Psi-Panicked alien has Reaction-Fire

[MyThos]

Hi,

yesterday in may continued game I finally got psi training done and used it promptly in a ufo crash mission. Mind-Control worked as expected (got an agent with psi strength of 100!!) but putting an alien under panic it still used reaction shots on another soldier trying to kill it. Should Panic not strip all TU from the alien or is this only applied at the end of the turn ??

Cheers,
Michael

[Warboy1982]

panic from a psi amp only lowers the target's morale. it doesn't force him to panic, it increases the odds of him panicking in his next turn, at which point his TUs will be set to 0. until then, he still has all his left over TUs from his last turn.

[mercy]

@MyThos  Consider the meaning of the word panic: it also implies a twitchy trigger finger a panicking alien shooting everything it sees as threat.

The alien might be so scared that it is loosing all its common sense and ready to go berserk, shooting everything in the transitory stage between panic --..-- berserk.

[Warboy1982]

i implemented some of the TFTD reserve buttons a while back, including "set TUs to 0"(default shortcut: del), if you want to kill the enemy TUs, i'd suggest mind controlling them and abusing that.

[MyThos]

i implemented some of the TFTD reserve buttons a while back, including "set TUs to 0"(default shortcut: del), if you want to kill the enemy TUs, i'd suggest mind controlling them and abusing that.

Thanks for the tip.

I deliberately wanted to panic the alien to kill it later. With capture of mind controlled aliens enabled, my alien containment is rather full.

So I understand correctly, that the TU reduction due to "panic" is only applied at the alien turn ?! As long as it is my turn I only reduce the morale, right ?

[Warboy1982]

correct

[MyThos]

correct

Hmm, just two days ago I had a "panicked" sectoid soldier toss a grenade at one of my guys during his turn. Shouldn't his TU be at 0 during his round ? It was no reaction-fire during my turn!

Any ideas ?

[moriarty]

Hmm, just two days ago I had a "panicked" sectoid soldier toss a grenade at one of my guys during his turn. Shouldn't his TU be at 0 during his round ? It was no reaction-fire during my turn!

Any ideas ?

are you sure the sectoid was panicked? if you did one (or several) successful psi-panic-attacks, it just means that his morale was lowered.

if you got the message "sectoid soldier panic" right before he threw a grenade at your guys, that may just have been his panic reaction: a unit that panics can do one of several things, including dropping his weapon, randomly shooting around, running away... I don't know if "throwing a grenade" is handled in the same way as "shooting", but I guess the AI handles both as "attacks", so that may just have been his "attack a random target" behavior... and your guy was the unlucky target.

[MyThos]

if you got the message "sectoid soldier panic" right before he threw a grenade at your guys, that may just have been his panic reaction: a unit that panics can do one of several things, including dropping his weapon, randomly shooting around, running away... I don't know if "throwing a grenade" is handled in the same way as "shooting", but I guess the AI handles both as "attacks", so that may just have been his "attack a random target" behavior... and your guy was the unlucky target.

I used PSI-AMP panic on him until the popup occured. Then moved some guys (seemingly) outside of the aliens perception area and finished my turn. I thought the popup was the indicator that the alien has panicked ?! At least my soldiers are out of TU after "panic" or "berserker" popups.

[Shadow]

I used PSI-AMP panic on him until the popup occured. Then moved some guys (seemingly) outside of the aliens perception area and finished my turn. I thought the popup was the indicator that the alien has panicked ?! At least my soldiers are out of TU after "panic" or "berserker" popups.

As it stands, the pop-up appears when I psi-panic is successful, but it's a bit misleading since it doesn't necessarily mean the alien will have trouble acting on its turn. You generally have to use psi-panic attacks in conjunction with a mind probe, so you can tell whether the target has a chance to panic properly (Morale below 50).

It usually takes 2-3 successes to produce a good chance of actual panic in the alien's turn. But it's important to point out no amount of successes will have an impact on the current (your) turn, so you can still get reaction-fired upon by an alien whose morale you brought down to 0 just then.

[MyThos]

As it stands, the pop-up appears when I psi-panic is successful, but it's a bit misleading since it doesn't necessarily mean the alien will have trouble acting on its turn. You generally have to use psi-panic attacks in conjunction with a mind probe, so you can tell whether the target has a chance to panic properly (Morale below 50).

It usually takes 2-3 successes to produce a good chance of actual panic in the alien's turn. But it's important to point out no amount of successes will have an impact on the current (your) turn, so you can still get reaction-fired upon by an alien whose morale you brought down to 0 just then.

Thanks for the explanation.

Overall this seems to make the "panic" option a lot more hassle than trying "mind-control" right away.

Do you see an option to modify the behavior so that the panic pop-up only occurs once the alien is ensured to be fully disabled (TU = 0) during the alien turn ?

[Sharp]

For all non-terrorist aliens each successful psi-panic attack will lower morale by 30 (110 - Bravery)
Chance for unit to panic/berserk each turn is 100 - (2*Morale) so below 50 morale is when it starts

So two successful attacks are required to have one chance of panic and 4 are required for it to be 100% though once a unit panics it gains 15 morale so you can't get a unit to keep panicking ad-infinitum although once they drop their weapon then that is good enough.

[SupSuper]

We will change the message to be less confusing, but X-Com mechanics pretty much dictate every attack you perform has a random chance of succeeding, so nothing is guaranteed.

[MyThos]

We will change the message to be less confusing, but X-Com mechanics pretty much dictate every attack you perform has a random chance of succeeding, so nothing is guaranteed.

Except for the fact that the mind-control pop-up does always provide you access to the alien

Ok, no prob. Just means I will mostly go for mind-control as I will not need a mind probe to check my success. This is especially true since the usage of mind probe also uses up TU.

[Shadow]

Except for the fact that the mind-control pop-up does always provide you access to the alien

Ok, no prob. Just means I will mostly go for mind-control as I will not need a mind probe to check my success. This is especially true since the usage of mind probe also uses up TU.

Well, the pop-up appears when the attack was successful, so if you're familiar with the alien stats and the impact each panic strike has, you don't really need a mind probe.

I personally prefer psi-panic as opposed to mind control, since the latter tends to be quite overpowered.