Melliores

FAMAS is the best general purpose weapon, hands down. You can configure it as follows: bipod vertical grip quick prism scope (gives you automatic 3+ Aim if you shoot first) red dot (Marked status at 3+ Aim) silencer Even 3+ Aim shot is a crit (!). It can make even the worst shot in the game a proper sniper when lying prone. Even if at 1 aim level (if you do not have the AP), you can still do a crit with Hollow point ammo when you hit. And you will hit targets in midrange. 🙂 A direct upgrade to it is the Steyr AUG, but that comes later and requires a lot more parts and effort. That said, the AUG has a legit sniper configuration which puts to shame most sniper rifles.

Aiming can be beneficial if you engage targets at mid range (10 to 20), in bad weather or you are doing a burst and do not have any of the burst perks. You certainly do not want to do it all the time but it has it uses. Now, if you only use your shotgun in close combat, you will never need to aim at all. Like all combat matters in JA3 it really comes down to your playstyle.

As seen with the Gas masks, they system to display what you wear on your character model is in the game. The devs even said that early in the development cycle this was the case - armour and items were displayed on the tactical map. Moreover, the gas masks are really well done - put one on Flay who wears a hat and there is no clipping. The secondary weapon that you equip on your merc is also very well displayed - Omryn has his knife and it has its own knife sheath. Rifles are snugged on your back, pistols have their own holster on the leg of the merc. I think we may receive such a system in the future, either via a patch or a mod. The groundwork is already there. 🙂

The portraits back in JA1 had a strange, orange filter applied to them. For example, Ivan looked like Native american from Canada: JA1: JA2: Spike "The Major" is definitely caucasian, possibly british with some south european ancestry. Scallion is a interesting name, as it is a spring onion. 🙂

I do miss Needle from JA1 who was retired in JA2. Started with 98 medical and 88 Wisdom. Not a good shot and had a medical condition but could be trained to cover all 3 key support activities - medical, mechanical and explosives. You could also park him at a small base and have him be your resident surgeon with that medical score. Quite the character as well.

That wouldn't really be fun, as the inner min-maxer in some players will make them have a single merc in their own squad run through all previously explored maps and salvage everything with their appropriate skill. I kind of enjoy not having to also look for the optimal merc.

Nope, they will be at their respective camps. The crisis should actually trigger and resolve itself quite fast, as you will be approaching the Major's camp to save the president. So you will need to take out the Major first, then the Colonel and leave the Corporate agent for last on your way back. Now, this is only if you want to also complete the game before May the first. Otherwise you can take your time and do some of the sidequests but it will become tedious defending towns and mines with just a single merc.

I will try it on my next playthrough. You are better off hiring one merc instead of using a custom IMP in my opinion. Good candidates for your solo merc : Blood - can throw quite a few things and is great at stealth. Has good medical and explosives. Ivan - that 3 AP reimbursed on a kill can make you a killing machine. Only has good explosives, so it will be difficult to mod weapons. Magic - possibly the best merc that you can use for a solo run. Extraordinary mechanical and when he hits, the crits are devastating. He can remain hidden and do a lot of stealth kills. The mechanical skill makes sure you get good loot and can modify your weapons. Your best bet is take a mine or two on your way to the Major (you should know where he is from your first playthrough) and when you approach his sector, the Refugee camp crisis will trigger automatically. Then it is as simple as taking out the Major, the Colonel and the Corporate agent. You might want to play on First blood difficulty to make it less tiresome and to have more starting funds.

Alright, for all your shopping lovers out there, it is now official - Tony is back in business! You can find this interesting mod right here on Steam. Seems currently you can buy weapons, ammo and skill books. The mod author is looking for some feedback how to balance it and what else to add. There is no proper trader interface but it looks good enough to allow you to resupply. Tony is located in Fleatown (H9) after you install the mod and talk to a certain NPC there. 🙂

@username55 Did you by chance hit the ground near one of the Poachers? AI will notice stray bullets and this will have then join combat. Which I think is what happened with the smoke grenade - while the gangers weren't directly attacked, they were triggered by a hostile action nearby.

I think the current max inventory slots is 14 (4 base + 1 for very 5 strength over 50). I know that this can be modded (the formula that is) but you can still with some resizing fit at least another row, for a total of 16 max per person on that mockup.

The gangers are not neutral. They, like the abusers for Maman Liliane's quest, are labeled as potential hostiles. There was another player on these boards that complained how they triggered both the abusers and the legion in Sector D7 (I think). Try to smoke one of the villagers and see whether they will enter combat or not. My bet is that they will simply run away and remain as neutrals.

The ModEnabler is not a really a mod tool. You can use to browse through the files and make some changes but those are going to be low-level ones. They said on the stream on Monday that the first batch of mod tools will be centered around creating mercs, abilities and whatnot. You will be able to use Blender or other software to create custom meshes and textures for the mercs, code in new abilities and create easily the new merc. This is scheduled for mid-August but this being in peak holiday season, I am more inclined to believe it will come at the end of August. The second batch of tools is going to be a campaign and map editor. This will allows us to create or expand tactical maps and create whole new custom campaigns. They also said they hope someone will recreate JA1 and JA2 in this engine. These editors will take a few months to test before release, so expect them probably in December.

THe issue with the JA2 v 1.13 interface is that it takes a lot of space on the screen (it is too wide) and it won't scale well on the Steam deck and some other resolutions. Another design clash is that it is adapted to always show a single merc, hence why it is more roomy. But you will not be able to move items around the squad from it. You cannot also see the whole squad at a glance and what they have. It is essentially a design choice - whether the UI is going to be squad-centered or merc-centered. Squad-centered works better for JA3, we just need to make it more functional.

A player shared on Steam their idea for an inventory UI improvement. Follows a bit the Baldur's Gate 3 one in my opinion. What do you think, do you have any other ideas how to improve the UI?

@Skaldy Double-checked just now - the local postal service actually is accepting postal deliveries for Russia and Belarus at the moment, however that is a fairly recent change. The website of the post also clearly warns you that some areas and regions are possibly outside of the limits of the service as they might be close to the war zone. Went also to amazon.de (one of the biggest shopping sites in Europe) and they do not deliver to Russia. So your mileage might vary. 🙂 That said, delivery to a worn-torn country even in JA2 was suspiciously fast. I mean, the delivery arrived at the airport in less that 72 hours - someone needs to find the items, pack them, get a private plane and deliver them to a very distant corner of the globe. And the goods always came in pristine condition - no rough landings, no second-hand weapons. Implementing such a website store should come with its own risk and reward. If anything such a store should mostly have second-hand items and ammo, not top of the shelf equipment. Deliveries should take a week or two to balance it with any local sources.

A retreat can only be triggered if you are already in a contested sector and you are its owner. You will need to clear the sector of enemies before going anywhere. Underground sectors are considered as separate and I think they kept it as such to avoid you being able to simply go below ground, rest, repair your ammo and come back up.

That is indeed factual information - I live in a country that has a maritime border with Russia. The flights and ferry services were canceled last year. Post is impossible to receive or send. If the country you are living in has applied any of the NATO sanctions on Russia, life for ordinary citizens is complicated. I have russian friends and colleagues who have to fly to Istanbul (the nearest neutral hub city) to meet with their family from Russia. On the topic at hand - the crafting systems works great and I see it as good basis for expanding the game. Some modifications already require you to have a specific item in your inventory (chip, lens or steel tube). This can be further improved by adding new scope, bipod and other item that can only be used for crafting. And of course these items need to be added to the loot tables and shops. Then you will just adjust the parts price and voilà - you have basically the same system as in JA2. All that is missing is to receive the required part back to your inventory if you want to remove at a later stage.

I am really losing faith in your english language skills. Static loot means guaranteed loot from a specific container and sector. It means that I only found one HK21 at a very specific location in a secret stash. In both threads I wrote that I found and have used the weapon. Now, can we stop with this trolling ?

@GODSPEED It can feel like that but if they have good armour they should survive the initial blast from the HE rocket and be wounded. What I am more worried about are those shaped charges Barry carries around - now those are not fair, the AI simply does not have such a weapon in their arsenal. 🙂 @Skaldy I posted a whole thread about my experience with Meltdown wielding the HK21 fully kitted out. You even commented there - twice! Can we please stop with this trolling?

Yep, I had a similar experience with HK21 kitted out for long range engagements. In the hands of someone with heavy weapons specialist a long burst costs 3 AP, fully aimed - 6 AP. You can do at least 2 aimed bursts per turn with a bipod and then on their turn the Overwatch cone is still active. Regarding RPG-7 use as a crowd-dispersal weapon - it has been used in this role for decades in various civil wars in Asia and Africa. Usually due to lack of armor-piercing ammo. It does the job, especially if you have some of those thermobaric rockets at your disposal. Then the RPG becomes a mini bunker-buster. Most of the damage the HE rocket will do to humans is from shrapnel and falling debris (the ceiling if you are in building). The rocket uses a shaped explosive to penetrate vehicle armour, thus you will experience a serious kinetic wave and then be littered with shrapnel. Now, if they used thermobaric rockets... let us just say there won't be much left to identify the bodies afterwards.

It does makes sense not to give out your position to the enemy but the Légion is not your traditional army. 🙂 My understanding is that they did it for gameplay reasons. The same situation is with those spotlights that move and can be targeted with Free aim, but you never hit them. Have you fought the actual Grand Chien army in game and do they use the same tactics as the Légion, @Warmonger?

Well, for example yesterday I played with squads and now many can you create. As far as I can tell there is not limit on squads. I guess the limit on AIM mercs might have been left as a safe measure for new players to the series and genre to not go overboard too fast with their expenses.

From a gameplay point of view the torches serve to discourage mercs from getting closer for a melee kill. They will deplete the Hidden bar a lot faster as detection is within a full 360 circle around the character. Also illuminating themselves makes it easier for their friends to see them die if you decide to snipe them. Then you will need to also kill all surprised enemies on the first turn or they will initiate combat.

Yeah, we will need a mod to expand the hired mercs limit from AIM. 🙂