The importance of having reliable estimates of electron-ion recombination coefficients for species such as Ni+17 in tokamaks is pointed out. The state of theoretical calculation of recombination rates in thermal plasma is then briefly reviewed. A new treatment is summarised which unites detailed computation of the direct recombination reactions populating excited ionic energy levels (emphasising dielectronic and radiative recombination) with a careful study of the effects in a plasma of subsequent collisions on the initial direct capture distributions. This includes both singly excited and doubly excited (resonance) state distributions Illustrations are drawn from fairly ionised ions of interest in laboratory plasmas and include some specific results on recombination of neon-like and adjacent ions of iron, nickel and selenium. these ions either are strongly radiating species in tokamak plasmas such as JET or important X-ray studies Some results are shown of modelling of nickel ion radiation in JET using the new rate coefficients.