v27.2 - psionic reaction fire?

[Solver]

I am not sure what's going on here exactly but it feels like aliens using psionic attacks as reaction fire of some sort. Here's a starting save from an abduction mission. If my soldier misses a shot then that soldier usually gets mesmerized or even mind controlled straight away. Should be easy to reproduce by playing a turn, perhaps two.

auto_groundcombat_turn_1_start-53.json

[Kamehamehayes]

33 minutes ago, Solver said:

I am not sure what's going on here exactly but it feels like aliens using psionic attacks as reaction fire of some sort. Here's a starting save from an abduction mission. If my soldier misses a shot then that soldier usually gets mesmerized or even mind controlled straight away. Should be easy to reproduce by playing a turn, perhaps two.

auto_groundcombat_turn_1_start-53.json 1.34 MB · 0 downloads

Was it against a psyon? One of the psyon's abilities is to psionically attack a soldier that misses a shot against them, with a small chance to mind control them.

[Solver]

Aha. Okay, then perhaps not a bug but the numbers being way wrong - mind control seems rare but every missed shot against a psyon there is a mesmerize.

[Kamehamehayes]

Yeah, i believe the ability truggers for every miss unless the psyon is suppressed.

 

[Chris]

15 hours ago, Solver said:

Aha. Okay, then perhaps not a bug but the numbers being way wrong - mind control seems rare but every missed shot against a psyon there is a mesmerize.

Yeah, that's the Psyon ability. I think perhaps this is the downside of hiding the autopsy reports away in the Xenopedia, as they tell you what the ability does.

It doesn't trigger if the Psyon is suppressed or not looking at you, or it takes damage from the attack.

[Solver]

The autopsy shows up after the first mission where you encounter this anyway, doesn't it?

I don't know if the ability itself is fine but there's definitely a problem with how it's being conveyed. Perhaps a text change would suffice, using different text for this ability than when aliens do psi attacks on their turn. Instead of "Soldier has been mesmerized", a more explicit "After missing the shot, Soldier gets mesmerized by the Psyon's gaze", which at least strongly hints as to what just happened.

[Chris]

6 minutes ago, Solver said:

The autopsy shows up after the first mission where you encounter this anyway, doesn't it?

I don't know if the ability itself is fine but there's definitely a problem with how it's being conveyed. Perhaps a text change would suffice, using different text for this ability than when aliens do psi attacks on their turn. Instead of "Soldier has been mesmerized", a more explicit "After missing the shot, Soldier gets mesmerized by the Psyon's gaze", which at least strongly hints as to what just happened.

The autopsies were previously shown after the mission, but now just appear in the Xenopedia without popping up. The player was getting spammed with 3-4 popups after some missions, which was just too much. I might just make them research projects instead.

The research report explicitly tells you how the ability works, though. I'm not sure it feels very X-Com to immediately tell the player exactly what the aliens are doing to them as soon as they are encountered (you yourself immediately figured out that it happens whenever you miss a shot).

[Alienkiller]

Yeah, that are the new cool Advantages from such Alien-Skills. That makes the Game much more interessting. I personaly like them.

I understand why the Popup get reduced, but the Problem is then to oversee such an Autopsy and getting in such an Situation. Sadly the Gamers which normaly read the Xenopedia incl. additional Informations get surprissed with such an new Situation then (like Solver, Emely, myself) about oversee such an new Entry.

Other Gamers, which get addle in reading this Xenopedias incl. additional Informations are self fault to run in such Situations, until they learn to read the Xenopedia and additional Informations we give them (like Rushers or young Generation-Gamers).

Edited May 19, 2023 by Alienkiller