[EXPANSION]Hardmode Expansion -- General Feedback Thread

[hederino]

Does Bravery play a role in Psi Defence? AFAIK the psi attack and defence formulas are moddable. In my first Ethereal encounter, a Fighter UFO landing site in February 2000, they managed to get my high psi strength soldiers (one at 83 PST/49 PSK/10 BRV, another at 88/23/20) to panic like it was nothing. I would put it down to the relatively short distance due to the small map size or the controlling aliens being Eth leaders substituted for the lacking officer ranks, but they seemed to go for the low bravery ones to perform their mind tricks on.

[hellrazor]

Does Bravery play a role in Psi Defence? AFAIK the psi attack and defence formulas are moddable. In my first Ethereal encounter, a Fighter UFO landing site in February 2000, they managed to get my high psi strength soldiers (one at 83 PST/49 PSK/10 BRV, another at 88/23/20) to panic like it was nothing. I would put it down to the relatively short distance due to the small map size or the controlling aliens being Eth leaders substituted for the lacking officer ranks, but they seemed to go for the low bravery ones to perform their mind tricks on.

We are using vanilla PSI rules here. Bravery does not play a role in any PSI checks. Just to make that clear.
It gets checked after the morale is lowered (from PSI Panic e.g.) below 50 to see if any Panic action will happen (running in Panic, going berserk etc..) see: https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Panic

I recommend Soldiers with PSI-Str 90+ against Ethereals. Usually you are safe with this for an distance at least against mind control.

Using 1 or 2 Psi weak Soldiers as Lightningrods is really helpful

Also do not forget that distance plays a significant role in Psi Attacks. The more distance the lower the chance of any attack to succeed.

So yes smaller craft have smaller maps, so Ethereals might be more powerful on those (also depends on your random chance as usual).

Hope this answered your question

[hederino]

Using 1 or 2 Psi weak Soldiers as Lightningrods is really helpful

I would always take two to three inexperienced/sacrificial guys as psi sponges on missions where sectoid leaders would show up. I just wanted to see how psionically strong soldiers would fare against the eths. After all, there won't be enough psi sponges if it's not just the leaders who are psychics. And 90+ psi soldiers are hard to come by (less than 20 of them across three main bases so far).

On an unrelated note, I have a suggestion: the HWP limits for crafts don't apply just for 2x2 tanks, but also for drones. I was scrolling through the ruleset reference and saw that  parameters such as maxSmallVehicles and maxLargeVehicles exist. How about making use of this so that more drones can be carried by each type of craft?

[hellrazor]

I would always take two to three inexperienced/sacrificial guys as psi sponges on missions where sectoid leaders would show up. I just wanted to see how psionically strong soldiers would fare against the eths. After all, there won't be enough psi sponges if it's not just the leaders who are psychics. And 90+ psi soldiers are hard to come by (less than 20 of them across three main bases so far).

Screening for High PSI Str is a costly process, but totally worth it.
I usually start with a Team of 80+ and a Secondary Team of 69+, the secondary Team with some PSi Skill Training in the lab can be used relatively safely against Sectoids and the occasional mixed in Ethereal.
I screen for high psi 90+ and gather rookies and train them on the field, everyone else PSI Str 68- gets used for attacking alien bases  of non Psi races until they died a honorable Death on the battlefield.

Or you turn on the Option of PSI Str Improvement and let the 69+ guys slowly become 90ish
The Psi Str improvement can be done in the Psilab or on the battelfield (even thou the battelfield is way more effective.) and can be combined with bravery training. Obviously everyone below 69 is just trash.

On an unrelated note, I have a suggestion: the HWP limits for crafts don't apply just for 2x2 tanks, but also for drones. I was scrolling through the ruleset reference and saw that  parameters such as maxSmallVehicles and maxLargeVehicles exist. How about making use of this so that more drones can be carried by each type of craft?

I am hesitant regarding his change. Would need some testing. And you can bring at least 3 Drones/Tanks and a Maximum of 4 totally with the vanilla setting.

Here a suggestion on how it could be changed as a example:
Skyranger - Max 2 Drones and Max 2 Tanks
Skystriker - Max 4 Drones and Max 2 Tanks
Thunder - Max 4 Drones and Max 2 Tanks
Avenger - Max 6 Drones and Max 3 Tanks

No clue how to balance this at the moment.

The problem is which spaces on the Craft do they occupy on the Battelfield Map, it would requiere some testing to see how it behaves.