Expiring Mines?

[Warmonger]

14 minutes ago, Jaywalker said:

When I fixed my money issues and recovered from the mid game events, I spent a lot of time rebuilding the militia, which with a positive cash flow (that only got better as I improved Loyalty and took more mines) I had built a very large safety cushion prior to expanding the team (which sped up the process of taking mines and building loyalty).

Towards the end, I could afford a full team of 15 A.I.M. mercenaries (the only way to have more than that is IMP and RPC's, there is no hard limit, just A.I.M. contracts), and my cash flow was at 900,000 with a projected operating expenses of... -98$ that was with full control of the map, after 4 of the mines had ran out.

Mind you, part of the success was raiding shipments, doing quests and looting enemies with gold/saphires on them. Much of my income was from ACTIVE play, and the mines just piled on top of that (my projected profits never went above ~4000 a day).

I remember kinda this from JA2. At the there you could gt there everything. Anyway, it is all beginning here and hopefully fun to be solved sooner or later.

[Uncle Nick]

2 hours ago, Jaywalker said:

...I spent a lot of time rebuilding the militia, which with a positive cash flow (that only got better as I improved Loyalty and took more mines)...

Please may i ask about militia. So far i only trained 2 recruit level squads at Ernie port, A2 mine and H7 mine. Is it better to train more militia or less?

[Melliores]

@Uncle Nick
You can train them to become Veterans. Once you train 8 recruits, your next training session will upgrade 4 of them to Veterans. They have better equipment and are stronger in a fight - it is recommended to train all your militia to Veterans provided you have the time and money.

Veterans can become Elites only through combat.

[Jaywalker]

17 minutes ago, Uncle Nick said:

Please may i ask about militia. So far i only trained 2 recruit level squads at Ernie port, A2 mine and H7 mine. Is it better to train more militia or less?

More is always better if you can afford it, and make sure to replace any casualties ASAP, cause it improves the odds of keeping the elite guys alive if there is fodder that can die for them (or rank up to replace them). By far the best way though is to clear the outpost that would send out attacks against the location they're guarding.

[sandman25dcsss]

2 minutes ago, Jaywalker said:

More is always better if you can afford it, and make sure to replace any casualties ASAP, cause it improves the odds of keeping the elite guys alive if there is fodder that can die for them (or rank up to replace them). By far the best way though is to clear the outpost that would send out attacks against the location they're guarding.

Clearing outpost does not always help, Ernie village was attacked from different island in my game, attackers used a port to embark on ships

[Uncle Nick]

6 minutes ago, Jaywalker said:

More is always better if you can afford it, and make sure to replace any casualties ASAP, cause it improves the odds of keeping the elite guys alive if there is fodder that can die for them (or rank up to replace them). By far the best way though is to clear the outpost that would send out attacks against the location they're guarding.

Yeah, intel says enemy is coming via H7, so i got 2 sniper mercs fighting alongside the militia at H7. I figured out how to cheaply defend H7, so not doing auto-ressolve for militia fights. Question is, do i need to train the militia to veteran/elite in order to improve income?

[Melliores]

@Uncle Nick

If you calculate the salaries of those two mercs for a single day stationed defending a sector you will figure out quickly that it is cheaper to train militia instead. They require some upfront investment but no daily salary afterwards.

Your income depends only on the towns loyalty and some decisions made during quests related to that mine. Militia only guard the sectors, preventing their loss and by extension - loss of loyalty.

Higher loyalty also makes it significantly cheaper to train militia in that town.

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by Melliores

[Uncle Nick]

Ernie is 80% loyalty with 2 squads of recruit militia. Do elite militia give more town loyalty? And more income/day from mines? Yes, snipers do not need to be defending H7 mine, but i'm farming Buns & Grunty to get 90+ marksmanship, then they will move on. Appreciate your answers, thank you.  

[Jaywalker]

26 minutes ago, sandman25dcsss said:

Clearing outpost does not always help, Ernie village was attacked from different island in my game, attackers used a port to embark on ships

Enemies do not, not even for that one event, magically spawn from nowhere.

If they got on a boat and attacked, that means they came from a different outpost than the one you cleared, that's all there is to it.

[sandman25dcsss]

5 minutes ago, Jaywalker said:

Enemies do not, not even for that one event, magically spawn from nowhere.

If they got on a boat and attacked, that means they came from a different outpost than the one you cleared, that's all there is to it.

Do you have a table with info about which outpost can attack which hex? If not, suggesting to clear all outposts that can attack the cell is equivalent to suggesting to clear all outposts on the map. No, thanks, it is more efficient to train militia.

Edited July 21, 2023 by sandman25dcsss

[Uncle Nick]

Do you guys get intel to show you red line route of enemy movements? If they all pass thru H7, i just intercept them at H7. My A-Team is intercepting the red lines up North at D6 or something around there. So, i haven't been training much militia, now i am wondering if this is affecting town loyalty/mine income.  

 

[sandman25dcsss]

Just now, Uncle Nick said:

Do you guys get intel to show you red line route of enemy movements? If they all pass thru H7, i just intercept them at H7. My A-Team is intercepting the red lines up North at D6 or something around there. So, i haven't been training much militia, now i am wondering if this is affecting town loyalty/mine income.  

 

Intercepting enemies requires much time and can break your plans.

Ernie village loyalty is affected by creating militia because you have a quest about it. I am not sure about other locations, I build militia anyway, usually when I need to heal, repair or rest.

[Melliores]

Militia training or lack thereof has no bearing on the town's loyalty and by proxy - the associated mine's income.

Militia only serve to defend from incursions into your own territory. I have no idea from where you received this notion that more militia = more loyalty = more income.

 

You can actively defend sectors with your mercs, but this is more expensive due to their wages, the opportunity costs are higher - they can be taking new towns/mines/outposts and solving quests in the meantime. Also, when you auto-resolve battles, the game tends to drop more loot and ammo. All the weapons dropped in auto-resolved battles are fully loaded (the game does not consider the enemies to have fired their weapons) so you get even more ammo this way.

 

You want to auto-resolve battles if you know you will be winning them. 🙂

Edited July 21, 2023 by Melliores

[sandman25dcsss]

Autoresolve defense is weird, it always has better outcome than my manual play, especially regarding number of killed militia guys who always rush to die stupidly in manual mode.

[Jaywalker]

53 minutes ago, sandman25dcsss said:

Do you have a table with info about which outpost can attack which hex? If not, suggesting to clear all outposts that can attack the cell is equivalent to suggesting to clear all outposts on the map. No, thanks, it is more efficient to train militia.

Any Outpost can send an attack against any sector, but those enemies have to travel to their target, which they do along the most efficient path, i.e. generally along the river and then bee-line for the objective. This makes their paths predictable to some extent and you can get away with just training militia in the locations they need to get through (like Camp la Barriere and Chalet de la Paix).

Edited July 21, 2023 by Jaywalker

[sandman25dcsss]

1 minute ago, Jaywalker said:

Any Outpost can send an attack against any sector, but those enemies have to travel to their target, which they do along the most efficient path, i.e. generally along the river and then bee-line for the objective. This makes their paths predictable to some extent and you can get away with just training militia in the locations they need to get through (like Chalet de la Paix).

Interesting idea, but it is hard to do in first playthrough, also there is no discount for loyalty if outside of cities.

[Uncle Nick]

41 minutes ago, sandman25dcsss said:

...Intercepting enemies requires much time and can break your plans....

My A-Team is intercepting enemy, because A-Team is already operating in that area, liberating the farms/camps/towns. They have already taken out the outpost near the C6 Ambush site; but there is the North-East Outpost they are fighting their way towards that outpost. They just stop overnight for medical/repairs/scout (no training), and move on to next sector after fully rested.

My B-team Buns & Grunty are 'farming' Marksmanship skill at H7 mine. I did this strategy in JA2, and it works for me. I trained Ira to be good marksmanship at SAM site. Eventually, A-Team will relocate to H7, and move towards the D11 outpost? Yes, the overall end plan is to take the outposts as suggested.   

[sandman25dcsss]

3 minutes ago, Uncle Nick said:

My A-Team is intercepting enemy, because A-Team is already operating in that area, liberating the farms/camps/towns. They have already taken out the outpost near the C6 Ambush site; but there is the North-East Outpost they are fighting their way towards that outpost. They just stop overnight for medical/repairs/scout (no training), and move on to next sector after fully rested.

My B-team Buns & Grunty are 'farming' Marksmanship skill at H7 mine. I did this strategy in JA2, and it works for me. I trained Ira to be good marksmanship at SAM site. Eventually, A-Team will relocate to H7, and move towards the D11 outpost? Yes, the overall end plan is to take the outposts as suggested.   

I had just 1 mine and 1 team when enemy attacked Ernie village in my game. I could intercept it by moving 4 sectors, but decided not to as it was inefficient. My militia was at max trainable level and killed the intruders without losing anyone.

[Uncle Nick]

56 minutes ago, Melliores said:

Militia training or lack thereof has no bearing on the town's loyalty and by proxy - the associated mine's income.

...Militia only serve to defend from incursions into your own territory. I have no idea from where you received this notion that more militia = more loyalty = more income....

Yes, i was just asking because i wasn't doing much militia training in JA3.

 

I know in some other games this will affect loyalty. Haha, it gets much worse in games like ARMA. If you blow up building in town, when the town gets to negative loyalty, the residents setup IED on the roads everywhere. Your vehicles can't move anywhere without getting blown up.    

[Uncle Nick]

1 minute ago, sandman25dcsss said:

...I had just 1 mine and 1 team when enemy attacked Ernie village in my game...

I have 2 recruit militia squads at Ernie and A2 mine, no enemy has ever attacked them. Livewire is giving me good intel, worth every penny i pay her. I don't have to divert any teams to deal with the enemy, i can see what route the enemy are taking, either the team waits for enemy to come or move on to take another sector before the enemy arrives. 

 

It's not just about the money, every kill your merc makes, they improve their stats and can accumulate additional perks. 

 

Your strategy is valid, we both are just playing different strategy at different points of the game.

[sandman25dcsss]

22 minutes ago, Uncle Nick said:

I have 2 recruit militia squads at Ernie and A2 mine, no enemy has ever attacked them. Livewire is giving me good intel, worth every penny i pay her. I don't have to divert any teams to deal with the enemy, i can see what route the enemy are taking, either the team waits for enemy to come or move on to take another sector before the enemy arrives. 

 

It's not just about the money, every kill your merc makes, they improve their stats and can accumulate additional perks. 

 

Your strategy is valid, we both are just playing different strategy at different points of the game.

As I wrote above I saw the enemy coming too and had plenty of time to intercept, but thought it was not a good idea, my plans were different, I captured another mine instead and didn't lose anything.

Livewire is my favourite merc so far 😉

Edited July 21, 2023 by sandman25dcsss

[barra]

For me Pleatown Mine run dry after a few days ingame.

BUT overall I would say there is WAAAAAAAYYYYYYY too much income.

Alone 4 Mines in Savanna + Port Cacao is too easy.

Not to forget the drop (Diamonds etc)

Aswell as there is no option to really spend it, except for Mercs...but Mercs on the Otherhand are not so urgent needed (I would say 8 is enough, 6 Squad + Tagteam for recruiting militia



Income could and should be cut atleast by half...

Edited July 21, 2023 by barra

[Skaldy]

19 hours ago, sandman25dcsss said:

I don't like the economy system. What is it trying to solve?

1) If forcing players to move forward instead of training mercs, then it does not work (just check the screen above with 1 million $)

Training should be hard limited by something like "no more than 3 trainings for each merc", even parts cost as suggested in some Steam thread is not enough.

2) If forcing players to move forward instead of healing mercs, then again it does not work and should be addressed directly with limits like "you cannot heal more than 2 wounds and 20% HP between fights".

3) If forcing players to move forward instead of creating ammo/explosives or gathering intel, then again it does not work as we already have serious requirements for those operations.

4) If forcing players to move forward instead of training militia, then again it does not work as returning back to liberate captured mine or city takes more time and is not fun for many players.

So what do we actually get by having potential gold issues in the game? Forcing players to use the same cheap mercs and a single team? Is it fun and does it help replayability?

Sat OPs literally has no benefits, specially when RNG is on your side dumping guns and ammo at you, healing is bothersome which makes me evade melee builds entirely. Oh but there is more, base defense and timed quests makes it even more tedious. There are so many basic things they cut from the game to increase difficulty, it is outrageous. Instead of building up on working fine mechanics they somehow manage to make it worse. Stuff they cut from JA2 is, well i think they are just trolling

[Uncle Nick]

Cashflow is $100k now, like many other people, i have been avoiding the refugee camp scenario; but as per all your advise i better start training up the Militia. How bad was the refugee camp game trigger? How much town loyalty did you lose when the SHTF?

 

Going to hire Hitman & Wolf teaching team to help with faster training for the militia. Do these guys get along and are they able to work together? 

[Jaywalker]

41 minutes ago, Uncle Nick said:

Going to hire Hitman & Wolf teaching team to help with faster training for the militia. Do these guys get along and are they able to work together? 

Better one would be Raider, if you can afford it. Hell Wolf Raven and Raider as a trio make a full fighting force if you arm them properly, on top of being lightning fast to move around and complete operations.