Psylink level vs Title level question

[Daunmi]

Is a pawns psylink level supposed to be the same as their title level (ie: gain one psylink level each rank up) or is it entirely dependant on the ceremonies giving them the psylink thing?

It's just that my pawn skipped over freeholder from being a nobody straight to a yeoman and has just now skipped over acolyte to be a dame, meaning they'll have gained 4 titles but only seem to have picked up 2 psylink levels via the ceremonies.

It seems like that's how it is supposed to be, but there doesn't seem to be a way to perform a lower title ceremony. Kind of looks like the game's trying to punish you (big surprise for Rimworld, I know) for getting too much honour too fast.

[Astasia]

Freeholder doesn't get a psylink. Dame should be level 3 I think. I don't remember ever skipping past or to acolyte so I'm not sure if you miss out on one. It's easy enough to get the neuroformers from other quests though, I only played a couple really empire heavy games and I remember always having a stockpile of them but never needing to use any.

[ichifish]

Yes, yeoman, acolyte, and dame should each have an award ceremony that grants a psycast level, so your pawn should be level three. I would assume you’d get quests for back-to-back ceremonies when you got the two titles.

Did you jump acolyte with a massive honor increase from gold and prisoners?

[Daunmi]

Astasia, yes you're right about not getting a level from freeholder, and dame should be level 3. Haven't had any other quest that gives anything relating to psylinks or psycasts yet (I've only been using the DLC for a couple of days).

Ichifish, bumped up from selling prisoners, yes (six or something? Can't remember). Skipped straight past acolyte to dame and there was no acolyte ceremony offered, just the dame one (I didn't wait long enough to run it out to see if it randomly decided which one to give me next time).

Decided to check what happens when you renounce and regain your titles to see what effect that has on it. Renouncing didn't make me lose the psylink level, and regaining yeoman gave me a ceremony again but no psylink neuroformer (the thing that levels it up). But when I (slowly this time!) gained the acolyte rank it gave me the ceremony and neuroformer for that level. Re-reaching dame was like yeoman (ceremony, but no neuroformer).

So it seems the game keeps track of what titles you've been promoted to, but not what titles you progress through, or something like that. Not sure if it's a bug or working as intended.

From this I guess that if you become a freeholder then spend all your time gaining honour without doing any ceremonies you'll be able to achieve the rank of Count/Countess with a psylink level of 1. Which would be odd.

Since I haven't played with the Royalty DLC much yet, I have no idea what impact this might have if you choose to get psylink levels without the empire's permission.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Daunmi:

I have no idea what impact this might have if you choose to get psylink levels without the empire's permission.

That concept was removed shortly after the DLC came out. The empire doesn't care what psylink levels your colonists have, or which powers they use (as long as you don't use them on empire pawns).

[ichifish]

Originally posted by Daunmi:

So it seems the game keeps track of what titles you've been promoted to, but not what titles you progress through, or something like that. Not sure if it's a bug or working as intended.

Maybe it's a holdover from the original system in which the surprise of royal pawns becoming demanding was kind of a feature and the negative relationship with the empire limited the number psylinks you could have (without angering them). In the previous version the psylinks came by drop pod, so perhaps you'd have gotten two at once. Seems like the game now calculates the total honor and spawns the quest for the title that it amounts to. Maybe it's just a factor of the system assuming you're going to accrue smaller amounts of honor or the difficulty of displaying the resulting title in the trade menu.

It's too late for this playthrough, of course, but the thing to do in the future is just hand over enough gold/prisoners to advance to the next level. I'm doing a tomb-raider run with a small party and they've acquired a lot of gold but don't see the tribute collector often, so it's something to keep in mind for unusual playthroughs.

Seems like it should be addressed, though, since:
1) You might prefer to have an acolyte and extra honor to spend on permits, and therefore don't want the next level (especially if you already have other nobles or tribal casters)
2) You may not be able to meet the throne room requirements for the advanced level (I'm playing nomadic/no research, so I'll have to either wait until I can trade for a harp or stop and research it to get the Knight title).
3) With the possible exception of trading rights at knight/dame level psylinks are the best feature of leveling up and make up for the increased work and colony wealth, so it sucks to miss out on them