Solaris_Wave

Hopefully the developers are still around and reading the forums. I personally have got no idea what could be preventing the Mod Manager from appearing. Maybe it is something to do with using Linux?

I would liked to have seen damage reduction at long ranges rather than a gun suddenly being useless beyond a certain distance. It would be a little more to program but why should a bullet or the gun that fires it, achieve 100% damage all the way to its max range and then one space beyond that, suddenly drop to zero? Again, this was something I suggested some time ago during development. Rifles with shorter barrels, such as a compact 5.56mm chambered rifle, see a greater loss of lethality with the bullet once it falls below a certain speed. The velocity isn't there to cause the bullet to fragment enough. You can still hit with it at longer ranges but it is a lot weaker. The point of those short barrel carbines though is enhanced firepower against human tissue and body armour, compared to pistol calibres (used by SMGs) at close range. At close range, the velocity is still high enough.

Which makes me wonder, what is half range? Half the range of the gun's total range or half the range of the small game maps? The former makes more sense from a logical standpoint but the actual result isn't good. Some guns are more accurate than others. Some guns are designed to be accurate at short ranges and not beyond that. A pistol is accurate enough for the ranges it was designed for (provided it was an accurate enough pistol to begin with. Some really do suck.) but a rifle with a long barrel will be accurate too, just in a different way. I would rather have a short barrelled weapon for targets up close, indoors or outdoors, as they are faster to aim. I can see Haemimont's reason for working out the guns like that but it creates limitations, like you have pointed out. That was my reasoning for limiting body part aiming to close ranges especially. Your mercs and enemy soldiers would be able to aim at specific body parts, meaning fights in buildings would be dangerous and would require teams to clear rooms. Close range, you can aim for the head (or face), the legs and feet, the arms and hands (although the latter is very hard to do regardless). Some pistol calibre cartridges are designed to penetrate body armour a lot better than others. A good case of example is 5.7x28mm and 4.6x30mm. Unfortunately, the 5.7mm, or more correctly, the FN P90 is often wildly overpowered in many games. It has good body armour penetration but it isn't that much better against human tissue than the best 9mm Parabellum rounds. The same applies to material penetration, such as walls. That would be handy. When those Legion brawlers just run up to your mercs and start scoring high damage hits and you can't do much except watch your mercs collapse, it can get annoying. A handgun could provide a handy defense, especially if you have a long gun that makes it harder to aim at something close to you. It is a shame that the shotguns get that first attack bonus against your mercs. A shotgun is just as long as a full length rifle. It shouldn't get the same fast response bonus as a knife. It is already powerful enough.

From a game and real life perspective, handguns are quick to aim with and very manoeuvrable, which makes them useful for Close Quarters Battle. Without having enough parameters built in to the game, I think that one way to represent this would be to give them a low AP cost to aim and to shoot. That wouldn't make them overpowered. They would still have range limitation, damage limitation (especially to body armour) and limited rate of fire.

I didn't really pay enough attention to realise that (oddly) these penalties only last for one turn and then they are ok afterwards (almost like suppression). One turn's duration definitely isn't enough to make it worth doing. I would still prefer a permanent effect however, at least until healed. I rarely aimed at the legs either. While it was handy to occasionally cause them to collapse (and if badly hurt, they would get up and then fall again, using up APs), it was still preferable for me to kill them outright. I had other guys to kill as well so I didn't want to keep too many opponents in the fight. All of this contrasts with the Fallout series of games. Fallout 1 & 2 were out around the same time as JA2 and had the same isometric perspective and turn-based combat. You had even more body parts to aim at in those games and a critical hit really meant something, whichever limb or important location you or they hit.

That is fine. Thank you for explaining your points. I was just giving my response to your answers rather than intending any long discussion.

That is a 100% different perspective to mine. Which is ok as we are all different. I find that realism keeps things in check and actually aids balance, especially in games involving weapons, combat and anything based on the real world. I have seen game balance, where it is done just for the sake of it, totally screw up the logic of things. Now, there are different levels of realism and some can be considered fussy by some and not by others. Game balance can work but it really involves extensive play testing at the end of the day. If I know how a gun behaves in real life, I do not want to see it perform differently in a game. I would rather they just created a fictional weapon. In that sense, I definitely want realism. If I am picking plants or herbs, I don't mind it taking a second or two to wait until the action is completed unless (and I can't stress this enough) you have to do it over and over, in quick succession. At that point it becomes tedious and you are twiddling thumbs. I haven't experienced that kind of tediousness in JA3 but I have experienced it in other games like Far Cry 3 and Red Dead Redemption. In those, every time you needed to skin an animal or search a dead body, you had to wait for an animation to finish. Every sodding time. When you are seeing that for the hundredth time in the last 30 minutes of play, it can sap not only your enjoyment of the game but also your will to live. It is fine to see that animation once near the beginning of the game, or maybe randomly and sparingly. Every time? Watching your character slide his knife this way and that? No thanks. Handguns in reality are very useful and capable weapons. In games, due to game balance or lack of creating enough parameters, they tend to be strangely more powerful than SMGs that fire the same cartridge, or weak and useless, waiting to be superseded by bigger weapons and then never seen again. I suggested to Haemimont how to keep handguns relevant throughout the entire game but I don't think it really went that way. I will see what I can do, if and when I mod the game. I will keep handgun cartridges consistent in terms of damage and will make it so handguns can be quickly drawn if your primary weapon fails or needs reloading. It can be quicker to draw your sidearm than it is to change mags or clear a malfunction with your primary. Very important if threats are present. Unlike some games, your pistol can save your life without needing to shoot the threat 10 times before they decided to drop dead.

A lot of those answers are down to your personal preference, which is ok as everybody is different. I will add my responses to those, especially if I need you to clarify: 2) I was going for a realism slant and only wanting to see walking occur outside of combat. During the combat mode, walking is disabled. Walking around casually during a gunfight is reserved for John Wayne. 3) Enhanced graphical effects would be optional, like most games. The ejecting casings could be there by default though as they shouldn't slow down the game due to their size and infrequency. Even guns with high rates of fire shouldn't slow down the game. Unless you had a minigun. 6) I am confused about your answer for this one. Dual-wielding creates a mental action where you will most likely shoot both weapons at the same time, instead of one after the other. The firepower is still doubled but the timing is different. You would mentally try to fire them simultaneously, hence the same action point usage. You are still penalised for trying to do so, however. Your accuracy will definitely suffer. More so if you are dual-wielding and trying to fire both weapons on automatic. You also need more action points to reload because it is harder to do it. This means that ultimately, dual-wielding is something that isn't all out better to do. It shows its advantages for close range firepower if you can get in close and kill as quickly as possible. For longer ranges and prolonged fights, it becomes more of a disadvantage as you are less accurate and spend a lot more APs reloading. 7) Everybody has different tastes. I like lots of audio immersion in my games but I know some people mute everything or play their own music. I often do that with the music. For JA3's death sounds, there just aren't enough. For it to be implemented, you would need more than one sound effect and have them randomised to avoid repetition. 10) For headshots, please refer to my other comments about restricting the aiming. Also, the enemies don't seem to suffer any adverse effects, unlike in JA2. 15) Why should your mercs run out of ammo if Legion don't? Them having more resources doesn't make sense. Why can't you use the ammo left by fallen Legion? Why can't you capture their supplies? It is a case of them not having to play by the rules that you have to. Also, because they have infinite ammo, they can just blaze away every turn. That wouldn't be so bad if they missed more often but they don't. They are supposed to be militia with not a lot of training. 16) Throwing back a grenade would be available to any merc. Disarming depends on Explosives skill. 17) My Flanking bonuses and penalties argument is aimed more at Legion, who seem psychologically impervious. Also, I was going for a realism standpoint and basing it off other (more complex military strategy) games. 18) Fog doesn't bother Legion, who all seem to have thermal imaging optics surgically implanted. Again, you have to play by rules they don't have to. Are Legion militia from a poor country or are they cloned Super Soldiers with top tier upgrades and enhancements? If fog affects your mercs, it should affect Legion too. They do cause grazing hits but those are rare compared to your own hits on them. 19) I am going for realism here. Clearing a failure to eject or fire doesn't require knowledge of Mechanics or extensive knowledge of weapon mechanics, it just requires fairly basic knowledge of your own firearm. I don't know the internal workings of every firearm I have seen, handled or used, but I know what to do to clear most failures to eject or fire, without damaging the gun. 20) Again, your mercs suffer where Legion doesn't. Why should they shrug off leg hits? JA2 had leg hits on enemies that would cause them to fall. 21) It would be your choice to re-use landmines. You could just disarm them and break them down for parts as normal. 24) Realism and physics. 25) Definitely realism. Haemimont went halfway with it. If guns are based on real life counterparts, do it right or make fictional guns. As a real life gun nut, seeing such inaccuracies infuriates me. If they used fictional guns, I would be less bothered. 32) There was no smoke grenade. The Legion soldier was just standing there in front of a building, blissfully unaware of Buns lining up her Gewehr 98 seven spaces away from the back of his head. It was a side shot but nevertheless a clear one, without any weather effects. Cue a grazing hit, a little "Ow!" from the enemy (despite the full rifle calibre round going into his head), followed by him sprinting off at Olympic speed, doing a fancy roll over some cover and then getting into a firing position. Hopefully, it was a bug, like you suggested. 34) It is interesting you mentioning that. I haven't checked it myself. I just notice that the Legion can pull off shooting and spotting actions that my mercs can't. 37) For militia, Legion seem very well trained and disciplined. In reality, despite how sturdy they are due to simplicity, I have seen some badly maintained and battered AK-47s/AKMs used by third-world countries. Screwed up sights, broken wooden furniture, worn out barrels, etc. 38) I am playing on Normal difficulty. Again, this is a case of Legion soldiers acting like robots, cyborgs or Super Soldiers, unaffected by anything until you kill them stone dead. Until that point, they all act as normal. Meanwhile, your mercs suffer progressive effects. They should play by the same rules you do, if they are supposed to be normal human people.

I was wondering if there was a kill cam and thought I read about there being one from older comments. I then wondered why I wasn't seeing one but I think it was one of those things that got broken by the time I started playing the game. When I started playing, it had already been updated past v1.0 . He is above average. I changed the stats round after the questionnaire results gave him 67% health. I increased it by around 10 points. I don't know if the Legion are preferring to shoot him due to lower health as he is not the weakest in terms of health points. That said, he spends most battles with lower health than normal because I can't afford to fully heal him all the time. He also gets incapacitated the most because Legion like to shoot him, even if he is at the back, lying prone or partially behind cover. Battles often end up with him being incapacitated, sending another merc to perform First-Aid, reviving him and then having to do it again and again, as the Legion soldiers just sit there firing full-auto and hitting with most of the shots. Obviously, I am still using my other mercs to provide covering fire and to try to eliminate the enemies that are shooting at him.

I am aware of the mods which remove the damage reduction. It is also something that I will add to my own mod if I can get everything working in synergy. Right now, I wouldn't even try using the mod as Legion fire full auto all the time and are too accurate with each hit. I am also aware of the penalty to targeting the head but I was thinking more of the need to do so in JA2 (which is more important in mid and end game due to enemy body armour). For JA3, I am currently, in my early game, not often aiming at the head (except for Buns, who is an expert already at sniping with her suppressed Gewehr 98 and also her new SVD Dragunov). The point about headshots causing negative effects was to try and direct it more towards a realistic point of view (but still within the game's limitations). However, I did really want this to operate hand in hand with the restriction on aiming at specific body parts except for close range and other conditions.

Which is annoying in its own right. Not only is it a pain to have to spend a long time healing after spending a long time scouting, you are punished for scouting in the first place. "How dare you successfully scout out the area! We must wound your merc to teach you a lesson!" 🤨

Maybe a failed recon attempt could mean that no information was collected as the scout was spotted and drew fire (which is then shown via text). That should be enough as the time taken to perform the Scout action would still be the same, success or failure. Maybe a high failure result could be implemented which then creates the chance of wounding the merc but it shouldn't be the norm. Instead, it should act as a deterrent to trying to use that merc to scout as they are not careful and quiet enough.

I was meaning melee combat. If two combatants are both standing, they have an equal chance at hitting one another, the same if both are crouched or both are prone. If someone standing was trying to stab someone prone, that would be difficult as they would need to get lower to do so. It would also be harder for a prone combatant to stab a standing combatant. Therefore, I was thinking that there should be a larger accuracy penalty if the attacker was two 'stances' different to the target, and a smaller accuracy penalty if only one stance different to the target. Crouching would be the average stance against standing or prone targets. I was thinking about it when a Legion soldier happily ran up to my prone merc who was providing long range fire, stood one space away and started slashing with his knife. He never missed once and did lots of damage each time. I wasn't trying get my merc to attack him back via melee. I was trying to shoot him or move out of the way. Everything I did caused an interrupt where the Legion soldier got a free attack because he was in melee range. My merc was quickly knocked out and I had to spend a few turns shooting at the Legion brawler with another merc. In the meantime, the Legion soldier just stood there taking bullets like a champ (or a robot/super soldier) without ever thinking he was in pain or that it might be a good idea to find cover.

That is handy to know that there is a mod for that. I am playing unmodded for my first play-through, just so I can see what the developers intended the game to be. It will also help me spot what I feel needs changing. Please can I ask why you disagree with most of my points and which ones you do agree on? It is nice to get a different perspective. The problem with that (obviously just from my perspective) is that they don't really behave like human beings and also, only your mercs suffer diminishing abilities as their health condition worsens. The Legion don't feel like they are people that have been recruited from the poor population but instead made on an assembly line. The point about the highest damage was something that affected JA2 and why I tried to get a gameplay change with JA3. To repeat myself again, single shots allowed body part aiming and you could aim at any visible body part, no matter how small, at any range. This meant that single shot, aimed fire was invariably the way to play and burst and full-auto fire was less useful. It was less accurate and the enemies in JA2 were bullet sponges because their armour took so much punishment (they could survive multiple grenade hits too). The quickest way to defeat a single enemy was to aim at their head, which created the most damage per bullet. Also, the best weapons to achieve that were the sniper rifles, as they caused the most damage per bullet. I made repeated suggestions to restrict body part aiming to close range, to reflect how hard it is to actually aim at a specific body part. Additionally, you could also aim at a body part if your merc was looking through a magnified telescopic sight, was highly skilled, and the target was not running. At all other ranges and situations, you could only target the enemy in a general manner. The bullet(s) would then randomly hit a body part with the torso having the highest chance to receive the hit, the arms and legs second and the head last. This would make the battles unpredictable and exciting, especially when you got that headshot when you were just firing at a general target in the distance. Instead, JA3 is like JA2 where long range sniping is the dominant choice, you can aim at a body part at any range and you will prefer to shoot at a location that kills the enemy the quickest. The only difference between the two games is that with JA3, a supposedly weak or nearly dead enemy is just as capable and as dangerous as an enemy at full health, full-auto fire is even weaker due to the damage reduction when firing in that mode, and the enemy soldiers are still bullet sponges but not because they are necessarily wearing armour.

I haven't seen the army units yet but reading that they have medics sounds pleasing in some ways. However, knowing that it ultimately means nothing because the Legion act like robots or drones that keep going at you until you reduce them to zero points, is a massive shame. On another note, I forgot about that I.M.P. quote! I am also glad that you have noticed that too! I thought there was something wrong with my I.M.P. and if I mentioned it on the forums, that people would just say I was playing badly. The thing is, my I.M.P. isn't that great. His marksmanship is high but not the highest. I put more emphasis in having higher Leadership because I read on these forums that it was a good attribute to have for your I.M.P. Therefore, is he Legion's primary target because he is your custom merc and they are ensuring that you don't view them as the star of the show? Or, are they picking him out because the Leadership attribute somehow sticks a visible floating rank above his head and they feel they need to remove the leader of your group?

After being late to the party in playing the game, due to not having access to my gaming PC (in another country), I have finally got round to playing JA3. Everybody will have different opinions of the game and nobody is wrong in their assessment. Mine can only reflect my current progress and from one play-through at this time. While my verdict doesn't really matter (I am not a games reviewer), it is something that I hope others can agree or debate on. First of all, the positives. The game looks fantastic. I have a pretty powerful PC and am able to set all the graphics settings to Ultra. The details and definition of everything is really well made. The graphics artists should be congratulated throughout. Grand Chien looks really nice throughout everything I have seen so far and I don't expect that to change. The character models are very well designed. Like many others, I was unsure about some of the clothing decisions and the portraits. I understood the reasoning behind the look of each character, with the intent to make them stand out and have distinct personalities, helped by the fixed and individual look of clothing; but I shared the view that some mercs looked goofy and unprofessional. That view still stands to a certain degree but the general approach works very well for the most part. I don't even mind the static pictures of each merc and NPC. I said many times in the past that due to their increased palette and definition, as well as their hand painted look, that they would be harder to animate. I don't really miss the animated faces of JA2. The voice acting is accomplished as well. I already have developed a liking for certain mercs that I have employed so far. I have only hired a few at this point, so I reckon there could be other favourites. The music serves the game well with a lot of variety. While nothing truly stands out for me, it nonetheless plays its part in adding to the atmosphere, whether it is during peaceful moments or during combat. Weapon sounds are pretty good but I feel many guns lack punch. Some even sound too quiet, whether the gun is suppressed or unsuppressed. Now for the negatives. Unfortunately, for me, there are many. Some of it are things that could be tweaked with a patch. Others really work hard to annoy me and seem intent on trying to stop me having any fun. In no order of preference or importance, I will list everything I have made note of so far: 1) There is a lack of I.M.P. portraits to choose from. I was hoping for at least twice the amount that are in the game as of now. There needs to be a greater variety of male and female faces in terms of ethnicity and hair styles. 2) Mercs shouldn't run everywhere in safe zones. At short distances from where you select, they should walk. Longer distances should cause them to run. You could even double-click to make them do so. It looks weird when your mercs are running everywhere around a populated area, while all the villagers casually walk around. I know walking has recently been patched into the game but it is currently clumsy in its implementation. You have to press several keys to perform a walk (and at the time of writing, doesn't work if you change the control method). Surely, my above suggestion is more practical? 3) As much as I like the graphical effects, there are little details that are either not present or not visible enough. I would like to see splashes of water when someone runs through a pool of water. I would like to see ejecting casings falling from most guns (except revolvers or other cylinder-loaded weapons until a full reload is performed). Muzzle flashes should be larger for certain firearms and smoke should seep out the barrel and ejection port. Little effects that add to the immersion. 4) Movement alternates between left and right mouse buttons, depending on the mode of play (combat and non-combat action on the tactical map). This can be confusing, especially when first playing the game. There was an option to alter the control method that was later patched in, then removed (maybe in error), then added in again. I am thinking that this should have been simplified before release. 5) While I was learning the controls and user interface, I had on two occasions, slightly mis-clicked, or the game wrongly interpreted what I was intending to click on, which caused the merc to fire accidentally. Instead of me clicking on the icon, the game thought I wanted to shoot the ground underneath the icon. Being aware of the limited availability of ammo further into the game, I was unhappy about this. Maybe there should be something like holding down a key at the same time as clicking, if you deliberately want to shoot at something other than a destructive object or enemy soldier? 6) Dual-wielding two weapons should cost the same amount of action points to fire as a single weapon. You are pretty much firing them at the same time. The downside to dual-wielding should be a loss of accuracy as it is much harder to aim at a target, and a higher cost to reload. 7) Not enough death sounds made by the enemy. Too often they just silently fall to the ground. Some sort of vocal noise would help. 8 ) Enemies often die too slowly. The kill shot often causes the enemy to fall in what looks like slow motion. 9) There is no difference in enemy behaviour or status when their health reading says 'Almost Dead'. They act and behave just as if they were at full health. They should behave worse, move slower, be crawling on the floor. An enemy that is listed as 'Almost Dead' should not be sprinting, rolling and vaulting like an Olympic athlete. 10) Head shots should cause penalties almost always, even if only for 1-2 turns. Concussion, fainting, accuracy loss, action point loss, etc. The current experience is if an enemy survives a head shot, they feel a little bit sore before going back to their usual super soldier behaviour. 11) The camera following the enemy during their turn is not always smooth. This might be down to my PC and not a widespread problem. However, it is the only time where I experience (a little) choppiness. 12) Lack of cinematic camera during a kill shot. 13) The pop-up UI frequently gets in the way of the enemy you are trying to shoot. I have seen it where it fills up the centre of the screen and blocks the target. 14) I would like to see a blind-fire option to try to overcome opposing Overwatch. Theoretically, an enemy could go into Overwatch and just lay there indefinitely, ready to blow you away each turn. Unless you are lucky to avoid the bullets, learn a skill to break Overwatch or have an ally to take them out from another angle, your merc could be potentially pinned down forever. 15) The fact that the enemy soldiers never run out of ammo is just ridiculous. It is often a great cause of frustration because they can fire burst or full-auto every turn without ever needing to reload a magazine or without ever running out of ammo all together. This, coupled with their excellent accuracy means your mercs are almost always badly wounded and/or close to dying. This situation is even worse when you are facing an enemy that has infinite Rocket-Propelled Grenades. That enemy will keep happily firing one per turn until you kill him. And until you do, his RPGs will hit and knock out your merc, causing them to bleed and become incapacitated, thus needing a medic, who needs to have backup while healing. Every turn. The infinite ammo means the gameplay loop can end up being a case of your mercs all being wounded, trying to heal one another while the enemy gets to shrug off their own wounds and continue blazing away. 16) I would like to have the ability to throw back, or throw away, recently landed enemy grenades, especially if they have a turn to explode. It needs to be risky with a high mishap chance to throw where you want. I would prefer that to just currently being restricted to defusing, running away or standing there and taking damage. 17) I would like to see Flanking give different bonuses. I would personally remove the damage bonus to hitpoints. Instead, it would greatly reduce morale to that target (and quickly induce panic), break Overwatch, cause an accuracy penalty (hard to concentrate when being flanked) and give an armour penetration bonus against the target (as side armour will be much less). 18) Fog to no longer cause grazing hits. Instead, it causes a greater Line Of Sight reduction and an accuracy penalty. If the bullet hits, its damage should behave as normal. 19) Clearing a jam shouldn't damage the gun or require a Mechanic skill check to prevent damage, unless the gun is already in very poor condition. 20) If a target receives a critical hit to the leg or the groin, they should collapse and need to spend action points standing up. Furthermore, mobility should be lowered from then on. 21) Defused landmines should be able to be kept and re-used. 22) Timed explosives should allow you to choose how long the timer is set for. 23) A larger area for the mouse click to register on an object would be useful. Sometimes, you can't interact with some object in the world because you are not on the precise pixel it wants you to be on. The pointer doesn't always switch to the hand icon. This can be sometimes due to the camera orientation. It is especially annoying when you have a time limit to defuse an explosive and it won't let you interact with it. You then have to get the explosives expert to run for cover before they get blown away. 24) A prone target should be harder to hit in close combat if the one making the attack is standing up. 25) Many of the firearms are using incorrect calibres or have incorrect ammo capacities. I know this was partly done for simplicity but it wouldn't have created that much extra work. I know that modders can fix this (and I will have a go at it myself at some point, probably) but should it really be down to modders to fix this missing content? 26) Some Operations take too long. Healing takes a very long time. That in itself is understandable but I seem to spend the majority of my game, healing (or trying to heal) one or more mercs who are constantly wounded by the ever-firing, infinite ammo using, accurate super shooters known as the Legion. 27) Scouting, especially with high Wisdom characters, shouldn't result in them being wounded. It already takes long enough to scout. For them to need healing afterwards, means you are waiting even longer. Meanwhile, the timeframe moves forward and your mercs are due to have their contracts renewed, regardless of whether you have money or not. Which you don't, because you aren't moving fast enough or making enough progress, as you are spending all your time being healed. 28) For some reason, interior walls are tougher than floors. There was a hole in the upstairs floor, caused by a grenade on the ground floor. This prevented me from entering that upstairs room (which had items inside it). There was no other way to get into that room. I thought that maybe I could deploy a shaped charge to blow a hole in the wall, where the floor still remained, thus giving me an entry into the room. Unfortunately, the walls would refuse to be damaged or destroyed. If they did, the surrounding floor was destroyed as well. I was never able to destroy a wall, while keeping the floor intact. As a result, I had to abandon any ideas of trying to get into that room. I couldn't even craft a sodding ladder. 29) The camera for multi-storey buildings frequently gets confused. It doesn't know what floor to zoom in on, regardless of where your mercs are. It can often show overhead parts of the building, blocking your view, or making too much transparent, causing confusion as to what is actually in that room. 30) The transparency of walls is too confusing. They are too clear and this makes it harder to see certain windows, doors and other openings. Transparency should be more partially opaque to help show solid walls. This will also help the player tell what doors are solid and what are glass doors. Not only that, it would help them see where to click to open and close doors (which often can be done by accident). 31) Ammo frequently is low. There is too little to be scavenged, even if you are fully aware of the ammo shortage that dominates a large portion of JA3 and try to use single rounds. 32) I had a merc sneak up on an unsuspecting enemy and perform a relatively close range shot to his back with a suppressed Gewehr 98. There was no fog but it caused a grazing hit, allowing the enemy soldier to sprint off, roll over a barricade and get into a firing position. I don't know if that was bug. 33) C4 and other high explosives don't damage lookout towers. I had the great idea of sneaking up on a lookout tower, planting a timed C4 charge on one of the wooden struts of the tower and waiting for the tower to topple, killing the sniper. The charge went off and did nothing more than alert all the enemy. 34) Enemies don't seem to be affected by night, rain and fog anywhere near as much as your mercs do. 35) Items that are used for modifying weapons and creating attachments take up important inventory space on yours mercs. Things such as those would make more sense if they were placed in squad inventory with the ammunition. 36) Throwing knives that say they can be retrieved after throwing, can't. I have only used one throwing knife and it hit and killed a Legion soldier in the head. No knife was able to be retrieved. 37) As well as having infinite ammo, enemy firearms don't jam. 38) Your badly wounded mercs get less action points. Badly wounded enemies behave exactly the same as healthy ones. Now those are a lot of gripes, I will admit. The ones that niggle me are the lack of weapon realism and authenticity. However, such things can be hopefully modded if the developers have no plans to alter those. What actually affects my enjoyment of the game, what raises the question as to whether I am actually having fun or not, is the blatant behaviour of the enemy AI and how they don't play by the same rules you are forced to. They have more action points, hit more often, don't seem affected by night or weather, have infinite ammo, can fire all day on full auto, suffer no psychological effects such as morale and panic, have far more health and hardly become affected by crippling shots. They are, in effect, not militia but highly trained super soldiers, cloned in vats with select attributes and enhancements. The most annoying and obvious battle that infuriated me was when I was fighting Pierre on Ernie island. I managed to defeat him on my second try of the battle but the first time, his 3D model was covered in head to toe in blood, due to being shot several times by 2x G98s, an MP40, 2x AK-47s and a double-barreled shotgun. Not only that but he was hit twice by grenades. In the meantime, he was constantly firing bursts from his own AK, wounding all of my mercs, repeatedly incapacitating my I.M.P. (who would get revived and then knocked out again), pausing briefly to run up and melee kill one of my badly wounded mercs. Before I quit the game in disbelief, Pierre was only regarded as 'Severely Wounded'. I was convinced that he was a Terminator who's mission objective was to be a Royal Pain In The Ass. Why are the Legion so much better than your A.I.M. mercs, if they are supposed be bandits and militia with only basic organisation and training? I don't want to find the game hard, exasperating and tiresome because the enemy cheats and doesn't play by the same rules you have to. I want the game to be a challenge by other means. So far, my gameplay seems to consist of usually lopsided battles in their favour, running out of meds because of the need to heal, running out of money because I need to spend game hours healing, resting and repairing destroyed armour; instead of pushing forward and taking sectors so I can afford the salaries of my mercs. I am not playing badly either. I am using cover, keeping a low profile with my mercs (crouching or prone), using covering fire and keeping the team together. It doesn't seem to matter. The enemy knows where my mercs are as soon as I use a suppressed rifle from a long distance away, or can see and comfortably shoot my squad through fog, thunderstorms and night. Meanwhile, my mercs have to get closer to achieve the same effect and often delight me when they miss a shot when an enemy is one space away. Legion seem to love targeting my I.M.P. more than the other mercs and he is often needing to be healed, slowing the game down or going into battle with 50% health due to me needing to make progress and not being able to waste time healing. If the enemy had to operate with the same mechanics that you do, I think that this game would be a whole lot more enjoyable.

I haven't played the game enough to employ Shadow yet but that seems nuts that he is less capable at recon than a field medic. My current team is my I.M.P., Mouse, Buns, Livewire, Barry and Fox. I previously had M.D. and Nails but I had to let their contracts end as I was lacking money at the time. My current gameplay loop seems to be struggling to push forward enough to make money (I only have one mine and it says it is nearly empty), while spending the majority of my time healing everyone, who are always tired and/or wounded, due to battle or reconnaissance. Meanwhile, the Legion militia just fires away happily in full-auto, rarely missing and never worrying about ammo. That means that by the time everyone is healed, days have gone past and contracts are due to be renewed, which I might not have the money to do.

Is there actually an M21 in the game? I read that the M24 is in there, which is a different rifle. The M21 is a semi-auto only accurized version of the M14. The M24 is the military version of the Remington 700, which is bolt-action.

That is one of my major criticisms with the enemy AI so far. They can just fire Burst or Full-Auto every turn if they want, rarely missing, keeping my mercs constantly wounded. No weapon jamming, no reloading, no running out of ammo and having to flee or using another weapon. Your mercs play by rules that the enemy AI doesn't have to.

As a gun nut, seeing all these inaccuracies with the weapons makes my eye twitch. If and when I mod the game, I might be making the guns a little more 'boring' but at least they will be closer to real life. That Dragunov should be using 7.62x54mmR and be semi-auto only. It is a long range rifle after all. I haven't seen the Desert Eagle yet, so I don't even know what calibre it uses in the game. Whichever one it uses, it certainly doesn't hold 15 rounds in the magazine. The .50AE version holds 7 in the mag, .44 Magnum holds 8, and the .357 Magnum holds 9. I can't remember what capacity the .41AE and .440 Cor-Bon versions are, as I am bit rusty on those.

During my short play-through of the game so far, I have noticed that my mercs are inferior to the Legion militia. The Legion don't panic, can see relatively fine in the dark, rarely miss when then they fire full auto, shrug off wounds and stand defiant next to exploding grenades. They don't seem like militia, they seem more like genetically-bred clones.

In JA2, they called it 7.62mm WP, which was short and convenient to read on the small UI. WP was the initials for Warsaw Pact. I would have either called it 7.62mm Soviet or, preferably 7.62x39mm. There was a 7.62x39mm Yugoslavian cartridge that had different properties to the Soviet cartridge and hence why JA2's developers might have gone with the WP definition. I assume that as JA3 is supposed to follow on from JA2, they are keeping the naming of cartridges consistent. If I mod JA3, I am going to add a few more cartridges and rename them. I don't like WP being the initials for Warsaw Pact anyway. To me, WP is White Phosphorus.

In my first play-through, Barry wasn't immediately available but was ready just before I liberated Ernie island. He arrived with an M14. It seems ok although I am still too early in the game to have an experienced opinion. While not that powerful in terms of damage per shot, it is accurate. It is very moddable as well, so I am currently in the process of making it more like an M21, except I can't remove the automatic fire selector. The best gun I have right now is the Gewehr 98. It isn't as moddable, being an older rifle. Buns is using it, with a scope that enhances critical damage, and a suppressor. She can usually pop one enemy per turn if she gets a clean hit. I don't like that the G98 uses 7.62x51mm (it shouldn't) and that seeing it supposedly uses the same cartridge as the M14, the G98 does more damage per bullet. I guess it was done for simplicity and that the M14 is weaker because it can fire automatic. If I mod JA3, I will change both the ammo type for the G98 and make the M14 more powerful per shot but much less accurate in automatic.

So far, panic only seems to affect my own mercs. During two battles that frustrated me due to the design of the default game, my mercs were outmatched by the enemy militia, who despite their own casualties, remained comfortable and relaxed. I would like to see panic affect enemy soldiers, especially if multiple casualties are sustained or they are flanked. In fact, I would change it so being flanked didn't create a damage bonus. Instead, it would cause a high morale loss (leading to panic or fleeing), breaks Overwatch, causes a slight accuracy penalty to the target, and an armour penetration bonus (side armour being weaker).

Thank you. I will see if the patch works successfully when I play later on. So far, I am playing the game unmodded to see what it plays like, the way the developers intended. Therefore, the patch should neatly install over the previous one.