Melliores

It is not only about quests, stealth, explosives and the like. When an enemy attacks a sector, you can deploy and arrange your mercs within the deployment zone(s). However you cannot issue orders, even to make them crouch, during this deployment phase. You will have to do this in real time while the enemy is approaching you. Thus preparing a good ambush is really an effort with no active pause. Add the option to pause at any time and issue orders to all of your mercs and it will make defense battles a lot easier as the enemy will be always walking into a well prepared ambush, possibly with overwatch cones set up by you. Add active pause and they will have to change how the whole deployment phase and sector defense works. Possibly they will need to start all sector defense encounters from turn-based to avoid you having a big advantage when using the pause button.

Actually we need more communism around the game world. Ivan has for good reason anti-capitalist protective gear. 😉 Now, to the topic at hand - they haven't mentioned anything yet about additional content. The focus now is on fixing bugs and launching the mods tools in two batches. I would wager they will wait to see what mods appear and are popular and then try to develop content to the players' preferences.

@wilku You need good Wisdom (above 80) to be able to learn fast by practice. Barry by just repairing equipment and disabling the occassional mechanical trap has received +5 points to his Mechanical stat. Kalyna on the other hand with a lot more repairing done has managed to get only 1 point of Mechanical. Barry has 92 Wisdom and Kalyna 47 (if I am not mistaken). Anyone with great Wisdom (90+) can become a remarkable medic, mechanic or sapper given training and practice. Kalyna will never be a great mechanic unless you give her a lot of skill books. 🙂

@sandman25dcsss Meltdown is on guard duty at Port Cacao in my playthrough and has been there for at least a month with no kills made. She already renewed her contract at least twice in that period. Fidel is the only Psycho character who demands to kill often, otherwise he won't resign.

@Odosha This was already fixed with patch 1.02. One of the perks allowed Free movement to be used for attacks and it also gave you free movement on attack. 🙂

I can relate to you not enjoying real time pressure. I personally am neutral on this - I have played too many hours of the old Isometric RPGs and do like a lot real time with pause. But I do enjoy a challenge and some variety. Being able to always react kind of kills the pace of the game. That said, the point stands - as you can see yourselves, whole parts will need to be changed to adapt the game to real time with pause. That might be more enjoyable to some players but it will take immense time and effort to change huge chunks of the game - it won't be a simple change as a "Voilà, press Space bar and now you can pause the game."

I clearly stated that it will break the game's balance. The game will still be running fine, but most of the systems will be quasi-obsolete because you can always be on top of what is happening. 🙂 The game with its current design is adapted to you not always being able to react to everything. Case in point - DeeDee Bombastic and her bomb toy that is set to explode a few seconds after you get closer to her hut. Or the timed explosives traps that Larry has set up around Camp Savane. Or the waves during Biff's battle at Hill station. All of these were placed there with the expectation that you are playing the game in real time and that they will catch you off guard. A real active pause can be implemented as you have seen with the dev tools however this will mean to completely redesign whole parts of the game.

@username55 As they explained it during the dev stream this monday (31.07.2023) the explosives attribute applies a damage bonus. Previously this bonus was calculated before the attack and after it, once the projectile/grenade/rocket hit. So you had a little extra damage for mercs with high Explosives attribute. This is around 20%-30% less damage, so nothing too drastic.

Hey all, a new balance patch came early. Here are the patch notes: Highlights - Enemy attacks from guard posts on the First Blood difficulty trigger less often- Diamond mines deplete to 50% income on First Blood difficulty; 20% on Commando difficulty; 0% on Mission Impossible (Community Suggestion)- Mines now show how close they are to depletion in their tooltip- Fixed a bug that scaled mine income up when depletion began- Machine gun damage reduced- Machine gun number of interrupt attacks are now based on current AP not max AP (calculated at end of turn) (Community Suggestion)- Fixed a bug with Machine guns interrupt attacks getting aim bonuses when they shouldn’t- Grenade and Rocket-Launchers mishap chance and deviation now depend on distance to target (Community Suggestion) Balance - Increased drop chance of black powder- Increased Scully Health so he qualified for the golden perk he starts with (Community Suggestion)- Savior perk no longer grants Free Move- Fix for bonus damage from explosives applying twice when using grenades (Community Suggestion)- Changed thresholds for displaying keywords for mishap chance with explosives Quest - Fix for stopping the Grimer Hamlet quest too early- Fix in the conversation of the Grimer Hamlet quest- Fix for Sanatorium fail condition not to trigger when the quest is completed- H4 Fort L'Eau Bleu will launch attacks properly when retaken by the enemy Sat view / Operations - Water travel can now put you in debt, and is available when already in debt (Community Suggestion)- Militia training operation - the button for training is disabled when there are 8 elite units already trained- R&R at Manny's Inn's sector is enabled (Community Suggestion) Multiplayer - Fix for desync when opening weapon modification screen in MP- Fix combat end turn ready/not ready state visually not updating when guest leaves in MP General Fixes - Fix for missing merc silhouette when using melee Free Aim on an explosive barrel- Fix for mercs not being able to rest if there is a current active banter- Fix for Infinite loading screen softlock when loading during a setpiece or enemies reposition- Fix for load/save changing the ammo capacity of some weapons- Fix for an issue preventing Bandage to remove Bleeding out of combat if the target is at full hp- Fix for Mortar visuals appearing distorted- Fix for Sharpened Melee weapons reverting conditions- Fix for issue which would cause movement cost to not include the cost of changing the stance at the end of movement and fail the action as a result- Fix Loner perk activating at combat start instead of turn start- Fix for emails marked as unread after reloading the game (Community Suggestion)- Fixes to the shootable landmine count- Fix for softlock when a lieutenant dies on the start of their turn from a status/environmental damage effect- Fix for softlock after opening the laptop screen or Help Center during Split & Give item option- Fix for UI disappearing when pressing open the "command menu" in the inventory panel - when using a gamepad- Fix for being able to load a game while loading- Fix for Quick-Prism Scope giving max aim instead of 3 aim levels on activation- Fix for issue when refilling Medkit with drag and drop for single Meds drops the Medkit condition to 50% Bug- Fix for Overwatch kills not counting to "Automatic kills" combat task- Fix for incorrect visibility check leading to UI giving movement warnings when it shouldn't- Fix for an issue that would reset the number of overwatch attacks to their initial amount when killing a unit UI - Inventory context menu - hide some actions for stash items that are in different sector- Fix for rollovers of underground sector (such as the Fosse Noire mine) points of interest- Fix for an overlap in floating text between skill checks and banters- Fix for Mishap chance tooltip not updating properly- Fix for exclamation mark in email tab not disappearing after reading all emails Performance - Improved VRAM management to address various performance issues

The Claustrophobia trait works only if you initiate combat underground. The merc will warn you that they want to get out of there at once, but if no combat occurs, no Morale debuff will be added to them. I have tested this both in the Old Haunted House hidden basement and the Sanatorium's lab basement - if you do not go into combat, you are ok on the Morale front.

You can currently set up a double-stealth kill without active pause. One merc prepares a melee kill and you order them to move next to the targer. Tap on TAB for your next merc, tap 1 (to go into aiming and slow down time). Wait for the first merc to be almost there and then shoot at the second target more or less synced with the attack of the first one. The game allows for multiple synced kills in real time. If you have active pause, you can issue six (or twelve or eighteen) shooting commands all at once. Try it for yourself using the Active pause mod - it breaks the game in more ways then one. Another example is using explosives if stealth kills are not to your liking - you can stack 2-3-4-5 grenades (normal or 40 mm) around the same area. If done right, you can demolish a whole building in a manner of seconds with your syncronised attack. This completely throws balance out of the window if you want active pause. For example you will need to rework how the surprised status works as you can simply pause, check who has noticed your merc and then issue a command to move elsewhere. This happens often also on sector entry, so you can completely avoid a prepared enemy ambush with Active pause. By all means, have active pause for those who prefer to have a more relaxed game. But do not expect it any time soon - a lot of game systems will need to be redesigned to account for it.

I just made the distinction that this is not bugfix but a balance mod in my opinion. Not everything you read in notes or see in the code should be taken at face value. Also I am not sure the other two instances you mentioned are only caused by this. I have yet to encounter them also in my 100+ hours of gameplay. Might require additional testing.

Both the mass grave and the Rust bunker give you ample warnings what not do. Mercs who will have an issue with your course of action speak up and it is up to you how to continue. In my game I went with Omryn in the Bunker and had - 2 AP for the next 30 days. However this can be remedied with positive bonuses as well. That is why I reckon this is not a bug - the devs simply went with the design that you can offset this debuff with a morale buff in any other sector or battle. 🙂 And I do like the question it poses - you have to really ponder what choices to make as your actions will have meaningful ramifications.

@mrflagio Proud/Righteous always lasted a day or so for me. From what I have seen from the dev/debug notes, some of them seem to be outdated compared to the code that is currently there. I would wager that this is working as intended as per the release version. Both positive and negative morale effects should last more than one sector or one day. Especially on Mission Impossible difficulty. Could it be that this is difficulty related and they have a check for your difficulty tier before applying these morale effects?

The strategic AI using the river and fastest route to it target is actually fine. Chokepoints are also great to have on a map, you can see it being part of any war in history - rivers, ridges, cliffs and the like were used for natural defense and you would only need to defend a small area. The Diamond shipments actually use different routes, even sometimes passing through difficult terrain like the jungle. So the code does exist to plot different types of routes. The AI also does go out of its way to attack certain targets like Outpost. I have had the AI send an attack to Camp du Crocodile instead of Chalet de la Paix. What the AI is lacking is organisation - they always attack with one squad. One time both a diamond shipment and an attack squad arrived at the same time and now that was a challenging fight against 17 enemies. I would like to see the AI gather 2 or 3 squads in an Outpost before launching the attack. They first reinforce the staging ground Outpost and once they hit a desired number (could depend on a number of shields for example) they will send 2-3-4 squads as one attack force. This way you will need to proactively defend and even intercept AI before it reaches its target. Another issue to be resolved is that when the AI retakes an Outpost you have conquered, that outpost no longer will generate new squads from what I have seen. We need the reconquered outposts to start generating defenders first and then new attack squads. I would love to see AI squads with other missions than simply attack - for example, laying mines in a sector. Or just patroling, akin to that one squad around Camp du Crocodile that was on hunting duty for the Les Cadavérés.

I actually took Omryn in the bunker fight in the Rust. I thought that the penalty will be small and won't make a difference. Lo and behold, it stuck for 30 days! I was actually pleasantly surprised by this and when I reached the Old Haunted Mansion, before going to the basement I made sure to move Omryn to a new squad and leave him above ground. I did not know whether there would be a fight underground or not. 🙂 The merc's negative trait actually made me play differently which in my book is a good thing. They are not just pawns with numbers attached to them. And by the way, I have seen some people with limited Agoraphobia or Claustrophobia. They definitely were not ok the moment they went outside in an open area. It took them quite a lot of time to recover properly - it is a physiological condition and can linger for a long time. Currently the way the game portrays them is as severe fear. The mod makes them seem like an allergy, which they are definitely not in real life. But even for gameplay purposes - you should have them stay for a lot longer than one sector or one fight.

I can attest that Claustrophobia, Guilty, Sinful are working as intended - the game expects that you have some longterm morale penalties by making certain quest decisions. I actually thought they were permanent effects, but it appears that they last 30 days. A long time in JA3 but still a meaningful penalty. By installing that mod you are essentially making them meaningless since you can sleep off/train/repair and get rid of that debuff.

Nope, you can get by with 50 medical skill for First aid during combat. You will need 80+ skill later on for the Red Rabies quest line and possibly some other medical checks during quests. But nothing up to meeting and recruiting Larry.

There is the Active Pause mod already. It is overpowered as it is - it can allow you to make 6 perfectly syncronised stealth kills at the same time before you open combat. Or not even open it - all the enemies in the vicinity will be killed by your stealth attacks. Introducing Active Pause with the current stealth system is game breaking. I can appreciate not everyone is keen on fast clicking in real time, but you have to remember that it will completely trivialise the game for you if you can pause at any time. If/when the developers want to take a look at active pause, they will need to redesign and balance again a few of the game systems to account for this new functionality. Not as trivial and easy as you think.

If you want to sync their expiration dates, simply dismiss and rehire them all at the same time. This is an option and has been used since JA1. Time tracking is very important in JA2 and JA3. If they stop tracking hours and minutes, then they will need to adapt all strategic operations to account for that as well. It is not as simple of a change as you think.

No, I am not using that show the chance to hit mod. Does it take into account potential crit hits as well ? For example add a yellow bar like it is available in Warhammer 40K Chaos gate? The 5,56 weapons depend a lot on critical hits, hence the use of the red dot, hollow point ammo and the like. Buns and Kalyna actually make very good use of the AUGs and are in the same squad. 🙂

@sandman25dcsss AUG can do 3 single shots for 12 AP or 3 bursts for 15 AP. Or 3 single shots with 1 AIM level for 15 AP. Average mercs have 12 AP, they will be able to take only 1 shot with a sniper rifle. Better mercs in the end game can have 15-16 base AP and yes, they will be able to take out 2 enemies per turn. However the AUG will be able to take out 3 enemies per turn. Certain mercs like Ivan, Fox and Sidney can eliminate 4+ enemies per turn. Ivan gets 3 AP back on a kill, making him very potent with low AP cost weapons. Fox from stealth can kill one enemy and starts with full AP her turn, making it easy to kill 4 enemies on her first turn. Sidney gets extra AP at the start of combat. As the game progresses and you get more AP, the AUG will be able to take out more enemies/turn than sniper rifles. The only downside is that you will need more ammo as you probably will be using bursts here and there. In general sniper rifles are usually an overkill on the damage front, especially if you rely on stealth kills.

You can use 2 shots with basic 5,56 ammo if you wan to. However if you simply do an aimed burst with your first attack, you won't need any second attack. That is because you have better accuracy than sniper rifles and can take the accuracy hit from the burst fire. Yes, you use more ammo this way, but by the mid game you will have plenty of 5,56, especially basic rounds. If you do not use that bug, the extra accuracy from the AUG and the attachments allows for a very stable headshot combo, be it either single shot from stealth or burst fire in regular combat. And most importantly, your regular single shot is only 4 AP, compared to 7 or 8 AP for sniper rifles. If you are engaging targets up close, you can do even 3 attacks per turn (with little to no aiming) and score headshots. You are basically trading off some base damage for speed of fire and accuracy.

Not really - critical hits make any calibre viable with headshots. The fact that can do 2 aimed headshots per turn makes it even deadlier. If the enemy survives the first, there will be a second coming right after it. You can also do headshot bursts if you want to. You can combine the sniper with a spotter who has a red dot on their fast-firing weapon. Having Marked on the potential targets will guarantee critical hits on that enemy till the end of the turn. Burst shot against a Marked target means all shots will be criticals.

Did you have any other explosives weapon in one of the weapon slots? For me mercs, including Barry, can use grenades directly from the inventory. I will try to get a screenshot later today once I open the game. 🙂