XCOM EU Make Psionics Available Earlier

[DersitePhantom]

It's been a long time since I've been around here, so I'm not entirely aware on what is currently plausible, but after playing through a game with Enemy Within, I have a change that I would be very interested in making, but am unsure of how to implement.

 

With Gene mods and MEC troopers placed so early on the tech tree, I'd like the ability to construct the Psionic Labs around the same time. Ideally, it would become available from interrogating a Sectoid.

 

This is to go with some other changes to up the difficulty that I already know how to make, but I really want to be able to choose one of the three paths for each soldier to add greater diversity throughout the game.

[endersblade]

I think I would have to double or triple the usefulness of Psi abilities before I even bothered to try that. I made a Psi trooper in my very first playthrough of EU, realized that ultimately it just sucked compared to just blowing an alien away instead, and I really haven't looked back. I never understood how Psi troopers were supposed to be even remotely useful. Crowd control? Why? I'd rather just kill an alien, not play with it's mind.

[DersitePhantom]

As I said, this would go along side several other changes.

In order to boost the relative usefulness of Psi abilities in my playthroughs I intend to reduce the reliability of ballistic and laser weapons (making a near-guaranteed 5 damage from mindfray look much better) and severely increase alien health (so dealing with aliens temporarily with panic or adding to your fire-power with mind control is more practical.)

The problem is that I can't accurately find how to balance these unless I can actually go through the early game with Psi soldiers.

So yeah, balancing the game to make early Psi abilities useful, but not overpowered, would take some work, but I think it would be interesting and worthwhile.

[overkill]

Honestly just having access to Psi sooner would by itself make it more useful to have; right now by the time most of us get it unless we are rushing the main storyline we already have beam or plasma weapons researched and equipped, which understandably makes Psi look weak in comparison.

Getting Psi by the time you first start encountering big nasty brutes like basic Mutons would help immensely while not terribly altering late game balance.

Edit: Heck, making it a 3rd Meld "path" would do the trick; make it so that Sectoid Interrogation + Meld Recombination = Psionic Lab unlocked. Then alter the Psionic Lab to work more like the Gene Lab (You get a guaranteed Psi soldier but it costs money, time, AND Meld.)

Edited November 19, 2013 by overkill

[Krazyguy75]

The problem with early psi is that you can clear missions easily with early mind control. Very, very, very easily. You get a free scout every 5 turns, as well as essentially killing off an alien. Granted, it is temporary, but most aliens can be killed off before the third mind control turn. Mindfray + high cover = nigh impossible for early aliens to hit and very hard to flank. Granted, Psi Inspiration would be many times more useful to get rid of those rookie panics early on, but MC is OP vs the early, low will enemies...

 

The only way I could see this being fair is if you had to research each level individually.

[DersitePhantom]

Hmm.

Perhaps increasing the Psi XP requirements for each level, such that the third tier cannot be achieved within the early game?

And perhaps a buff to early game alien will would be able to find a compromise between Mindfray being a guaranteed insta-kill and downright useless.

[overkill]

I think yall might be taking the resource/time costs for granted for an early Psi Lab:

xeno biology: 40 research + 4 sectoid corpses
arc thrower: 60 research + 10 weapon fragments
Interrogate Sectoid: 40 research + captive sectoid
Meld Recombination: 40 research
Psi Lab: 200 credits, 3 power, 20 elerium, 20 alloys; 14 days build time.
Then you still need another 10 days just to test a batch of soldiers even if not altering the lab to work like the gene lab and mech lab.

All that for a (low) chance at up to three soldiers with Mind Fray. No way in hell you are accomplishing this in the first month without screwing yourself, and the second month is iffy. By the third month you should be encountering beefier enemies already that you can't one shot with Mind Fray.

You'd probably still be better off rushing Beam Weapons instead. And that's without further gating Psi by making it cost credits and meld in addition to time.

[DersitePhantom]

I wasn't really planning to add Meld as a requirement, but even the other stuff is still a good point.

I don't want to make the whole process shorter, as that would risk making the other interrogations come too quickly and shortening research times too early on.

Though, as I said, laser weapons would also be made less reliable, so rushing them may not be as useful.

I'd need to do some testing, but maybe just shortening Psi Lab construction time and testing time enough would work?

If 10-15 days were cut off from that, and maybe as much from the other aspects, Psi would hopefully be available soon enough to be useful, and level up to remain relevant into the later game.

Edited November 23, 2013 by DersitePhantom