Clairvoyance

No-one can hide from my sight.

Clairvoyance allows you to scout out most areas of the game invisibly and almost invincibly. It is often taken for its unique scouting abilities and impressive +3 focus.

Clairvoyance is a movement mutation. Its upgrade is Medium, and taking Clairvoyance will bar characters from taking Phaser, Leapfrog and their associated upgrades.

Location

Clairvoyance is located in the Cave of All Souls, at the far north of Luskentyre Plateau. The steps for reaching it are as follows:

1. Acquire a weapon that can damage ghosts or 3-4 EMP grenades, 17 climb and a climbing rope, and optionally, 200 Church of Luskentyre rep.
2. Go to the northernmost point in Luskentyre Plateau.
3. Zebediah will block your path if you have less than 200 Church of Luskentyre rep. If he blocks you, kill him or grab him and shove him out of the way.
4. Climb down the climb. It's difficult, so use a climbing rope.
5. Follow the path to Zhobelia, a ghost that blocks your path. Kill her with an elemental weapon or using EMP grenades.

Beyond Zhobelia is the clairvoyance mutation tile.

Effects

This mutation grants:

   Passive: +3 Focus
   Passive: Can see psi shimmers.
   project command: Scout around the map in an invisible ghost form
   scan command: Detect projections and ghost on current tile
   pulse command: Give nearby projected players psiblock
   whisper command: Covertly whisper messages to people while projecting

Advantages

• Low focus cost. Technically, clairvoyance requires zero focus to use, and low-focus clairvoyants can still look at objects in their projected tile. For practical use, clairvoyance wants about 20 focus, with 25+ being optimal.
• +3 focus. This is the fourth biggest single focus boost in the game (behind Freak, Vampire and Empath), and the #1 biggest boost that doesn't come from a racial mutation.
• Unmatched scouting. Clairvoyance's ability to scout is totally unique, and no other method or mutation in the game can even come close to its flexibility and power where scouting is concerned. This is extremely strong in PvP, and has good utility in PvE as well.
• Can see psi shimmers. Built-up psi shimmers on your tile are a dead giveaway that someone is scouting you as a projection. They also can give away minor information on places that people have been phasing and blinking to/from. Non-clairvoyants have to use the PsycoSight implant to do this.

Disadvantages

• Soft-countered by tinfoil. Any room that has had tinfoil installed in it will bar projecting clairvoyants from entry.
• Can leave clairvoyant exposed. Projecting knocks out the mutant that uses it for as long as it is in use, which can be dangerous.
• Requires teamwork to excel. Clairvoyance is good on its own, but only becomes truly stellar when working in a team, with one person scouting and another acting on that information. This makes it a poor choice for "lone wolf" players. Projecting alone is clunky and sometimes dangerous, though it is still very strong.
• Requires good map knowledge to excel. Projecting is fast, but taking advantage of that speed requires good knowledge of the game world's layout to navigate quickly. Map knowledge is also critical for knowing where to check spawn tiles for relevant mobs.
• Requires good game knowledge to excel. Scouting information is useless unless the scout knows how to use the information, particularly in PvP. Good game knowledge helps clair-scouts guess their opponents moves based on the information they see, or at least know which information is relevant and useful to pass on to friends.

Abilities

Phaser adds four new abilities: project, return, scan, pulse and whisper. Return and whisper can only be used while projecting.

Project and Return

Clairvoyance and special vision
If mutants have any special vision conditions (as found in Chud, Vampire and Xray Vision, and anyone using a rhodopsin Implant), those vision conditions will carry over to their projection form. Rhodopsin or Vampire will allow projections to see no matter the lighting, and Xray Vision mutants will still be able to see the @nudes of players while projecting, though they will not be able to use the xray ability.

Using project will instantly knock the mutant out and move them into an astral form. This leaves the mutant's body completely exposed, but while projecting, the astral form can move all over the game world. As a projection, it is possible to look at things on one's tile, but it is not possible to look at items in containers, appraise or examine items or mobs, peek into containers that are closed, or do any other action besides looking. Looking at a player who has @nudes set and showing (or set and visible via Xray Vision) has a chance of granting fetish IP to that player, which will alert aware players that they are being scouted. Projections are also blocked by installed tinfoil on any tile, as well as some special tiles.

Projection movement speed is always instananeous, whether moving one tile west or up a 500m climb. Projections can also go up on any outdoors tile to ascend into the sky, which will bring them to the SkyMap in the same manner as a plane. Descending with down will land them on a random tile in the zone beneath them. It is possible to accidentally project into a zone that has no exits (this happens a lot in the Skullcano!). If this happens, the only solution is to return and then project again.

Projecting involves constant focus rolls. If a projection's focus is too low on entering a tile, interference will prevent them from seeing anything except tile exits, though it is still possible for a projection to look at an item or mob they know or suspect to be on the tile. It's also possible to simply look again until you pass the roll. Every time something is said or any action is taken on a tile (including someone entering or leaving the tile), another focus roll is made. If the roll is passed, the projection will see this happening; if not, they will only see a vague message. The cut-off for perfect accuracy seems to be about 23 focus.

All focus rolls are made more difficult by increased psi interference in the area. The more psi shimmers are on the tile, the more focus the projection requires to accurately see everything on that tile. A psyflare can disrupt the visibility of projections, though high-focus projections will not be obstructed by this. Projections passively generate psi shimmers on their tile (even if just passing through), which can be seen by other clairvoyants and those with PsycoSight implants. Finally, psi shimmers will damage projections. If a projection reaches zero health, they will be booted back into their body and prevented from projecting for a time by psiblock.

A projection may use return at any time to return to their physical body. Using an adrenaline hypo on a passed-out clairvoyant will also instantly revive them, though it does not prevent them from immediately projecting again. Both project and return have zero stress cost and no cooldown, though projecting can have a practical cooldown if the clairvoyance mutant has psiblock.

Teching with Project

Project is also unique in that it is the only way for mutants to knock themselves out with no penalty, no cost and no special preparation. This opens the door to some interesting techs:

Communicating with Clairvoyance
Since projections are an out-of-body experience, projecting mutants don't take their wristpad with them. This means that they will not be alerted if someone pages them and cannot page anyone while projected, though they can still check if they've been paged using the history command. Mail and all nets (chatnet, tradenet, etc.) all work normally.

• Mobs will never aggro passed-out players. This can be used to dodge the aggro of literally any mob, from unruly dinosaurs to Tyrone Belmont. Passing out will not stop mobs from continuing to attack you if you pass out when they are already attacking you, however.
• Friends with high Brawn can drag the passed-out bodies of clairvoyants while they are projecting without penalty, which allows them some mobility while projecting in scenarios where keeping someone scouted is vital.
• If a clairvoyant is hovering in a plane and wishes to land, but is at zero control and will crash if they attempt to do so, they can project for a short time to ensure their safety. Planes automatically land perfectly when there is no active player at the helm, and passed-out players do not count as active players.
• Unconscious mutants cannot perform any autonomous actions that would otherwise harm themselves or friends. Projecting in emergencies can prevent high-Stress players from accidentally killing friends or themselves, players with fear from moving erratically, and other problems. They can then be dragged to safety or receive any medical treatment except for psychoanalysis while asleep.
• Passing out will instantly cancel a vampire's attempt to feed, which you can use to grief your fagpire friends who are trying to get a snack.

Whisper

Projecting mutants can whisper to any mob on their tile, which will convey a private, invisible message to that player. Whispering does not appear to require any focus, but if a player responds by speech, the projection will be subject to normal focus requirements to hear that response. By default, whisper handles prepositions and punctuation very awkwardly; always nest whispered messages in quotation marks to prevent this:

   whisper "Hey, listen!" to Link

This ability is largely useless except for messing around or spooking people; communicating via corpnet, partychat or Discord is much more pragmatic and convenient. Whisper has no stress cost and no cooldown.

Scan and Pulse

The scan and pulse abilities are supposed to offer psychic counterplay against other clairvoyants.

Using scan will check the current tile for existing astral projections (or ghosts), and return the number of psychic presences on the tile. It will not give away any information about whether the presence is a ghost or a projecting mutant, nor the identity of any projections.

Using pulse will attempt to disrupt any projections on the tile by dosing them with psiblock; with enough psiblock, it's theoretically possible to force someone out of projecting. Pulse is focus vs. focus; if the pulse user's focus beats the focus of any other projection on their tile, they will get hit with psiblock. The more the pulse user wins by, the heavier the psiblock dose will be.

Both of these abilities are largely useless; they have extremely obvious wind-up messages which are visible to projections, as well as fairly long casting times which do not scale with focus. This affords more than enough time for a projecting mutant to simply leave the scan/pulse user's tile and then wait for the scan/pulse to finish before going back to the tile as before. Both scan and pulse have zero stress cost and no cooldown.

Mutations
Racial Mutations	Abomination • Chromemouth • Chud • Empath • Genetic Purity • Hideous Freak • Vampire • Zombie
Focus Mutations	Carrie • Chiller • Fuck Machine • Salamander • Screech • Writhing Smoke
Movement Mutations	Leapfrog • Phaser • Clairvoyance
	Flight • Blink • Medium
Soak Mutations	High Density • Firewalker • Rubberskin • Snakeskin • Yeti Skin
	Lithodermis • Solar Sponge • Silicone Skin • Eelskin • Yeti Fur
Miscellaneous Mutations	Billygoat • Bleeder • Bloodhound • Brainslug • Brute Strength • Camelfat • Enigma • Fibrocartilage • Hooligan • Hyperimmune • Iron Liver • Junkrat • Mule • Nimble Fingers • Plant Whisperer • Ripper • Stench • Twitchy Nerves • Superclot • Xray Vision
Joke Mutations	Cat Ears • Caucasian • Third Nipple
Defunct Mutations	Jammer