The portraits

[alfius]

5 hours ago, WILDFIRE said:

For me the animated portraits are very important, because they gave the mercs life and atmosphere so that you could easily build a bond with them.

It is good, but isn't necessary. What makes tham lively, is unique replies and features (like hate for some guns, for example), and it seems to be in the game. IMHO

[WILDFIRE]

With todays tech and software it is nearly anything possible. To me it is funny that a game 20 years ago created something that is so unique and special but today no one can recreate that in a good way. Its like we are running backwards and not in the future.

 

Anno 2023 you could even expect fine detailed animated 3D portraits/faces/character models in the conversations but I would not go this far. But you can not tell me that basic 2D faces/characters can not do simple expressions like eyes blinking or mouth movement. Sure you need more expressions for the angry, happy or tragic moments but that should be possible. That made JA2 really unique, so you have to make it possible somehow.

 

JA Rage even had animated faces, sure they looked bad and they only had a character roster of like six mercs or so but JA3 should have the budget to get some kind of animation in there to make the conversations and characters more lifelike. Maybe the 3D models faces of the mercs can already show some expression in the game but at the moment I could not see any, so I hope the characters get as lifely as possible in the end.

[Kordanor]

In the end it's down to costs and rentability.

And imho one of the reasons nobody reached JA2 is also because JA2 was also an unreasonably scaled project, which just happened to work out.

So it's probably better to have an overall good (but maybe not expansive) game, and then add on top of that later on via content patches and DLCs. Additional Mercs being one thing which can be added later. But the animated portraits is also something which can "easily" be added afterwards via content patch.

Just as comparison: Something which breaks savegames or something which requires all voice actors to come back to the recording studio is something which cannot easily be expanded afterwards.

[WILDFIRE]

@Kordanor: As far as I know are changes like animated portraits definitely too complex to add them later, because they are connected with the voice acting. That is why I wanted to get that feedback out as early as possible so that these aspects can change while the game is in development. 

 

Dont get me wrong I like the game and the portraits but I would love to see more life in the mercs faces also in the conversations. But we have not seen much of the game right now so maybe the whole gameplay feels good with the voice acting how it is now. I guess we all have to wait for more new footage/builds.

[Kordanor]

5 minutes ago, WILDFIRE said:

@Kordanor: As far as I know are changes like animated portraits definitely too complex to add them later, because they are connected with the voice acting. That is why I wanted to get that feedback out as early as possible so that these aspects can change while the game is in development. 

 

Dont get me wrong I like the game and the portraits but I would love to see more life in the mercs faces also in the conversations. But we have not seen much of the game right now so maybe the whole gameplay feels good with the voice acting how it is now. I guess we all have to wait for more new footage/builds.

Nah, this is no problem. Studios do that all the time. Also with other langages. So the lips of animated characters move differently in each langauge.

[Wigen]

With today's latest technologies in which games are created, it is not a problem to make animated characters from static images without repeated visits to recording studios.

[WILDFIRE]

@Kordanor: I mean the game is still in development and I guess at alpha stage so they should get those changes like animated portraits/conversations in before the game gets its full release.

 

There should be plenty of time left, because I think the game will get its release maybe at the end of this year or in the beginning of 2024. To me the animated portraits/conversations are a key Jagged Alliance feature that you should not add later. I really do not like that idea. Its like adding tires to a racing game.

 

If the game gets a delay, because it needs more time that would be no problem for me. Better than a half baked soulless product and we all know that we had enough of those in the last 20 years.

[Kordanor]

In the end you need to prioritize. I mean sure, maybe you get animated faces, but the tradeoff would be no bullet physics, or no mods, or no militia, or less character or...

I mean you can say for every single one that's essential. Ofc I would prefer animated portraits as well, but I dont think it's the end of the world.

[Solaris_Wave]

What people want from a Jagged Alliance game seems to be the same key things:

• A modern day, real world setting (even if set in a fictional location).
• Realistic combat with weapons from a real-life setting.
• Destructible scenery.
• Large maps during the combat part of the game.
• Traditional turn-based mechanics during combat.
• A storyline with an open-world campaign that you can tackle in any order you desire.
• Various quests and side quests.
• Units that you control to not just be generic units but individual characters with personalities that may or may not agree with their employer (i.e. you).
• To have a distinct mercenary based theme, involving money used to hire people and buy/sell equipment.

 

How that is achieved is an open field but it seems that we all want things that fit that criteria (and anything else I have possibly missed).

[WILDFIRE]

If you take on the ambitious task and call your game Jagged Alliance 3 you have to know that the fans will have big expectations and you can not blame them for that. That is absolutely normal when you want to continue masterpieces from the past.

 

One big unique key feature from JA1 and JA2 were the mercs and their lifely portraits. They brought charm and atmosphere. It helped building a bond between you and your mercs and was something that you saw the whole time in the game. That was besides the combat a part that most JA fans love and remember to this day and you can not deny that.

 

Why should we have to choose between unique key features from JA1 and JA2? The animated portraits and conversations were a big part of it. It was not a niche feature of mod 1.13. I red many comments in other forums and on youtube where the people asked why this is missing, so I am definitely not the only one.

 

Is it necessary for a good turn based game? No. Is it necessary for a real big successor of JA2? Definitely yes!

[LoboNocturno]

On 2/5/2023 at 12:30 PM, WILDFIRE said:

If you take on the ambitious task and call your game Jagged Alliance 3 you have to know that the fans will have big expectations and you can not blame them for that. That is absolutely normal when you want to continue masterpieces from the past.

 

One big unique key feature from JA1 and JA2 were the mercs and their lifely portraits. They brought charm and atmosphere. It helped building a bond between you and your mercs and was something that you saw the whole time in the game. That was besides the combat a part that most JA fans love and remember to this day and you can not deny that.

 

Why should we have to choose between unique key features from JA1 and JA2? The animated portraits and conversations were a big part of it. It was not a niche feature of mod 1.13. I red many comments in other forums and on youtube where the people asked why this is missing, so I am definitely not the only one.

 

Is it necessary for a good turn based game? No. Is it necessary for a real big successor of JA2? Definitely yes!

CAPITAL YES!!!

[Solaris_Wave]

In some ways, while you are the player that simply controls your soldiers, in regards to Jagged Alliance itself, you are more than that, as you are the employer for a team of mercenaries.

They are not just 'units'. They are soldiers that have various levels of experience, personalities, quirks, histories, theatres of war they have already fought in and skills already in place…before you hire them. They are not green recruits and nobody is going to turn mercenary without a level of experience they gained during military service, whether that was as a professional soldier or a revolutionary fighter.

Some people might criticise a game where your mercs aren't paying attention to you and could possibly say, "They are my soldiers! Why won't they do what I tell them!?" The thing is, Jagged Alliance is pretty generous in allowing control over your team. If your mercs have got a problem with how you are running things, you are probably not doing a very good job in the first place!

Edited February 6, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[WILDFIRE]

The special thing about JA is that the mercs talk directly to you. They are not these kind of boring generic units which you can find in XCOM. In some ways I really hate the new XCOMs, because they were so successful while Jagged Alliance had to live in its shadow.

 

But JA is a way better universe with all these unique characters that have these personalities while XCOM in my opinion is only a good turn based game but nothing special.

 

You can feel that these mercs in JA are a part of YOUR team and with all their special quirks, talking and animated faces they were something really unique and special. That is why these lively soldiers are so important to me, because without them it is maybe a good tactic game but not the masterpiece I remember.

 

Today you can find many good turn based games but nothing comes close to Jagged Alliance. So it is absolutely necessary that you keep that unique formula alive.

[Solaris_Wave]

Old X-COM was big for me because it was by the developers of Laser Squad and featured tense, turn-based squad combat combined with a grand strategy element. You got a lot of game for your money. I consider the first one a classic and one of the best games I have ever played.

Like Laser Squad, your soldiers were named but essentially just a unit with stats and attributes. They didn't have any personalities or much beyond being units to command. They were static with little animation and no individuality other than what you noted inside your head or if you gave them certain names.

Modern XCOM seems to promote the idea of having expendable soldiers. I would probably reload a game turn on the original X-COM if I lost someone important, but the reboot seems to suggest not to bother wanting to do that as they are meant to be fodder, despite only having a handful of soldiers this time round.

I still don't know why the reboot was so popular and encouraged clones of its play style. It has a lot of bad habits that get championed or looked past by magazine reviewers and games companies. I saw enough to want to quit playing and then afterwards read the views of others on forums about what they don't like about the reboot and its sequels.

Maybe the reboot got such high praise because there have been so few other games in the genre and each Jagged Alliance game since JA2 has failed to truly carry on the legacy?

I think that where X-COM/XCOM and Jagged Alliance differ, aside from base building, research and the obvious setting, is that Jagged Alliance is also an RPG. Other than your custom merc, those mercs are pre-made. You aren't creating them from scratch. They haven't got 0 XP. They have already been soldiers and have fought in battles. Their skills are what they offer to you, their potential employer if you want to hire them. In essence, you are only controlling them and in turn adding to their stories.

[WILDFIRE]

Jagged Alliance has characters with a soul and feelings. You care for your soldiers and that is the huge difference between JA and XCOM. The mercs grow on the heart and are not generic boring units. For me no other game could recreate this special unique formula.

[CleanAndClear]

After reading about JA3 I recently decided to play JA1 for the first time in my life (I only played JA2 growing up and been replaying that since) and one of the first things that came to my mind after firing up the game is how good the atmosphere is and how much the „talking heads“ are adding to that. I think it is a really great concept and added a lot of life and personality to the game and it’s characters, in both JA1 and 2.

With that said, I am not sure if the same would work for JA3, as the transition to 3D graphics brings a lot of challenges. In 2D „hand drawn“ graphics it was somehow easy to make good looking facial expressions on the portraits that fit the game very well, while making the same on 3D models is way harder. You still see a lot of games nowadays with bad facial expressions and the more realistic the rest of the graphics are, the more the bad facial expressions pop out. So rather than have badly animated 3d faces or models, I would rather have static pictures.

BUT with the boom of AI lately, maybe we could get the best of both worlds? Maybe some smart use of AI could animate the drawn portraits the devs have made? It’s hard to guess if it would look good, but I would be glad if the devs tried and let us know how it went. While I don’t think that not having animated faces is the end of the world, I do agree with others that it is adding a lot to the overall feel of JA1 & 2. It is adding way more than you would imagine just hearing about the concept.

 

As for the portraits themselves, I like them, but I feel like there is some problem with saturation and colour depth. Maybe it's just the pictures and videos, but the portraits feel generally too bright and washed out, especially when you put them next to the ones from previous games. I would like some more contrast and depth of colour and image.

But for the overall style, while I understand the need for having distinct characters, I think the devs should be careful not to overdo it. Some of the characters currently look more like a part of a squad from Fortnite, which is not really good. I know it’s trendy to have everything flashy, colourful, hyper stylized and „cool“, but it’s a trap, the first and most important thing is for the characters to fit the game and the style to feel cohesive. They shouldn’t look like they just left their fashion consultant 5 min ago, they are mercenaries in a war.

To give a few examples, Wolf and Buns look good, Steroid, Deedee and Hitman are too much.

This goes hand in hand with the game feeling overall too cartoony and lighthearted at places. As others have pointed out, JA1&2 had goofy characters and one liners, but they were in core serious games. And there’s a big difference between having humorous one liners and an occasional quirky quest in a serious setting on one side and an overall cartoony/silly setting on the other. And it’s easy to overdo it with goofiness and end up cringy. So please devs, keep the cartoonishness and humour in check and make a serious and gritty game at its core, same as the predecessors were.

Over the years there have been so many games that tried to go the cartoony lighthearted way to attract more audience just to fail spectacularly. Please don’t follow 🙂

 

Anyway, looking forward to JA3 a lot, fingers crossed!

Edited February 15, 2023 by CleanAndClear
changed text colour to white...

[LoboNocturno]

On 2/15/2023 at 5:53 PM, CleanAndClear said:

After reading about JA3 I recently decided to play JA1 for the first time in my life (I only played JA2 growing up and been replaying that since) and one of the first things that came to my mind after firing up the game is how good the atmosphere is and how much the „talking heads“ are adding to that. I think it is a really great concept and added a lot of life and personality to the game and it’s characters, in both JA1 and 2.

With that said, I am not sure if the same would work for JA3, as the transition to 3D graphics brings a lot of challenges. In 2D „hand drawn“ graphics it was somehow easy to make good looking facial expressions on the portraits that fit the game very well, while making the same on 3D models is way harder. You still see a lot of games nowadays with bad facial expressions and the more realistic the rest of the graphics are, the more the bad facial expressions pop out. So rather than have badly animated 3d faces or models, I would rather have static pictures.

BUT with the boom of AI lately, maybe we could get the best of both worlds? Maybe some smart use of AI could animate the drawn portraits the devs have made? It’s hard to guess if it would look good, but I would be glad if the devs tried and let us know how it went. While I don’t think that not having animated faces is the end of the world, I do agree with others that it is adding a lot to the overall feel of JA1 & 2. It is adding way more than you would imagine just hearing about the concept.

 

As for the portraits themselves, I like them, but I feel like there is some problem with saturation and colour depth. Maybe it's just the pictures and videos, but the portraits feel generally too bright and washed out, especially when you put them next to the ones from previous games. I would like some more contrast and depth of colour and image.

But for the overall style, while I understand the need for having distinct characters, I think the devs should be careful not to overdo it. Some of the characters currently look more like a part of a squad from Fortnite, which is not really good. I know it’s trendy to have everything flashy, colourful, hyper stylized and „cool“, but it’s a trap, the first and most important thing is for the characters to fit the game and the style to feel cohesive. They shouldn’t look like they just left their fashion consultant 5 min ago, they are mercenaries in a war.

To give a few examples, Wolf and Buns look good, Steroid, Deedee and Hitman are too much.

This goes hand in hand with the game feeling overall too cartoony and lighthearted at places. As others have pointed out, JA1&2 had goofy characters and one liners, but they were in core serious games. And there’s a big difference between having humorous one liners and an occasional quirky quest in a serious setting on one side and an overall cartoony/silly setting on the other. And it’s easy to overdo it with goofiness and end up cringy. So please devs, keep the cartoonishness and humour in check and make a serious and gritty game at its core, same as the predecessors were.

Over the years there have been so many games that tried to go the cartoony lighthearted way to attract more audience just to fail spectacularly. Please don’t follow 🙂

 

Anyway, looking forward to JA3 a lot, fingers crossed!

Can only sign my contract under this comment. 🖋️

[Solaris_Wave]

On 2/15/2023 at 4:53 PM, CleanAndClear said:

After reading about JA3 I recently decided to play JA1 for the first time in my life (I only played JA2 growing up and been replaying that since) and one of the first things that came to my mind after firing up the game is how good the atmosphere is and how much the „talking heads“ are adding to that. I think it is a really great concept and added a lot of life and personality to the game and it’s characters, in both JA1 and 2.

With that said, I am not sure if the same would work for JA3, as the transition to 3D graphics brings a lot of challenges. In 2D „hand drawn“ graphics it was somehow easy to make good looking facial expressions on the portraits that fit the game very well, while making the same on 3D models is way harder. You still see a lot of games nowadays with bad facial expressions and the more realistic the rest of the graphics are, the more the bad facial expressions pop out. So rather than have badly animated 3d faces or models, I would rather have static pictures.

BUT with the boom of AI lately, maybe we could get the best of both worlds? Maybe some smart use of AI could animate the drawn portraits the devs have made? It’s hard to guess if it would look good, but I would be glad if the devs tried and let us know how it went. While I don’t think that not having animated faces is the end of the world, I do agree with others that it is adding a lot to the overall feel of JA1 & 2. It is adding way more than you would imagine just hearing about the concept.

 

As for the portraits themselves, I like them, but I feel like there is some problem with saturation and colour depth. Maybe it's just the pictures and videos, but the portraits feel generally too bright and washed out, especially when you put them next to the ones from previous games. I would like some more contrast and depth of colour and image.

But for the overall style, while I understand the need for having distinct characters, I think the devs should be careful not to overdo it. Some of the characters currently look more like a part of a squad from Fortnite, which is not really good. I know it’s trendy to have everything flashy, colourful, hyper stylized and „cool“, but it’s a trap, the first and most important thing is for the characters to fit the game and the style to feel cohesive. They shouldn’t look like they just left their fashion consultant 5 min ago, they are mercenaries in a war.

To give a few examples, Wolf and Buns look good, Steroid, Deedee and Hitman are too much.

This goes hand in hand with the game feeling overall too cartoony and lighthearted at places. As others have pointed out, JA1&2 had goofy characters and one liners, but they were in core serious games. And there’s a big difference between having humorous one liners and an occasional quirky quest in a serious setting on one side and an overall cartoony/silly setting on the other. And it’s easy to overdo it with goofiness and end up cringy. So please devs, keep the cartoonishness and humour in check and make a serious and gritty game at its core, same as the predecessors were.

Over the years there have been so many games that tried to go the cartoony lighthearted way to attract more audience just to fail spectacularly. Please don’t follow 🙂

 

Anyway, looking forward to JA3 a lot, fingers crossed!

I mentioned elsewhere about the probable difficulty in animating the current art, due to its hand painted method. Maybe AI could do it. I don't know anything about AI generated art other than it being a recent thing (at the time of writing this) and being surprisingly effective for the most part.

Older 2D art was definitely easier to animate because there were less pixels used and the resolution was lower. As good as JA2's portraits are, you can easily tell they were simpler to create than what you would see today with higher resolutions, colours and shading. That is why you don't see much in the way of animated face and body images these days, if they are hand drawn art (I'm not talking about proper 3D models with face mapping). They tend to flick between a number of fixed expressions and might be scaled and rotated a bit to match a scene.

On 2/15/2023 at 4:53 PM, CleanAndClear said:

But for the overall style, while I understand the need for having distinct characters, I think the devs should be careful not to overdo it. Some of the characters currently look more like a part of a squad from Fortnite, which is not really good. I know it’s trendy to have everything flashy, colourful, hyper stylized and „cool“, but it’s a trap, the first and most important thing is for the characters to fit the game and the style to feel cohesive. They shouldn’t look like they just left their fashion consultant 5 min ago, they are mercenaries in a war.

To give a few examples, Wolf and Buns look good, Steroid, Deedee and Hitman are too much.

I agree with this. Some of them don't give the impression of being mercs, or if they are, have only just started the mercenary profession and are too inexperienced to be useful. If I saw a profile of someone wearing big, obvious hip-hop jewellery, I wouldn't want to hire them to overthrow the dictator of a war-torn nation. They wouldn't inspire me with confidence.

Doing a very quick Google art search, if both of these were mercenaries, who would you rather hire out of the following images:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3oAqmg

Edited February 17, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[alfius]

On 2/17/2023 at 3:15 AM, Solaris_Wave said:

If I saw a profile of someone wearing big, obvious hip-hop jewellery, I wouldn't want to hire them to overthrow the dictator of a war-torn nation. They wouldn't inspire me with confidence.

True, but even in real wars fighters often customise their outfit with small details. Even in army, not to mention mercs (who don't have uniform). Ofcourse, they wouldn't look like a bunch of ravers under drugs, but some things could be just for fun. 

[alfius]

Much more disturbing a number of clothes slots. Where are glasses/night vision goggles? Where is extended ear? Where are, for the Rage sake, backpacks? It doesn't so cool on its own (or is it?=), but it is really great for the gamplay's variaty and tactical opportunetes.  Sorry for offtopic. 

Edited February 21, 2023 by alfius

[LoboNocturno]

2 hours ago, alfius said:

Much more disturbing a number of clothes slots. Where are glasses/night vision goggles? Where is extended ear? Where are, for the Rage sake, backpacks? It doesn't so cool on its own (or is it?=), but it is really great for the gamplay's variaty and tactical opportunetes.  Sorry for offtopic. 

I was just from playing Jagged Alliance 1 and i directly noticed the very same thing, to slots for googles, night visions but am guessing you can attach it to the helmet ?

 

I really love how they made the inventory in Innawoods, Jagged Alliance should have a look at it. Wish Innawoods was a playable turn based game as well. I really like the wide option how you can create your own soldier, merc.

 

Try to do your own : https://innawoods.net/

 

 

[alfius]

17 hours ago, LoboNocturno said:

inventory in Innawoods

I think 7,62's inventory pretty good 

[DougS2K]

The inventory does look pretty basic right now. Hopefully they address it at some point. Would love to see a system like in JA2 1.13 with LBE gear. 

[Solaris_Wave]

On 2/21/2023 at 12:11 PM, alfius said:

Much more disturbing a number of clothes slots. Where are glasses/night vision goggles? Where is extended ear? Where are, for the Rage sake, backpacks? It doesn't so cool on its own (or is it?=), but it is really great for the gamplay's variaty and tactical opportunetes.  Sorry for offtopic. 

This concerns me also. There needs to be separate slots for helmets/headwear, eyewear, face masks, torso wear (i.e. load-bearing vests, body armour, bandoliers, etc.), belt with pouches, holster on one side, something else for the other side and then the backpack.

I went into detail regarding all of this in my Weapon Characteristics & Other Suggestions thread (further down in another post). I stated how important it would be to have a holster slot where a sidearm would go. It would be important because if your primary weapon jams or needs reloading, drawing your sidearm should take less action points than to reload or inspect/clear the jam. This would be critical if you were under fire or in close proximity to an enemy, or even moving indoors.

This keeps handguns relevant, as in real life.

 

Also, looking again at the screenshot of the inventory of JA3's work in progress, what actually is a slot? How big is it? Not every object is the same size. Again, something I touched upon in my thread, is a need to have a grid for many locations. You can carry more 9mm magazines than you can carry 5.56mm or larger. They are thinner. One singular item shouldn't necessarily take up an entire slot, no matter what.

I really hope that the inventory system will be expanded upon and to give certain locations and objects a sub-slot(s) or once again, a grid for certain areas. Objects are important because some helmets can have night-vision goggles clipped to them. Other helmets have got armoured face plates (which isn't really an eyewear slot as those face plates can't be worn separately with anything else).

Night-vision goggles that are separate are still head wear as they are strapped over the head. Eyewear would be sunglasses, shooting glasses or standard goggles. Gas masks would probably count as eye wear and prevent anything else being worn over the face. However, a dust mask or shemagh scarf wouldn't prevent glasses being worn.

Grids could be used for the backpack instead of slots (why should an RPG take up exactly the same space as one grenade or magazine?) like in the game, Silent Storm. A belt would benefit from a grid as well (obviously smaller than the backpack grid) as items could be clipped here. This could be ammo, medkit, grenades, toolkit, lock pick set, knife or water canteen.

Load-bearing vests could be either (or both) sub-slots or a grid as magazine/cartridge pouches would be fitted (and again, different ammo sizes matter as to how much can be carried). Armour plates fit behind, so other than weight increase, they shouldn't prevent ammo pouches being present. A knife might go here as well.

The holster would be on the right side of the leg (for game purposes, we could assume all mercs are right-handed). This is a slot as only a handgun or knife would go here. Despite some handguns being bigger than others, you can only fit one per holster. Some holsters also have a pocket for pistol magazines. I'm not sure how that could be done unless you complicate things by having a holster sub-slot or changing the holster to a grid.

As an alternative to having a slot holster, the developers could make it so any handgun or knife can be quickly drawn for less action points, no matter where it is unless it is in the backpack. This would be a handy compromise and would in effect simulate the fact that knife sheaths or handgun holsters can be strapped to vests, the belt or the thigh. Also, not all holsters are the same.

If the underlined method is used, the developers can then have a small grid for both legs. That means you have space on both thighs to mount what you can. If the merc likes to dual wield pistols, you have that option or multiple knives can be carried (throwing knives for example), medkits and so on.

Anything in the backpack takes a long time to get out. Whatever you are getting out should take a lot of action points, due to the process of it. Regardless of the size and weight of the item, there definitely should be a penalty for having to remove the backpack and getting something out. How the developers could approach this, I am not sure as you might want to get multiple items out in one turn, such as more ammo, explosives, mines, mortar rounds, rockets, etc.

An ammo bag would be grid based as well. How this would be fitted is once again something for the developers to decide, as the bag could be on a shoulder strap, worn on the belt or strapped to the thigh. Wherever it is, it would give additional room without a penalty to retrieve an item like with the backpack. The ammo bag would be important for mercs that carry machine guns and squad automatic weapons as ammo drums are bigger and wider than standard rifle mags. An ammo bag would also provide the best way to carry lots of shotgun cartridges.

 

Finally, guns themselves need slots. One for a suppressor or compensator at the muzzle (or possibly muzzle-loaded grenades or bayonet). Two for the handguard (allowing a laser and/or light, and a foregrip or grenade launcher). Lastly, one slot for the fitting of optical sights.

There could be slots to modify the gun itself, such as allowing for tritium night sights, match trigger or another butt-stock. That depends on how technical the developers want to get. I would class things like that as nice to have in the game but far from necessary, unlike the situation with the inventory.

Not every gun will have slots, especially older guns. The majority of long guns should have one slot for optics but not every gun has a threaded barrel or lugs for suppressors. Not every gun has a mount for lights and lasers either.

Edited February 24, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[LoboNocturno]

12 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

This concerns me also. There needs to be separate slots for helmets/headwear, eyewear, face masks, torso wear (i.e. load-bearing vests, body armour, bandoliers, etc.), belt with pouches, holster on one side, something else for the other side and then the backpack.

I went into detail regarding all of this in my Weapon Characteristics & Other Suggestions thread (further down in another post). I stated how important it would be to have a holster slot where a sidearm would go. It would be important because if your primary weapon jams or needs reloading, drawing your sidearm should take less action points than to reload or inspect/clear the jam. This would be critical if you were under fire or in close proximity to an enemy, or even moving indoors.

This keeps handguns relevant, as in real life.

 

Also, looking again at the screenshot of the inventory of JA3's work in progress, what actually is a slot? How big is it? Not every object is the same size. Again, something I touched upon in my thread, is a need to have a grid for many locations. You can carry more 9mm magazines than you can carry 5.56mm or larger. They are thinner. One singular item shouldn't necessarily take up an entire slot, no matter what.

I really hope that the inventory system will be expanded upon and to give certain locations and objects a sub-slot(s) or once again, a grid for certain areas. Objects are important because some helmets can have night-vision goggles clipped to them. Other helmets have got armoured face plates (which isn't really an eyewear slot as those face plates can't be worn separately with anything else).

Night-vision goggles that are separate are still head wear as they are strapped over the head. Eyewear would be sunglasses, shooting glasses or standard goggles. Gas masks would probably count as eye wear and prevent anything else being worn over the face. However, a dust mask or shemagh scarf wouldn't prevent glasses being worn.

Grids could be used for the backpack instead of slots (why should an RPG take up exactly the same space as one grenade or magazine?) like in the game, Silent Storm. A belt would benefit from a grid as well (obviously smaller than the backpack grid) as items could be clipped here. This could be ammo, medkit, grenades, toolkit, lock pick set, knife or water canteen.

Load-bearing vests could be either (or both) sub-slots or a grid as magazine/cartridge pouches would be fitted (and again, different ammo sizes matter as to how much can be carried). Armour plates fit behind, so other than weight increase, they shouldn't prevent ammo pouches being present. A knife might go here as well.

The holster would be on the right side of the leg (for game purposes, we could assume all mercs are right-handed). This is a slot as only a handgun or knife would go here. Despite some handguns being bigger than others, you can only fit one per holster. Some holsters also have a pocket for pistol magazines. I'm not sure how that could be done unless you complicate things by having a holster sub-slot or changing the holster to a grid.

As an alternative to having a slot holster, the developers could make it so any handgun or knife can be quickly drawn for less action points, no matter where it is unless it is in the backpack. This would be a handy compromise and would in effect simulate the fact that knife sheaths or handgun holsters can be strapped to vests, the belt or the thigh. Also, not all holsters are the same.

If the underlined method is used, the developers can then have a small grid for both legs. That means you have space on both thighs to mount what you can. If the merc likes to dual wield pistols, you have that option or multiple knives can be carried (throwing knives for example), medkits and so on.

Anything in the backpack takes a long time to get out. Whatever you are getting out should take a lot of action points, due to the process of it. Regardless of the size and weight of the item, there definitely should be a penalty for having to remove the backpack and getting something out. How the developers could approach this, I am not sure as you might want to get multiple items out in one turn, such as more ammo, explosives, mines, mortar rounds, rockets, etc.

An ammo bag would be grid based as well. How this would be fitted is once again something for the developers to decide, as the bag could be on a shoulder strap, worn on the belt or strapped to the thigh. Wherever it is, it would give additional room without a penalty to retrieve an item like with the backpack. The ammo bag would be important for mercs that carry machine guns and squad automatic weapons as ammo drums are bigger and wider than standard rifle mags. An ammo bag would also provide the best way to carry lots of shotgun cartridges.

 

Finally, guns themselves need slots. One for a suppressor or compensator at the muzzle (or possibly muzzle-loaded grenades or bayonet). Two for the handguard (allowing a laser and/or light, and a foregrip or grenade launcher). Lastly, one slot for the fitting of optical sights.

There could be slots to modify the gun itself, such as allowing for tritium night sights, match trigger or another butt-stock. That depends on how technical the developers want to get. I would class things like that as nice to have in the game but far from necessary, unlike the situation with the inventory.

Not every gun will have slots, especially older guns. The majority of long guns should have one slot for optics but not every gun has a threaded barrel or lugs for suppressors. Not every gun has a mount for lights and lasers either.

In Jagged Alliance 1 is the inventory pretty limited as well, my slots are full all the time, its even getting kinda hard what i take and keep when you are looting a sector since its so limited.