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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Psi-Training


imperialus

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I feel like quite a fool :hammer: it's been years since I've played xcom and just got around to developing psi tech. Unfortunatly I can't figure out how to train my troops. Like I said I feel like an idiot. I could have sworn you got to the psi training from the soldier screen, but I can't see any button to click on. :huh:
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Yes, you can't miss it because it throws the psi-training screen on your face at the end of every month. This screen has one button for every base (button has the name of the base) When you push this button, you get to choose which soldiers get to training. One psi-lab let's you train 10 soldiers at a time so personally I prefer to use up to 3 psi-labs/base because I never cheat and I lose a lot of soldiers during the game..
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  • 5 months later...

Added note:

Soldiers in psi-training are still available for combat missions, however, if they die you can not let someone else take his place in training until the start of next month.

 

Made this a sticky, hopefully people will stop asking for this now :)

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  • 1 month later...

Also on training/using Psi...

If you transfer a soldier that is in Psi training, they will no longer be in training, even if there is room in a Psi lab at the new base.

You need to build Psi-Amps to use your Psi training in combat.

You need to complete at least one full month of Psi training to be able to use a Psi-Amp in combat.

You gain Psi Skill in Psi training, and also each time you use a Psi-Amp in combat.

This gain occurs whether or not your Psi attack is successful. My current game (month of Nov/99) one soldier gained fully 7 points of Psi skill over the month's starting skill by making unsucessful Psi attacks during 2 combat missions.

It works out to about 1 point of skill for each 3-4 Psi attacks.

 

I had a small scout mission, and just stayed in the ship (except HWPs). My 4 most skillful Psi soldiers just kept blasting away (unsuccessfully) with Psi-Amps for 5 turns. gained 3-4 points of skill each. Then I sent a rookie out to kill the Sectoid. You can think of it as an extra credit project over and above normal monthly Psi training.

 

Psi combat is one of my favorite aspects of the game. You can turn your enemy into your own scouts, and steer mind controlled aliens towards your rookies to get them some quick kills and advancement in rank. :beer:

Edited by triller
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  • 2 weeks later...

yup thats what I do I send a hwp out first to get alock on an alien, mind zap him, then use that alien to find another and so one...

 

LOL I love it where I have set up a line of aliens into the ship so I don't have to go in, then send rookies to blast them..though is may effect my rookies reactions I guess...as reaction increases when they react to an alein presence whilst on the alein trun I assume

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yup thats what I do I send a hwp out first to get alock on an alien, mind zap him, then use that alien to find another and so one...

 

LOL I love it where I have set up a line of aliens into the ship so I don't have to go in, then send rookies to blast them..though is may effect my rookies reactions I guess...as reaction increases when they react to an alein presence whilst on the alein trun I assume

Oh yeah, I love it when I don't even need to leave the ship... Pretty fast missions.

:master: :happybanana:

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  • 4 weeks later...

Something I'd like to add to this:

 

Many people are saying your "PsiSkill" goes up everytime you successfully complete a Psi action (Panic or MC).. I have confirmed that this is UNTRUE. I have been on successful missions where my Psi people have MC'd several units over the course of the mission and upon returning to base their skill level has not increased AT ALL.

 

Is it possible that they only recieve this increase once a month (due to the training)? Or is there something else I am missing here?

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While its true for me that I don't notice a change in stats til the month rolls around for training assignments to see them, I do think that even the unsuccessful attempts help them.

 

I mean I had a soldier once who's psi strength was excellent, but his skill began at like 17. It took a few months and several missions using him to notice, but finally I had gotten his skill up to around 50 and I could still keep going. After awhile though I lost track of his overall growth having been using him only as backup to my normal PSIs but as he started making more successful attacks, his squad's status sort of merged with the others I was working on (with their psi skill reaching 60 or more, I don't think about them much heh).

 

So at around that level, if at least 1 out of every 2 or 3 attempts works, by that point I've probably rotated someone else into training.

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You psi skill does indeed go up if used during a mission. Note probes do NOT count as a psi attack. The psionic attack must also be successful for it to be of any use. A failed attempt does not count.

 

(update: Note, for those reading this thread for the first time, this is an old post. As we've come to understand the game more, it turns out a failed attempt does indeed count as 1 action. It's just that a successful psi attempt counts as 3 attempts!)

 

Remember that the more skill you have, the MORE effort you need to put in the mission to get any significant improvements.

 

Also all stat gains are a random. The effort you put into training the skill and how much skill you already have determines the upper level of this random number. So even if you've put enough training into the stat to get a whopping 6 point increase, the game still rolls a number between 0 and 6. If you reload the game just before you ended the mission and try again, you will get a different stat bonus.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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Yes, but NFK, what I am saying is, I have had somebody blast away with psi all game .. a good 20 times I'd say, many of those attempts successful, and his "Psi-Skill" did not improve ONE point upon returning to base and checking his stats.. In fact, the only time I have EVER seen psi increase is when the end of month report comes.
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Give it another go. This time save before you end the mission, and end the mission several times, each time checking the soldier roster before reloading.

 

As I said, stat bonuses are random. You can have a soldier blast away all the aliens in a mission and not get a single accuracy bonus if the game rolls an egg.

 

- NKF

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  • 4 months later...
I often find that if my soldiers are particularly active in the use of their psi-weapons in a given month, they do not require to be assigned to a psi-lab - if they are assigned to a psi-lab, I notice that they make very small gains at the end of the month compared to the other soldiers, but because of their experience in the field they have often gained as much skill as if they had stayed at home, if not more.
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  • 5 weeks later...
Guest Guest_Lethal Larry_*
This is the very topic I came here to find - I couldn't figure out how to psi-train my soldiers. And, upon reading this thread - I still can't train them. I've had 2 psi-labs in my main base for months, but I never get any kind of popup window as was described earlier in this thread.

 

Any help?

 

 

Ooops, nevermind - I was wrong about how long I had the psi facilities... I thought I had them for months, but it turns out that I'd only had them available for months, and they only got completed at the start of this month - I finally got to the training.

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  • 6 months later...
  • 6 months later...

By the way, I'm sure others have done this but I've never heard anyone mention it so I thought I'd toss out this trick:

 

The Psi Strength for each soldier is static and is created as soon as the new soldier is purchased so one way you can get around having to wait months and months to find out all your soldiers' Psi Strength is to simply save the game at the very end of a month and assign a chunk of 10 to a Psi Lab and then speed to the end of the month, cancelling any UFO's and just avoiding everything until the month is over and you get to see the Psi Strength of the 10 soldiers you assigned. Note the ones over 70 (or whatever your preferred threshold is), reload back to the end of the previous month, sack the crappy ones, load another 10 soldiers into the Psi Lab, rinse, repeat.

 

If you consider reloading to be a cheat, this will be cheating - no question about it.

 

But for others, it makes the Psi process a lot easier.

 

On a side note, what do you consider an acceptable threshold for keeping Psi Guys?

 

 

- Uta

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Indeed Oldblue. My first win with the game was majorly with psionics, and I found it quite boring to use it on my next game. Currently I don't care if they go beserk due to that 6/8 units are carrying AP clips throughout the entire game. :)
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Whether you like it or not, psi is part of the game. If the high and mighty people at MicroProse left it in, who are we to say otherwise?

 

Although I do think it'd be more fair if some kind of "line of sight" requirement to psi...

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If anyone can do my challenge: rookies in T-shirts with standard equipment+cannon/rocket tank at Cydonia, then NOTHING matters.
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Whether you like it or not, psi is part of the game. If the high and mighty people at MicroProse left it in, who are we to say otherwise?

 

Although I do think it'd be more fair if some kind of "line of sight" requirement to psi...

Beginners use psi. Veterans don't use psi. Psi was meant for those who needed another leg in spotting and killing alien units so that they would actually win the game.

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  • 10 months later...

i have noticed recently, that my weak soldiers (low strenght, reactions, stamina, tu's you name it) are actualy good at psionics. so, is it possible that when you recruit new rookies, their stats are not randomly distributed but each soldier has certain ammount of points to divide among his stats ? if you get soldier, who has only few points on his primary stats is it a better chance that this soldier will be psi-master ?

 

and sorry about my poor english..

Edited by pokrak
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If you can get a Muton scout ship, try to kill all but one of the aliens, then panic the last one. Once he drops his weapons, use 2-3 soldiers to corner him (unequip their weapons so they don't reaction-kill him) and just spend 20-30 turns just taking turns PSIng it with your PSI rookies.
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i have noticed recently, that my weak soldiers (low strenght, reactions, stamina, tu's you name it) are actualy good at psionics. so, is it possible that when you recruit new rookies, their stats are not randomly distributed but each soldier has certain ammount of points to divide among his stats ? if you get soldier, who has only few points on his primary stats is it a better chance that this soldier will be psi-master ?
I seemed to notice this myself, especially on characters with extremely high or low stats. I just shrugged it off as wishful thinking, because they are likely the exception, and not the norm. Ususally PSI weak troops are sent to the front line, where they can pick up more combat experience than those in back.

 

For some reason I always end up with a brawling dimwitted commander, and a highly skilled super PSI second in command.

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The stats are random. Although, I must admit that it does feel like a complete coincidence that your best soldier often turns out to have an unspeakable or non-existent psi strength. Has happened to me a few times.

 

On the other hand, I have had good soldiers with a respectable low-ranked ethereal proof psi strength levels. It's random, you just notice it a lot more with the really good (or really bad) soldiers.

 

Our friends who've collected an enormous amount of data such as this have collated this info onto the X-Com Wiki for you perusal under Raw Recruit Statistical Likelihood.

 

So my usual advice is to not judge your troops until you've seen their psi defence in action (failure of said defence) or have had a month psi-lab experience.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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The stats are random. Although, I must admit that it does feel like a complete coincience that your best soldier often turns out to have an unspeakable or non-existent psi strength. Has happend to me a few times.

 

On the other hand, I have had good soldiers with a respectable low-ranked ethereal proof psi strength levels. It's random, you just notice it a lot more with the really good (or really bad) soldiers.

 

- NKF

 

One way to think of it is in percentages -- percentages of whatever you are correlating the Psi Strength to.

Since PS can be 0-100, the percent of, for example, female soldiers with a Psi Strength of over 90 is 10%. The percentage of high strength (or high reactions, TUs, and strength together, if that's what you're looking at) rookies with a given Psi strength works the same way. Therefore 10% of your "best" will have the lower 10% of Psi Strength scores, while another 10% of your "best" will also have scores over 90.

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  • 1 year later...

X-COM recruits have been made available to you for a reason. These are lifeless, numbers-digits-coded-people with a purpose. I pick my soldiers by name. If they got a good strong name like Adam Keller, or Sarah Parker, then they're in. Like NKF says, in battle, skills are raised at random.

I have been playing for awhile, slowly getting through day by day. I am yet to acheive a successful psi attack, but my rating is still exellent and I am playing Veteran.

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  • 3 months later...

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