Good psychic strength level?

[night]

i just got my first batch of psi trained guys

 

Murphy's Laws (X-COM)

Quote "When you build the Psi Lab you will always discover that your officers are psi weaklings"

 

night looks at the psychic strength level for his officers

 

Vader: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

 

Looks like my officers are on muton hunting duty except one who will be the psi decoy

 

still i wanted to ask what is an acceptable level of psychic strength (except for the decoy) when choosing which guys to send against psychic aliens

[Blackstar]

I will never send people with less than 80 Psi Strength against Ethereals.

 

I must have been incredibly lucky, as all my Rambo officials (the only survivors from the original team) are! I mean, what are the chances of that?

[yarrow]

as for starting team psi strength

for range you mentioned ( 80-100 ) you can expect 20% ( 1 out of 5 ) of your soldiers to be in this range

so ... out of starting 8 soldiers 1-2 can be 'your belowed sweety' ( I mean 80-100 )

 

as for sending 80+ psi soldiers against ethereals ( or sectoid leaders )

well ... it depends

 

if you just want to be mind control immune

you have no other choice than 80-100 psi strength, period

 

otherwise ... read on the rest of this post

 

 

psi attack/defence depends on 2 major factors:

a.) range from the target

b.) soldier psi strength AND psi skill abilities

 

 

a.)

ask yourself this question:

how many times did you failed to mind control that alien in the far away corner of the map?

even with your super trooper ... ha, got you

 

b.)

even if your soldier HAVE 100 psi strength

with psi skill less than say 40, you have troubles to mind control

almost any time ... ha, got you second time

 

 

another example ( related to both a.) and b.) )

sectoid leader standing next to the soldier

which was not trained yet ( technically psi skill 0 )

CAN ... repeat CAN !!!... panic even 97 psi strength trooper

( find sectoid base and find it out for yourself if you want )

 

but after it gains its very first 16-24 psi skill increase ( fresh out of psi-lab )

sectoid leader can kiss his assss good bye

 

moral is:

do not auto-sell 'panickers' ( panicking soldiers ), only mind controlled ones

if you dont know their psi strength

 

 

as for ethereals

simply put ... they are just more capable then sectoid leaders

but ... you can use this to YOUR advantage, like to train YOUR soldier bravery

( If I play to maximize stats I do this even with sectoid leaders )

note must be taken that ethereal commanders can panic even 100 psi strength and 80 psi skill soldier

( at range 1, see sectoid example )

 

so ... choices for your soldiers are:

( I am depending only on psi strength => skill can be trained )

 

<1> if less than 70 psi strenght ( range 0-69 ):

A.) use them as expendables to be shot and die ... and save more valuable troopers in that way

( yes I know, its not pretty, but so is war isnt it? )

B.) sack immediately ( and don't forget to remove armor!!! ... and yes ... I do forget sometimes that too )

 

personally I prefer ( and strongly recommend ) method A

you dont just throw money away with this method

 

 

<2> if strength is not known, and soldier become mind controlled

mark this soldier out if he survives the mission ( you have proof that he can be mind controlled )

for your preferred method of utilizing such troopers

( I use minus sign at the end of name, any mark will do )

 

<3> between 80-100 => yummy == ooohhhh YEEESSS

take special care of them, and 'psi train' them in every combat ( they will give you golden eggs!! )

tip: in the begining ( skill less than 40 ) its better to do 6 turns of panic ( 2 times per turn )

this gives you max psi skill stat increase per combat

( range is 2-6 per mission, rest of the details can be found on www.ufopaedia.org )

they will be your elite, and most precious troopers ( 'my precioussss' )

 

<4> 70-79

this is special case, since they CAN be mind controlled by aliens ( this is their main disadvantage )

but ... if you train them to 50+ skill they can mind control aliens too ( just like your 80+ psi strength troopers )

and their resistance to mind control is quite good, when they reach 80+ psi skill

repeat again ... they are NOT mind control immune!!

 

my advice is to use them as expendables ( see <1> ) if you want to be sure

or ... try them in this method once FOR YOURSELF, and your point of view will change ( my did )

 

 

another thing which you must consider is, that aliens DO two forms of psi attack

A.) mind control

B.) panic attacks

 

both cases can be devastating ( if unprepared ), or just harmless and delaying/annoying

 

 

A.)

mind control is devastating if your soldier is armed and can do harm to your other soldiers

- like holding grenades in soldiers belt ( or any other place in inventory )

- like with heavy plasma or blaster launcher ( even small launcher can be disasterous )

 

but ... as sun tzu wrote in art of war ( written more than 2000 years ago !!! )

'use enemy tactics against him'

 

so .... this time YOU let aliens to mind control psi weak AND unarmed soldier

if you give him power suit you can even TRAIN other soldiers firing accuracy

just shoot him with standard pistol and you wont do ANY harm to him

 

remember ... any attack against this psi weakling 'unarmed walking bait' ... is ONE LESS against the others

sun tzu, quote would be: do not attack on prepared enemy positions, or you will loose the war

so your unarmed psi weak soldier is 'your prepared position' for that purpose

( some people calls it 'psi sponge tactics' )

 

 

B.)

panic attacks can do 4 things

 

B1.)

your soldiers drops weapons which is devastating if he held armed grenade ( like high explosive )

otherwise its just a skip turn for your soldier, just pick dropped items in the next turn

 

B2.)

drop items and run away, its like 2 turns skip ( one for return for dropped items, second for pick them up )

the only danger is when he runs into alien firing zone ( yes, shiiiit happens )

 

B3.)

your trooper may start to berserk, and shootting here and there

wich can be really painful, if he was 'heavy plasmer' and started to shot in the back of his team-mates

 

B4.)

just turn arround in place, waste all his time units, which is like another turn skip

 

 

 

so ... as you can see ... it ALL depends

yarrow

 

PS.

I need a glass of white wine combined with sectoid alien base mission

and I am in 'Good psychic strength level'

buhahaha

:D :D :D

Edited March 28, 2011 by yarrow

[[stewart]]

All enemy mind control means is you lose reaction fire since you stop-drop-and kneal at the end of each turn. Don't get me wrong its inconvienent and such missions are better avoided but if one is forced on you, there are ways to cope.