Psi-training and away team missions

[Tsathoggua]

Whilst transferring crew between bases counts as interrupting their psi training for the month,what about away missions? does being sent on a mission prevent initial aquisition of psi skill due to being unable to train sufficiently to get at least enough to begin making attempts?

[silencer_pl]

No. Soldier must be alive at the base where he started training when monthly summary kicks in.

[Tsathoggua]

Figured. Does transfer onto and off a troop transport (assuming that the transport does in no way take them off base for any time period, and the transport does not take off with the trainee psyker onboard) count as interrupting their training?

 

And the way you worded things, specifically the 'when monthly summary kicks in' to me, reads somewhat ambiguous.

 

Did you mean to imply (implications...ick.) that if a soldier starts or remains in psionic training, leaves base on a flight, to an away mission and then returns before the monthly summary, and is, before and during monthly appraisal, present on base. I have, for example (and just into a new month, haven't left the base whatsoever, but is onboard the skyranger, otherwise healthy and cleared for liftoff, can I safely de-assign them from the transport without fucking with their psionics training?

 

Does being confined to base due to wounding affect training?

[silencer_pl]

Does being confined to base due to wounding affect training?

No.

 

And the way you worded things, specifically the 'when monthly summary kicks in' to me, reads somewhat ambiguous.

Let me rephrase that. Soldier must be in the base roster list no matter he is flying to or from mission.

 

 

Overall you are trying ot overthinking it. Just do not transfer the soldier to different base and everything will be fine. Only death and transfer cancels training.

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

 

Let me rephrase that. Soldier must be in the base rooster list no matter he is flying to or from mission.

 

 

Base Rooster? Is that like a team mascot? haha typos are fun!

[magic9mushroom]

Soldiers can go on missions without interrupting their training. Of course, if they die, that does interrupt their training.

[Tsathoggua]

Haha.

 

Maybe X-com bases keep one in the psi-labs for those troopers that REALLY need a soft target to start their skill training, or for budding psykers that suffer a concussion on away missions.

 

Over-thinking it? why so? I do not believe your appraisal to be correct, for the reason that the game mechanics in the early games in the X-com series at least, do not necessarily follow logical patterns. I do not have the requisite skillset to examine them through directly analyzing the code, so the two means that remain to me are one-through direct action and observation, and two-questioning those who either already know through other means, or who do have that skillset and have made use of it in the way which would furnish the specific nature of information I require. Doing the former would, were it to turn out that sending soldiers on away missions or assigning/removing them from the flight deck of the troop transport they are currently assigned to did in fact negate the benefits of their months psionic training, then it would have been wasted.

 

Posting the question did not. Therefore it is the option of greatest efficiency, so to do otherwise would be illogical.

 

Perhaps thats why some troops of otherwise extremely high potential have not been gaining in psi-skill, even though they have been training multiple months. If they tried to train using a chicken for a psi-amp, presumably the results are...somewhat sub-optimal.

 

 

I've also built a base quite far from the rest, in order partly to maximize radar capability and partly as an interceptor base designed to host several fighters with capability to down both larger alien craft owing to their each mounting both a plasma beam and a laser cannon for shooting down up to medium-sized UFOs whilst inflicting the minimal possible damage to the crashed UFO so as to give a better chance of retrieving the subsystems of the craft in question that have the greatest tendency to go off with a bang, when intercepting the smaller UFOs, the plasma beam gets switched off temporarily and the aircraft moves in to engage with the laser cannon, seeing as how there is little chance of running out of juice for the plasma cannon even if circumstances dictate a change in course to intercept secondary, tertiary or even multiple target of large size. It simply takes longer due to the low range of the laser weapon.

 

 

The primary function of the base is a training facility for new troops with psionic potential. And there are indeed troops stationed there and assigned to the psi-labs, but they are all rookies who have as of yet not been on a single mission. They have been there several months and as of yet have gained no psi skill, despite psi-strength being at >80% as a minimum for remaining on the payroll whilst stationed at this base. Going to transfer over some front-like combat troops with lesser psi strength and assign them only weapons that are likely not to inflict a great deal of damage to armored soldiers, and switch the rank beginners who have exceptional psi-strength (I've got a man with 99 strength but so far zero skill, a rookie yet to go on an away mission, this guy is, unusually for a total rookie, going to be assigned one of the as yet, still very limited availability flying suits, and weapons suitable for his beginners strength level.

 

Am I correct in thinking that rookies that haven't yet encountered the enemy cannot progress in psi-skill regardless of their strength? or have they all been taking turns using the base's chicken for a helmet?

 

One hesitates to even think HOW they put on that chicken....the potential means are....limited. Neither pleasant, but one of them quite enough to induce PTSD if 'read' psionically. The view out of the targeted trooper's eyes would be...ahem..not a very pretty sight;)

 

Magicmushroom...oh, really? and there was me thinking.......

[silencer_pl]

 

 

Base Rooster? Is that like a team mascot? haha typos are fun!

 

https://orig02.deviantart.net/6f60/f/2010/300/2/4/oh_you_by_doom1272-d31mb3c.jpg

[Tsathoggua]

Another question-what does it take to get trainee psykers their first point of skill?

 

I've had a small squad stationed on a radar base/intercept station, that as of yet, despite training for MONTHS,and never once, at all, in any way leaving base of being transferred until recently rotated to the base housing my active combat team of real friggin' hardcases, the type that don't even break a sweat when engaging a snakeman base, and after demoralizing the base commander and their leader likewise, plus nearby engineer and using the three of them to do the dirty and blast their own command center to nothing more than a skeletal framework of alloy floors, and most likely a smoking pool of boiling glass., toss their blaster launchers and then walk...errn...slither, rather, over, after losing any grenades carried, deliver the blaster ammo on a silver platter, turn round to avoid sighting the team on the next turn and get psi-ed repeatedly until range of the rookies needing experience for execution duty in the case of the engineer after having the living daylights smacked out of them with plasma pistols until KO'ed and hit with a grenade, The others were used for melee training by pistol-whipping them senseless for capture, allowed to hang around only long enough for everyone capable of initiating psionic attacks to fill their mission minimum quota, then surrounded, boxed in and battered utterly senseless.

 

 

BTW, whilst it might or might not be different for snakemen, can any other alien be zombified?

 

But I need to get these new guys at least a single point of psi-strength. Because they were specially selected amongst raw recruits for enlistment, the ones with strength below about 80 were fired instantly after recruiting and seeing their potential insufficient. This base more or less exists for just that, intercept function was added as an afterthought due to the base being remote from others. Only other reason bar radar is research and a factory complex. But rookies were hired in batches and the ones too low for my liking were just sent back home without ever being sent on mission. But the rookies, while rookies gained zero skill. I figured it might be because they have never been on a mission at that point, so I transferred the best of the best, in terms of psi-strength, like the handful with 90% and definitely the one 99% and 96-98% pair, rotated to primary base to get them combat experience, as snipers packing heavy lasers. Which unlike the heavy gauss I am really warming to having been giving them a proper chance for once. Because never mind the lack of autofire, those things are EXTREMELY accurate in the right, experienced hands. My medic/sniper/smoke bomber/prox mine layer elite trooper, a colonel by rank, with a good few kills but not nearly as much as commander skull-cracker (the guy with the blaster launcher and a plasma rifle sidearm, medic and generally really mean bastard, who has a really rather out of control habit of using the blaster as a battering ram as much as he ever fires the thing, generally gets a rocket launcher and one round for it, maybe one spare, plus psi-amp. With the idea being to drop the first target of opportunity with the rocker launcher, reload, blast the hell out of whatever he spots next then toss the launcher, either on the ground or to another rocket trooper) has racked up. HE has bodies dropping like a wasps nest hit by a flamethrower mission after mission, so much so that I've started having to order him to avoid using the blaster launcher unless really needed to save an otherwise FUBAR situation and troops in the same, And otherwise restrict his blaster use to breaching beside the front door of UFOs to enable the laser tank to roll on in to scout targets, and instead. use his psionic talent, which is not at all modest, but not as lethal as some of the new guys will turn out once trained and got at least a SINGLE skill point.

 

 

But they haven't been gaining any even after transfer to active duty and scoring kills with both heavy laser and grenades (not prox mines of course, unless needed once in a while, but those I view as specialist tools rather than generic ordinance, bar those times when something needs a grenade up the behind and thats all the new troopers have left, having expended the rest of their allowance.

 

I want that damn 99 psi-strength soldier to be able to train in the field because they haven't earned a point of skill in the labs.

I know mind-probing doesn't help, so they don't carry one, they aren't yet as strong as the big bruiser commander (high 70s strength, guy has been alive a long time, is cautious and wary as hell, but isn't afraid to take point either and drop whatever presents itself as a target. Strong as an ox, and has had many missions in which to work out)

 

Sadly I've barely even bothered to train the squads elite sniper of elite snipers as he only has psi-strength of 24-27 or so. But whilst if he were a rookie he'd have been fired. As he is, he is THE single most lethal sniper of all the X-com forces, up high with his flight suit, from WAY beyond visual range, his shiny new heavy laser, to replace the old heavy plasma, it just never misses. 111% accuracy, and if kneeling from the top of the transport, I literally, have NEVER seen him miss an aimed shot. Never needs to go near the enemy, no zombifying for him, Only stays assigned to psi-training because there isn't anyone better currently filling the roles. The weaker psi-potentials, the really weak, like one with strength of 2, another with less than 15 IIRC get to stay on, but with limits on what they are allowed to wield, unless its a tossed heavy weapon to fire and throw back or drop. Smokes and flares, incendiary cover-burner, laser rifles (but not heavy lasers)

 

Recently compared the two for some reason and per shot, the heavy laser actually does somewhat more damage than a heavy plasma round. The colonel who's the elite of elites in the sniper support troopers, he's REALLY liking that heavy laser. Just had him drop a snakeman with a snapshot, the next turn after giving a pair of chryssalids a hole in the head that they never hatched with, from right the other end of the map whilst engaging either a supply or landed battleship. Crouched down on top of the skyranger, between the two upright fins, just poking out enough to open fire, and blow me down with a fart in a jar if he didn't manage to drop the first in one aimed shot and the second with a decently aimed snap. And for a sniper capable of such extreme long range target interdiction he doesn't NEED or have a use for autofire, he does carry a plasma pistol and spare mag though in his belt just in case anything ever does come up close and need a good poke in the eye with a forked stick, at a less time unit-endowed moment in time, but even on autofire, at those kind of close ranges with his skill level, the accuracy limit of pistols matters little to him, if he's in a situation where he actually would (and he hasn't yet, other than for executions of disarmed enemies panicked a few times by the psyops troopers and the lesser experienced but still psi-attack-capable, if not too good at it greenhorns with SOME psi skill., after they panic targets then the experienced, mission psi quota-filled soldiers take the enemy over if possible and march them up to a rookie for a close-range autoshot from their plasma pistol sidearms in the back of the head, for accuracy training (each hit ROUND of an autoshot counts as 1 skill point increase in accuracy, no?)

 

But WHAT to do to get those psykers in potentiae their very first shiny brand spanking new gift-wrapped psi-skill point? only need one that way they can actually train in the field.

 

Do, counterintuitively, those with massive degrees of strength but zero current skill need longer training in the psi-labs? Because there are three, perhaps four of the recruits, after hiring and firing enough who have truly, truly exceptional innate talent, but they have to be able to USE it, even fr failed attacks, to be able to gain more properly. Once they have a respectable few missions under their belt, they are going to be absolutely unstoppable.

[NKF]

Another question-what does it take to get trainee psykers their first point of skill?

 

Survive a month in the psi-lab. That's it.

 

- NKF

[Tsathoggua]

But that hasn't worked! I've had these would-be specialist candidates for an elite group within the psi-corps for 4 game-months maybe five and they havent gained a single point of skill!

 

 

Thats whats making me wonder if the soldiers with higher potential, like the real best of the best, the grades that wouldjn't just control an etherial, but make their heads explode in a fleshy, squishy, squelchy 'plop' noise, take longer in the psi lab to gain their first point of skill. They were rookies for most of the time but have now been actively training and if not all of them most, by now are at least squaddies rather than 0-mission rookies, and have made several kills, even being sent on away missions to alien bases. Have survived their first attack aimed their way (best guy gave me the willies, and no mistake, when he took two hits from a celatid that obviously had been hitting the foil too hard and got itself a nasty H-cough, from the looks and sound of those noxious loogies that it started spitting. Before, that is, one of said rookies selected for the elite psyops support division within my psyker team (now MOST of the soldiers capable of using psionics at all are actually pretty dangerous, able to reliably control at least sectoids of most ranks, chryssalid, mutons of any rank, and, on the last mission one of the new, although still pretty green (and not from being covered in celatid hairballs) soldiers came across three snakemen armed with blasters,the X-com soldier being supported by another psyker for she is only able to initiate two psionic attacks a turn due to TU constraints, but she took over the snakeman leader and snakeman commander, as well as earlier on, a chryssalid, leading it over for execution by another rookie. But the engineer had to be taken down by another budding psyker, all three successfully used with their blaster launchers to guide shells through a hole punched in the door of the command centerm and as such, wiping it out completely, before dropping the launchers, being marched up to the squad and made to face the wall (so as not to give position away to other enemy next turn) so more rookies with innate talent but no skill at all could score some easy kills and grab them some blaster launcher ammo which by now, the team is running quite low on, having expended HUNDREDS of shells, taking 40-60 rounds on a mission although not to say all were used, but there certainly is never any shortage of high-explosive ordinance when it is called for.

 

 

Rookies in question got their kills, shooting the snakemen engineer dead, and getting some melee accuracy practice by using their plasma pistols to pistol-whip the snakeman leader and commander unconscious slowly. Pistols being chosen for the multiple strikes needed to drop the enemy. Engineer on the other hand, we have plenty of those in containment, various species, so that one just got a heavy laser bolt in the back of the head.

 

I'm really warming to the heavy laser, its nothing like TFTDs heavy gauss. INSANELY accurate and per shot, as a sniper weapon, never mind the lack of autofire, a sniper doesn't need it, and if they do, they have their plasma pistol sidearms. And per laser bolt, each one is marginally more powerful than a heavy plasma round if the ufopaedia (in game, not website) is correct. Best sniper NEVER misses an aimed shot, not even right the other end of the map when taking down a battleship or similarly big, dangerous craft type.

[Tsathoggua]

Well somethings odd there then.

 

Bear in mind I am playing openXcom. But it says up to two months in that version.

 

Thing is, whilst still 0-mission rookies they had been training without any interruption (the only aircraft present there at that base are interceptors, and a firestorm on the way (first advanced craft is the firestorm, no? flying saucer looking thing not the utter crap one.

 

Three to four months solid training and not a single skill point earned.

[NKF]

My comment only relates to the vanilla game. Your experience in OpenXcom will vary depending on your game settings or any active mods (if any).

 

You might want to enable the 'psionics at any time' option in the advanced option menu. which allows you to add and remove soldiers to the psi lab roster* at any time. It apparently updates psi progress daily. See if that brings about any change.

 

 

- NKF

 

* Not to be confused with Base Rooster - the company that makes that smash hit on-line machinima series Yellow vs. Green.

[Tsathoggua]

I've got no mods for this game.Psi training-enabledPsi-line-of-sight. I wanted to make things more realistic.Though I do wish there had been a setting for 'nearby,OS not vital if close' because surely, something like an ethereal can control their sectopods from a LONG distance away, so surely an ethereal, gliding around out of sight of, but close to X-com troops, round a corner etc., or even one of those X-com agents who you don't just automatically fire because by the time your bases get psi-labs they are, despite perhaps being of only moderate, or nearly bugger all psi-strength have been around for a fair while, surviving long enough to become very competent agents. But I'd think even a modest dribble of talent would let an agent sense that there is *something* close by. If not have any more ability to tell where, or perhaps not even what. Whilst a highly talented elite psyops specialist type that might not even carry more than a psi-amp, medkit and stun rod into battle at all, other than some pyrotechnics of various kinds, maybe a laser pistol or plasma pistol for executio0ns or pistolwhipping targets unconscious, a trooper like that would not only near certain to be able to use their psi talents to become aware the enemy was in proximity but probably tell where, what, too, if it were a species the soldier faced before, and the most highly skilled of troopers would be likely capable of engaging an alien psionically without having to see them.I just set the options in openXcom to line-of-sight psionics only. I'd far sooner it was based on distance, hugely boosted by being able to get a visual lock on target, but that was just because otherwise psionic warfare was WAY overbalanced when say, raiding an enemy base with a crack team of elite psykers, who themselves had previously been regular soldiers, but the very best X-com had to offer. The ones who'll be the type selected to appear on recruitment posters.NKF-something just tells me, that if a soldier cannot remove the base rooster once mistaken for the psi training equipment then there probably isn't going to be a great deal of use letting them anywhere near it. Those soldiers are probably best left assigned to such tasks as cleaning the wheels of the hovertanks, polishing the mind probes, checking motion scanners work, doing likewise with the stun rods;) and maybe loading guns'n'ammo onto the transports in preparation for takeoff.That said they might JUST actually be quite an effective weapon.Just send them into battle, heavily armored and carrying just a medkit, motion scanner, smokes, flares, a shock-prod and an autocannon loaded with incendiary rounds but wearing the base rooster over their helmet. Have them fly around in circles making noises that sound something like 'blooraaarrggghhhkkhh.....WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!' and trying to eat a flare. They are electric rather than chemical so shouldn't hurt the bechickened trooper, but while they are at it, anything else seeing them is hardly going to start shooting, not recognizing them as much of a threat, but then all that needs doing is a couple of the HEAVY weapons division (as opposed to simply the heavy weapons soldiers. The former being the type that charges into battle first turn when they get that TU bonus and engages the enemy with a dual-wielded pair of rocket launchers, and an alien grenade or two if they can have enough TU leftover (pre-primed) then drops smoke, crouches and pulls their plasma pistol, or in some cases, heavy plasma sidearm. And the kind that carry again, not a pistol for a sidearm but heavy cannon or autocannon-HE for use next turn, dropping it on the floor after slamming a blaster launcher round into wherever the enemy is most likely to be, or has been shown up on the motion trackers. There is heavy, and Heavy, if you see what I mean)I cannot enable psionic training at any time, for the reason that I cannot turn on that which is already turned on. That would be like tony bliar (no thats not a typo:D) deciding to one day, become a filthy, mendacious evil war criminal who wouldn't know the truth if somebody strapped it to a sledgehammer head and brought it crashing down upon each of his testicles, or isocyanides one day just suddenly deciding 'hey...why don't I just try packing a most indescribable and hideously foul abomination of a filthy fucking stench', or dog turds just suddenly starting to attract flies all of a sudden:P