Let's Replay X-COM UFO Defence #30: The Trouble with Psionics

Channel:

Kikoskia

Subscribers:

57,700

Published on July 8, 2018 8:00:03 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuhc4hcX_o4

Game:

X-COM: UFO Defense (1994)

Duration: 20:03

6,490 views

218

X-COM have had some occasional experiences with psionics in their efforts to oppose the aliens, but now that ethereals are around it’s going to become a lot more frequent. Psionic attacks are resisted better by some soldiers than others and right now, we have no way of determining who those more resistant to it are. Soldiers going into a panic is bad enough, as it sometimes make them drop their weapons and run in a seemingly random direction, often into harms way. It can throw your strategy out of the window, but now half as much as someone getting mind controlled can. Suddenly one of your soldiers is working against you, sometimes shooting at their teammates immediately. Other times they will move to a better to shoot your teammates from which is no better. They might take reaction shots to your people moving, they might not; there’s no indication of what they’ll do and all the while, the aliens are still just as deadly as they were before.

The decisions you need to make when this happens are difficult ones. One option is to kill the mind controlled soldier, saving the rest of your squad at the cost of them. They’re still one of your troops however and it’ll count against your end score, not to mention the one you lose might be one of your better soldiers. If you try to knock them out they may just gun down the one trying to save them, meaning that you might have two dead soldiers at the end of it all. Trying to run and hide is also an option but you might still lose someone. The only other alternative is to keep everyone perfectly still and hope that the mind control fades, else you’ve left your team exposed and vulnerable.

There’s no good choices when you’re against psionics barring ending the mission as quickly as you can. In time we may be able to turn this power against the aliens but until then, we must cope as best we can.

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