Aliens get Progenitor Psych by default?

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I've removed all technologies from progenitors. Yet, when I start with them I got Progenitor Psych researched already. Is it my misconfiguration or aliens get it by default?

[bvanevery]

Alien factions get Progenitor Psych and Field Modulation.  There is nothing you can do about it at the .txt modding level, it's hardwired into the binary.  Although, I didn't try setting these techs to Disable, because I didn't want to decrease the number of techs in the tree.  Bet that doesn't work either though.

What you can do, is change what these techs actually give the Aliens.  For instance I defanged them by moving 3-Res armor to somewhere else.  For a long time I had Hypnotic Trance given instead.

Recently I ditched that and gave them the Cloaking Device instead.  It's a pretty much unused technology gewgaw, and it happens to fit the lore of the Aliens reasonably well.  In the stock game it comes uselessly late in the tech tree, and what's the big whoop anyways?  My jury is out on whether the AI cheats and it doesn't actually do any good.

It does ignore zones of control on land, which can be useful.  It makes the Alien's early Cloaked Scouts rather threatening, as you can't control where they go, short of fighting them.  However they start building Synthmetal units fairly quickly, and the AI doesn't know or think to cloak them.  So the Cloaked Scouts amount to some early game flavor.

If someone ever devises the World's Best Cloaking Strategy that breaks the game, and they demonstrate it to me, maybe I'll reconsider.  But until then, it's a Tier 2 tech.

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Interesting. Thank you for great hints. I actually disabled Field Modulation and doesn't appear in the list when I am playing alien any more. So, I guess, same could be done with Progenitor Psych. Although, disabling it would prevent human contacting aliens.


I'll probably put it at level 1 and replace some other technology with it.

[bvanevery]

In the stock game, Progenitor Psych gives Aquafarms.  Hardly an Existential threat.  Only outclassed by stock Optical Computers for sheer uselessness!

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Oh, I don't afraid to put it there. Just don't want to push out other level 1 technology by such useless insertion.

[bvanevery]

Progenitor Psych is actually a Tier 1 tech in the stock game though.  It tends to have the annoying effect of watering down one's effort to learn needed Explore techs.  On the other hand, when do you want to yak with the Aliens?  That's a judgment call, whether to delay it or not.  Less of an issue in my mod because the Aliens are no more powerful than anyone else.