Simple "balance" to broken Psi system

[hellblade]

The Psi system is ... in today's gaming term ... OP.  It's so over-powered that it breaks the game.

I propose a simple mechanic to partially balance this problem.  Could the soldiers who successfully (or unsuccessfully) attack psionically also suffer some brain damage?

How much damage is up for debate, but as long as the soldier who used psionic ability hits the sick bed for a couple of days (or even kills himself), it would balance the broken system somewhat.

I got this idea from the official X-Com novel actually.  Our human brain wasn't born for psionics anyway, so why shouldn't there be some brain damage?

[NuclearStudent]

The Psi system is ... in today's gaming term ... OP.  It's so over-powered that it breaks the game.

I propose a simple mechanic to partially balance this problem.  Could the soldiers who successfully (or unsuccessfully) attack psionically also suffer some brain damage?

How much damage is up for debate, but as long as the soldier who used psionic ability hits the sick bed for a couple of days (or even kills himself), it would balance the broken system somewhat.

I got this idea from the official X-Com novel actually.  Our human brain wasn't born for psionics anyway, so why shouldn't there be some brain damage?

This can be simulated with OpenXcom Extended. With a new feature that was just added, use of weapons can wound soldiers. Ask somebody to cobble together a ruleset for you (I'm lazy.)

[Dioxine]

Like a Commander worth his Earth's defender mantle would care about hurt brainsies. It'd be a question of building an extra Quarters and couple Psi Labs, having a pool of 40 psi-monkeys or so (as opposed to current system where you want psi on good soldiers) and recycling them between missions and hospital. Where's the dignity If we're talking about Extended features, I'd simply increase the psi efficiency loss with distance (needs experimenting) - after all, the OP-ness comes from the fact you can control the whole map without the need to ever leave your craft.

[7Saturn]

I believe, the psi-efficiency is already depending on the distance to the object. Some other idea: Make the cost 80% TU. (It takes time to concentrate, your busy, yadda, blah) I mean, especially in the early game, when you encounter Sectoids attacking you with psi, it sometimes seems, as they have far to much fun and on the other side, in the late game, it really is rather easy, once you have 2-3 rather strong psi-soldiers with 75 TUs+. That way, you can control the entire crew of one of the smaller ufos with only 3 soldiers...

[Dioxine]

I believe, the psi-efficiency is already depending on the distance to the object.

Negligibly so. If you have exact 100% chance (not more) of MC-ing a target 1 square away, and about 98% to MC a target 2 squares away, you drop to 0% of MC-ing the same target at a distance of 57 tiles (such distances basically almost never happen to exist, since largest maps are 50x50, so the longest diagonal is about 75). With even a moderate psi-spam you're able to MC anything as long as your chance is about, say, 20%.

Soldiers with Psi Str 90 have a considerably higher chance of controlling Ethereals across the map if their skill starts to near 100. A 100/100 soldier will MC an Ethereal Commander 100% over a distance of 75 tiles. Have a look for yourself:

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Psionic_Equations

[7Saturn]

I know that. I always train my soldiers up to 100 Skill, and I noticed these things as well.

[pilot00]

Dioxine did something good on his mod by handicapping the psi of the soldiers and giving you a couple items to boost them slightly but the boosts are too slight and one of the weapons requires matterials that are very randomly inclined to come by. If you do this though, you litteraly can have a psi "class" soldier, that (due to inventory in this case) constreints will be above average at psi, but unable to do anything else meaningfully (except throw a grenade or fire pistols maybe) and a single high end shot will reduce her to slag. That said the psi powerfull enemy races still will have the same effect as the original on you, turn your squad on itself and I dont know if there is a cure for this.

If I ever tried to overhaul psi, I would do it on a way to overhaul its mechanics. I would enable the psi user to not have an unlimited range, but been able to have a radious around him, where he would be able to cast his attacks without concearn for LoS or barriers and add another power. A psi sense of short that would give the psion the ability to "feel" the enemy only in the radious of his bubble and cast his spells. I would force them to have crapshot armor and specialised weapons that only they could use and balance it with a defensive ability.

But all that cannot be moded on the base game so....

The problem with the game (all x-coms actually) is that it never had dedicated psi-corps troopers. Psi was always the weapon of the alien. A "cheaty" way to make due for the shortcommings of the AI.

[Arthanor]

There's still multiple things you can do, with tweaking TU costs, changing availability of psi-amps and requiring line of sight or not.

In my mod, I have two psi-amps: A quick to use one, that's limited to line of sight and relatively easy to build (because needing to see the alien is a huge downside imho) and a slower, unlimited one that's hard to build (This way you don't have many, and you don't have many uses of a given one per turn either). Haven't tested it yet, but I think it should balance things on the XCom side relatively well.

Add to that the extra tweaking you can do in OpenXCom Extended and there you can certainly achieve balanced psi from XCom. From the aliens, it is much harder (either you create incredibly powerful mind controllers, or you get wimps that can be taken control of too easily, because of the way psi offense vs psi-defense works).

[Yankes]

In OXCE Psi can cost: Time, Energy, Health, Stun, Morale. Bonus and defense can be based on any stat (current Time, Energy etc. too).
You could made that more you use Psi-Amp you are more likely successfully attacked by aliens.