Psionics Question - Anyone?

[StellarRat]

Can you clarify something for me? Do all psionics require some type of spotting, either squad or direct LOS? I know some require LOS to the target, but my understanding was that for fear, dread, etc... that aliens at least had to know where your soldier was. Or are some powers just a transmission that affects any soldier within a certain radius from the psion? I could swear I've had soldiers attacked that weren't any place that a psion could have seen them. Can't seem to find/get a definite answer to this anywhere.

Edited May 29, 2014 by StellarRat

[kabill]

I've definitely had soldiers attacked with psionics when there is zero chance they were spotted by anything. No idea whether its supposed to work like that, though.

Also, the times it has happened I think I've been pretty close to the alien doing it (e.g. behind a UFO door). Possibly if you're within a number of tiles equal to the power's range they can always use it? I don't know.

(Sorry that's not very helpful; just wanted to confirm the fact that it is happening without LoS, regardless of whether that's intentional or not.)

[Phoenix]

To be honest, I do not like the current psionics system. It took what was bad from the OLD X-COM. It simply sucks and is too random. Low tier Psi aliens SHOULD have you directly in their LoS, while high tier PSI aliens should have at least any of the aliens to have LoS on your team member. I can understand when then PSI thing applies globally when you are assaulting the Alien base, but that's it. Any other map should have LoS restrictions. PSI wars should be the one thing that the game should have copied from the Firaxi's X-COM.

[StellarRat]

BTW, in case anyone is still wondering, none of the psy attacks require LOS. Mind control and hallucinate require a cool down period so the alien psion can't use them every turn. They can all be mitigated by range, excellent leaders (they raise morale), and high bravery/morale stats on your troops. If I'm wrong someone please correct me.

Edited June 10, 2014 by StellarRat

[Chris]

How many aliens actually survive the turn they sight the Xenonauts? If you make psionics LOS (or squadsight) then they come into play much, much less.

[Larus]

You probably won't find a better system without making some fundamental changes to the game. No LOS required but less effective/likely with an increasing range is for me a good solution and much better than anything I experiend in former version of the game.

I played through the entire game with the new system on veteran difficulty and never had any major problems with psi-powers. I had maybe 2-3 hallucinationsand 0 mc in about 100 missions, a low moral and panik due to unnerve happend a few times though. Sure I consider only soldiers with at least +50 willpower (and +50 reations) to worth taking with me on a mission but that aren't imba stats by any means. Most of the powerful psi-powers are very unlikely to happen if you don't stand right next to an alien with psi-powers for rounds. Advance fast, shoot him in the face and nothing bad will happen.

Long story short, the current system isn't perfect but it dosen't suck.

[Feynman]

I rather like the current system: psionics are a threat worthy of consideration, but it isn't nearly as infuriatingly broken as it was in X-Com and Terror From the Deep, and it doesn't have that silly "magical wizard powers" feel that it did in Firaxis' Xcom.

It may not be 100% ideal, but it works better than the psionics in the classic games or the reboot, so I can't really complain.

[Phoenix]

How many aliens actually survive the turn they sight the Xenonauts? If you make psionics LOS (or squadsight) then they come into play much, much less.

I have quite a few of them on larger UFOs or terror missions. As it is, it is an annoying random factor, which you can't really address as a player. It was something that was very annoying in the first X-COM, but it was more of the spam, and the fact that after a few turns the map was revealed for the AI (as it was fairly poor at that time), as it did require a LoS from at least one alien on the target to make the PSI attacks.

In the New X-COM the PSI aliens are fairly tough and with the cover system and limited explosives they were something a player had to play around cautiously. Also the 2 move system was not allowing for Move-shoot-hide style of gameplay.

Here it is immediately global and is frustrating from the get go (instead of frustrating from turn X as it was in the first X-COM) and you can't really do anything but hope that attacks will fail or be inconsequential if succeed.

I'd say limiting the range to LoS of aliens AND full Alien base and full alien vessels would be something better than what it is now.

[Solver]

I am fine with non-LOS psionics, and they do have a cooldown. I would just go with a very adjustment maybe, requiring a soldier to have been sighted by an alien before psionics can be used. I mean sighting once - say, once a Caesan has seen a soldier, it gets attuned to the soldier's mental footprint allowing aliens to target the soldier. This would prevent the slight annoyance of having psionics used against you before you even make contact, but I do not think it's that important either.