Why are Psi warriors considered bad?

[Ur-Quan Lord 13]

By the flavor text, the gene warriors are closer to spartans than to adeptus astartes, sadly

Yet the technology to make them is called geneseed purification...

 

[Hopit]

Yet the technology to make them is called geneseed purification...

I know

It's very confusing, mix of both?

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Frankly, I can't be bothered to build anything but the basic assault armies and lots of them.* For SP, that's more than good enough. First comes the attack fleets that sweep systems for enemies, then they bombard for a few seconds while the assault fleets swoop in and begin the ground assault. This also automatically leaves 12 assault armies behind on each planet, a perfect garrison force during wartime and occupation force post-conquest if necessary.

Assault armies are cheap to recruit, cheaper to maintain, don't rely on any scarce resource, quick to mass produce, and do the job perfectly well. Due to their easy availability they are also the ultimate disposable unit: I don't care whether they live or die, so long as they get the job done. The only time I could see more advanced armies being a real advantage in some scenarios would be in multiplayer, where even a competent player will occasionally fight wars against enemies that act in unexpected ways that require readjustment of strategy, something that never happens in singleplayer.

And as for attachments? I've built a grand of one attachment so far to see how the attachment system worked, at which point I discovered that the attachment UI was thoroughly idiotically implemented to guarantee maximum micromanagement for minimal gain.

I'll use attachments the moment I can click an "automatically add this attachment to every army produced on this planet and don't change this setting under any circumstances unless I order it" button and not before.

And as for the government type that gives bonuses to army damage and cost? Paradox must have been on crack when they thought that was a good idea given the current implementation of armies.

The whole army-system could be eliminated from the game with little loss to the play experience as far as I am concerned.

Either that, or give it a complete overhaul.


* Okay, slave armies if playing a slaver is a decent alternative because they share the same strengths as the basic assault army.

 

[yerm]

I very much prefer a massed army of crap over an elite army. You can overload offense for ground combat, which means that if you want to skip bombardment you don't need gene warriors at all, you can just hurl more quantity of less quality units. For me it's usually clone armies. The idea that you need elite soldiers to one-shot a defended planet is nonsense.

Meanwhile, the real awesome advantage of using genes is actually on deflecting a counterattack. If you secure a planet with a dozen elite troops your enemy has to actually put up a struggle to grab it back. Against AI, that can mean parking 12 genes and not looking back, which can be great. This is contrasted with hurling a hundred clones at it and only 12 get to stay. The disadvantage then becomes how concentrated your basket of ground troop eggs is - you can much easier split up a mass of garbage ones and not worry quite so bad that you're horrendously delayed if transports get sniped.

So, basically, I view it as a choice between whether you're worried about a concentrated transport army being vulnerable to a surprise if escort slips, or an occupied planet being vulnerable to getting re-captured.

 

[The Founder]

People say that Gene Warriors are the end-game armies and everybody always uses them, but I honestly feel like psi warriors aren't as bad as people say. Yes, they do much less damage, but when you compare that to the fact that they heavily reduce the damage output of opposing armies it kind of makes up for it, at least in my experience.

Personally I prefer Gene Warriors, hands down. A 12 stack can storm most planets without even waiting for one second of Orbital Bombardment.

There is 3 basic weaknesses for Psi Armies:
Only Avalible if you got Psi Tech
Limited HP.
Limited non Morale Damage.

While the option to break the enemy morale to buff thier HP is nice in theory, they might be almost dead by the point they manage that.
And they stil have to defeat the enemy with thier Remaining HP, normal Damge and 1/4 of the enemy damage against them.

If broken morale would also increse the damage taken and it was clear that moral damage is not affected by defenses? Then they would be worth it, no doubt.
But right now a enemy with Morale broken still does 25% of it's damage, while taking as long to kill. A enemy with HP broken deals 0% and the remaining damage can focus better.
Physical Damage > Morale Damage