It takes all of the EXP another psycaster has gained throughout their lifetime and gives you that much EXP. Sadly not too useful since enemy psycasters don't seem to train and get high levels the same way your colonists do. Highest level psycaster I've seen was a level 6, and they were an Empire baron.

Hold up... so if I don't like how I leveled my pawn, I could turn a new pawn into a psycaster, have them drain the old pawn, and 'respecc'.

@Oskar could we have a slightly less evil way to respec psycasts? At least a dev tool or something? Due to the exponential difficulty of levelling, I'd put up with almost anything for the ability to respect non-lethally. Even losing 50% experience in exchange for respeccing would be fine.

Edit: A 'reset' or 'respecc' feature would also be a good way to future-proof the mod in the event that psytrees get added/removed/shuffled. Even if VPE doesn't change much, VPE compatible psycast mods will.

LMFAO let your pawns have a life while you accrue slave batteries in a room meditating their asses off all day long

There is a mod that gives pawns a psylink level up to a certain level via ritual if you wanna spread the psychic love btw, would work great in tandem

Originally posted by Rhunin:

LMFAO let your pawns have a life while you accrue slave batteries in a room meditating their asses off all day long

There is a mod that gives pawns a psylink level up to a certain level via ritual if you wanna spread the psychic love btw, would work great in tandem

Using drain psyessence on tribal pawns that you mindjack with the thrall power seems like it could be really good actually. Just force them all to group meditate at the anima tree 24/7 and then cash in when you want some extra mind juice. Highly evil but thats what they get for daring to attack the God Emperor of Mankind

Dude.. That is genius

If you increased the thrall's psy stats with every level too they would stack up an absolute ♥♥♥♥ ton of experience, on top of the free levels from the anima tree. Making a pawn with every power unlocked might actually be realistic with this

THEN you can give all the thralls the timeskip meditation power for even MORE free experience. Drain Psyessence is starting to look pretty good now

Combine with the WAAAAAHHHH Skeletons mod to let them die of old age, forbid their corpses, let them rot, revive as skeletons, then paralysis pulse them to get them as prisoners, then recruit them again and put em right back to it, except now all they need is recreation, no more food or sleep

Originally posted by Convicted Japist:

If you increased the thrall's psy stats with every level too they would stack up an absolute ♥♥♥♥ ton of experience, on top of the free levels from the anima tree. Making a pawn with every power unlocked might actually be realistic with this

THEN you can give all the thralls the timeskip meditation power for even MORE free experience. Drain Psyessence is starting to look pretty good now

I've done some napkin math, and I don't think that's likely.

Assume 300% psyfocus from combining all focus types (except the wealth cheese, as that could get pached, and archotechnology, as that's hard to get) by Level 10.

Assume ALL level ups past that point add 10% to psyfocus (exp) gain rate.

Assume 24/7 meditation (no sleeping, eating, etc.)

Years - Level - Total EXP
1 - 27 - 24,994
10 - 64 - 380,457
101 - 121 - 2,548,426

There are 15 psypaths, with 10 abilities each. The first psypath unlock is free. Thats 150+14=164 ability points needed, not counting the points spent on gaining foci types. 100 years worth of psy meditation isn't enough.

515 - 160 - 46,110,627

Almost there.

610 - 164 - 56,057,711

I should note that each level up takes decades at this point.

788 - 170 - 75,138,410

We've now unlocked all abilities and all focus types. Now we just need enough psy stats to have a 100% focus discount.

64,538 - 270 - 9,886,832,927


This plan would require so much meditation, that you'd need to consider not just the best meditation method, but the method with the highest psyfocus gain to framerate loss ratio. You might need to factor in your own lifespan while you're at it.


It would be far, FAR more realistic to aim for taking the bare minimum number of abilities to become overpowered. Psy ability trainers bypass prequisites, letting you save on a ton of wasted level up points. All remaining points could then be sent on psystats. Cuz let's be honest - no-one takes Necropath for Word of Fear.

On a final note, TimeSkip meditation is great for early game levels, but it's a wasted level up point later on. TimeSkip meditation can't be autocast, and only gives a flat 300 exp every 3 days - assuming you even remember to cast it. That's less than 100 exp a day on average - less if you have no prisoners to age. By level 80 (all psystats & foci) you could have 1000% psyfocus gain, no micro needed.

Not worth it. Not in the long run. Not when each precious level up is measured in years or decades. You are far better served by making a tightly focused build that ruthlessly cuts as many abilities as possible.

Yeah after trying it out a bit I reached pretty much the same conclusion, its just not efficient enough to be worth doing. Drain Psyessence feels pretty useless for the investment and I didnt know that it also significantly lowers your faction relations with everyone every time you use it, it just isnt worth the trouble.

Maxing out a pawn is still very doable if they're tribal background though, anima trees will just give you a free level every few days. I just dont like dealing with them very much. Psytrainers seem to be the way to go otherwise, seeing as they let you unlock trees without wasting a point as well as let completely skip the lower tier powers. Its kind of lame but the optimal way to build seems to be saving the majority of your points, not unlocking any trees and just waiting to find the psytrainers you want.

There is a strategy that I don't think has been considered

Get a pawn with Drain Psy-essence, get a pawn with Craft Psy-ring, craft Psy-ring of Craft Psy-ring, give to Drain Psy-essence pawn, craft Psy-ring of Drain Psy-essence, proceed to use said ring to power level pawns by draining slaves/prisoners the first few levels at no cost to their lifespan

Proceed to categorize your pawns into Brawlers, Cookie Cutter Soldiers, Utility and Healer pawns

Brawlers get Warlord for combat, relying on necro-healers patching them up

Cookie Cutter Soldiers either get Warlord ranged for sniping with real weapons or 1 level in frost and icicle for a psy ranged attack while focusing on being melee in actuality

Utility gets Technomancy, Empathy, Harmony, etc combos for whatever you need to balance your colonies crafting, mood, harvest, etc

Healer being a combo of Necro for resurrection and Protector for limb regrowth, having atleast 2 of these for synergy and permanent fodder/patch-ups

Another viable soldier is give them sniper rifles and level them in necro with auto cast "Inflict Fear" ♥♥♥♥ is broken with 0 range

But main point is that a Ring of Drain Psy-essence could help all of these level in the early levels when playing with the mods storyteller

Originally posted by RedPine:

On a final note, TimeSkip meditation is great for early game levels, but it's a wasted level up point later on. TimeSkip meditation can't be autocast, and only gives a flat 300 exp every 3 days - assuming you even remember to cast it. That's less than 100 exp a day on average - less if you have no prisoners to age. By level 80 (all psystats & foci) you could have 1000% psyfocus gain, no micro needed.

Not worth it. Not in the long run. Not when each precious level up is measured in years or decades. You are far better served by making a tightly focused build that ruthlessly cuts as many abilities as possible.

I hated that they nerfed this so hard. I’d use it at the end of the day 7-8 hour coma for my colonist to sleep and back to work the next day to do it all again. I will say it fully maxes out my psy meter thing so that’s a benefit.