One of the features of Aliens: Dark Descent is the stress system affecting your team members. This is one of the mechanics that you should pay attention to, as stress can seriously hinder your progress in the game. Below are tips that will explain the causes and methods of dealing with stress.
As you progress through the story, after some time you will discover that negative effects are affecting one of your team members. The reason for these debuffs is the accumulated level of stress experienced by the character.
The stress indicator is located in the lower left part of the hero's interface and is represented by a small heartbeat icon. There are 4 stages of stress: Relaxed (white), Anxious (yellow), Panic (orange), and Fear (red).
There are several reasons for increasing stress in the hero:
- Combat Actions: Any action in combat leads to stress if a soldier takes damage from an enemy.
- Hunting the Heroes: Their stress level can increase if a xenomorph is stalking or hunting a soldier.
- Battle Results: Even if the soldiers win, their actions still cause stress.
When the stress level reaches 100% on a hero, one of the debuffs will be applied:
- Depression: The marine starts each mission with additional stress damage.
- Pyrophobia: Every time the "Burning" skill is used or an oil puddle is ignited, the marine takes stress damage.
- Borderline: The stress reduced by the marine when using "Naproleve" or resting increases, but all stress damage also increases.
- Hypochondria: If there are no medical supplies in the squad, the marine will take stress damage every second.
- Claustrophobia: When the infantryman rests in a shelter, their stress no longer decreases.
- Paranoia: If there are more than 3 active marines in the squad, the marine takes stress damage.
- Hematophobia: The marine takes stress damage every second when one of the squad members is bleeding.
- Anthropophobia: The marine takes stress damage when seeing a human enemy.
- Possession: Increases the reload time.
- Robophobia: The marine takes stress damage every second when seeing a synthetic (ally or enemy).
- Xenomorphophobia: The marine takes stress damage every second when seeing a xenomorph.
Monitor the stress level of your heroes, as it is easier to get rid of stress than to deal with the applied debuffs.
How to Reduce Stress
Players can use one of these options:
Safe Haven
Find a room where there are no xenomorph hives, ventilation shafts, or any other enemies. Seal the doors using tools. Once all conditions are met, settle in this room to rest and restore 100 stress units.
Naproleve
If you have this medication in your inventory, you can consume it to restore 100 stress units for one of the soldiers.
"Dressing Down"
This skill is unlocked at level 6 for a character, after receiving the rank of sergeant. The cost of using it is one command point, and it removes stress from the character who has been reprimanded for 30 seconds.
Medic
If you have a medic in your squad, during healing, they will reduce 30% of the stress level. This is handled by the ability called "Morphine."
How to Remove Debuffs
If you were unable to keep track of your team's stress level and ended up with a negative effect, you will inevitably receive a debuff. To get rid of it, you need to send the hero to the psychiatry department aboard the Otago. Here, soldiers will recover from psychological illnesses. The recovery time depends on the specific debuff. Psychiatry is unlocked after completing the mission "Doc Berkeley."
The ability "Steel Mind" also helps to resist debuffs. If you have this ability, any psychological debuff inflicted on the hero will be removed after 3 days.
