A nice little trick for those 'elevators' is to stand outside of them at the end of your turn and then move under/over them and waste any aliens that are there.
For some reason they dont seem to be able to get you with reaction fire.
(or it has just never happened.) :crazy:

regarding the gravlifts.. i tried those icons. i mean they looked like thats what they were supposed to do. i did find some unofficial guides online that notes that some are down only so maybe thats it. i'll give em another shot. thanks.

You can recognize down only grav lifts easily: they won't show vertical yellow lines, only a red square in the floor. The vertical lines mean there's also a way up from that level.

So...

I have a psi lab. And I have soldiers. But their stat screen still doesn't show their psi strength or psi skill and I am at a loss for a way to send the soldiers to the psi lab for training.

Is there something else I need to do? Maybe take psi amps into battle once?

I've been playing X-com for years now, but have always had this problem. Please tell me I'm just being an idiot and the solution is right in front of me.

At the end of the month the psi lab screen will show up letting you select troops for training.
their progress will be shown after an month so you will have realy have to wait to wage psi warfare at least an year.
You should keep in mind that some peaple are more talented and some less so remember that your best hevy gunner who is armored loke turtle but suspectable to psi can make some rage in your squad (unless you made everyone carry stun rods).

And take PSI-amps.

Yep. Figured it would be something silly like that.

Thanks for the info.

Also, once you have soldiers with more than about 50 psi skill, let them use psi amps often in battle as a sort of training. At 50 they won't be that good yet (mind controlling will usually fail) but it gains them experience.

Yeah, Christian, I couldn't find the thread you were talking about, could you possibly give me a link to that patch you were talking about?

Here.
Hope it helps.