Fortress in the early game is always welcome - and these are just the bottom tier powers. Soul Steal makes medics and even armor almost pointless. So what does all this mean? Look, if nothing else, Soul Fire alone is a 100% to hit chance, zero cover, automatic kill on any Advent trooper or sentry, with good odds on one-shotting Engineers and even Officers. by heading directly into Psionics at the expense of everything else you can start churning out new psi-troopers by the start of 2nd month of the game. With my two scientists working there my first trainee is scheduled by be ready for action in only 3 days. On March 30th my PsiLab is now open, I am using 8/12 power and as soon as I can scrap up 100 supplies and 1 elerium core (and I already have to core) then I can tack on a second room. Head over to Black Market, sell of everything that I don't absolutely need and, paired with clearing two rooms of the Avenger and a smash & grab mission, gives me the 150 supplies and single elerium core that I need to start construction of the Psi Lab on March 23rd, with a finish time of 7 days (March 30th.) Began researching Psionics, which takes 9 days, finishing up on March 24th. At this point I was lucky enough to get a mission to rescue a 2nd scientist, which throws things off just a little bit. On March 5th I am now done with Alien Biotech and start doing the Sectoid Autopsy. This leaves me broke on supplies but it lets me get excavating right away and drops that research project down to only 3 days. Of course I head over to the blackmarket on day 2 and buy a Scientist and an Engineer. The very first thing I research, starting on March 1st, is Alien Biotech. Now lets see just how fast I can get a working psionics program up and running, hm? So right from the start of the game the very first thing I did was do an inventory check (Veteran level game): 200 Supplies, 5/12 power and 1 dead Sectoid. This means so long as I didn't do anything really stupid (read: kill it with a grenade) then I'm pretty much guaranteed to have that covered already. Thing is, LW2 puts a Sectoid right there in the opening starter mission. I occurred to me when that the only thing really required was to have at least one scientist and a single dead Sectoid. In the typical game, by the time they even come into play at all you're at least up to magnetic weapons, if not coilguns, and the demand for resources makes training up a whole new soldier class when you've already got three squads worth of "A Team" ranks hardly seems worth it.
#Long war psionics full#
For a head start on which Psionic abilities are most valuable, head to the Soldier Abilities pages of this guide for a full rundown of what this unique soldier class is capable of.Most people are not very enthusiastic about psionics, and it's easy to see why. In addition, unlike other soldiers, it is possible to learn every Psi ability from both the Telepath and Resonant branches of the skill tree, rather than having to select from mutually exclusive abilities.Īs is likely apparent, the Psi Operative has the most emergent and randomised set of Soldier Abilities when it comes to upgrading. While this makes Psi Operatives' progress somewhat unpredictable, it does mean that high-level abilities might be accessible early on, depending on the options you're presented with.
Your Psi Operative's initial ability is randomly selected from four starting powers, while subsequent abilities are available by selecting one ability at a time from a random selection of three. Unlike conventional soldiers, Psi Operatives do not gain promotions in the field and instead can only gain additional Psi abilities by training in the Psi Lab. Once training is complete, you'll have added your first Psi Operative to your ranks.
Only time is required here, the duration of which can be lessened by assigning an engineer to the Psi Lab to work alongside the soldier being trained. Unlike in XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the training is guaranteed to succeed and is not dependent on the soldier possessing a gift for Psionics. With the Psi Lab up and running, you can assign any soldier to it to undergo Psi training.