Vlad

I love new ideas. What do you have in mind?

IMP medium-range ninja - Throwing / Auto Weapons Night Ops (Expert) seems to be the most popular choice for the IMP merc. The main appeal of Night Ops is that it makes you a better sniper by extending your range of vision at night. That it also reduces the need for sleep is just icing on the cake (so does Martial Arts). AIM has three great Night Ops snipers (Lynx, Scope, Raven), and night vision can be extended with equipment (+4 from UV Goggles). But when you're fighting at night, you're spending most of the time controlling your ninja, as you stealthily explore the area and eliminate the easy targets. Your ninja's experience level therefore skyrockets, which means you end up paying a fortune to keep someone like Blood employed. Blood's description on AIM reads "his ability to fling a combat knife into an enemy's neck is a sight to behold: it seems to come out of nowhere, sails an impossibly large distance, then slices through its target with unerring accuracy". Though "unerring" accuracy is an exaggeration, you'd be right to take this description as a hint that throwing knives are unrealistically good in this game. They have a range of 15 tiles, and instantly kill most unaware targets. A silenced SMG has a range of 20 tiles, and can be used when throwing knives are not cutting it. Throwing and Auto Weapons also happen to be useful for increasing your damage output in general (assault rifles, grenades). Why not Night Ops for a ninja? Because seeing your target from further away can actually be counter-productive, because it switches the game into combat mode while you are still out of effective weapon range. Why not Stealth? Because when killing unaware targets at medium range, it's enough to stay low and and move stealthily. Stealth is of greater value to melee martial artists. Why not a melee martial artist? Because this style of combat is too dangerous unless two ninjas are working in unison (else a single failure results in grievous injury). Also, the game has a contrived stealing mechanic--you can steal items from opponents who have been knocked out but are not yet dying. These items do not drop when the opponent dies, which makes no real-world sense. So if you're going with a duo of melee ninjas, you're putting yourself into a situation of profiting from what feels like an exploit, which can spoil a game. It gets worse if you start to feel that you're wasting resources unless you rob everyone before killing them, because then you've doomed yourself to difficult combat (and then what's the point of all that money?).

Raider - Some of the NPCs are prejudiced, like Steroid hating Russians (Ivan and Igor), and Blood hating white South Africans (Cliff Highball). It is silly and amusing, but lest you as a player believe that you are immune to such biases, the character of Raider seems designed to challenge that presumption. Raider is a police officer with an annoying voice and an awesome wife. Nobody picks this guy as their favorite merc, and it's entirely for personal reasons. If you're just looking at his stats, he is the best leader you can hire, and a Teacher (Expert) on top of it. Nobody is better at talking to people and training militia than this guy. This is huge, because: 1. It gives you peace of mind--you know you're not missing out on peaceful ways of advancing your cause (this is true even if someone online says that you don't need the best, since you can't know if they're right). 2. It cuts down on time spent training militia, which is a huge time sink. If you're hiring based on stats, I can't imagine a better team than Raider, Barry, and Buns. On Experienced difficulty you can afford to hire all three for a week immediately. But when playing on Novice, even I am tempted to replace Raider with Len, whom I actually like and respect and don't envy.

Barry - Being able to handle locks and traps eliminates the annoyance of liberating a sector and then finding that there are containers you cannot open. This means you want someone with the Lock Picking and Electronics skills, as well as high Explosives skill with decent Mechanical skill and Dexterity. There are only two mercs who meet all these requirements: Trevor and Barry. The main difference is in their Mechanical skill, as Trevor's starts practically maxed (99) while Barry's is a mere 44. However, Trevor is several times more expensive than Barry, which makes him impractical as an early or permanent hire, and Barry is a fast learner (91 Wisdom) so his Mechanical skill should skyrocket if he spends his non-combat time repairing items. Nails can also handle both locks and traps, but has a hard time with Electronics, and he costs more than twice as much as Barry. You could also hire Static to pick locks, and Red to handle explosives, but both of them are more expensive than Barry, and you'd always need to bring them both, which is a problem because vehicle space is limited. Barry can also easily become a good combatant--his physical stats are adequate (lowest is Agility at 72), and Marksmanship trains quickly (Barry's starts at 70, which is probably more than your IMP merc). So for a pittance you get a merc who quickly becomes a good combatant, repairs your items, and eliminates some of the most annoying situations you'll come across. It is senseless not to hire him.

Night Ops increases sight range at night by one, or three at expert level, but what is the default (unmodified) sight range at night? A silenced SMG has a range of 20, and a Throwing Knife has a range of 15, so if Expert Night Ops increases the sight range from 12 to 15, that's fantastic, but if it increases it from 20 to 23, there's not much reason to give it to a ninja (still great for snipers).

Buns - Described by AIM as a sharpshooter, with Marksmanship and Dexterity in the mid-to-high 80s, she is one of the only two AIM mercs (alongside Raven) who starts with Sun Goggles (extended vision in daylight). While Raven is clearly the better sniper (Marksmanship and Dexterity in the low-to-mid 90s, Night Ops), Buns is more useful outside of combat because she is a Teacher (Expert). She also costs less than half of Raven's price despite both starting at experience level 2, and Buns learns quickly (93 Wisdom). A good early and permanent hire, and the arrogant snob knows it, as do most players.

Len - Higher experience level (7) than everyone else on AIM except Gus Tarballs (8), at half the price of Scully. Excellent combatant who starts with an assault rifle, trivializing the early battles. Also useful outside of combat: 61 Leadership - Good at talking to Arulco natives. Teacher - Better than most at training militia. 54 Mechanical - Better than most at repairing items. Len has the special ability of being unable to gain further skills and levels, which means he will never increase in price. I could argue that his inability to learn wastes experience that other mercs could use, but I don't think it's important for hired mercs to become better combatants over time, because you can just replace them with better mercs instead. For example, Raven is a phenomenal sniper for her price at first--night ops, sunglasses, dexterity and marksmanship in the 90s, at less than 60% of the price of Lynx or Scope--but she eventually surpasses Lynx and Scope in price, making her just another very expensive top-tier merc, of which there are many.