Sword of the Stars: The Pit

Sword of the Stars: The Pit

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Reference Guide - How every Psi Skill works.
By Dogeruff
This is a reference manual that gets into the no-nonsense nitty gritty details of how every psi skill actually works, and the important information the in-game descriptions will not tell you.

This guide will be written in a short and sweet form and is meant to act as a reference that new players can look back at, because I wish I had this when I started playing.
I will not be listing casting costs or cooldowns unless there is an interesting reason to, as this info is easily accessible from the in-game skill descriptions.

The wiki is old, outdated, and sometimes just flat out misinformation, this guide is made as of Osmium edition and so should be accurate indefinitely.
   
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Info that applies generally.
All Calculations shown round up to the nearest whole number unless otherwise stated.
All Skills that check your power vs the targets power only work on Organic/Cyborgs units and do not work on Mechanised units.
Mecha Empathy skills that have a chance to fail (Shutdown/Subvert) check against your Mecha Empathy skill to determine success chance and nothing else.
Keep in mind that Stim Towers and Master Mind towers make all units in the room immune to all status effects, be careful casting shrapnel storm into a room when you don't know whats in there.
Getting inflicted with Pain will dispel all Psionic effects you currently have active and make you unable to cast any abilities, this also applies to enemies who have Psionic abilities.
The remaining duration on most skills including offensive ones can be checked in your Psionics menu.

There is no way to directly view an enemies power stat in the vanilla game, you will either have to get a feel for which enemies have high power OR you can use the QoL mod, which has a feature that allows you to see an enemies power stat when you mouse over them.
Empathy
Lifesense
Gives you vision of organic/cyborg targets for 35 turns, bypasses any vision-impairing status effects like blind or darkness.
Reveals Adaptoids/Ultra-amazoids.

Fear
Checks your power vs the targets power, if successful will either fear or paralyse the target for about a dozen turns.

Psi-Drain
Checks your power vs the targets power, if successful drains an amount of psi-points from the target equal to your Empathy skill (eg, 100 Empathy = 100psi drained) and fills them into your own Psi pool.
Costs 25 Psi to cast, Psi gained from successful use can be said to be equal to (Empathy - 25), 40 psi gained at level 65 and 75 psi gained at level 100.

Glamor
Makes all Organic/Cyborg targets see you as friendly for (Empathy/10) turns, attacking ends the effect immediately, does not work on Mechanised units.
Telekenesis
Manipulation
Allows you to interact with things from a distance, such as doors and stations.
Works on almost anything except stations that interact with you or with items in your inventory, These require you to be physically next to them.
Will protect you from items that explode on fail if used from a distance but will not protect you from status effects that are directly inflicted, like stun, true damage, or being killed instantly by the disintegration bay
List of stations you have to be physically next to and cant interact with from a distance: (Repair bay, Mod works, Charging hub, Rad pod, T-Field manipulator, Augmentation bay, Neural Enhancer, Med bays, 4-D copier, Recombination center, All resting stations, All crafting stations)

TK Fist
Does damage directly to the target, Damage and penetration scale with your Telekinesis skill, can become extremely powerful if you have gear that lets you push Telekinesis past 100
Has a 1% chance to miss.

Deflect
Causes enemy attacks to have a much higher chance to miss against you for 50 turns, effectiveness scales with your Telekinesis skill, most effective on Ballistic and Physical attacks, chance to miss is much lower against Energy Attacks, Doesn't affect Psi attacks.

Shrapnel Storm
Guaranteed paralyses a single target for 4 turns, does 3 separate instances of damage over the duration.
War Mind
Berserk
Checks your power vs the targets power, if successful berserks the target for just under a dozen turns, Berserk targets will attack other enemies within a 1-square range of them and any enemies in their immediate line of sight.

Paralyze
Checks your power vs the targets power, if successful paralyses the target for (War mind/10) turns.

Life Drain
Checks your power vs the targets power, if successful deals a random amount of damage against the target between (War Mind x 0.55) and (War Mind x 0.75) this attack bypasses all armor to deal damage directly to the targets health, heals you for a small portion of the amount.

Puppet
Checks your power vs the targets power, if successful you gain complete control of the target for (War mind/10) turns, remaining duration is visible in your psionics menu, you lose control of the target the turn after the final turn.
Redaction
Heal
Heals you for points of Health equal to (Redaction x 1.25) the turn after you cast it.

Cure
Reduces 1 level of disease and/or poison the turn after you cast it.

Metabolic control
Sets your hunger drain to zero for an amount of turns equal to your Redaction skill, at a high
Redaction level when Combined with Mana you can easily stave off hunger completely.
Also since the cool down on this skill is 100 turns, at Redaction 100 you can essentially keep this effect on Permanently as long as you have the Psi to cast it.

Regeneration
Dramatically increases health regeneration for an amount of turns equal to your Redaction skill.
Since the cool down on this skill is 100 turns, at Redaction 100 you can essentially keep this effect on Permanently as long as you have the Psi to cast it.
Manifestation
Mana
Summons a bread item on the ground you can consume for 30 food points. When combined with high level Metabolic control you can easily stave off hunger completely.

Fire
Summons a cone of fire on the target equivalent to a flamethrower attack.
Checks for Skill Increases with every shot flame, Levels your Manifestation skill extremely fast as a result.

Dissolve
Does exactly 200 damage instantly to any stationary object such as doors or stations.

Duplicate
Prompts you to pick a single-square item in your inventory, then for a Skill check against your Manifestation skill, chance to succeed is always (Manifestation - 50), if successful creates a copy of the target item, if failed either does nothing or creates a 3-tile explosion that destroys the target item, deals damage to you, and lightly damages 2 other items in your inventory.
Newly created Items that have limited charges (Such as Lockpick sets, Master kits etc) will always have the maximum number of uses regardless of the amount remaining on the cloned item.
Mecha Empathy
Mechasense
Gives you vision of Mechanised/Cyborg targets for 35 turns, bypasses any vision-impairing status effects like blind or darkness.

Shutdown
Chance to succeed scales with your Mecha Empathy skill, Does not factor in your power, if successful renders the target unconscious for 3-4 turns, target takes double damage for the duration of the effect.
Only works on Mechanised units, does not work on Cyborgs.

Sabotage
Creates an EMP burst that does true damage to all mechanised units in a 5-tile radius of the cast point equal to (Mecha empathy% of the Targets total Health), works on Cyborgs but only does 1/4th the normal damage.
Notably the damage formula means you one shot all mechanised units caught in the blast radius at exactly skill level 100.

Subvert
Chance to succeed scales with your Mecha Empathy skill, Does not factor in your power, if successful you gain complete control of the target for (Mecha Empathy/10) turns, remaining duration can be seen in your psionics menu, you lose control of the target the turn after the final turn.
Resistance
Psi-Shield
Causes all offensive abilities that check against your power (Like fear, paralyse) to have an extremely high but not guaranteed chance to fail against you. lasts a number of turns equal to (Resistance/2)

Psi-Armour
Adds (Resistance/3) Armour to you for 50 turns, stacks on top of any existing sources of armour.

Invisibility
Makes you completely undetectable to enemies for (Resistance/10) turns, attacking any enemy will make that specific enemy aware of your presence, but will not alert other nearby targets.
Also gives you a slightly higher chance to evade attacks for the duration.
Enemies that are already aware of your presence can see right through your Invisibility

Reflect
Gives a 25% chance to deflect any and all ranged attacks back at the attacker, lasts an amount of turns equal to (Resistance/2)