Psychic Shield - Steam Workshop Description For 1.6
Fuel a barrier of pure psychic energy with the minds of your colonists.
Psychic Shield is a fully electricity-free defense system. Place colonists into the Synaptic Lathe, harness their brains as fuel, and project shapeable energy barriers between Shield Nodes to intercept every hostile projectile and beam.
Core Buildings
- Synaptic Lathe — Insert a colonist or prisoner to extract psychic energy for the shield network. Needs are frozen while inside — no eating or sleeping required.
- Shield Node — Small pillars deployed around your base. Adjacent nodes can be linked to form energy barriers. (Nodes must be connected to a Throne to activate the shield.)
- Golden Throne (Control Console) — Manages shield activation and settings. Each throne independently controls a group of nodes with its own IFF and blocking configuration.
- Psychic Battery — Stores overflow compute power. Shield damage drains batteries first, protecting your colonists' brains.
- Entity Synaptic Harvester (Anomaly DLC required) — Attaches to a Holding Platform. Extracts psychic energy from contained anomaly entities.
Shield Mechanics
- Bezier Curve Barriers — Shields are smooth, glowing energy arcs, not straight lines. Click "Adjust Arc" to freely shape the curve in real time — create teardrops, angled sails, deep arcs, and more.
- Projectile Interception — All standard projectiles are intercepted on contact with the barrier, producing a blue flash effect. (In principle, anything using the base Projectile class will be intercepted — if you find something that isn't, let me know!)
- Beam Interception — Mechanoid beam and lance weapons are also intercepted by the shield.
- IFF (Friend-or-Foe) — Toggle one-way mode: friendly projectiles pass through freely, only hostile ones are blocked. Disable for an absolute barrier that stops everything.
- Node Protection — While active, physical damage to nodes is redirected to the compute pool. Nodes only take structural damage when the pool is empty.
Power & Damage
- No Electricity Required — Runs entirely on colonist/entity brainpower.
- Damage Priority: Shield hit → batteries drain first → remaining damage split evenly across all active Lathes/Harvesters.
- Brain Overload — When compute power is depleted, continued hits cause progressive Brain Overload (4 severity stages). At 100%, the brain is destroyed and the shield collapses.
War Criminal Mechanic
- Force prisoners into the Synaptic Lathe using a dedicated "Load Prisoner" button. A colonist will carry and load the selected prisoner automatically. Their brainpower fuels your defense at the cost of their wellbeing. (Heheheh.)
Research Tree
- Psychic Shield Basics — Unlocks Synaptic Lathe, Shield Nodes, etc.
- Psychic Battery — Unlocks the battery building
- Efficiency I-V — Progressive damage cost reduction (80% → 60% → 40% → 20% → flat 1 per hit)
Anomaly DLC Integration
- The Entity Synaptic Harvester is only available when the Anomaly DLC is active.
- Fully compatible without the DLC — no errors, all base features work normally.
Mod Settings
- Compute power recovery rate multiplier
- Maximum curve shaping distance (15–999 tiles)
Compatibility: No vanilla Defs are modified. Pure Harmony patching ensures broad mod compatibility.
GitHub: https://github.com/CagierAsh123/-CA--Psychic-Shield
Aifadian: https://ifdian.net/a/cagier
