First of all, let me start with a Word of congratulations for the author of this mod. I love the addition of Sangophagues in biotech, but I found their mechanics to be slightly lacking. I was looking for a mod to make them more interesting and I found this mod, and every day I play it i marvel at its complexity.

You might say, but I like vanilla races expanded and I want to play with that mod! Well, not only you can, but it has also integrated compatibility which makes the Dracul even more interesting.

However, since it has a lot of mechanics many of them are not covered in detail in the mod description so I'm going to try to give you a small summary on how the main race of vampires (Dracul) work in this mod.

The Dracul don't have implant xenogenes unlike the sangophage from base biotech. Instead, they have an infectious bite, which can lead to te target dying and then coming back to life as a Dracul slave.

There are 2 ways of spreading the infection, by the normal bloodfeeding bite and with the infect active ability.

The way that it Works is that with the normal blood feeding bite you get hemogen from the victim and start the vampirism infection at a low rate (starting from 1% like a normal infection). If you use the infect active ability it will CONSUME hemogen but set the infection at a much higher progression, like 40-50%.

Why is this important?

The vampirism infection progresses very slowly. In the first stages the affected pawn will get a mild malus to pain and consciousness, but if the infection gets properly treated you will develop immunity before it reaches a critical point of no return.

That point is around 40-50% of infection progression, anD you will see the hediff saying vampirism infected or turning. If the pawn dies at that point by other causes, it will later rise as a Dracul.

If the infection progresses to 100% the pawn will die and rise as a Dracul.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT IT CAN TAKE UP TO 3 DAYS FOR THE PAWN TO RISE! This is random, sometimes they will rise after a few hours sometimes after 3 days. Good thing is, they rise even if they have already started rotting or you have put them in a grave or sarcophagus. The only way to stop this is either to extract the skull or dispose of the body (ie butchering, burning)

If the infection progresses past that critical point (infected) but gets immunity, the pawn will instead live on but turn into a half-vampire (more on that later).

So, with that in mind you have to think about what your goal is:

1) I just want to bloodfeed, I don't want new Dracul just now. Feed on hemogen packs that you extract from pawns by operation, it is the safest way to avoid pawns being infected. If you can't do that just make sure the pawn that has gotten bitten as good medical attention, he will get immunity before the infection progresses but will suffer a minor consciousness –pain malus until healed.

2) I want new Dracul: Here we have different options

A) Use the infect ability and then kill the pawn or let the infection progress until it kills the pawn. As said, when using the infect ability the affected pawn will get a 40-50% infection, enough to turn him into a Dracul if he dies. So just let it progress or kill the pawn. Very effective to use on pawns downed in a raid. Instead of capturing them, healing them and then enslaving them you can just use infect, once they die of their wounds they will rise.

B) Bite the pawn several times. As we have mentioned the infection progresses so slowly that most of the times a pawn will develop inmunity to the infection before it kills him if he has just gotten bitten, even without medical care. One way to do it would be to bite the pawn several times (without killing im just yet, mind you). Each bite progresses the infection for about 10-15%, that way you will give the infection a head start against immunity. And remember NO MEDICAL CARE

3) I want half-vampires: Just bite the pawn, let the infection progress past 50% and tend to the pawn so that he gets immunity. He will convert into a half vampire, just like that, he won't die first.

4) I want for my main vampire to sangofeed on another vampires (Vanilla Races Expanded compatibility). This mod is great for this, you can have your main vampire sangofeed on a half vampire or a feral Dracul.

So, you managed to get your first Dracul and … he cannot do ANYTHING! Yes, that is a feral Dracul for you, its very simple mind forbids any but the dumbest tasks (hauling, cleaning).

There are 5 stages of Dracul: Feral-Spawn-Neonate-Dracul (Normal)-Master. We will post a detailed description of the traits later, but the summary is: When a pawn first turns to Dracul he will be a feral or neonate (it is random, it seems getting bitten by a Dracul master increases the chances of converting initially to a later stage). He will be almost like a zombie, can't learn, can't do complex work. On the plus side they have mood buffs and they don't eat.

As time progresses, they will change their stage to “older” versions of Dracul (you can check the time until progression in the hediffs). As they become older, they will become able to learn and do more activities, but they will get progressive mood debuffs. On an important note, from Dracul stage they will be able to regenerate limbs (all Dracul are able to heal scars but only from Dracul they regenerate limbs)

The progression to each stage takes more time. For example, feral to spawn is just like 8-10 days while Dracul to master is 1 year.

Also, they will get more death rest capacity as they mature saving the need to buy death rest capacity serums.

Ok, so now we have one over the mechanics, what are general tips for playing?

First of all, I would recommend creating your own xenotype from the Dracul master template. If you don't remove the bloodfeeder dracul gene the vampires created will be Dracul, so your initial vampire will be unique, never to spread its genes. So, you can go wild and make a pretty OP vampire and still not feel that you are cheating since it will be just 1. I like to start with te sangophague scenario where it's just 1 human and my super vampire.

I HIGHLY RECCOMEND USING Vanilla races Expanded: Sangophague since the compatibility gives the Dracul great extra traits.

My main initial tip is not turning into a vampire any pawn that you want to use for skilled work unless you think you can handle the long maturing process.

One first option once you get slaves is turning one of those slaves into a half-vampire. That way your main vampire will be able to sango-feed on the half vampire giving him a 20% boost to all stats. In turn your half vampire can feed from other pawns without risk of infecting them with vampirism. Half vampires also do not need death rest so its a win-win if you can handle the mild UV sensitivity. Bear in mind the half-vampire will get a -15 mood debuff from being fed on by another vampire though.

Who should you start turning into Dracul then? Initially NOT any pawn you want for skilled work since you will have to wait for a LONG time until they mature long enough for them to be useful at it.

But for example, say you got raided by a dirtmole with skills on melee and mining. This would be an ideal candidate since as soon as he reaches the spawn stage (2nd stage) he will be able to mine and be a great melee fighter. And since he will spend most of his time in a cave UV sensitivity won't be much of a problem.

If you are having problems with hauling or cleaning inside your base feel free to turn a few raiders into Dracul. You will get slaves that don't eat! what's not to love about it. Also remember feral Dracul's can also feed on human corpses for hemogen. They will get a -20% debuff to all stats but since they are just doing dumb labour that won't be much of a problem.

I had several times when I couldn't make my mind up about whether turning or not a low level raider so I ended up converting most of them to find me with an army of idle feral Draculs. If that comes to pass feel free to put a few of them to deathrest, you only need a bed. That way they won't consume any resources other than a bed, but they will keep maturing. For example I had a Dracul neonate that was good at plants, had no use for him in Winter so I just left him there in death rest for all winter. Their suppression still decays though so make sure you supress them as soon as they wake up.

Nosferatu are slightly different. They share many genes with the Dracul but unlike Dracul they have no “stages”, instead they use the xenogenes implant, much like vanilla sangofeeders.

The great thing about nosferatu comes with VRE compatibility, since that will allow them to sangofeed on animals. It cannot be stated how good it is to have a sangofeeder that doesn't need other pawns for their blood needs. When using animal blood they will get a bonus to movement and other stats but a huge malus to talking (max 20%). Also, Nosferatu are very ugly, so yeah don't expect the colony to love them. They also get x50% malus to learning. Think of them as the more “bestial” version of vampires.