A thread for little questions

[Psyentific]

I find it's more useful to mark them as expendable (I use a (-) symbol before their name) and use them for scouting, reaction baiting, UFO breaching and other high-risk guaranteed-to-get-shot uses.

[nicedayright]

Psi sponges had a very transient place soaking up the attention of the local ethereal problem children, but you really only needed one, and the need to completely strip them of anything that could be used to hurt your more valuable troops made more than one a waste of space. Flare chucking duty, maybe. Once you had psionics, you were a couple short engineering projects from trivializing everything with BVR psi spam. At that point, you used aliens to soak up their own reaction fire. Which is kind of the reason OG XCOM ages poorly, even though the late game could be immensely funny and very cathartic depending on how long it took you to get there.

Regardless, haven't used the walk the plank button once, just reiterating that it doesn't necessarily mean killing your unit, just releasing them to the wild.

[Tamren]

I use that feature all the time. In the early game I batch hire a bunch of peasants all at once and only keep the best ones. I'm sure the rejects aren't too disappointed (they get paid either way). In the late game once psy technology is known I only keep new hires with 50 psi or better.

I initially experimented with expendable soldiers but I found the morale penalties could easily lead to tantrum spirals, even if it was just dogs I was losing. More experienced soldiers can take the morale hit easily, but then they don't need any help to finish a mission without losses.

[SufferNot]

I feel that in Piratez the number of missions done against enemies without PSI is a lot higher than the number of missions done against aliens with PSI. Having B or C teams on fast transports at other bases can help spread out the Freshness loss from doing multiple missions in short succession, and your 40 PSI strength units aren't gonna have to worry about that against Traders, Church, Humanists, Spartans, Raiders, Mercs, Deep Ones, Megapol, Zombies, or so on. Your A team that you bring against Ethereals should absolutely be screened, but I find that I need enough soldiers where their PSI doesn't matter that I end up keeping everyone.

Compare that to OG Xcom. Your last month is probably exclusively Ethereals, unless you left a Floater base alive for easy supply missions. Come December of year 1 the other aliens have mostly stopped flying missions, and by that point you're either ready for Cydonia or only 1 or 2 techs off from it.

[Tamren]

Yeah pretty much, 50 is a good baseline to maintain for regular soldiers, once I unlock psi I transfer anyone under 50 to garrison or pilot duty. From then on I only keep recruits with 50 or better, any soldiers with 60 or above get moved into the A team at my main base and possibly start training with psi weapons. It's not hard to find nekos or regular humans with 70+ if you roll enough times.

[Rokksta]

Is psi really that important? I play mostly without. Am I missing something?

[Vakrug]

Is psi really that important? I play mostly without. Am I missing something?

You are missing a lot of fun, bro! 

[eharper256]

Is psi really that important? I play mostly without. Am I missing something?

Gray Codex stuff is pretty cool.

Is it mandatory? Not really; especially if your captain and codex is not setup to maximise it.

Still, being able to set 12x12 tiles on fire in a single spell, fly a bunch of witches into a gap in a command tower, force-choking prisoners, and stuff like that is pretty hilarious. It's more it opens more strategic versatility than grant great power, in my experience.

[Solarius Scorch]

In my Grey run, I haven't really used spells. My brain is not big enough for such specialist tools.

But the Dullahan "armour" is such a goddamn treasure. Running a squad of 6 ghosts, squashing mortals like bugs. Feels good.

[Rokksta]

It's more it opens more strategic versatility than grant great power, in my experience.

Yeah, thats what I think too. A well placed rocket can do more damage than voodoo. And I normaly can not take the Gray Codex, because I love the Green one.

It seems my stupid brain loves efficiency much more than having fun with flying witches  :'(

[SufferNot]

Yeah, thats what I think too. A well placed rocket can do more damage than voodoo.

I think for most VooDoo I'd agree. There is access to a lot of different damage types through Voodoo that sometimes helps (wand of airlessness is very good at capturing Church Reverends and Cardinals, for example), but I don't think anything VooDoo does is going to redefine your gameplay.

Except... for Mind Control. Mind Control is crazy good. Mind Control the enemy and scout their position freely. Trigger their own grenades or rocket launchers. Grab dudes with shields and force the enemy to waste their next turn trying to get through it. There is so much that can be done with mind control, and while any route can access it through Bug Eyes or Shades, only Grey and Gold get access to the redesigned Psi Amps that lets your Weird Gals really flex their stuff.