Ambrosia

Ambrosia is a raw social drug that moderately boosts mood and recreation at relatively low risk of addiction. It can only be traded or harvested from ambrosia bushes that only spawn in ambrosia sprout events, but cannot be grown by the player. Ambrosia does spoil if not refrigerated. Although it also provides nutrition it is not a vegetarian food.
== Acquisition ==
It is harvested from ambrosia bushes. They can be harvested multiple times before dying, each time yielding 4 fruit when fully grown.
A good way to harvest them is to draw a growing zone over them, but forbid sowing. Colonists will then automatically harvest the bushes when they are fully grown.
The ambrosia event must initially spawn in the growing season of the map tile. The event can only occur, and thus the bush can only be found, in the following biomes:
* Tropical rainforest
* Tropical swamp
* Temperate forest
* Temperate swamp
* Boreal forest
* Arid shrubland
== Summary ==
Ambrosia is a moderately potent mood enhancing social drug. Its effects can be broken into effects that occur:
* Instantaneously and one time upon using the drug.
* While high on the drug.
* While having a built-up tolerance to the drug.
* While addicted to the drug.
* While withdrawing from the drug.
=== Upon ingestion ===
A pawn eating an ambrosia will look for a place to sit in a four tile radius first, but will also eat it while standing if it doesn't find one. Eating an ambrosia takes . It has the following one time effects:
* recreation
* Nutrition
* If the pawn has the chemical interest or chemical fascination trait:
** Chemical need
* + to + Ambrosia high severity, depending on tolerance (see "Ambrosia high" below)
* Tolerance severity, divided by body size (see "Tolerance" below)
* If the pawn has tolerance already:
** Addiction chance (see "Addiction" below)
* If the pawn has an addiction already:
** Ambrosia need (see "Addiction" below)
** Addiction progress (see "Addiction" below)
=== Ambrosia high ===
Each ambrosia increases the ambrosia high severity by the following formula:
Increase in severity = * (100 - (tolerance * 75 round 0))
Therefore with 0% tolerance the severity increases by , with 100% tolerance by . It decreases by per day again, meaning that the high of a single dose lasts between and . The maximum severity of an ambrosia high is 100% which is reached with to  ambrosia. Regardless of the ambrosia high severity, the effect is always the same. Only the duration changes accordingly:
* Mood (Ambrosia warmth: "That ambrosia makes me feel more relaxed, and gives me energy at the same time.")
Without any tolerance, a dose of ambrosia will last for .
=== Tolerance ===
Each ambrosia consumed increases the tolerance of the pawn by the following formula:
Increase in tolerance = / body size
Thus smaller or not fully grown pawns gain more tolerance per drug use then bigger or fully grown ones. An adult human has a body size of . Tolerance decreases at a rate of per day.
See sections "Ambrosia high" and "Addiction" for how tolerance affects ambrosia high severity and addiction chance respectively. Otherwise tolerance against ambrosia has no ongoing effects.
=== Addiction ===
Once a pawn has a tolerance of or above, each dose carries a chance of addiction that scales with tolerance. Due to the minimum tolerance to addict, ambrosia can be safely consumed once every without risking addiction, so long as tolerance is not already elevated before starting the schedule.
The chance of addiction is as follows:
Tolerance	Addiction chance	Graph
0% 	0% 	
 	 	
50% 	 	
80% 	 	
The addiction progresses by per day from the initial 50%. Once it reaches 100% the addiction is healed, meaning it takes about to overcome the addiction. Consuming ambrosia during an addiction will reduce the addiction progress by again (see "Upon ingestion" above).
Developing an addiction means a pawn has an ambrosia need. The need for ambrosia falls by per day, consuming ambrosia satisfies the need by (see "Upon ingestion" above), meaning the pawn will need to consume ambrosia at least every to prevent withdrawal symptoms.
=== Withdrawal ===
As soon as the ambrosia need reaches 0% the pawn suffers from the following withdrawal symptom:
* Mood ("I feel heavy and cold all the time. I never thought I'd want a piece of fruit so much.")
== Analysis ==
With an easily avoidable addiction and relatively minor withdrawal symptoms, ambrosia is easily the safest drug to ingest in the game. Each ambrosia sprout might provide 200-300 fruits, enough to last 5 pawns an entire year. A moodlet for 16 hours every 2 days can be meaningful in the early game. Unlike beer and smokeleaf joints, ambrosia gives no work-related penalties. Eating the fruit also gives pawns an extra bit of nutrition. At the same time, ambrosia can be useless to a colony already in great spirits. At the very worst, ambrosia can be stored to help pawns in mood emergencies, or be sold immediately.
Whether an ambrosia sprout is worth harvesting largely depends on how far away it is. It isn't worth it to constantly travel halfway across the map just a for a bit of ambrosia. Nearby ambrosia sprouts can be very valuable, however.
=== Trade ===
Ambrosia is a good supplemental source of money. When considering the raw numbers, ambrosia is superior to any other drug. However, it only appears from the ambrosia sprout event, meaning that quantity is ultimately limited.
Compared to flake, each ambrosia fruit is worth 1 silver more, and each bush has a base yield of 4 fruits when harvested (compared to 2 flake per psychoid plant). And there is no need (or ability) to process ambrosia any further. This makes ambrosia strictly superior to flake for cash. Of course, this is before travel time.
== Gallery ==
Ambrosia a.png|One ambrosia
Ambrosia b.png|Stack of ambrosia
== Version history ==
* 1.3.3066 - Fix: Ambrosia can be selected as food for caravans.
* 1.4.3580 - Fix: Ambrosia ingestion float menu option displays untranslated key "ConsumeThing".
* 1.5.4062 - Drug tolerance gain is now divided by body size and not body size squared - this also had the effect of making the suggested safe dose intervals for children correct. 
Category:Drug Category:Social Drug