Has My Psi Attack Worked?

[testy]

Guys

 

My first attempt at Psi with 3 squaddies, brand new out of Psi training. All have a psi strength of about 75 and a skill of 20-25 (one month training only). We nip off to a shotdown Snakeman terror ship and they stay in the back whilst the HWP spots for them.

 

Plenty of snakemen and crysalids spotted so they get in penty of Psi attacks. However, even though we get the psi 'sound effect' and the psi 'skull' cursor, nothing seems to happen. This occurs regardless of whether I use Panic or MC?

 

Does the game tell me if the attack succeeds? If "yes", did all my attacks fail because my skill is still far too low? Or did my attacks succeed and I'm simply too stupid to work out how to manipulate my MCd enemy? I bet Bester never had these problems on B5

 

Thanks

[Zombie]

Nope, you are not stupid testy, it's just that your soldiers Psi ability is still a little low.

 

Telling if an attack is successful can sometimes be confusing. If a Mind Control attack didn't work, nothing happens. If it does, a screen like the one shown below will pop up.

Panic attacks are much different. There is no screen that comes up immediately to indicate success. The only way is to use a Mind Probe to check the aliens morale, or wait till the aliens turn to see if it will panic.

 

Just keep plugging away. Once your troops improve their MC skills, everything will become apparent. :wink1:

 

 

- Zombie

[Pherdnut]

If you have a lot of battles and you take the opportunity to use psi every turn for those soldiers, they should start MCing the lesser aliens in a month. Once they start getting successes their skill stats start shooting up really fast. I'd recommend sticking with panic until they get to about 35-40 or so. Panic is easier to pull off and I think you get more stat increases from success. Also, could just be coincidence but it seems like it's easier to mind control aliens who have already had their morale drained by panic attacks. With three guys at that strength, you'll be dominating tactical missions in no time. Don't even bother to bring them out of the ship. Line of sight and proximity have no effect on psi powers whatsoever as long as one of your agents or newly mindcontrolled minions sees the enemy.

[testy]

Guys

 

Thanks for the help and reassurance. I should have thought about using the MindProbe to see how a Panic Attack went but I guess I thought you'd get a nice message telling you that it had worked.

 

BTW, since Psi doesn't need line-of-sight, has anybody tried to sack an alien base with Psi power alone? From what you say, what about sending along 4 or 5 high-powered PSIs and leaving them outside the base, at the lift. Send down 1 HWP to spot your first alien, then MC him and use him to spot other aliens who, inturn, get MCd, called to the lift, made to drop their goodies via the Inventory exploit and then zapped. Could be an interesting challenge if you could muster enough PSIs to make it work

 

Cheers

[[NKF]]

Oh, ithat can indeed work, as Psi can become way too powerful in the hands of the player. You can literally let the aliens do all the dirty work for you, except the last alien, unless it commits ritual suicide with a grenade or a blaster bomb.

 

Just to clarify on the experience from psi usage, MiketheRed provides a great explanation on how experience is earned via psi on the X-Com Wiki. I'll quote:

 

Psi actions are a special case. Successful panic or mind control (MC) attempts cause the psi experience counter to go up by three actions. Thus, you only need to do 4 successful MCs or panics to get all the psi skill points you're going to (4x3=an experience count of 12). But unsuccessful attempts only cause the counter to go up by one. So you need 11 failed attempts to get to the 2-6 roll range, just like for all other primary stats.

 

That's from the following article: http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Experience

 

For those interested in how experience in general is earned, and don't mind needlessly elaborate discussions, the above article is well worth a read.

 

- NKF

Edited February 10, 2006 by NKF

[Pherdnut]

Once you control all aliens, the mission is over and you capture all of them live, so be careful if you want to leave alien containment space for something new. I've controlled all but one crew member of a Battleship with psi before and that guy was panicked into inaction. I had them all gathered on the top elevator area standing in front of their commander who was equipped with a blaster launcher. Save Game Name: Final Address to the Troops. Wish I'd kept that file.

 

Now all I have is the PlayStation version which is surprisingly decent, but tends to crash on Battleships maps and trying to use the motion scanner gets a bit goofy sometimes.

[Dover]

In theory, console games should never crash. Ever. Man do I hate ports.

 

Are you sure MCing all aliens ends the mission and brings them back alive? I routinely keep the last enemy MCed to get some training in (Panicing, throwing crap around, etc), and it has NEVER ended for me.

[Zombie]

The Playstation is to blame for this, Dover. When you MC all the aliens on a Playstation mission it ends (like it should, mind you). In the other versions, you can MC all the aliens and the mission will continue until you either kill or stun each enemy unit. Apparently the ownership flags are not checked for the other versions, so that's why they continue. :wink1:

 

- Zombie

Edited February 12, 2006 by Zombie

[Pherdnut]

Oh, ick. Sorry about that. Is there a thread somewhere with the differences between the PC and PlayStation versions? I'd like to avoid misinformation like that in the future. For the record, most of my recent X-Com experience has been on the PlayStation although I did play the PC version religiously for quite a few years.