Weak Psi

[SJimenez]

As strange as it sounds, I use the soldiers with weak psi as a supplement for fighting the Ethereals. They drop all of their weapons and hang out with the psi-force in the extraction zone. Then my strong-psi foot-soldiers run around and kill off the ethereals. Since their too busy panicking and mind-controlling the weak psi guys who can do no harm (No guns) then the foot soldiers take them out like floaters.

[Hamato]

Don't your weaklings need to be seen at least once by one alien to make this work?

But then, that's an absolutely appropriate and effective tactic, I'd say.

[jman4117]

If they see one, they know where all are at.

[SJimenez]

I tend to do a lot of base-landing, so they already know where my people are there and on the field more often than not they know where the Avenger is at. Not like it matters though, they always seem to know where those guys are... but hey... their psychic, who am I to argue?

[Kratos]

Give your weak guys pistols and rifles so that they can't harm each other (assuming that you already have power suits )

[SJimenez]

With the luck that tends to hit me, I won't give them ANYTHING. I tried letting them keep their grenades until they blew up the squad. I let them keep their stun-bomb-things until they started stunning the squad. I let them keep their clips until they started throwing them at my guys. Plus I don't have any more pistols. I only have laser-rifles and heavy-plasma guns. Everything else I get off the battlefield. Pistols and basic rifles are a waste of space for me since they weren't even super-effective against the sectoids

[Kratos]

All I was saying is that they will give your men something to fight with without harming one another. Ethereals don't have great armor so this would be still pretty good against them

[[Blehm 98]]

Yeah, doing a maximum of like 13 damage is very dangerous, yes

Well, if you end the mission and a soldier is under control, then he is counted at MIA so that could be a problem if the last alein left is a very brave etherial leader or commander

[SJimenez]

I can mind control them. I just use them to explore and shoot at each other. And in fact, just now, I used Etherial Commanders to shoot down that brain at the end of Cydonia! I WIN! YAY! Stupid Alien! You shot your own BRAIN! Muahaha!

 

Sorry, I needed a place to celebrate my great humiliating victory. Now to try it on Normal

 

EDIT: By humiliating, I mean I only lost 1 plasma tank (Outside with LOW visibility. But it didn't fit inside anyways so...) and 2 rookies (1 to a rouge shot and the other by some strange fluke where a commander blew up this huge plant-thing that killed my rookie behind it.)

Edited July 13, 2005 by SJimenez

[Kratos]

You shot your own BRAIN!

ROFL

[[NKF]]

Mmm, psi sponges. I tend to get rid of them rather quickly, but they're great for wasting the aliens' time.

 

Normally I'd go on and on and try to turn you to the way of the pistol - or at least give a slight nod towards their usefulness - but I won't this time - no matter how much I want you to start enjoying the machine-gun-like laser pistols... Instead:

 

If you're wearing all power suits and flying suits, autocannons with HE shells are ferpect. If you're mind controlled, only direct hits have any real potential of harming your friends and you can still use it to kill anything but sectopods (well, if you switch to Incendiary rounds and use the cumulative Incendiary damage...). Not bad, eh?

 

- NKF

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

Am I to understand that Ethereals do not only know where ALL of your squad is, but they also know the ones with the WEAKEST psi as well?

 

If that's the case, the computer cheats REAL WELL in UFO. Kudos!!!

[[NKF]]

Worse. They appear to know where you are as well whether or not you reveal yourself. Try this, send a soldier alone on a base assault, or maybe assault a UFO. If you assault a UFO, try to use the Lightning for its partial but much more complete concealment.

 

The aliens appear to move about in a rather random manner, but if you wait and stay hidden for far too long, almost all the aliens not on fixed point guard duty (like the alien in the bridge of some ships - I think the rest of the aliens are on the standard hunt/patrol AI scripts) will start to slowly move towards your location. If you're in the Lightning and block the entrance (and not get shot through the gaps while you're waiting), you'll sometimes find a horde of aliens waiting right outside if you take a peek. For alien bases, they'll usually just come up and murder you - unless you move to single-tile sized lift and hide up there. Just as a note, when doing a few quick tests on psionics a while back, the only alien on the map, the commander, walked all the way to the entry lift (from the command centre - almost the other side of the map) just to attack my soldier - or get in range to use its psionics. I didn't even reveal myself. It just knew where to look.

 

So it's not completely random after all. Oh, in the short run (i.e. a few turns) it's not really apparent, but in the long run, it is.

 

- NKF

[SJimenez]

I might try that NKF. But as for them knowing where you are... the last couple of missions was me mopping the floor with the ethereals. I shot down a battleship without any damage to my ships and landed the Avenger. Got out with my flying suit and tank. Every time an alien was seen it had its back turned so I just made them prime a grenade for 0 and drop it at their feet. NOBODY got psi attacked OR shot at my tank (Or my guy but I dont think he got any kills either).

 

NOTE: Possesing an alien and making them kill another alien or themselves does not count as a kill for you.

 

Im gonna miss my psi-force though. And my Sergeant. It was mainly due to my psi-force and sergeant (Again) that we won. The sergeant found the long tunnel and ducked. Then my psi-force launched a blasterbomb (Which I know how to use now yay!) down like 5 hallways and beside the sergeant and down the hallwaywhere it exploded and killed some guys. Then the sergeant ran down the hallway and up a gravlift where the psi-guys MCed the Ethereal Commanders and had them shoot at the brain.

 

My captain had enough accuracy to hit an alien halfway across the map dead with auto shot and all 3 shots hit dead on. The psi force was only guys with Psi-Strength 90+ (Picky Picky Picky) but I had 4, and the WEAKEST had PsiStr 98 and I dont remember the psi-skill...

[Mzuz]

"My captain had enough accuracy to hit an alien halfway across the map dead with auto shot and all 3 shots hit dead on."

 

hmmm..it's like my current commander Accuracy stat = 140 and his reactions are above 100 now. If he sees anything, it's dead.

[[Blehm 98]]

about psi, yeah, the aliens can see your psi stats, it is the only way they can pick and choose between all my men and get the psi weak one who also happens to have a rocket launcher

usually, once an alien sees you once, as long as you move he won't be able to psi you anymore either, but not always

[Mzuz]

Now do the aliens go after just the people with the lowest psi scores? Or do they even get more selective by going after the guy with the rocket launcher or blaster bomb launcher?

 

Example being 2 soldiers with low psi stats. One has a rifle, other has a rocket launcher. Will they just go after a random person..or would they try to pick the person with the best weaponry?

[Zombie]

Nope, the aliens aren't that selective Mzuz. Whatever soldier on a mission has the lowest Psionic Strength number, that is the one the aliens will target first. They won't say, skip over the lowest Psi-Str trooper because he's carrying a Pistol, and target the second-lowest soldier instead because he is carrying a Blaster Launcher. But you can bet dollars to doughnuts that if the aliens are successful in mind controlling the first guy, they will go on to the next. Never give dangerous weapons to soldiers with low Psi Str, or low bravery. You are only asking for trouble.

 

- Zombie

[Mzuz]

yeah I know. back when I first bought this game I remember this one missions. It was against ethereals, and I think it was a battleship of'em. I was still moving people out of the skyranger when my blast bomber launcher guy was mind controlled and killed about 70% of my team in 1 shot. very dpressing

[Gsmack]

Now do the aliens go after just the people with the lowest psi scores? Or do they even get more selective by going after the guy with the rocket launcher or blaster bomb launcher?

 

Example being 2 soldiers with low psi stats. One has a rifle, other has a rocket launcher. Will they just go after a random person..or would they try to pick the person with the best weaponry?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

well ... my first ethereal ship ..the bastards MC'd the guy with the stun launcher ...fortunately ..theyd had to panic and berserk him first ...so it was on the ground ...(ready to be used to tag that tasty leader in his little ship i might add ) ...

 

 

seemed awfully convenient for them to tag the guy with the only capture weapon on the mission .... little obe wearing turds

[Blood Angel]

On terror missions with etherials, give every man a stun rod. And a medikit. If someone's mind controlled, they can only stun their teammates. And they can't stun everyone. Get the non-MC person to stun the MCee and then let them sleep it off, while he stimulates all the stunned non-MCs.

[Zombie]

If I remember my tests correctly, alien-controlled units will not use the Stun Rod in combat. Nor medi-kits for that matter.

 

Either way, it will be a long, hard fight with only Stun Rods. Don't expect to walk away from that mission without heavy casualties.

 

- Zombie

[Blood Angel]

That's the whole point. If they are armed with nothing but a stunrod, they can't do any serious harm. And let's not forget, Etherials have bad weaponry, and rely mostly on psi.

[Sharp]

Generally they are equipped the same as other aliens, mainly Heavy Plasmas, odd Small Launcher or two and a blaster launcher (depending on ship size).

 

Running around with just stun rods means that you are going to get shot, a lot, etherials dont have that bad accuracy either, more then enough to kill a mad trooper waving a stun rod at them.

[Guest Azrael]

Aren't Ethereals together with Sectopods?

In that case, Stun Rods only against Sectopods? that'd be fun to watch

[Zombie]

Aren't Ethereals together with Sectopods?

Well, only on Terror ships/missions, Alien/XCom base missions, Battleships and Cydonia, but who's counting? They are literally everywhere on Superhuman.

 

In that case, Stun Rods only against Sectopods? that'd be fun to watch

Your wish is my command. I boxed in a Superhuman Sectopod at an Ethereal base:

 

 

Then I went to town trying to stun it. I forgot that the Sectopod can shrug off Stun Rod attacks to its front and sides. The only place where the Stun Rod is effective is its back armor.

 

Attacks       Stun Level
   6             32
  12             37
  18             64
  24             94
  30             94
  36             94
  42             94
  46             96

It took 8 rounds and 46 pokes with the 'ol prod, but it fell:

 

 

All I can say is you are better off using standard weapons against the Sectopod than the Stun Rod. :wink1:

 

- Zombie

[Pherdnut]

How on earth did you manage that without any losses? Did you MC it first?

 

'doh! Double post.

 

[Edit, Zombie: posts merged].

[Zombie]

I have no real need for MC now that I know how to edit aliens so that they cannot move or shoot anymore.

 

The purpose was to pit the Stun Rod against the superhuman Sectopod, and as you can see only the rear armor can be penetrated at this skill level. In addition, it shows the shortcomings of the stun range as it took 46 pokes to knock it out cold. It would be insane to go up against one of these creatures with just stun rods. Before you could stun it, it would probably mow down your entire squad.

 

- Zombie

[SprCobra]

Itd probaly mow down half your squad before you could get anywhere near it

[Dover]

NKF claims that a single stun bomb can take out up to 3. Although I believe him entirely, I'm not ballsy enough to try it...

[[NKF]]

On beginner. On beginner. It's relatively hard to score almost instantaneous take-downs on superhuman against single sectopods. Does well against cyberdiscs nonetheless.

 

If you've go psi amps, have sectopods or cyberdiscs move up close to each other. Either wait a turn, or just start firing on the uncontrolled parts right away.

 

- NKF

[GDD]

I ship weak psi off as "defenders" for back water bases,

 

its annoying when you train guys up, they become marksmen then have 9 psi strength

[koriand'r]

What do i do with guys with weak psi?

 

I rename their names to that of opeople i don't get along with so to say, take them out in the battlefield and useing a character under my name do I then mow them down with a heavy plasma rifle, plus i killed my enemies without killing them in real life which means I can get away with murder as its a death of a few sprites mawahahah }>

Edited May 2, 2006 by koriand'r

[Blitzen]

I had a pair once.... once had 220 psi strength and 2 skill while the other had 2 strenght and 220 psi skill. perfect duo..... for somereason niether could be mind controlled. (once had 4 ethereal commanders blasting them.) I could mind control sectopods. etc. (BTW a bug, You can control cyberdisks and sectopods. 4 times. so you control it once, move kill some aliens, control it again repeat. very useful!)

[Empyrean]

You edited your soldiers, I take it?

 

What difficulty setting are you playing on? A soldier with 220 psi skill and 2 psi strength is actually pretty weak when it comes to resisting mind control. He's on par with a soldier that has no psi skill and 46 psi strength, which means as "psi-puppet" in my book.

[Blitzen]

You edited your soldiers, I take it?

 

What difficulty setting are you playing on? A soldier with 220 psi skill and 2 psi strength is actually pretty weak when it comes to resisting mind control. He's on par with a soldier that has no psi skill and 46 psi strength, which means as "psi-puppet" in my book.

 

 

nope no editing..... that is the way they came.

 

and it was superhuman.

 

 

They were unstoppable.

[Zombie]

I had a pair once.... once had 220 psi strength and 2 skill while the other had 2 strenght and 220 psi skill. perfect duo..... for somereason niether could be mind controlled.

Psi Strength is limited to a range of 0-100, while Psi Skill starts at 0 (with a +16-24 improvement after the first month of training). Newly recruited soldiers can never use psi since their skill is unknown. This makes me believe that your soldier.dat file was corrupted somehow.

 

- Zombie

Edited July 16, 2006 by Zombie

[Empyrean]

Sorry, I don't buy it. I think you're exaggerating for the sake of telling a story. Even with those way-beyond-possible-without-cheating values, a soldier with 2 psi strength and 220 psi skill would be easy prey for any enemy attempting mind control, Ethereal Commanders on Superhuman would have an absolute field day with that guy. Offensively, any soldier with a 220/2 split in psi skill/strength would be an utter weakling when it comes to using psionic attacks against an enemy. Even if your soldier.dat file were corrupted and produced those highly unlikely values, their performance in psi combat would be horrible. Because you tell it otherwise, I suspect that you're just making it up.

 

Here is the equation for psi attacks, from UFOpaedia:

 

Psionic Attack Strength (PAS) = (Psi Strength) * (Psi Skill) / 50

Psionic Resistance = (Psi Strength) + (Psi Skill/5)

 

Panic Base Chance = 44% + Attacker PAS - Target Resistance

MC Base Chance = 24% + Attacker PAS - Target Resistance

 

What this means is that regular soldiers with psi strength and skill in ranges from 0-100 will end up with a psionic attack strength of 0-200, and a psionic defense strength of 0-120. Both of your soldiers have a psionic attack rating of 8.8, which is equal to a guy with 20 psi strength and 22 psi skill. A guy like that would have a hard time panicking a Muton on the easiest setting. Defensively, the guy with 220 psi strength would be basically immune to all psi attacks, but the guy with 2 psi strength would be worse than the average rookie.

[Blitzen]

I had to always attack once with the guy that had the strength and then with tey guy with skill. And no It was not corrupt. I had had those men since day 1 (never used more then the original 8 men that time.) and I have played this game a LOT! I have never seen men with stats as high ever. THough I ocasionally get teh odd 140 strength 40 skill or the 40 strength 140 skill. Very rare, and for me come in pairs when they come.

 

 

I did not make this up or exagerate.

 

Play the game more, and then you will get some too.... (I used to play 20 + games a week. sometimes 20 a day for months on end.)

[Empyrean]

Whatever. The range of possible values available to new recruits is well known and established through literally thousands of trials. The relationship between psi skill/strength and psionic combat performance is also widely known through thousands of trials, and your description of your super psi-guys doesn't conform to that at all. Instead of just admitting to telling a story after you're caught telling a lie that cannot possibly be true for several reasons that are not in any dispute, you tell me to play the game more. Sorry dude, that doesn't cut it. You're a liar. Grow up.

[[NKF]]

I'm stating what's already been stated here, but:

 

Starting psi strength does range between 0 - 100 and skill begins at 0. Strength cannot be influenced in any way except through editing.

 

Skill can progress to 100 through combat and training. After 100, it can continue to increase at a very slow rate through psi training.

 

So there is the possiblity of getting extreme psi strength beyond 100, but there's no way you can get a natural 200 psi strength Personally, I don't see any need to get such extreme values. But that's neither here nor there.

 

Note: Our resident statisticians have literally gathered thousands of soldier samples. That's a huge number of new games, so it's not a matter of not playing enough.

 

Hmm, there is one possible other explanation. The dos version of the game - before they introduced the caps on your stats.

 

All right folks, let's break it up before things get hairy.

 

- NKF

Edited July 19, 2006 by NKF

[Empyrean]

In the DOS version, could you start with 220 psi strength? Do the Psi Combat equations work differently in the DOS version? There are a couple parts of his story that don't add up, and only one of those could possibly be explained by the DOS version, even if it does allow soldiers to start with 200+ psi strength.

 

In any case, I'm fine with just leaving this thread and just not giving Blitzen the benefit of the doubt for any outrageous claims he may make in the future.

[Blitzen]

and a note..... I have never gotten these values with the collectors edition. Jsut the dos version. (which is when I played thousands of games.)

 

so you guys are probably using the collectors while I used dos when I had these soldiers. (I once loaded the save in collectors and they worked fine.) I have lost the save sice (gone through 2 comps since then, and had to reformat the disks of them 6 times.... you lose things....

 

 

NOTE: I don't lie. I don't make huge claims If it has not actually happened to me.

 

 

Other things I have seen/done

 

killed 30 crysalids with 1 t-shirt with only a laser pistol

had snake man commanders mind control me

walked through the corners of small ufo's (random glitch with the dos version, sometimes crashed the game.)

had a t-shirt survive 3 auto shot H-plasmas on Super Human. (just last week too. )

and I usually go through literally thousands of troops each game. (hire tons psi one month sack the non elite and rehire.)

[Empyrean]

had snake man commanders mind control me

Perhaps you've also lassoed a tornado, raced a steam-shovel through a mountain, and tamed a giant blue ox the size of a city block?

 

I rest my case. It's probably a pathological thing.

[[NKF]]

Look, when in doubt - run a few tests.

 

I've made a few outrageous claims as well ("Area-Effect damage ALWAYS hits under-armour! I say it's true, so it is! Argh!"), mainly because I truly believed them. But when challenged ("Nuh, uh, it's directional!"), I'll run a few more tests to prove or disprove it to myself ("So it's directional beyond the 1-tile radius? Oh, okay then. I stand corrected"). And if I'm wrong, well, I'm wrong.

 

Blitzen - I'm not going to say that I believe or disbelieve you. I know what I know, but this game has been known to surprise me a lot of times, even though I think I've worked it all out.

 

Though I play the collectors edition these days, I very much prefer the dos version of the game. So, I've had plenty of experience with both versions of the game.

 

When I was first introduced to UFO, it was the version before they introduced the stat caps. However, even then, I don't recall ever seeing any psi strength level starting beyond 0-100, personally. And that's from hundreds of screened soldiers.

 

The unusual events you've mentioned are possible, both normally and through minor glitches - and the laser pistol isn't a puny weapon. Especially not againt chryssalids. Sectopods, yes, but not chryssalids.

 

Speaking of unusual aliens with psi, in my case, I had a floater with minor psi powers. This was probably a corruption in the save file. But lots of things were going weird in this game, like missing floor tile images, alien graphics and the soldier name fields turning into a garbled mess, and whatnot.

 

- NKF

 

P.S : Save files between the Dos and CE versions are compatible.

 

P. P. S: I'm almost inclined to go and dig up my old 486 and see if it still runs. It may just have the old floppy version of UFO on it.

Edited July 19, 2006 by NKF

[Blitzen]

The unusual events you've mentioned are possible, both normally and through minor glitches - and the laser pistol isn't a puny weapon. Especially not againt chryssalids. Sectopods, yes, but not chryssalids.

 

 

My prefered weapon against Sectopods (never ran against them in Collectors) is the Laser pistol. I run a guy up to ones front and auto shoot. Usually kills it 1st or second hit. and If the guy has 100+ TU's never gets hurt by reaction fire from sectopod.

 

I have had lots of wierd things happen to me.

 

Ill list a couple more

 

Crysalids with H-Plasmas

sectoid riding a cyberdisk

blaster bombs splitting in flight (at every turn with a bomb going in each direction and one going to next waypoint. though this is much more frequent in TFTD.)

 

My Dos version was the first release of UFO on CD. got it from a guy in Tiawan in '98 and bought collectors in '99.

[X-Op. Nicolai]

Don't your weaklings need to be seen at least once by one alien to make this work?

But then, that's an absolutely appropriate and effective tactic, I'd say.

 

Hmm... didnt read all the replies to this but... I dont think so... those F****n Etherals... > I swear to god I had to put like a week of no sleep just to get all my soldiers where I want them at with PSI skills. Like one of my guys... Hes an officer too... he always gets mind blasted by Etherals and hes all the way in the back of the SkyRanger... now I know some of the Rookies up in front arent even in PSI training and fall alot faster if PSI attacked them but this guy just always kept getting mind blasted, its like he was on the Etherals SH*T LIST or something. I know they cant see him with everyone up in front either. So I dont think they need to see your guys to mind attack them with PSI capablities... unless they have some sort of X-Ray tech. that I havent see yet.

[[NKF]]

X-Op. Nicolai: We've done some research on this, and no, the aliens do not need line of sight. They go straight for the weakest psi soldier in your team, no matter where they are on the map.

 

I feel that the aliens do give you a few turns of grace before they start attacking you with psi attacks.

 

There are some good technical discussion on psi somewhere on this forum. Or perhaps you could try the X-Com Wiki on ufopaedia.org

 

---

 

Blitzen: Trust me, you do not want to use a laser pistol against a true superhuman difficulty sectopod. Imagine using all your TUs for 12 direct hits only to shave off 1 - 2 hitpoints. I tried it with 3 - 4 soldiers, only to shave off 10 or so health points after two turns before it shifted its focus onto them. It's not pretty. Not pretty at all. It's the only alien on superhuman difficulty that the laser pistol cannot kill reasonably well. All the other aliens are fair game.

 

Chryssalids still holding onto weapons is not uncommon. Sometimes when your units get zombified, the equipment remains on the zombie's inventory. It's quite funny if the chryssalid ends up with a laser. It kind of looks like it shoots the laser bolts out of its teeth. A killing smile, or so they say. Pity about its 0 accuracy though. An armed chryssalid has to rely on luck and distance more than any other unit in the game.

 

Your sectoid - are you quite sure the cyberdisc wasn't overlapping the sectoid?

 

Your splitting blaster bombs - It would be impossible for you to convince me if they were real splitting missiles, but if you were witnessing the missile going off course and then re-aligning itself at each waypoint, then that does indeed happen. Also, if the blaster bomb somehow misses and goes off the map, it will pop up again at the next waypoint.

 

---

 

Before this thread goes any further, perhaps these last few posts should go into a a brand new thread? We're deviating away from the psionics discussion.

 

- NKF

Edited July 21, 2006 by NKF

[Blitzen]

... the blaster bomb would go off course explode and then go the next direction after it had already exploded.

 

 

I believe the sectiod and cyberdisk overlapped.... don't really know as the sectoid reaction shot and kiled the cyberdisk... (KABOOM!)

 

If you hit the red eye on a sectopod just right, (I know it works, done hours of testing on it after I read it in teh manual.) you can 1 shot it with laser tech. Pretty tough, usually works good point balnk with 100 or so accuracy. anywhere else though and you might as well take your shoe polish to it's hull.

 

 

I devised that tactic after having an easy game sectopd survive 12 H-Plasma shots and not drop....

[Empyrean]

Grab leg. Pull. Repeat.