Wallraise
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Wallraise
Wallraise is a level 4 psycast that creates a set of temporary walls in its area of effect.
Acquisition[edit]
There are two ways to acquire the wallraise psycast:
- Upon reaching psylink level 4, a random psycast of level 4 is granted regardless of how this level up is achieved. This won't apply if the psycaster already knew one or more level 4 psycast.
- Wallraise can also be acquired from a psytrainer naming it. See the psytrainer page for further details.
Summary[edit]
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Upon casting, Wallraise creates a set of "raised rocks" walls, in a 3-tile wide cross, centered on a target tile. Valid targets for Wallraise are any standable tiles within 25 tiles of the caster, respecting line of sight. Note that the 4 tiles cardinally adjacent (tiles which would spawn walls) to the target location must also be standable in order to cast Wallraise. Any haulable items or pawns present on affected tiles will be displaced to adjacent empty tiles when the walls spawn, and standable buildings such as crafting spots or IEDs will be destroyed, along with any fires. The created walls have 100 HP and persist for 10,000 ticks (2.78 mins), or 4 in-game hours, before disappearing. Similar to other rock walls, they can be mined (though do not create chunks), provide 75% cover effectiveness, are non-flammable, and create rock rubble filth when damaged, destroyed, or upon expiration.
Analysis[edit]
Wallraise is very similar to Skip in that the power of this psycast is largely limited by one's imagination. While it performs rather poorly for its surface applications, Wallraise has a host of other uses in which it performs spectacularly. Although it cannot directly compete with Skip in terms of raw battlefield control (or many other psycasts for pure utility), it nevertheless enables several unorthodox strategies to corral enemy pawns and defend one's own, as well as a few smaller uses asides.
Cover[edit]
The most obvious use for Wallraise from the lay perspective is to create temporary cover for ranged pawns to fire from. However, Wallraise tends to be ill-suited for this task, as not only does the cross-shape of the created walls allow only two pawns to fire from cover in any given direction, but the created walls have only 100 HP, giving them very little staying power while under fire - for comparison, even a wooden wall has nearly twice the HP at 195. In comparison, Chunk skip provides 5 points of cover for your pawns, with triple the HP, though only 50% cover as opposed to 75%.
However, where Wallraise shines is when used not to provide cover for pawns, but to deny enemy fire entirely. As the created walls block line of sight, they can be used to prevent enemies from attempting to fire altogether on pawns behind them. Some common applications for this are to provide a safe zone for rescuing or tending downed pawns, to shield critically injured pawns from further harm, or to limit enemy fire to a single direction. Additionally, Wallraise can be placed directly between an enemy and their intended target during the aiming process to interrupt their attack, forcing them to relocate and acquire a new target. This is particularly relevant against enemies with devastating attacks and/or long firing times, such as centipedes and enemies wielding a triple or doomsday rocket launcher. However, as the resultant walls will similarly prevent your own pawns from returning fire and dealing with the impending threat, this tactic is only a stopgap measure to allow your pawns time to thin out the surrounding enemies before dispatching the main threat, or to simply draw them closer to your defensive line.
Pathing[edit]
Since the walls it creates are both impassable and block line of sight, Wallraise can be used to great effect to manipulate the pathing of enemies. As raiders will typically not target walls unless no other path to your colonists exists, Wallraise can create or deny points of access for enemies, allowing one to control where and how enemies meet your defenses. One common use for this is to block line of sight against ranged attackers, forcing them to walk around the side of the wall to engage your pawns, neutering the advantage their range provides and leaving them highly vulnerable to melee engagement. Conversely, two casts of Wallraise a single tile apart creates a perfect chokepoint for melee blocking tactics, assuming one can cover the open area behind it with existing walls or further use of Wallraise.
Not only is Wallraise useful for said proactive defensive measures, but it also proves effective as a reactive measure. It can be used to near-instantly seal points of access for raiders, whether this be a chokepoint, a door, a destroyed wall from an unfortunate frag grenade, or the entry point of breachers. In the case of the latter, however, given their single-minded goal of destroying any obstacles in their path, it is unlikely to dissuade them for longer than a few moments, and will likely only be used to buy time for pawns to prepare to defend the inevitable breach. Additionally, Wallraise can also be used to seal up any breaches made in pens preventing the animals within from wandering away during a pitched battle.
However, Wallraise's use in these cases is largely supplanted by competent base design, as well-constructed defenses should not provide attackers more than a single point of access, in order to allow one to consolidate defenses at a single point. Additionally, Wallraise can be cumbersome to use effectively without at least some infrastructure surrounding it, as the fairly high neural heat gain, somewhat low duration, and preset deployment pattern can make it difficult to construct complex defensive structures through it's own power. As such, for the above purposes, Wallraise is only of particular use when dealing with an unexpected problem, such as a drop pod raid, or a melee blocking chokepoint being overwhelmed and requiring retreat. In this instance Wallraise is particularly effective, as it can be cast even if pawns occupy the target tiles, whereas doors can be held open by pursing enemies chasing your fleeing defenders. While defenses can be constructed specifically with the purposes of leveraging Wallraise, the effectiveness is not appreciably higher than those designed without, and it better serves as an impromptu supplement to existing defenses, rather than a cornerstone of them.
Miscellaneous[edit]
Besides direct defensive employment, Wallraise has a few smaller but still significant uses worth mentioning.
In particular Wallraise sees use when dealing with Mech clusters, as it can not only be used to wall off any deployed turrets, preventing them from firing on one's pawns, but it can also be used to mitigate their explosive tendencies, as walls prevent explosions from damaging anything behind them. As such, if pawns are within range of an exploding turret and unable to escape in time, Wallraise can be used to form a defensive wall between them and the turret, preventing any harm from befalling them. In a similar vein, Wallraise can be used on unstable power cells, not only to neuter the aforementioned explosive force, but also to prevent them from being damaged in the first place - surrounding them with Wallraise will not only prevent them from being damage by any missed shots, but also from any turrets exploding nearby, should they spawn in proximity to one another.
In a similar vein, Wallraise can be used not only to protect from the impending detonation of a lobbed grenade, but can also intercept them in flight with good positioning and timing, preventing them from reaching one's pawns entirely. This also applies to explosives that detonate on impact, such as the aforementioned triple and doomsday rocket launchers. With supernaturally good timing, it is even possible to place the wall directly in front of the enemy, causing the projectile to collide with the wall directly in front of them, exploding immediately, or shortly thereafter. However, if cast too early, the enemy will simply walk around the wall and resume their firing attempt. As such, the miniscule window of time in which one can perform this feat, combined with the inherent casting time of the psycast, make this tactic highly difficult to pull off. One will almost certainly see more success intercepting projectiles closer to the intended site of impact - though depending on the projectile, this can still catch enemy pawns in the blast radius.
Outside of direct combat, Wallraise sees some use as a method to temporarily immobilize or restrain pawns, typically those suffering from mental breaks. It can be used to deny a tantruming pawn from accessing and destroying their intended (and likely valuable) target, prevent a pawn on a hard drug binge from reaching the drug stockpile, or keep a pawn in a murderous rage away from the object of their animosity. If surrounding walls do not exist with which to use Wallraise in tandem with, a pawn can be encased with two casts of Wallraise diagonally opposite each other around the pawn. However, if the pawn is moving at full speed, this can be difficult to perform before they escape without some form of Aiming Time reduction, such as trigger-happy. Additionally, one could simply Skip the target into a corner, and then immediately enclose them with a single Wallraise. This tactic becomes even more relevant in combat, where an ill-timed mental break can lead to the pawn breaking cover and suffering copious harm - encasing them with Wallraise not only allows one to hold them in place until the danger passes, but prevents raiders from targeting them entirely, protecting them from themselves.
Lastly, as Wallraise destroys fires on affected tiles, it can be used as a poor man's Waterskip, acting as a vaguely effective fire control method. However, given its smaller area of effect, higher neural heat gain and psyfocus cost, and inability to target occupied tiles, Wallraise is purely inferior to Waterskip for this purpose, and will likely see very little use in this regard.
Version history[edit]
- Royalty DLC Release - Added.
- 1.1.2571 - Range reduced from 25 to 20, cost increased from 25 to 35.
- 1.2.2719 - Added visual effect for wallraise rocks expiring.