Jagged Alliance 2 remake in 3D by bitComposer

More news from Michael:

BitComposer_Michael wrote:

So, to end the speculations: Time needed for testing is time which is needed. The time is used to play through the game several times. Also this time includes additional fixing if changes brought into the game resulted in bugs. The testing time however should end this evening and if the testers can't find a major bug or a showstopper, steam will be ordered to release the patch for everybody.

I can, right now, confirm that there were again some changes. full changelog will come along with the patch.

There is a good chance today is patch day!

The children keeping distance thing is, to me at least, the biggest fix.

Paleocon wrote:

The children keeping distance thing is, to me at least, the biggest fix.

I found a work around for this - press f and point your gun at the obstacle ;). When combat starts ,kids run away. I got wolf to do some recruiting and about 5 kids blocked the door. One shot from his noise maker and the children were dispersed (not in pieces due to standard game mechanics).

Something that will really help is no stamina cost for running in a controlled territory . This will speed up some manual tasks but it can also be exploited for rushing ;).

Okay. Raven with a .50 cal and 100 dex and 100 marksmanship is almost like cheating.
And Nails, Wolf, and Fox clear buildings with scary efficiency.

Hillarity.

I was clearing out one of the buildings in Balime and a group of four heavily armed and armored soldiers were holed up in one room. I didn't have the angle on them, but figured I would toss in a flashbang so I would be able to rush the room. Nails tossed in the flashbang and it landed perfectly. Unfortunately, they ran to the other side of the room before it went off so it didn't get all of them. I ran Wolf over to another doorway to cut them off when their side of the room erupted in an explosion.

Apparently, Wolf's running by a window triggered the tank parked outside to open fire RIGHT INTO THE ROOM WHERE THE SOLDIERS WERE. It friendly fired all four of the bad guys in one perfect shot. After that, I ran my mercs out and behind the building so the tank wouldn't blow me apart too.

Niseg(on JA:BIA forum) wrote:

.
.
btw did the update get delayed?

BitComposer_Michael wrote:

Not yet. We're having a look at an issue which came up very late. However if it occurs just in one special case we think it's a "fix it with the second big patch" thing. If so, I'll give my go to Kalypso and Steam, then it's just a matter of time.

.
.

BitComposer_Michael wrote:

Okay. I can confirm that Steam has order to release the update to the public. Now it's up to them. Guess tonight or over the weekend.

Edit: Patch went active on steam!

Patch Notes on Steam wrote:

V1.11
General Bugfixes
- Fixed some enemy using wrong combination of pants and shoe meshes
- Fixed Sightcones not being cleared properly when leaving a level
- Fixed Sightcones displayed in wrong direction when moving in command mode
- Shader bug fixed that caused incorrectly colored objects
- Fixed bug where tank had impact on performance
- Fixed smoke grenade (blocking sight and its visual effect duration were slightly different)
- Fixed bug where recruitable PCs like Ira became not recruitable after leaving the map
- Fixed bug where AI coud become unalterted again after saving & loading
Modding
- Added additional Weapon and Ammo IDs
- Sight distances made more easy to modify
- Noise made more easy to modify
Achievements
- Fixed bug where "She's dead, Enrico" achievement would not unlock correctly
- Collect achievements are not anymore received when game has been modified
Visuals and Graphics Options added
- Launcher does not anymore check for vertex shader texture fetch, prohibiting older cards to start the game although they feature SM 3.0
- Added Distance based culling for small objects
- Added "Very High" terrain quality option in ingame menu
- Added View Distance as option in ingame menu (determines distance fog position)
Gameplay Fixes and Changes
- Civilians and potential militia recruits do not trigger mines anymore
- Children will try to maintain a minimum distance from player characters to ensure they do not clog doors or passages when following the player around the map
- Noise perception influenced by objects that cover the origin of the sound
- Enemy perception tweaked, enemies can now see and hear slightly better which will make it more likely that they use their weapon range to full extend (e.g. enemies with rifles will open fire from a greater distance)
- Enemy sight cones in 2D displays in addition to 3D Cone to make more clear what an enemy can see and to make lag of 3d cone calculation on slower machines more bearable
- Durability of clothing or items worn is only reduced when they actually prevented damage
- Armor is reduced only by 10% for each time it can fully prevent its protection value (e.g. if armor can potentially prevent 30 damage and only prevents 15 damage since it is hit in an already existing weak spot its durability is only reduced by 5%)
- Stamina is not reduced anymore when the whole map belongs to the player (all enemies are killed)
- Bobby Ray‘s Inventory only restocks after 3 days
- Bobby Ray’s express delivery now takes 24 hours, standard delivery takes 48 hours
- Laserpointer attachments reduce time to aim
- When a merc is hit while aiming the time to aim is reduced in relation to the damage received
- Targeting has several points of origin to become more flexible, further reduced chance of a small objects preventing a shot
- Picking improved, should be easier to select body zones when targeting
- Militia is always on the map even if the map still belongs to the enemy and can be recruited directly after liberating a map
- Reloading always reduces the smallest stack of ammo in the inventory to ensure that inventory space is cleared more quickly
- World Map: Travel speed is reduced when stamina is low
- World Map: Squads are forced to rest when stamina is close to 0 stamina to prevent squads reaching their target location with 0 stamina
- Explosives Skill also influences time for grenades to detonate after being thrown (e.g. a merc with higher explosive skill will “cook” grenades longer before throwing them so they explode more closely to their impact on the ground)
UI
- SHIFT+ RIGHT CLICK on target orders merc to repeat the attack until the target is dead
- Merc names are displayed on mouse over
- Time to shoot is displayed as a countdown on each merc when attacking to make it more transparent that a merc is actually trying to shoot and how long it will take the merc to fire his shot
- Closing the inventory when a merc has been selected who is currently selectable in game will not reset selection to previous merc
- Added „Loot All“ Button in loot UI
- Added “Select Whole Squad” Button to Squad name
- Minimap: Left Click jumps camera to cursor position
- Minimap: Right Click orders selected merc(s) to move to cursor position
- Worldmap: Added „Enter Map“ Button to Squad UI to allow “fast travel” via the world map to be more flexible (e.g. player can also enter a map outside a combat zone)
- Worldmap: Clicking enemy squad displays level of squad members to allow the player to make a more educated guess on wheter or not he should intercept the squad or leave the defense to militia
- Worldmap: Squad UI displays slowdown or resting via status icon
Sound
- Sound played after last enemy on map has been killed
Additional
- Added translations for new features
- Further improvements to targeting enemy body zones with the cursor
- Fixed bug where wounds would result in mercs not being able to recover stamina anymore
- Fixed some recruitable characters not displaying legs when their pants were removed
- Grenade launcher now launches grenades instead of shooting them in a direct path
- 40mm grenades added to be used by Grenade Launcher
- Color of line drawn to target now indicates ideal distance for shooting target (green = ideal)
- Changed melee base damage to prevent some melee focused mercs from one hitting enemies of level 3 and above
- Fixed bug where tanks could not be hit with rockets fired from rocket launcher
- Fixed unreachable enemy spawn position on map Overland11
- Open or closed state for all doors in Drassen Airport are saved now
- Fixed explosive spot in Alma prison on which wall was not correctly removed on both sided

I'm really glad to see they're supporting this with patches. Despite the mediocre reviews, it's a good game and I've enjoyed it quite a bit. Looking forward to getting back to it.

Okay. I turned in the limited edition DaHonko flakes. Wow. That almost breaks the game.

The addition of laser sighting devices (that speed up aiming time) will turn characters like Wolf and Nails into Matrix style killing machines. They can already bum rush into a room and blow people apart with shotguns before they get a shot off. Giving them another .5 second edge will make it even more so. Looking forward to the fun.

I think the item I'm most looking forward to, however, is the M79 with 40mm grenades. I often find it frustrating that I can't dink a grenade over a low obstacle and into a building. I'm still a bit frustrated that you can't seem to lob grenades in through open windows (or shatter windows with suppressing fire and then lob them in).

I know that would take a lot more development (the addition of destructible terrain), but it would have been cool. Also, having the .50 cal shoot through walls would have been awesome as well.

Wolf, Fox, Nails, Vicki, Raven, and Raider have made it all the way to the last SAM site and are all at or near the level cap of 10. I think I'll just park them there since it is a perfect spot from which to intercept squads headed East. The two super expensive squads I purchased with the Dahonko flakes cash are on their way from the airport and picking up gear on the way. They'll work their way east from Cambria and then split at the supply depot to go up and down the Western Coastal Highway. The free scrubs are mostly doing cleanup and errand duties.

I found a few things about the patch :
-The M79 says it shoots "modified1" .This is a cosmetic bug . It fires the new ammo type : 40mm Grenade
- The 40mm grenade ammo will show up only when Bobby ray restocks which now takes 3 days. If you start a new game 40mm grenade ammo will be available from the very beginning .
-No stamina when running in a friendly sector is really nice ;).

I didn't play that much I mostly tested that cosmetic bug . I got to the conclusion I need more things that go BOOM. I gave Red the Rocket rifle I got from the quest and found out he can clean out enemy assaults really well.

Niseg wrote:

I found a few things about the patch :
-The M79 says it shoots "modified1" .This is a cosmetic bug . It fires the new ammo type : 40mm Grenade
- The 40mm grenade ammo will show up only when Bobby ray restocks which now takes 3 days. If you start a new game 40mm grenade ammo will be available from the very beginning .
-No stamina when running in a friendly sector is really nice ;).

I didn't play that much I mostly tested that cosmetic bug . I got to the conclusion I need more things that go BOOM. I gave Red the Rocket rifle I got from the quest and found out he can clean out enemy assaults really well.

Which quest. There are two in which your reward is the automatic rocket rifle (Brenda's Special Interest and This Belongs in a Museum). I suspect you mean the former since the latter can only be fulfilled so late that it hardly even matters. You can also purchase them at both Estoni and the final SAM site. I don't recall if you can purchase them at the Balime Slums, but I think you can. It's also an Easter egg prize in the hidden stash in the middle of the desert if you have the patience to search for it.

When you say that it is purely cosmetic, does that mean that it still fires along a straight line trajectory and can't be lobbed in? There are at least three tactical problems I can think of right now in which having an indirect fire ability would very much have made a huge difference and I'm not even counting the tanks.

Paleocon wrote:

When you say that it is purely cosmetic, does that mean that it still fires along a straight line trajectory and can't be lobbed in? There are at least three tactical problems I can think of right now in which having an indirect fire ability would very much have made a huge difference and I'm not even counting the tanks.

The cosmetic bug is just the stated ammo type of the weapon. I'm not sure if something changed because I haven't used M79 before the patch. I tested in a new game I made after the patch (for checking that bug).The projectile flew in a flat arc as far as I remembery . After testing it I said to myself "I need more of these" and then I went back to my main gaime and tested the auto rocket rifle I got for the magazine ;).

After waiting a while and defending I put some more mines in Cambria. I also used my extra money for recruiting because I can't really make full squads due to merc preference . I got Grunty,Igor and MD so they can join forces with Iggy and maybe Buns(if I take her out of the girl squad). I'm not sure what to do with Ira I might turn her into a mule like bull. Her Morale is in the dumpster unless she's in a girl squad. I can put her with Dimitri and Miguel.

I also need to refresh my arsenal and balance my squads. At first I thought sniper rifle were king now I think it's Rocket rifles . I probably need both snipers ,"artillery" , and a medic. I might put snipers together so I can concentrate on their deployment. This is kind of my first game(lost a bunch of saves ) so I'm still experimenting ..

I've gone back and forth on the whole "which is deadliest?" question. I've decided what I like the most is the combination of sniper rifles and machineguns. Sniper rifles are wonderful for tagging someone from a great distance, but their poor rate of fire often results in your being overrun if you don't have teammates capable of providing a fire base. That's where the machineguns come in.

I used this technique in a number of places, but the spot where it seemed most effective was in Balime. Raven (advanced to a 100 dex and 100 mark and armed with a .50 cal) managed to one shot pretty much all of the patrolling red team folks before they had a chance to alert their comrades. After that, she tagged a couple folks before one managed to survive the first shot and alerted the rest to bum rush her. She, of course, bugged out and ran back to the tree line where the rest of the team had set up in prone ambush with a clear line of sight to her former position. Team Red, ran 8 guys to her last known position where, of course, they were greeted with overlapping fields of fire from two .30 cal machineguns and three autorifles.

This trick works particularly well in places like the roadblocks where you know the approach the red team will take to get to your sniper. It becomes a little tricky when the red team has tanks though, so you need to make sure you have the angle that allows you to eclipse the tank's line of sight with some kind of obstacle. Once the infantry are gone, tanks are pretty easy to deal with. All you need is a pair of sneakers and a grenade or two.

The ragdoll physics in the game provides some entertaining glitches. I've noticed, for instance, that blowing up folks with grenades in a building often results in their bodies being blown through the ceiling and onto the roof. Their bodies also tend to get caught up in trees as well. When they do, they tend to spin around or twitch in a disturbing manner. I tend to use a lot of landmines, so this sort of thing seems to occur quite a bit.

The indestructible obstacles makes things a little weird. Not being able to blast a belt of .30 cal through a decorative hedge and suppress the bad guy on the other side is frustrating. As is the inability to shoot through wooden slats with a .50 cal to gut the guy just beyond the window sill.

also, the .357 mag revolver should be able to feed .38 ammunition.

The no fatigue loss in friendly territory is a serious time saver. So are the minimap and select all features.

My A-Team is still parked right at the last SAM site and has become an enemy squad magnet. The first two waves ran right into the minefield I set, but now the mines are all used up. I need to get one of the other squads to bring me some more mines.

Now that I have pretty much every high priced merc except Ivan and Buzz, I'm pretty much powering through the map with buzzsaw efficiency. The biggest challenge right now is logistics.

I'm scouring the landscape for resources (looting every scrap of ammo and equipment) and digging up mines, but the whole business is a little time consuming. Not to mention the side quests. I have a group of stabbers (MD, Malice, Blood, Grizzly, and Bull) armed with melee weapons dealing with the Most Wanted folks. Maddog and Ira are handing the grunt tasks like talking to Willis or Oswald. I think I might just put together a dedicated sapper crew to dig up mines and haul them to the SAM station since that seems to be where D's forces are concentrating their efforts. When you know where they'll show up, mines are, perhaps, the most cost efficient and entertaining way to deal with their silly human wave attacks.

I have Trevor up to 100 mech and 100 dex, which means he can pretty much open any lock. He has a 92 explosives as well which means that frag grenades explode on impact and just about nuke a room. He pretty much soloed Grumm with just his CAWS shotgun and some hand grenades. And since shotgun shells pretty much grow on trees, he's leveling up pretty quickly.

Trevor just about soloed San Mona and the Kingpin's Mansion with a combination of explosives, hand grenades, and his CAWS shotty. He's developed a bit of a reckless disregard for civilians though. He tossed a couple hand grenades in the club that took out nearly as many patrons as they took out bad guys. Brenda didn't seem to mind though as long as she got her pr0n.

I'm actually rather disappointed by how poorly the high priced snipers seem to be doing. Neither Reaper or Shadow seem to be able to reliably make head shots even when the odds are green or even blue. Mostly, I've been using snipers to stir up the hornets' nest and get them to human wave themselves into my overlapping fields of machinegun fire.

Since I started with a Southern strategy, I had completed all the Enemy of My Enemy tasks prior to meeting with the Kingpin. After I take out the Farm, I'll swing back South with this group and wait for one of my other teams to swing through and do sweep up so they can stock up on ammo. Also, I demined a bunch of areas and will need someone to pick up the mines I left in ammo crates so I can have fun mining the hell out of the DMZ when I take the Maze.

Okay. I've managed to remove all of the mines I could find from all of the maps I've secured. I have yet to take Meduna and the Maze on my second time through, but I have a short tonne of mercs lined up and ready to go. I'm still waiting on Crazy Ray's to stock 40mm grenades so I can experiment with the M79. I'm looking forward to arcing grenades into open doors from behind cover.

Deidriana's forces seem to be battering themselves against the Airport now instead of the SAM station. Since the update, enemy squads now give your information about their composition. Since Crazy Ray's doesn't have G11's for sale, I'm pretty much waiting for the squads to increase in number and level until I can get some in the drops.

I think I discovered an exploit for grinding experience. Placing a mine doesn't garner experience points, but defusing it does. I discovered this because I placed a couple mines that enemy squads wouldn't path through and needed to move them. If you have a character with reasonable explosives skill, purchase a whole mess of defusing kits and practice setting and defusing it until you level up. It will take forever, but it seems to be the only such exploit for grinding it out I've discovered. Given enough time and kits, characters like Meltdown, Nails, Gus, Devin, and Red should be able to get to the level cap without firing a single shot. Cheesy, I know, but there it is.

Okay. I lined up the three squads I had defending the Airport on the border of Meduna and crossed over with one. This had the predictable and desired result of pulling all three of those squads into the Meduna City map. Good.

I lined two squads up in prone firing squad formation at the end of the block at the north end of the map. The third, I set up in similar firing squad formation in the park across from the northwest villa. After that, I lined up a number of head shots for Reaper, Raven, and Shadow. The first five enemy mercenaries went down without alerting their comrades. Apparently, the exploding heads of one's comrades is such a common occurrence in Diedriana's service that it is hardly worthy of comment. Only after one managed to eke out the words "everybody attack" did they start throwing themselves at me in human waves. Needless to say, the combined firepower of 18 prone mercenaries with a combination machineguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles pretty well put an end to that effort.

After that, I left one squad in overwatch along that street while the other two went south to take the guarded beach house. Again, I set up two squads in overwatch while Reaper and Shadow picked off the roaming guards up front. Coordinated head shots tend to do a fantastic job of removing opposition.

I moved one squad through one villa and along the hedge row until I realized that there were enemy mercs on the other side of the hedges near the pool. I moved that squad into a good ambush position and armed Trevor (my best explosives guy) with frag grenades. He tossed one over the hedge and took out three mercs, but also managed to severely injure three bathing suit clad civilians who were partying poolside. Pick your friends well.

That had the predictable effect of provoking a hostile response. Three mercs ran out the back door toward my ambush. Two ran out the front. The two out front were cut to pieces by my reserve squad. The three that went out back ate an impressive amount of led from Len and Scully (both using .30 cal machineguns) before being finished off by head shots from Magic and Reaper.

This left four mercs in the southern villa. I ran Trevor in the poolside door where he encountered two mercs armed with RPK's. Luckily, he was able to round the corner before they could get a bead on him. He, then, bounced a flashbang against the back wall and into their laps before rushing up to them and, calmly, emptying the 10 round contents of his CAWS shotgun into their respective chests.

The two remaining mercs were holed up in the main room. I ran Len up and dropped him prone in overwatch to cover one doorway. I ran Magic and Danny over to the anteroom to cover the other. Scully covered the back. This left Trevor to do the dirty business. He started by bouncing a frag grenade against a couch that landed close enough to one of the mercs to blow his health bar way down into the red. He was hurt badly enough to need to limp, which he did toward the other merc who started administering first aid. At this, Trevor sprung into the room and lobbed a perfectly tossed flashbang into their laps. After that, he ran to within spitting distance and buttstroked them his CAWS shotty until he bashed their brains in.

Those two squads then took up overwatch positions facing north toward the tank garage. Once again, Reaper and Shadow took their time lining up coordinated head shots and took out four mercs before one managed to eke out the words "requesting backup". The human wave was, of course, predictable, and short lived, but one interesting twist was that a group of some 4 snipers decided to hole up in the security office where they thought they could get shots off from distance. A single well placed shot from Trevor's rocket rifle put an end to that foolishness.

Raven's squad snuck through the northwest building by stealth knifing the guards until they got to the zoo courtyard. There, they encountered a sniper who looked like he could cover the ground pretty easily. Gus went to the northern doorway and fired a burst from his .30 cal before rushing back to the safety of the door jab. This got the four mercs pointing at him while Static, Fox, Wolf and Blood barreled ass along the southern walkway to the back door of the zoo visitor center. They didn't notice.

Static ran around the back and covered the door along with Blood. Wolf and Fox opened the south door, took a shot a piece, and dove to cover. This had the desired result of getting the three mercs to point south. After that, Blood and Static tossed a flashbang each into the room. After that, Blood took his time cutting them to pieces with his machete.

Gus, Fox, and Raven then took positions on the north tower and picked off the five mercs on the north side of the garage. Four more mercs tried to run out the south entrance to help, but were chopped to meat by the two squads watching the gates in overwatch. Gus blew the zoo privacy wall with C4 and defused the mines that blocked the back gate. Blood stealth knifed two more mercs with his machete.

Now, I have three enemy mercs holed up in the upstairs office of the garage. All appear to be armed with belt fed machineguns and fairly high level. I have one flashbang left and my close assault team seems pretty well positioned. I think the way to do this is to run one member from one of my overwatch squads to the front gate of the garage where he can take a couple low percentage pot shots at the folks in the window before diving to cover. Once again, this should get them pointed in the wrong direction while Static runs in and tosses a smoke grenade. This will give the close assault squad enough cover to cross the distance to knife range where they can empty SMG and shotty fire at the slower machinegunners.

I'll let you know how it goes.

You know? With the AI's overreliance on human wave attacks, I think this engine would be the perfect one for a tactical zombie outbreak game. Think about it. They could make it the inevitable result of Diedrianna's chem/bio attack on the world.

Can't believe I'm 106 hours into this game. I love squad based tactical games like this. Took me a while to figure out my mercenaries aren't leaving after 7 days so I played the first 20 hours hoarding my cash for the non-existent re-up fees.

Disappointed that enemies don't drop more weapons. Never finished the original JA2 because it just got crazy insane difficult at the end and I moved on to a new shiny.

Think I'll be finishing this one though. Love the stories so far. Maybe I will post my own.

Paleocon wrote:

You know? With the AI's overreliance on human wave attacks, I think this engine would be the perfect one for a tactical zombie outbreak game. Think about it. They could make it the inevitable result of Diedrianna's chem/bio attack on the world.

Yeah, wow, that could actually work. Although I like the mercenary theme, it seems weird that it's so rare in gaming, it seems like the perfect fit, explaining away lots of strange game incongruities such as paying for units in RTSs and such.

It's strange that MAG is the only other game I can think of that's gone the mercenary route.

Okay. I've been taking my time finishing because I wanted to scrub the entire map of goodies. Having found the DaHonko Flakes and having the monster bankroll gives me that luxury. I have just about every mercenary that doesn't have a conflict with another one on my payroll. This keeps them happy and their performance up.

I have taken to using scrub mercs to scour locations. They loot everything on the map and sort them into piles I leave in easy to find locations. After that, I repair all looted weapons to 100% status, sell all items I can't use (e.g.: ubiquitous silencers and canteens), and pack up stuff I think I'll need and stage it at the next location.

I took the Maze with three squads. The first set up in ambush along the southern edge and took pot shots at the enemy mercs relaxing on the beach. This gave me a clean approach to the SE corner of the Maze. The second squad set up a prone ambush along the western edge of the Maze just in case troops tried to come around me. The third, led by Trevor (now level 10 with 100 dex and 100 explosives and a bucket of frag grenades) went to work going mad bomber.

The Maze allows a high explosives skill character extraordinary flexibility. The hedgerows are oddly bullet and artillery proof and offer 100% concealment, but are easy to lob explosives over. I set up Danny and Len in prone ambush with machineguns along a long corridor near the maze's SE entrance while Trevor ran around lobbing grenades at folks both in and adjacent to the maze itself.

The first victim was the tank. It had managed to get a shot off at Trevor when he ran from the SE corner to the entrance, but the shell impacted an intervening tree and caused him no damage. Trevor returned the favor by rushing to the NE corner and lobbing a frag grenade over the hedge and under the tank. One shot and the turret burned like a Catherine Wheel.

This stirred up a hornets' nest of mercs in the police station that rushed for the SE entrance. Danny and Len were lying in wait for them in overwatch. The first three mercs were cut down by .30 cal fire but the last two hugged the corner, so I circled Trevor back and tossed a flashbang that landed in their laps before rushing up and buttstroking them to death with his CAWS shotty.

The dug in enemy mercs to the north of the actual maze looked like they would be a problem, but I checked the distance and it looked like they were just in range of Trevor's arm. There were four mercs guarding the weapons stockpile at the North entrance, so I tossed a frag grenade that landed perfectly between three of them and blew them all apart. The fourth was badly injured by managed to stagger to the maze entrance before being buttstroked in the face.

There were 6 sitting just to the north of the maze in the sandbag fortifications. Trevor ran to the edge of the maze and tossed two more perfect tosses that took out all 6. This left four in the police station. Trevor annihilated the first one with another frag grenade toss over the hedge. Another ran into the maze and was cut apart by Len and Danny. This left two inside the actual police station.

Trevor and Magic ran through the forest along the southern edge of the police station and bracketed the door. They were ready for them in crouched ambush, but Trevor bounced a flashbang against the wall and right between them. After that, Magic and Trevor ran in and beat their skulls in with the butts of their long guns.

The "all enemies have been eliminated" chime didn't go off, so I pressed the space bar and sure enough, there was one lone female merc nervously rushing from tree to tree along the north bank of the peninsula. I snuck Magic (with his awesome stealth skill) up to scout it out and marked where the mines were. Trevor defused the ones he could without exposing himself to fire. After that, I moved the first squad up out of ambush into a position along the western edge of the north bank and into ambush while the third squad sandwiched from the east.

She opened up first with her VSS, but first squad returned fire nearly instantaneously with two RPK machineguns. Moments later, the chime went off.

Immediately, I scoured the map for goodies, repaired all weapons, removed all mines, and sorted the loot into 8 easy piles: 1) clothing, 2) weapons, 3) ammo, 4) medical supplies, 5) attachments, 6) explosives, 7) tools/food, and 8) trash. After that, I mined the hell out of the DMZ, resupplied ammo for each of the mercs, and waited for the inevitable retake attempt.

The first wave came nearly immediately. 12 level 5 mercs armed with everything from VSS sniper rifles to .30 cal machineguns attempted to rush across the DMZ. I barely had time to set into ambush before I heard the first few mines go off. By the time I was set, there were only two left. Raven and Dynamo took them out with head shots with Dragonovs.

Shank, with his scrounger trait, looted the bodies. Nails remined the DMZ using the stockpile the other teams had picked from other minefields.

I think I'll retreat my maxed out mercs (level 10 cap) and give the scrubs Dragonovs so they can get some experience. It's almost like a Zulu War simulator since I have them set up in line formation along the concrete barriers. I think I'll do this until I'm out of mines.

When you say you end up with piles of loot, how exactly do you manage inventory? Does it all go into a central stockpile that you can access with a menu somewhere? Or do the guns just sit in a pile on the ground until someone takes them?

Tamren wrote:

When you say you end up with piles of loot, how exactly do you manage inventory? Does it all go into a central stockpile that you can access with a menu somewhere? Or do the guns just sit in a pile on the ground until someone takes them?

Unfortunately, there is no global inventory feature, so I pretty much just toss crap in piles on the ground. I separate them into the piles I mentioned and, when possible, I organize the piles themselves by groupings. So far, the only stuff I am watching is armor and ammunition.

It's day 15, so most of the retake teams are level 5 or above. This pretty much means that the ammo they are carrying is usually a mix of 5.56 and 7.62NATO. For a while there, it was nothing but folks with SKS rifles, so I had to hose them down with AKM fire to use up the ammo. Good for me that I have a veritable armory of different weapons, so ammunition flexibility is not really an issue.

Mostly, the retake squads get blown to meat by the mines and I suppose I could just shoot the remainders with Dragunov's. This would allow me to engage at range and I still have a mountain of SKS ammo lying around. I have a stockpile of some 12 unused Dragunov's so I can literally arm two full squads with them.

I just wish I had a mortar.

Tamren wrote:

When you say you end up with piles of loot, how exactly do you manage inventory? Does it all go into a central stockpile that you can access with a menu somewhere? Or do the guns just sit in a pile on the ground until someone takes them?

As Paleocon said the Inventory management is pretty bad at the moment. Devs are working on sector inventory like in JA2 . Getting militia armed used to be more of a pain but you can now run without using stamina is controlled sectors which speeds up things quiet a bit.

I have a stockpile in Cambria where I sort my stuff in piles with the following catergories : guns,cloth,eng/explosive,medicine, attachments/keys . I've got tons of gun at the moment so I'm considering selling them or hauling them to improve militia.

Equipping your squad is still a pain and It's hard to keep tabs of what .

I usually use the 7.62WP for AKMs because they go through armor better and have 600rpm fire rate which is fairly high compared to other ARs. I heard Tar-21 is a pretty good assualt rifle because it have 5 round bursts, and a long range . I only recently ( well I last played 2 weeks ago) started using MGs. I gave Malice and Shadow an rpk and let then tear a few enemies to pieces. I also have HK 21 I gave Grunty and Meltdown. I also started using magical RPGs and rocket rifles- these things are mean.

Paleocon wrote:

I just wish I had a mortar.

I think you can mod one into the game .

I also wish I could hotwire a pickup truck so I could move my stockpile to where I need it.

Loving the game so far. I have about 30 hours and I am just scratching the surface. The game isnt very well polished that is for sure but there is enough fun to mask all that. I will say the DLC is a huge joke considering its one set of armor and a gun. Seriously? Thats the equivlient of say giving Commander sheppard one mid level gun and 2 thermal clips and charging 2 bucks for the trouble.

This game does need some moding, hopefully enough folks will like it that it will get a decent mod or two.

Highly recommend to the group especially if it goes on sale.

mcdonis wrote:

This game does need some moding, hopefully enough folks will like it that it will get a decent mod or two.

There are lots of mods around already. There's a modding thread in the official forum which seems to be the best way to get an overview on what people have been working on and intend to change in the future.

Youtube is also full of vids from people discussing mods. It's pretty impressive considering the game has only been around for two months!

It's mostly cosmetic changes so far (e.g. different textures on enemies) or re-balancing (e.g. enemy perception, weapon range) but at this pace other stuff will happen sooner or later I guess.

Just keep in mind that installing mods will disable achievements.

Paleocon wrote:

I also wish I could hotwire a pickup truck so I could move my stockpile to where I need it.

This would be awesome indeed!