Melliores

Jagged Alliance 3 is out as of the 14th of July, 2023. It is available on Steam and GoG.

One of the relics you can find around Grand Chien also mentions Cthulhu by name. 😉

Well, you need to define what is optimal for you. Quite a few quests have at least two very distinctive outcomes, usually three. In general, one of the outcomes is the morally questionable one, but it gives you more income (via various even more questionable means) or more unique weapons. The other option sometimes allows you to recruit free-of-charge characters. The third depends on the quest. As Jaywalker said, the refugee camp (sector F9) and the quests related to it are your first priority. Then it depends on the path you want to take, which you can mix and match. Optimizing your path might require building two or three fully operational squads, so that might get a bit hectic.

@FGSchichau You get to decide Biff's fate - you can help him or kill/let him die. Both outcomes have their pros and cons. However you will not be able to recruit him. This is a good idea for a mod or possible expansion by Haemimont - to make Biff recruitable. 🙂

@LoboNocturno There are some characters that I think were intended to join you if you resolve a quest in a particular way. Prime candidates from what I saw are Chimurenga and DeeDee Bombastic. They can possibly expand on those or focus on adding more mercs to AIM. Adding to AIM is going to be the better solution once they release the mod tools and people will be capable of building their own custom campaigns. Then you will have even more mercs to play with, no matter the campaign. 🙂

As far as I recall, the email (Daily Chienne) that you receive after the mine income starts dwindling explains that miners start refusing going to that mine. Either someone is scaring them (the Legion) or someone is paying them to stay away from it (Adonis corp). The mine itself does not run dry - would be great if later a quest can be completed to return that mine to a working order in some capacity. Possibly this will be via a mod once the modding tools are made available.

Yep, Barry gained actually +5 Wisdom and sits at a comfortable 98. This was mostly due to detecting landmines and booby traps. I reckon if you make an IMP who is your main demolition specialists their Wisdom will raise in a fairly consistent manner.

@LXant There is at least another free merc with an achievement tied to recruiting them. 🙂 I went towards Fleatown and you do get a lot of good opportunities there to recruit mercs and get a lot of quests. That said, it might be better to start off with the mine at A2 - it does not have the Loyalty requirement and gives very good income. Also due to its location, it will never come under attack. From up there you can focus on Pantagruel and the Poachers, to get quickly another good mine once you hit 100% loyalty with the town and the Maquis. The third option is port Cacao but that might be a bit of harder route, as the mine there is further inland and you will have quite a few fights before actually obtaining your first mine. So I vote for Diamond Red mine at A2. 🙂

@Tzg If Bobby Ray's only delivers by air, possibly we can have a new vendor called Tobby Waves that navigates the waves to bring you sweet contraband? 🙂 Now to the topic of ammo - getting gunpowder and crafting your ammo is one way to do it. I have also encountered 3 weapon vendors so far - The poacher's camp at C5 sells mostly 7,62x39 WP; Fosse Noire at C8 sells exploding .50 BMG and one of the vendors at Fleatown sells again 7,62x39 WP. I am thinking of adapting most of my Overwatch mercs to Dragunovs due to the abundance of 7,62 WP ammo. 🙂

DeeDee's joke wasn't a good one but you have heard beforehand what the locals in Ernie call her - a wacko. JA2 also had those over-the-top characters living in the most remote places in a 3rd world country. I am not sure what you did with the poachers, a savegame might helps us better troubleshoot that. I just did the Poacher camp in C5 today - first cleared the Legion, than spoke with the leader of the abusers and started a second fight. The poachers for all intents and purposes were counted as civilians during the fight with the Legion. The best counter that is always available against the brutes (the shotgun totting Legion soldiers the shoot back) is to simply shoot them in the arms first. As they have a lot of health, you either need a sniper to bring them down with a headshot or to wound their arms first and give them a penalty to their shooting skill.

DeeDee Bombastic actually gives you 3 (three!) warnings before the joke line is even available in the dialogue: - first when you approach her shack she actually fumbles a bomb and that explodes before you initiate dialog with her. - she then says that she is working on a new bomb right away and this time she short fused it. Then she exclaims "Just a joke!". This is the joke you can ask about later in the dialogue - it is not you who is making the joke, but her. - during the dialogue you can ask her about her name and whether it is Boombastic or Bombastic. In any scenario you do not wish to hang around too much around her as she is continuously making new improvised explosives. You just need to pay more attention to the dialogue. Attacking the abusers starts combat - if there are any other hostile NPCs in the sector, they will join the fray. This happens in sector D5 (on your way to C5 the poachers camp) where you first have to clear the Legion and the abusers are simply standing still with their hands behind their heads. You want to take each group one at a time. Remember, this is a country in the midst of a 10-year civil war - they shoot first and ask questions later. The counter attack ability actually has a few counters - the Sudden Strike perk (melee attacks do not trigger Overwatch or Interupt), shooting the enemy in the arms (they will have a big malus to marksmanship), the Lightning Reactions perk (you dodge the first successful enemy attack against you) and possibly some shenanigans with gas and flashbang grenades. You do not require a perk to craft ammo or explosives. You just a person with good enough Explosives skill. If your demolition expert is tied up doing something else and the rest of your squad is abysmal at Explosives, there won't be anyone eligible to craft them.

The nameless NPCs do not really have a dialog though - they just give you a paragraph. You can click through several paragraphs on the same NPC in a matter of a single second if you are in a hurry. You can also you the Snype history log to check one or all of the previous paragraphs if you think you missed something important.

@sandman25dcsss I think you are confusing the different types of NPCs. There are 4 types as far as I know: Ambiance NPCs - the nameless villagers, miners, rebels, communists and the like. These mention from time to time useful rumours that serve to draw your attention to specifics sectors on the strategic map. However, they do not give you quest. The entry in your notebook is simply a clue/rumour that you may investigate. You can obtain such rumours from plot NPCs, hacking devices, scouting and getting intel or simply entering the sector and encountering the quest yourself. Local story NPCs - these always have a name and a head icon, but do not have a dialog tree, nor a portrait. They do give you a single quest. Usually this can be resolved in the same sector, as the Red Dragon tavern (Pantagruel) and the quarrel between Serge and Heinrich. Captain Pierrot in sector F5 is another fine example of this category. Once you resolve the quest, this type of NPCs have only flavour text and never give out rumours. Quest NPCs - these always have a name, a head icon, a branching dialog tree and a portrait. They give you a quest and the reward is something noticeable - like opening the Vulture of Hope clinic in Pantagruel. Plot NPCs - these have a name, a head icon, branching dialog tree, a portrait and several quests converge in them. They can both be quest givers and points of reference in other quests. Some of them can give you multiple quests - Chimurenga, Maman Liliane, the Shaman in the Refugee camp. Others have a big, multistage quest, usually related to recruiting them or giving you a special reward - Smiley, Bastien, Pierre and others. These are major characters in Grand Chien that you will hear rumours about long before you meet them from the ambiance NPCs. The NPC and quest structure is really well done. You want to explore the world and talk even to simple farmers to see what is happening. Once you complete a big quests in the area (the Abandoned Mansion for example), the nameless NPCs will have a line or two about you being the Ghostbusters team and getting rid of the ghost there. 🙂 Yes, you will want to speak with multiple nameless NPCs in each populated sector, some might give you Intel, extra militia members or thank you, raising the morale of your squad. One even gave me extra ammo and a crowbar in the starting village of Ernie.

I like Omryn and think he is intended to be an Overwatch specialist (hunter as he says himself). I am trying to train him to at least 70 dexterity to get the first perk from the Dexterity tree that allows Interupt shots to crit and reloads automatically if you have been on Overwatch last turn. Here is a list of actions I have found that proactively will raise an attribute: Health - getting wounded and then healing those wounds, either by a doctor or just resting. Agility - moving a lot of tiles in combat. I think the stance makes a difference, Crouched and Prone give faster improvement. Dexterity - just aiming and hitting targets. If you do not spend extra AP into Aim or use Overwatch, this won't happen. Strength - attacking in melee and I think overextending your mercs on the strategic map by letting them get the Exhausted status. Possibly using the crowbar to open doors and chests also helps? Wisdom - detecting new interaction nodes on the tactical map, either in or outside of combat. The proactive skills are fairly self-explanatory: Leadership - train militia, a lot. Really slow to advance though Marksmanship - shoot and hit targets at range. Does throwing knives also help ? I tried it with a merc to throw them at the ground but nothing happened. Explosives - disarm mines and booby traps. Craft or combine items that require the explosive skill - for example, using wire cutters with a pipe bomb to get extra gunpowder. Does planting explosives and using grenades and exploding heavy weapons make a difference here? Mechanical - repair and picklock. Adding mods to weapons also raises it. Medicine - heal others, on both Tactical and Strategics layers. Do you have other observations and hints how to raise proactively attributes?

Can we please stay grounded and keep matters into perspective? The game was launched 4 days ago and had modding support from the very second it was available for download. Then the first mods appeared literally within hours (not including the two Haemimont ones). That in and of itself is praise-worthy for a game built on legacy of modding the previous titles. It is to be expected that new mods will take time to be uploaded on multiple platforms, for different kinds of users. Also a valid reason for the developer to not upload outside of Steam is to not facilitate pirated copies to easily get those mods. I am not sure that is their reasoning, possibly they are looking into this with their publisher (THQ Nordic) to find a better and more long-term solution. For example for Surviving Mars (a very good game made by Haemimont), mods were uploaded both on Steam workshop and on the Paradox mod database. The publisher for that game was Paradox.

This actually looks good. I will give it a try to see how it feels in game. Do you prefer to receive feedback here or on the Steam Workshop page?

Are those the zombies that the villagers ingame keep talking about? 🙂

Well, I reckon you approach combat mostly from a reallife and roleplay point of view. Let us steer the discussion towards game mechanics to better understand each other. In JA3 (current build) if you build your weapon and merc for high crit chance almost any shot that connects with a head will crit and do 100+ damage. I have yet to see an enemy survive a crit to the head. Just hitting a body part does not guarantee you high-enough damage to one shot an enemy. Crits for the most part do that. Another solution that we already discussed with LXant was for headshots to apply a status effect, much like what happens when you hit the groin, legs or arms. Blindness possibly? Or a random effect between Panic, Blindness, Fatigued, Prone et cetera? Though I am sure this will make the game easier, as it will encourage even more shooting with rifles.

I think you might be confusing JA2 with JA2 1.13 (the mod). Weapon mods in JA2 (base game) were few and far between. Most of them were actually permanent mods that you could not remove, like the extended barrel. Though it was fun when both the mod and the weapon had low durability and the barrel would literally explode and be removed from the weapon. JA2 1.13 introduced a whole new system for weapon stats and weapon mods. It changed also the interface used for those. In JA3 you can "craft" your weapon mods and I think for balance reasons, they do not allow you disassemble your installed mods first. This is a valid point for improvement if you want to make the game easier. You could not have custom-loaded magazines in JA2 (base game). While their depiction in the inventory was great for roleplay, from gameplay point-of-view there were not real magazines. Once you spent the last bullet from one, it would quite literally disappear into thin air. Same goes for combining magazines - you were able to take two or more assault rifle magazines, put them into a machinegun (not possible in real life) and then unload the machinegun - voilà, now you have a 75-100 round machinegun magazine for better storage. The reverse was even more bizarre - you could load a SMG directly fron the box magazine used for a machinegun. This is basically the same system in JA3 - the game counts bullets, not magazines. It is streamlined to limit the inventory tetris and stock-keeping that would eat from your time in JA2, and especially in JA2 1.13. I can appreciate that you like micromanagement, but that part of the game was not universally enjoyed and I actually like the shared squad storage for ammo. I would enjoy having to custom-load your weapon in the future though. 🙂

Pick an appropriate merc first. The ideal candidate should have the following: Full Body Contact perk High dexterity (at least 80, preferably 90+) High Agility (at least 80) Igor built for mêlée combat is a great merc for this. Your main goal is to ensure you have enough AP for 3 attacks per round and that they all hit. Full Body contact will give you Grit for each attack that connects and help you survive the Bonecrusher's attacks. When you attack, make sure to hit each body part with a separate attack - neck, arms and legs. This will impose status effects on your adversary and make it easier for you to outstay him in the ring.

Allow me to put in a few arguments, if I may: You can clearly observe patrol patterns. Unlike JA2, in JA3 they is a patrol behavior and some enemies actually patrol in pairs. Stemming from the above, you can prepare an ambush using your preferred tactic in real time - sneak from behind with a knife, place an explosive and activate it with a remote detonator, use a sniper with a silenced rifle, set up an overwatch trap etc. The game does not encourage you to camp if there is more real-time movement. Back in JA2 I remember that I could make a kill and then run the other way while still in turn-based mode. Enemies would often forget about me or did not even see me. Rinse and repeat. The reaction turn that enemies get once they notice you is also a design feature to discourage you from camping. It is easier to have a spotter for your sniper perched somewhere up high. Once you make a clean kill from stealth the game remains in real-time, allowing you to continue movement with your spotter to find new targets. There might be more, but the gameplay feels more fluent currently, especially for stealth attacks.

@LXant If you want to be pedant about headshots, it depends on the wound, the caliber of the projectile, as well as the entry and exit (if any) spots. People have been known to have survived a musket ball to the head (those are both bigger and heavier than almost all modern calibers), an axe to the skull and even a metal rod jammed in your head in some freak industrial accident. Now all those wounds will definitely leave you at the least scarred for life, but you can survive. In my experience with JA3 on Mission Impossible difficulty, a Brute (those guys with shotguns, lots of health and good armour) can survive a shot to the head with a shotgun dealing 70-75 damage. However that Brute only has just a few HP remaining and any hit will bring it down. So it is still a bit realistic but not over the top one. The best would be headshots to impose a certain status on the target. However due to game balance (you almost always being the attacker) I can see why this would make players go for headshots even more. And why the dev team decided to not overbuff them. @Tzg Well put sir. I did use the machine gun on the watch tower, combined with a sniper on top of the roof on the main building. I also attacked at night, giving Pierre's band little choice but to run towards the machine gun. The gunner alone (Omryn) had 4 or 5 kills just from Overwatch shots. 🙂

@GODSPEED Fog does impede visual range in JA3. Even when you are not in combat but in a town, all the NPCs have a ??? over their heads and your range of vision is fairly limited. Most of the NPCs will be hidden by the fog and will only be revealed when you get closer. You can still use explosives and grenades in fog conditions and they are pretty powerful. To be able to get normal hits instead of grazing ones, you will need to approach closer to your target, preferably with an automatic weapon. I think the fog malus is intended as a direct impediment to snipers, making you adapt your tactics or simply wait for the fog to disperse in a few hours (when possible). Heavy rain is also interesting - you have lower weapon reliability but most importantly, every Aim level now costs 2 AP instead of 1. That also makes sense - it is not easy to aim under heavy rainfall, trying to focus on a target covered by a blanket of raindrops and some wind possibly. @Solaris_Wave Handguns (pistols and revolvers) are very much useful all throughout the game. In JA3 each type of weapon have their own special attack and for handguns this is a type of shooting advance - you spend 5 AP but move and produce a single shot at the end of your movement. This allows you to move from cover to cover and get a good hit. Then you should still have ample AP left to either go on Overwatch or produce another shot or two. The trick is to pick your handgun carefully, as currently there are not that many of them in the game and because they have limited number of modding slots, their most important trait is the ammo caliber they are using.