable to detoxifier lungs and bionic stomachs, respectively. Ghouls can also use the twisted obelisk for a chance at free upgrades such as a Flesh Whip, while also not caring about the downsides of pain and ugliness.

In terms of wealth management, mutated body parts don't contribute to the colony wealth and will attract less severe incidents than their artificial counterparts.

You can damage the obelisk and continuously suppress it to trigger a mutation by interaction. This doesn't affect the mutate ability cooldown and results in a body part mutation on average once per 90,000 ticks (25 mins) of interaction. For comparison, a pawn with 100% general labor speed and 2 tool cabinets takes 76,785 ticks (21.33 mins) of work to make a bionic arm from raw resources.

Like all obelisks, the pawn studying and suppressing the Twisted obelisk should be the pawn intended to receive its effect, not necessarily the main researcher. This is to take advantage of the random interaction effect when suppressing or studying.

Counterintuitively, nether the intellectual skill, the entity study rate, nor the research speed significantly affect on the speed of dark study of the obelisk due to the 2-day cooldown. The only things that affect this speed is the study efficiency, how quickly you study after the cooldown expires, and the obelisk's activity level. This means the best possible, but very risky, study speed for the obelisk is to study it at 99% activity level, suppress it down to 59%, and come back exactly 2 days later to study it again at 99%. This method gives 2 advanced/day research points, before the effect of the studying pawn's study efficiency and the AI storyteller's Study efficiency setting which varies by difficulty.

Once 2 points of research have been earned from an obelisk a event notification will be triggered with following the flavor text:

"Investigation of the obelisk has revealed some information. It is an archotechnological device that seems to interact with organic creatures at a distance. It is probably a piece of a much larger archotech structure that was destroyed or broken apart long ago. The machinery at its core is inhumanly complex and frighteningly powerful. Its purpose and method of action remain totally mysterious.
If not suppressed, its activity level will increase over time. You can't tell what will happen when the device fully activates."

Brute-force destruction

While obelisks generally have a positive effect on your colony, it is possible to destroy them by dealing enough damage before they take effect. You can do this with pawns wielding frag grenades. You'll need 4 pawns to destroy an obelisk without triggering adverse effects.

Suppress the obelisk down to 0%.
Melee attack the obelisk until its activity level increase (not the activity level itself) rises above +20%/day. The obelisk's health should be at 80% or lower by this point. ^[80%?]
Suppress the obelisk to 0% again.
Melee attack the obelisk, this time until it almost reaches 100% activity.
Move all pawns to a safe distance and start throwing grenades at the obelisk at the same time. After 1 or 2 throws, the obelisk should have been destroyed.

Alternatively, you can use high-explosive shells, 2 ancient mining charges or a diabolus' cannon to destroy the obelisk without having to use multiple pawns and suppression.