So i've been absolutely loving this game for a few days now, and after putting it off for a while I finally went for the Alien Base and built the Psi-Center. The issue is of all twenty or so of my soldiers, high and low ranking, I got a single high-ranking soldier who was gifted. While most other design decisions, even if they can annoy me, I understand (like enemies on 1 health within range of the arc thrower having a chance of not being stunned), in this case the rarity of the Psi aptitude seems like it's just hurting my experience; i'm now barely able to actually explore any of the depth of a pretty cool gameplay mechanic, because i've only got a single soldier who has the gift.

I could spend a bunch of time and money recruiting new squaddies and checking if they have the gift, but I know the odds are lower for low-ranking troops and they'd be generally less viable than most of my soldiers in a serious combat situation anyway. Basically i'm just left with the feeling that, because of an arbitrarily low rate of psi-aptitude, i'm barely being able to take advantage of a game mechanic that could really have an interesting affect on my game. Does anyone else feel this way?

The likelihood of someone getting the Gift depends on how much Will they have. In my case I had two 70+ Will soldiers and both of them turned out to be gifted. I think making Psionics a rare ability is kind of the point; it's something that's supposed to be special and groundbreaking.

I'm not certain on this but I think soldiers you get from mission rewards have higher than average will, and so will be more likely to have Psi potential, so that might be a faster way to to get competent psi troops. Personally, I liked the fact I had to train a new generation of troops at this point, as I found I was relying on my same group of untouchable colonels which was getting a little boring.

I had 5 Psi's 3 were my high ranks, and 2 were my squaddies. I may have had more except I gave up doing my 40 people after I had 5 and only went through a third.

I can't share the same experience or if its a major flaw in the game, rather than luck.

Making your character look more like Brad Shoemaker may or may not influence the chances of said character being gifted.

@AmatureIdiot said:

I'm not certain on this but I think soldiers you get from mission rewards have higher than average will, and so will be more likely to have Psi potential, so that might be a faster way to to get competent psi troops. Personally, I liked the fact I had to train a new generation of troops at this point, as I found I was relying on my same group of untouchable colonels which was getting a little boring.

See, i'd totally be down with the whole "a new generation of psi-troops" thing, the issue is there is no guarantee (and overall a much lower chance) that new recruits will end up gifted, so odds are high that i'd waste a bunch of time and money just to end up with the same amount of gifted troops.

@Binman88 said:

Making your character look more like Brad Shoemaker may or may not influence the chances of said character being gifted.

:)

I only had one Psi guy....and he was FUCKING AWESOME!

It's X-Com.

You want to build three satellites?

Fuck you. You get one.

You want to build six awesome new plasma weapons right now?

Fuck you. You get one.

You want a squad of soldiers with crazy psychic abilities?

FUCK. YOU. YOU. GET. ONE.

@coakroach said:

It's X-Com.

You want to build three satellites?

Fuck you. You get one.

You want to build six awesome new plasma weapons right now?

Fuck you. You get one.

You want a squad of soldiers with crazy psychic abilities?

FUCK. YOU. YOU. GET. ONE.

Pretty much this :) If you want more psi dudes, build a second chamber, hire a load of dudes and starting firing them in there. You can test 18 troopers in a month. I don't really see what the problem is? They're meant to be rare, that's the point.

@Arabes said:

If you want more psi dudes, build a second chamber, hire a load of dudes and starting firing them in there. You can test 18 troopers in a month. I don't really see what the problem is? They're meant to be rare, that's the point.

This is what I suggest. After the alien base credits should no longer be an issue, go wild and hire the max number of soldiers, build a second chamber and test them all. Eventually I got six soldiers, all with mind control powers. Just make sure you have at least one before you go to the final mission. Will power is the main factors that determines if they will have the gift, so put in low will folks first. You can save scum this if you want, there are other GB forums post on how to do this.