Modding Psi Usage?

[Murmur]

Is there any way to mod the aliens usage of psi to bring it in line with how it works for the humans? I'd like it if a member of the alien team had to actually see a member of my team for them to be vulnerable to psi-attacks, as opposed to the 'see once, forever vulnerable' way it has always been.

If this is at all possible, I'd really appreciate someone pointing me in the right direction.

[Falko]

the humans psi guys can stay in the skyranger and dont have to see the alien they control
i may be wrong but if i remember correctly the aliens can see all humans if they can see at least one human - dont know ig thats the case in openxcom or not / and if the AI takes that into account

[Murmur]

Yeah I think the way it works is once a human is seen by any alien, that human can be psy attacked whether they are still in view of any aliens or not.

I'd like to be able to change it so a human has to be in sight of any alien for them to be psi attacked. I don't mean just in sight of the one doing the attacking. I'd like it to work just like it does for the humans.

[Solarius Scorch]

Yeah I think the way it works is once a human is seen by any alien, that human can be psy attacked whether they are still in view of any aliens or not.

I'd like to be able to change it so a human has to be in sight of any alien for them to be psi attacked. I don't mean just in sight of the one doing the attacking. I'd like it to work just like it does for the humans.

Seconded!
Well, at least for humans; they are novice psions after all, and psionics kinda break the late game (which has some nice flavour, I admit). Line-of-sight only psionics would make things more exciting, so I would like to have this option.
As for the aliens, I think this change wouldn't affect them too terribly - at least the Ethereals, since they're all psionics.

[Murmur]

Ideally, I'd like to have 3 options. One, works just like it does now: Psi is limited to squad sight for humans, magic all seeing eye after first contact for aliens. Two: Psi is limited to squad sight for humans and aliens, and Three: Psi only works on direct line of sight for both humans and aliens.

I've looked at the source code and I think I see how to do option three, but option two still eludes me.

Actually now that I'm thinking about it, a fourth option could limit psi to direct line of sight for humans, and limit it to squad sight for the aliens. Call it a limitation of the psi-amp maybe. That would probably be better balanced, as you could no longer sit back in the sky ranger and puppet master the entire battlefield.

[SupSuper]

We've looked into adding a line-of-sight-only flag to weapon rulesets, but it's quite a headache AI-wise.

[moriarty]

well, how do the aliens "keep track" of player units psionics-wise anyway? it's obviously something in the code already, because they don't fire any weapon at units they don't see. so whatever mechanic the game uses (do the discovered xcom soldiers get some kind of flag?), it should be possible to simply switch it off, to prevent the aliens from "psi-cheating"

[Solarius Scorch]

We've looked into adding a line-of-sight-only flag to weapon rulesets, but it's quite a headache AI-wise.

How about making an invisible projectile with like 1000% accuracy that would carry the psionic effect?

[Warboy1982]

if you don't want aliens to "keep track" of your units, simply lower their intelligence to 0 or 1. the intelligence stat refers to how quickly they "forget" where you are.

[SupSuper]

Warboy has added a UFOextender-style "Psi limited to LOS" ruleset now.

[Murmur]

I was so excited when I saw that. Much appreciated!