Ancient Pseudoscience Station

"ERROR CAUSALITY COMPROMISED"

- WX-78

The Ancient Pseudoscience Station is a prototyping structure that originates in the Ruins. This structure allows a new category of crafting called "Ancient ". Initially, it's found as a broken version of itself, and it will only have limited recipes until it is repaired using 6 Thulecite. When the Ruins are in the Nightmare Phase of the Nightmare Cycle, the gems on the statue will start to glow red (this can only happen in the complete version of the statue as the broken version is missing the gems).

When struck with a Hammer, it takes a total of 10 strikes to destroy completely, but that is not as easy as it seems. Each strike to the altar, will in return summon lightning strikes to the ground all around the player, potentially setting nearby flammable mobs and objects on fire.

Each hit randomizes a certain "spawn" around the altar - these spawns can include loot (such as Gems, Trinkets, Armor, Weapons, or various Staves and Amulets ), enemy mobs (Splumonkey, Cave Spider, Spitter, Baby Tentacles or Bats), along with the chance for a health buff (positive or negative). It can even spawn a Meat Effigy.

Thulecite can be used to repair an altar that has been hit with a hammer, allowing it to be struck more times before being destroyed. After being hammered 9 times, it takes only 6 Thulecite to fully repair it. Since each strike has a chance to spawn Thulecite, there is a very slim chance that a player can renew their Thulecite stock using the altar.

Being close enough to the station (broken or not), will cause it to light up, and protect the player from any Night Monster attacks.

Broken Pseudoscience Station
The broken Psuedoscience Station is how the Pseudoscience station is originally found, with only seven recipes instead of the usual fourteen. The recipes to chose from are Thulecite, Thulecite Wall, Thulecite Medallion, Magiluminescence, Construction Amulet, Star Caller's Staff and Deconstruction Staff. It can be repaired by using Thulecite.

Item Drops
None of these spawns are guaranteed to drop when the altar is struck, and the chance for any particular drop is currently very random.

Mob Spawns (and misc.)
There is also a likelihood of non-item based spawns occurring when striking the altar - these seem to be just as random as the item spawns, though the enemy mob based spawns appear to have a higher than average chance of appearing as they are the altars defense mechanism.

Trivia
It's also entirely possible to find an Ancient Pseudoscience Station fully intact upon entering the ruins, with no necessity to rebuild a broken one. However, the fully built stations will typically have more Ancient Clockwork enemies guarding it and always two Nightmare Lights right next to it.