PATUSCO'S JAGGED ALLIANCE 2 STRATEGY GUIDE Version 1.3 (19/02/2000) Finished reading the manual twice and still have that creepy feeling that "The truth is out there"??? Bought the Official Strategy Guide, and it didn't include a zip of you wanted or needed to discover all the features in this fabulous game? Or simply to finish it? Then this Guide is for you!!! DISCLAIMER This Guide is NO LONGER just a compilation of the hints that the gamers were giving at the several JA2 discussion boards (my thanks go to all who contributed to this guide, in that way - impossible to write all your names at this moment, but maybe your name is already in my Thank You section. Check it to find out. If not, well, you know who you are… and after all, this Guide is for you, isn't it???) So, I have not written all this stuff, but A GOOD PART of it. I edited & changed some posts to fit this guide & added some of my own knowledge here & there to complete them. Consequently, I can't guarantee that what is written here corresponds to the actual truth of the game, since I'm either no God, or one of the programmers of this awesome game (congratulations, Sir-Tech, you did it !!!) but I'm pretty sure that almost all info in this Guide is now correct. I'm willing to continue to update this Guide, so I would like to have feedback from all of you guys, expressing your opinions, ideas & other hints as well. I challenge all of you, to try to find incorrect/incomplete info here. If you do find, use the following e-mails, contact me via ICQ, or leave messages in the Terravirtua / Talonsoft / Tactical Planet boards. E-mail: helioa@hotmail.com For images & savegames: patusc0@yahoo.com ICQ: 42954468 My JA2 Website: http://members.tripod.com/patusco If anyone wants to post this Guide in any Website, I just would like the credit for making it. ( ? Make sure you write my name correctly and with Big Letters! ? ) Enjoy this great game as much as I'm doing right now… See ya... Hιlio "Patusco" Andrade INDEX (Click on the Chapter's number to see them) Changes Made To The Guide Between Versions 5 Generic Game Hints - Combat Hints 6 - Strategy Hints 9 Sorted Questions 11 1 – MERCS, NPC'S & ENEMIES 1.1 – Mercenary Statistics 13 1.2 – Mercenary Skills 14 1.3 – Other Mercenary Info 14 1.4 – Improving Mercs Abilities 15 UPDT 1.5 – Merc Specialties 18 UPDT 1.5.1 – Using Stealth & Night Ops 19 1.5.2 – Using Martial Arts & Hand-To-Hand 19 1.5.3 – Using Throwing & Knifing 21 1.6 – Mercenaries Relationships 21 1.7 – M.E.R.C. 25 1.8 – I.M.P. - Custom Mercs Service 25 1.8.1 – Answering The Quiz 26 UPDT 1.8.2 – Choosing Mercs Abilities 30 1.8.3 – The Equipment You Get 32 1.9 – NPC's 33 1.9.1 – Recruitable NPC's 33 UPDT 1.9.2 – Non-Recruitable NPC's 36 1.10 – Enemy Info 37 2 – WEAPONS, AMMO & ITEMS 2.1 – Weapons Attachments 37 2.2 – Weapons Ammunition 39 2.2.1 – Differences Between AP & HP Ammo 39 2.3 – Grenades & Co. 41 2.3.1 – Grenade Launchers 41 2.3.2 – Stun Grenades 42 2.3.3 – Shaped Charges 42 2.3.4 – RDX 43 2.4 – Rocket Rifles 43 2.5 – LAW's 44 NEW 2.6 – Body Protection 44 2.7 – Items 44 2.7.1 – Merging Items & Purposes 44 UPDT 2.7.2 – X-Ray Detector 46 2.7.3 – Night Vision Goggles 46 2.7.4 – Canteens 47 2.8 – Where To Buy/Sell/Get Goodies 47 2.8.1 – Where To Find Some Goodies (By Item) 47 UPDT 2.8.2 – Where To Find Some Shops & Dealers 48 3 – STRATEGICAL & TACTICAL ISSUES 3.1 – City Conquer Order 49 3.2 – Militia 49 UPDT 3.3 – Mines 50 3.4 – Weapons Range And Accuracy 51 UPDT 3.5 – Knife Throwing 54 3.6 – Picking Locks 54 UPDT 3.7 – "Heads Off" 55 3.8 – Stealing 55 3.9 – Stealth 57 3.10 – Surrendering 57 UPDT 3.11 – Saving Time 59 NEW 3.12 - Maximizing Money 59 NEW 4 – VEHICLES 4.1 – The Helicopter 61 4.2 – The Ice Cream Truck 61 4.3 – The Hummer 62 4.4 – The Tanks 62 NEW 4.5 – Fueling The Vehicles 63 5 – CITIES & QUESTS RELATED 5.1 – Omerta 64 5.1.1 – A Letter For Miguel 64 5.2 – Drassen 64 UPDT 5.2.1 – Doreen: The Child Labor Exploiter 65 5.2.2 – Father Walker 65 5.2.3 – Skyrider: The Chopper Pilot 66 5.2.4 – Pablo & The Gun Shipments 66 5.3 – Alma 67 UPDT 5.3.1 – Saving Dynamo 68 5.4 – Cambria 69 UPDT 5.4.1 – Joe & Martha 69 5.4.2 – At The Hospital 70 5.4.3 – The Hicks Family 70 5.5 – San Mona 71 UPDT 5.5.1 – Tony: The Weapons Dealer 72 5.5.2 – Rescue Maria!!! 73 UPDT 5.5.2.1 – Inside The "Shady Lady" 73 UPDT 5.5.2.2 – Back To The Leather Shop 74 5.5.3 – Kingpin 75 5.5.3.1 – Kingpin's Fist-Fight Tournament 76 UPDT 5.5.3.2 – Killing Kingpin 76 UPDT 5.5.3.3 – Stealing Kingpin's Money 77 5.6 – Chitzena 78 UPDT 5.6.1 – Escorting The Tourists 78 5.6.2 – The Chalice Of Chance 78 5.7 – Grumm 79 UPDT 5.8 – Balime 79 UPDT 5.8.1 – The Chalice Of Chance (Part 2) 80 5.9 – Tixa Jail 81 UPDT 5.9.1 – Saving Dynamo (Part 2) 82 5.9.2 – Escorting Shank For A Gas Deal 83 5.10 – Estoni 83 UPDT 5.11 – Orta 83 UPDT 5.12 – SAM Sites 84 5.13 – Meduna 84 UPDT 5.13.1 – Blowing Tanks 86 6 – OTHER QUESTS 6.1 – Alien Bugs (Sci-Fi Mode) 86 UPDT 6.2 – Mickey & The Bloodcats 88 6.3 – Bounty Huntin' Terrorists 89 UPDT 6.4 – The Missing Scientist & The Robot Merc 91 7 – MIXED ISSUES 7.1 – Difficulty Levels 93 7.2 – Game Limits 94 7.3 – Transporting Gear 94 7.4 – Other Cool Things In JA2 94 7.4.1 – The Flower Service 94 7.4.2 – The Funny Tourists 95 NEW 7.4.3 – Cool Death Scenes 95 7.4.4 – Duplicating Items 95 UPDT 7.4.5 – Automatic Save Games 96 8 – JA2 LINKS 9 – THANK YOU'S… Index CHANGES MADE TO THE GUIDE BETWEEN VERSIONS Version 1.3 – Release Date: 19th February 2000 Decided to go for a final revision of the guide. Besides from covering almost anything about JA2 (damn, 98 pages!!!), all the info is correct and exact. Here's some of the changes: ? New sections opened (indicated by a NEW sign on the Index page); ? Some chapters were updated by adding more hints and correcting wrong info (indicated by a UPDT sign on the Index page); ? Reorganization of some chapters to best fit the structure of the Guide; ? Updated the JA2 Links Version 1.2 – Release Date: 23th September 1999 Big update on the guide! It should cover almost anything that you need to know about JA2! Here's some of the changes: ? New sections opened (indicated by a NEW sign on the Index page); ? All chapters were updated by adding more hints and correcting wrong info; ? A totally revamped Generic Game Hints section; ? Reorganization of some chapters to best fit the structure of the Guide; ? Added a lot of tables and other special formats for better content viewing; ? Added the "Q:" sign for Questions and the "A:" sign for Answers; ? Updated the JA2 Links and Thank You's sections; Version 1.1 – Release Date: 12th August 1999 Well, the changes are huge! It's impossible to read it and don't see it! It took me lots and lots of my holiday days to get this baby like it is. I am very happy with the feedback that people sent to me, expressing how they liked the first Guide. But now let's see what were some of the changes: ? Guide increased with many, many more hints & tips; ? Opened many new chapters and sub-chapters along with a new organization of all Chapters; ? Processed all the information from the previous Guide and rewrited it all (info was a little messy and confusing sometimes, wasn't it ?); ? Index now looks a little bit cooler and less confusing; ? Added links for easy navigation, due to the size of the document; ? Opened the Links, Thank You (so many requests!) and this section; ? Added the source of the info, when it came from a very secure source (Sir-Tech guys, Talonsoft…) so you know that info as to be true; ETC… Version 1.0 – Release Date: 2nd August 1999 Index GENERIC GAME HINTS ? COMBAT HINTS 1) Combat is a thinking man's (or woman's) game. Look at the lay of the land and decide - where is the best place to stage this attack from? This plays a very important role in the outcome of battles. If you enter a sector with enemies and you are getting cut to pieces, check the map. It may present a far superior entry point. Leave, sometime this means taking just two steps, and re-enter from another side. 2) Night time (especially between 0100 and 0400) is the most exceptional time to make your assaults. The enemy seems more sluggish (hell, wouldn't you be at that time of the morning?). 3) Get down on your belly (crouch) and turn on the stealth mode (Alt-Z) for your whole crew. Take your time. Hold down the Alt key when moving around a corner. It makes your merc more cautions (will cost an extra point or two of movement, but you can toggle stealth on and off as you need to gain a point to get back behind cover). 4) ALWAYS leave points for next turn. APs accumulate... to a point (excuse the pun). I believe you can add up to 5 points from a previous turn to the next. If you need that aimed shot, but don't have the points, don't waste the ammo in frustration. Wait for next turn and take two well-aimed shots. Oh, and then there's interrupt, nothin' like it. 5) Never stay too long in a bad position. The temptation is to keep firing with a long distance rifle, even out of range, at some guy who is well-bunkered in. This wastes time and ammo. If it don't work, fix it. Leave the position and take a new angle on him. Resist the urge to stay put. 6) When you hear your Merc say he/she heard a noise, let him lay still for a few seconds to see if the enemy will be stupid enough to walk right into your arms (VERY, VERY important). 7) Tired of looking for the enemy? Sometimes, you can lure them into a trap - lay your assault team down in prone position and in stealth mode. And always behind some form of cover (Cover: something that the enemy cannot shoot through. Concealment: Something that sort of hides me (grass), but will not stop bullets). Have one of your Mercs fire a random round out into the sector to get the attention of nearby enemies. LET THEM COME TO YOU. They'll come running. They come into sight, make your shot and move to other cover. 8) Well, you can tell if the enemy in question is in your line of sight or not by looking at him - if he's colored black, you can't see him, and that probably means he can't see you either. That's about as good an estimate as you can make in real life. If the enemy cannot see you, he cannot shoot you. Ease around a corner, get off a good clean shot and get back behind cover. Idiots and dead people stay in the open and use every movement point to fire the weapon dry.. 9) "Out of Range" simply means that the target is outside your effective range. You can fire beyond that, but accuracy and damage drop off considerably. You can fire at enemies out of your visual range, too - that's the only way to really make use out of the 75-80 range of the sniper rifles in the game. Just make sure you're using a scope! Again, firing at targets outside your visual range is less accurate, but still possible for everyone. Including the enemies, of course. 10) Roof tops are EXCELLENT. Peek over the edge, rack off a round or two and move back out of sight. Lay down on the roof, wait two rounds to get back to real time movement and then sneak forward again with all available movement points. 11) Don't think "how much damage can I take and still survive?" It is entirely possible to get through, at the very least, the first 2/3s of the game without taking a single point of damage. That is not always the case when you have to take on the two tanks with a single rocket launcher and four hand grenades. Not if you are keeping your sanity. 12) Throw stuff between guys during combat. What a sensation: Lynx just nailed a guy twice for serious damage from a ridiculous distance with his long-range scoped rifle (the best weapon on the team). But he's got just five points left and the bugger is still standing firm with a wicked shotgun ready to end the-guy-on-your-team-who-snuck-up-near-him- and-ran-out-of-point's life. Toss the rifle to Raven! (Or some other sharpshooter.) The MP5K she's currently carrying won't go the range or do the damage, but she's got plenty o' APs. She catches it, takes careful aim, and plugs the sucker for a critical hit before he gets one off. "That enemy breathes no more." 13) SAVE AFTER EVERY SUCCESSFUL combat. If you go through two rounds without seeing an enemy, you will return to real time movement. ALWAYS SAVE here. Save games at critical points. You can also use the Fast save (alt-s) after small "victories". 14) NEVER allow the computer to Auto Resolve incidents involving your Mercs. You can always do better. 15) The key to taking out large amounts of enemy units with a couple/few Mercs and taking little/no damage would have to be Night Operations. Most, if not all, daylight firefights will have one of your Mercs wounded if a religious save/reload at the slightest bit of damage is not being used. 16) A basic Night Ops tip would be to use those Break Lights when setting up a kill zone. Break Lights are totally awesome when attacking a SAM site during a night operation. Position your units so they have a somewhat clear range of fire then throw a Break Light towards the main traffic area of the guards. Chances are you'll reveal a bunch of soldiers. Blow them away with whatever you want from a distance with primary targets being the soldiers who finally realized where the bullets are coming from. 17) Night Ops specialty lets you see further - one or two squares, maybe, but enough that you can see him before he sees you. Camouflage also helps. Igor has Stealth, and he seems to be a bullet magnet in the dark, so I'd go for a Stealth/Night Ops combo if you want to be sneaky. Night Ops doesn't seem to help with interrupts - that seems to be based on level, so more experienced characters get a lot more of them than newbies. 18) Throw gas grenades (Tear, Mustard) into rooms where there's some enemies and then seal all exits for that room, so that no one goes out. While it might be possible that they have gas masks, it's unlikely in most areas (MOST, not all, but most). A while before you'll start to hear the results of the poison. Guaranteed kill. I just LOVE holding an enemy in a room full of gas. Hell, half the time they don't even try to escape. But for the case they do, station a experienced merc outside so that when they open the door, you interrupt, shoot them in the head, then close it. 19) If, for some reason, you just can't hit your enemies, look the scenary around them. Sometimes there's something that you may be able to make explode and inflict damage to your enemies indirectly. Shoot, or use throwing knives to blow the "thing". Once I threw a throwing knife into the crowd, but it missed. It didn't hit any enemy, but it hit some barrels behind them causing it to explode and killing one guy plus making one critical. So make good use of the envolving environment to your advantage. 20) Use the right ammo for the job. Some of those enemy bad boys have the tough armor (enemy types are defined by color, see the manual - elite troops are badddd). Go for the head or, alternatively, use that AP ammo for a bit more damage (though it might not score you the 40+ point hits). For more details on this, see chapter Weapons Ammunition. 21) This may be a cheat, but it works great! If you're crouched or prawn, and don't wanna be interrupted, when you stand up, do the following. While crouched or prawned, hold a grenade in your hand and throw it wherever you want. Your guy will stand up, will see the enemy, won't get interrupt AND won't throw the grenade, cause he/she spotted an enemy. 22) A good way to enter an enemy inhabited room is to distract them with noise from another location. Try running around on the roof w/o stealth on, or pop a shot off from the opposite side of the location. This will get their heads turned and allow for uninterrupted entry (usually). 23) This may also be a bug, but it can give great advantage while in combat. With this bug I was able to take out 8 elite units of Deidranna with 2 mercs alone, one by one.... and also take out Mike, the great AIM legend. The trick is, if you are proning under a window, crouching on a roof, standing behind a corner and get up / walk forward and you see an enemy, shoot at him and get down / walk back again, so that you get out of the enemies view-field the enemy won't move an inch. You can repeat this as often as you can. Until the enemy is down... Here's an example: today I met Mike in the central SAM site. As he went out through the door I was standing nearly no chance, until I used this AI bug to kill him: I went behind the wall with all my soldiers except for Fox, who was standing behind the door, and Shadow who was proning behind a rock (invisible for Mike). As he went out through the door again, in my turn I went a step forward with Fox, shot him in the head with a MAC-10 and went 1 step back again, behind the door, so Mike wasn't able to see me. If you do so, the enemy (Mike) won't move a step, as long as you disappear out of his view. I repeated this until he was critical. Then I shot him with Shadow, who said: "Mike is down. And I can't say I'm sorry for him". I couldn't either .... Index ? STRATEGY HINTS 1) Start up the game and before doing anything make certain AIM has the Mercs you want available (not hired elsewhere). Save now. Then get custom Merc. Don't like him/her? He/she doesn't have the special abilities you want? Restart and try again. And when it comes to stats, allocate point to those that don't go up regularly during play. Marksmanship, agility, meds... all tend to rise. Others move more slowly. And some, like wisdom, apparently not at all. 2) At the beginning of the game, create your custom merc and hire one additional GOOD Merc. The two of you will go kick butt in the first city. Remember, two Mercs travel more quietly than six. Easier to control. Make your custom Merc do most of the work so he/she will advance faster. After taking over a city, hire two cheap mercs to come in and give support fire, medical assistance, transporting items and train militia (or Ira, from the rebel group as she has skill in teaching which is a bonus to training Militia not to mention she is free). Take over a couple of Mines (about three cities) and then sit back on your laurels for a few days (2-3). Start training Militia in the city's mine sector. You can have other mercs taining on other sectors of the city. This will increase militia faster. Train them all the way to aqua before going to take over a new sector. 3) Buy an expensive Merc with great equipment to begin. YOU GET HIM TO KEEP HIS EQUIPMENT! Everyone complains about pistols and low rifle supply at first. So buy Lynx, for example, for just a day, use him to his fullest, keep his armor and rifle, then give it to a cheaper, less well initially supplied merc. 4) The enemy militia slightly North of Drassen that guard the roads and territories between towns have longer range weapons. This makes them tougher to defeat, but a few good battles might score you a couple of decent range weapons. 5) At the beginning, after getting the best equipment from great, but expensive, mercs, you can save an incredibly amount of money by using guys like Igor (with high wisdom) early. They have very comparable stats to the more expensive soldier mercs later, because Marksmanship goes up fairly steadily. But for Mechanic, Explosive, or Medical skills you're probably better off buying experienced guys. Those skills go up much slower than Marksmanship. Fox and Barry were my early doctor and mechanic, but compared to Danny and Trevor, their skills aren't even close even though through experience their combat ability is comparable. 6) Be sure you have a higher leadership member on each of your "conquering" squads. 40 will do, maybe less. Skyrider (chopper pilot) and Hamous (ice cream truck driver) won't join you with a 10+ leadership guy. Also, Yanni, the caretaker in A2, Chitzena won't give you the quest and Spike in D5 won't let you into the bar to fistfight, if you have too low leadership. 7) Talk to the locals. They tell you all the quest info. you need to know. 8) For information on whether quests have been completed, look at your history file. Uncompleted quests appear in red. Once they're completed, they turn black and another notation appears. 9) Game's too hard? Try novice, it ain't novice. 10) Having the game on a higher difficulty level definitely helps with weapons - on experienced, I got a Type 85 submachinegun from the last guy in Omerta, and by the time I finished Tixa and the SAM site by Chitzena, I had 10 extended ears, 8 night vision goggles and 1 UV goggles (that thing kicked ass), as well as having far more assault rifles than I could use, a ton of Spectra armor and a mortar. On novice level, I think I'd belucky to have my whole team equipped with assault rifles by then. If you like all the fun toys, play on a harder level. 11) If an enemy squad attacks a city sector of yours, be sure to check sector inventory after the battle! I found loads of kevlar stuffs, 5.56 ammos and grenades this way. Of course, if you have some mercs there, you'll personally search the bodies. :) 12) Another way to make cash is to sell stuff that is not getting used anymore. This will be happening mostly in the latter part of the game, when Steyrs and FN FALs will replace MP5Ks and Ruger Mini-14s. Weapons can be sold in San Mona in the back of the porn shop, and armor and flak jackets at Estoni to Jake. There is also a guy in Balime that will buy various items, so try there too. 13) You can leave messages in the phone of mercs not available in AIM. Here's how messages work. Once you leave one, everytime a merc comes back from an assignment, they'll e-mail you. Note that I said EVERYTIME. It's like having an auto-message sent to them when the leave. So don't worry, the merc will let you know when he gets back again. 14) Use two or more squads for attacking a sector entering from different locations. This will help you to make ambushes to the enemies, cause they don't expect a second squad coming from another direction. To send 2 squads to do battle in the same sector, in the dialog box that pops up when you send the first squad, asking if you want to move just the selected merc or the entire squad, there a check box that says "Go to Sector". Uncheck the box then the first squad will go to the sector but the screen will stay on the second squad. Now you can send the other squad. 15) By the 8th day, Bobby Ray's on-line store should be getting in a few new, better- than-pistols items by now - order a few. Hope that this is of assistance to those of you who are fighting the good fight. If you are encountering an especially difficult area, let me know and I will try to walk you through it. Keep your heads low and your powder dry. Index SORTED QUESTIONS Q: What's the most effective way of scouting in a sector where you have no idea where the enemy is? (I tend to get sloppy and walk right into them because I can't muster the patience to proceed slowly and methodically through every square foot.) A: Patience, several routes. Or move into good defensive positions and fire into the air. Also cool is attracting the enemy with a sniper team in ambush in an right angle to his approach. Q: What precisely cuts down action points in combat? Unbandaged wounds certainly, but what about bandaged ones? What about energy? I hate when guys with 23 points perfect only get 15 at other times! A: An interrupt with not the full action points left from the previous round. An interrupt after an interrupt. A hit. Running, using full APs for some rounds. Bandaged mercs have less APs. Weight also cuts down AP's… have mercs severely weighted down and they will have less AP's… If your merc is not hurt (bandaged of not bandaged) and not tired (blue bar) he should get the full APs all the time. Q: When you Quick Load a turn back does the fight go exactly as before unless you do something radical?? That happens to me a lot. Hits and misses are the same if i have the same people fire in the same order??? Also the enemy always hits for same amount of points and never misses. A: Yes, I've had the same thing. When I re-load, everything is exactly the same unless I do something different. I only re-load when somebody took a hit, though, so it's usually easy to solve: I just take the person that took a hit & move them to somewhere safer. That way I have one less person firing & it changes the random number generator (or whatever). Force your way into locked rooms - it doesn't seem to cause loyalty issues, except maybe in Balime, but then it will be obvious to you why. Q: Is it worth letting the computer auto-resolve battles, or is it too much of a risk? A: It depends on the ratio of mercs/militia versus enemy, and depending on their levels. If your mercs and/or militia outnumber the enemy, using AutoResolve may speed things up without risking your mercs. Besides, during AutoResolve you can always order your mercs to flee the sector by clicking on their portrait in the AutoResolve window. Also try autoresolving at top speed and wham, all the enemies are dead and your guards take little or no damage. Might be a bug, but try it anyway, especially as it works with bugs as well!! Q: Does the enemy attacks all the sectors of cities indiferently of what they contain? A: I've noticed that the game AI appears to exclusively go after the "high value" areas (mines, airports, SAM sites), and I have yet to see it go after population areas such as the middle section of Drassen or the non-hospital section of Cambria. Q: What's the yellow crosshair for? A: The yellow crosshair is what happens to tell you that you're using the maximum amount of AP's you can for targeting.... making an "aimed shot" compared to just moving the cursor over the enemy, and just L-Clicking the mouse. Move the cursor over the enemy, and R-Click a few times... notice the number increase? You're now aiming. Q: Is it worth searching the non-obvious places? I did find a key once in a medicine chest that seemed like all the others, but searching everything is such a bore in broken down town. A: I would search every corner. Depends on what you are willing to endure to get a health booster or another grenade. Q: Is there any safe place to store items without having a significant risk of theft? A: While leaving items in a sector occupied by militia is generally a safe bet, when I've had mercs in the sector when it is attacked, I have seen militia members stop to pick up items from the ground. I have seen this twice. The first time, I wasn't sure what was taken, but the second, a guy picked up a guardian vest, kevlar leggings and kevlar helmet that were all in the same square. I can't say whether they do this if there are no mercs in the sector, as I tend to leave piles of stuff lying around, and there's no way I'm going to remember everything ;) Anyway, if there's something you really want to hang on to, it might be advisable to keep it in someone's inventory. Conversely, dropping excess armor and weapons in critical sectors may help make your militia a bit stronger if/when it's attacked. Also realize if you have no militia in the sector, the items may begin to disappear… remember you are in a war ravaged country, where that Mini-14 you have left on the ground may bring a family security or food for the next week… Q: What are the specific effects of alcohol (seems to make morale soar for moment, then plummet)? A: Tends to temporarily boost the morale, followed by low morale for a period of time… Don't give to Ivan though, he had a relative he will tell you about who became an alcoholic… Q: People complain about the corpses when they see them after they have decayed and crows are picking at them. Does this affect the morale in any way, and if so, how can I get rid of the corpses? A: The sight of corpses don't affect the mercs' morale. The corpses will rot away in a few days... Eric T. Cheng – Sirtech Canada Q: Does weapon condition increase the likelihood of a jam? A: Yes! Basically, a gun which has a status value of 80 or more should never jam. Every point of status below that increases the chance of jamming. Burst fire is also more likely to make a gun jam. Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada Q: What the heck does a Walkman do? A: If you put one on a merc, he'll be listening to music instead of hearing enemy footsteps… Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada Index 1. MERCS, NPC'S & ENEMIES ? 1.1 - MERCENARY STATISTICS A mercenary statistics represents his overall ability in various areas. Each statistic ranges from 0 to 100, with 0 being pathetic and 100 being top of the line. Some mercs can improve their statistics by training and field missions. As a mercenary statistics increase, he becomes more valuable and therefore demands a higher salary. There are 6 different statistics for each mercenary, which are: HEALTH – Represents both the physical well-being of a merc and the amount of damage he can take before death. Health also influences the overall performance of a merc and the effectiveness of other statistics and skills; AGILITY – Measures how well a merc reacts physically to a new situation, whether it's a shotgun blast or a pesky mosquito. Affects the speed, co-ordination and control a merc displays while recognizing and reacting to an event, as well as the merc's travelling speed; DEXTERITY – Measures a merc's ability to perform delicate or precise movements correctly. It affects all 4 skills – Medical, Explosives, Mechanical and Marksmanship - where a high dexterity is very important for correctly using these skills; STRENGTH – Represents a merc's muscle and brawn. It's particularly important in Hand-To-Hand combat, forcing things to open and how much weight the merc's can carry before he/she becomes overloaded. Once 100% is exceeded, Action Points and Stamina (breath) suffer; WISDOM – Affects a merc's ability to learn from experience and training. It also affects it's interpretation of things, making the difference in mastering or not the inner workings of complex military items for example. A very important stat in order to improve the others; LEADERSHIP – Measures charm, respect and presence. Affects merc's performance in the field, their interactions with non-player characters and the train rate of militia. Index ? 1.2 – MERCENARY SKILLS In addition to statistics, every merc has 4 basic skills. Like statistics, skills range from 0 to 100 and may increase with practice. A skill of 0 however will never improve. The merc simply wasn't cut out to be a Doctor or Mechanic… Here are the list of the 4 skills: MEDICAL – Since mercs seldom get into firefights near hospitals, injured mercs must rely on one another for treatment. This skill represents his current medical knowledge and ability to heal the wounded. It determines the speed of healing for mercs in Patient mode. EXPLOSIVES – This skill determines a merc ability to create, use, and disarm explosives without blowing himself out. MECHANICAL – Mercs use all sort of gadgets – weapons, locks, radios, and so on. This skill rates a merc's ability to repair damaged, worn-out or broken items or equipment (such as vehicles), lockpicking locks and to combine existing objects to form new ones. MARKSMANSHIP – A merc's marksmanship skill reflects his ability to hit, precisely, any given target with a firearm. Index ? 1.3 – OTHER MERCENARY INFO Reflecting the sum of all merc's abilities comes the EXPERIENCE LEVEL. It's the most important mercenary trait. Also reflects the amount of combat they've seen, and how knowledgeable they are in the field. As mercs gain in experience class, they also gain certain benefits: - Their ability to detect boobytraps and ambushes improves; - They become sneakier and their stealth increases; - They are able to focus their sights on an enemy target more quicly and accurately; - They become more effective at interrupting enemies (and avoiding being interrupted themselves); - Their overall proficiency in field operations increases; - Their salary increases. Another thing on Experience Level: mercs do not only go up a level when they kill but also if a quest is completed and they are just around. But beware, try to control how fast your mercs level up. Later on the mercs that were cheaper, start asking prices closer to the best mercs of the game. And if they aren't really so important to you (only for specific jobs) it would be better to dismiss them and hire better mercs with the same money. So let these not so important mercs out of the fights and pop them up only when they're really needed (to open a door, train militia…) There's definitely a valid case for using cheap mercs even if you can afford the more expensive ones, but only when they are not asking too much… Q: Is camouflage programmed to modify merc's visibility in the game so will it work also inside houses too ? A: I believe camouflage only works in the outdoors... Eric T. Cheng – Sirtech Canada Index ? 1.4 – IMPROVING MERCS ABILITIES All mercs have some stats that we would love to see increased. So there's a need to improve them, through different ways. There's a lot of things to do to make them reach higher values, according to each ability, besides having your merc training them specifically with or without a teacher. Note that the Wisdom stat will affect A LOT the speed of the improvements, since high wisdom makes the merc learn faster. Another thing, training with a teacher increases stats faster than without him, of course. About this topic of having or not your mercs training their stats, well, the important thing is WHEN. If you have to heal some mercs and there's nothing left to do, but see time passing by, put all the other mercs under training. Why let them sit around when there are other reasons to wait any way? Also, you'd better spend some time on training when you go after Meduna, since the difficulty will increase a lot. In solo training, it takes about one day to advance one point at level 45, about 2 days/point at level 60, and about 10 days/point at level 75. In teacher/student training mode, if you have a teacher who is above your skill level, it takes about 2 days/point to advance at level 75; training at lower levels might be somewhat faster, but it's not that huge an improvement over solo training. I haven't checked whether training over level 85 is possible. Bottom line: if you have some time to kill while teammates are healing, go ahead and practice a skill if it's below 55; if it's above 70 or so, don't bother. Training could be helpful at higher skill levels, but any skilled trainer will be too expensive to keep around for just that. Below is a list of things to do for improving each ability, besides specific training: HEALTH - Improves according to the number of battles and enemies one merc fights. That means harder game option, makes health increase faster. Also the improvement on health has nothing to do with mercs wisdom and how many enemies one killed. It just depends on pure battle experience. However, once one's health reaches 85, it can barely increase. Another way to improve, is to get shot, hit, and daggered 'till at least 2/3 of your health is gone. Leave it alone for a while and watch your blood-drops before medicate him/her. Too dangerous to try at the end of the game 'cause enemies are simply too powerful. The trick of overloading a merc to increase Strng seems to work too for Health. AGILITY - To improve this stat it's important that you use the Stealth mode when in turn based mode (enemies at sight), and an high wisdom helps a lot too. Here's an example: In the battle, crouch your merc and turn Stealth mode on. If your merc has 20AP, he can travel 5 squares (4x5 = 20). Every 500 to 600 AP spend on Stealth mode with crouch (don't know for stand or prone position) you get 1 Agility point increase. That's 125 to 150 squares. It works around 4 out of 5 times. And remember that it has to be done in battles. Agility also goes up when trying to run with Stealth mode on, but don't have numbers for this. A great situation for using this tactic is the Bug Queen quest: put Elixir on every merc bodies and go down to cave. As soon as one of your mercs sees a bug, game goes turn- based mode. From here, keep Stealth mode on for all mercs till you reach Bug Queen who is located 5 or 6 map distance away. They won't attack you 'cause of Elixir you put on. Just run near the bugs (get close with about half of your points and use the remaining ones to get 2-3 squares away), and your Agility will increase mightily. You can take Agility up a point or two EVERY 1,2 turns. In less than 30 minutes, all mercs should have an Agility of 100! Agility can also be increased in other several ways: When you're in real time mode and looking for enemies and see them first, pull back into cover, and a lot of times Agility goes up a point; Dodge bullets, knives, blows from Bloodcats and punches a lot. Sometimes punching or knifing enemies can increase this stat, but most of time punching will do for Strength and knifing will do for Dexterity. DEXTERITY – This stat improves if you do a lot of stuff with your hands. So use knives, give some punches (increase fast using the cows, the crows and the vehicles), use Martial Arts, repair stuff, heal mercs, and a lot more. A great situation to improve this stat is again the Bug Queen quest: put Elixir on and go down to Bug cave. Kill bugs with your fist and knife. But remember to finish them off within one round. If you do not, they will fight back. A strategy is to surround a bug with your entire squad members. Five of them attack with their fists and knives, remaining one finish off the bug. Strange enough, sound of gun fire doesn't alert rest of bugs in the same sector. But careful, if one of bugs sees the sight of their friend being shot down by you, they will attack. They're deaf but not blind for sure. STRENGTH – This stat goes up if you haul stuff past your limit (101% and up). Try to load a merc up to 200%, make him travel a little bit around a building for some time with stealth mode on and see for yourself. Another situation for increasing Strength is the Bug Queen quest. Follow the instructions for Dexterity and you should get Strength up too. Also, use punches (again use the cows, crows and vehicles to your advantage). Sometimes knifing helps. WISDOM – Most simple way to raise wisdom a lot: Train explosives skill to 100 by setting/disarming mine (TNT is more dangerous, and you can't blow yourself with mines). If you do have 0 explosives, you can't do anything. If expl. is so low that you can't disarm mine, try only set it and disarm by other merc. Expl. grows, but slower. When you reached expl. ~20, start to disarm mine too. After expl. skill is 100, start to set/disarm TNT with detonator. Sometimes it explodes, so save frequently. Wisdom will grow, and you don't have to be maxed out in explosives to get Wisdom points. I trained several mercs up to the 90's (from anywhere between 3 and ~20) this way, and they all gained a couple points of wisdom on the way. They also each gained at least one level! Note also that each new Wisdom point costs more settings/disarmings. Explosives ability grows at rate: 1 skillpoint per 2-3 actions with mine (i.e. set-disarm- set = +1 Expl) until level higher than ~80, then slows a bit. So you need no more than 15 min of real time to raise expl. to 90. LEADERSHIP - To improve, train militia, and interact a lot with NPC's. Increases fast. MARKSMANSHIP - To improve, shoot enemies a lot. Most of all, aiming for heads, not aiming at all and shooting from out of weapon range or out of sight helps to improve even more. All these shots have low probability to hit the target but if you are successful, they help a lot to improve the Marksmanship. It matters also the number of enemies you killed. Little trick : Use unaimed shot against large enemies like Blood Cats and Bugs. You don't have to aim the Blood Cats to hit them. They are just so big, even big enough for Ira to make unaimed shot. When cleaning out Blood Cats Lair, I let Ira kill about 12 Blood Cats alone out of about 20 (in Expert mode). She gained 4 points of marksmanship for that (67 to 71). She used unaimed shot most of time. I know she had such low marksmanship and that's the reason she got advanced that fast,...but hey, four points in just one battle? That's a lot. Same goes for Aliens. Use the Elixir to make you invisible and then shoot and run, shoot and run, cause bugs will run to where the gun firing comes from… and you'll improve Marksmanship a lot. MECHANICAL - To improve keep fixing things, lockpicking locks, and merging items. EXPLOSIVES – This is one of the easiest attributes to increase. Just keep setting and un-setting explosives. For some reason you can not screw up disarming the explosive you armed. Actually, use the student to set it, then someone with high explosives to disarm it (much safer that way). You can get it up real fast... The 1.04 corrected this tactic, but only if was the same merc arming and disarming the explosives. So do it with 2 mercs. Note that it doesn't seem to work for mercs with low Explosives stat, if it's less that 20, they won't be able to deactivate their own explosives. MEDICAL - To improve keep doctoring & bandaging patients. Here's how you can get near the crows to punch/knifing them: After you have cleared out a sector and wait there for about a day, the corpses of the fallen begin to rot which attract crows. The crows are the key, they are the targets. I thought I'd be weird and try to kill one with my bare hands, well that didn't work because every time I'd walk/run up to them, they'd run away. But every merc can kill a crow with his bare hands, just put him on stealth mode and order your merc to punch them and they won't fly off. One punch and they go down (even with 60 Strength). It seems that killing things with your bare hands gets you big experience and raises to your stats fast. I had both my Dexterity and Strength go up 10 points EACH in a period of about 30 minutes of crow bashing. Index ? 1.5 – MERCS SPECIALTIES Some mercs have two specialties, others have one specialty. The merc cannot learn anymore specialties, but as his level goes up, he improves them. There is a much bigger chance he'll succeed with any task that belongs to this skill, so it's good to have merc specialized at different things, although it can always be done successfully without having the specialty – the only exception is Martial Arts. Note that specialties are generally available at two levels - Normal, and Expert. Expert level specialties provide twice the bonus of normal specialties. Here is the list of all the specialties and what they do (for some specialties, Expert level is not applicable.. Those specialties are marked below with [*]) Lockpicking* This specialty provides a bonus to the Mechanical skill. Mercs with Lockpicking get a +25% bonus to pick locks. Electronics* This specialty provides a bonus to the Mechanical skill. It will not actually increase the Mechanical skill; instead, mercs WITHOUT the specialty have their chances HALVED in tasks which involve electronics (picking high-tech locks, attaching remote detonators, and some item merges). Hand-To-Hand Mercs with this specialty get bonuses in bare-handed combat. Hand-to- hand experts get a +15% bonus to hit and dodge, and are particularly good at inflicting damage (+45%). Martial Arts Mercs with this specialty get bonuses in bare-handed combat. Martial arts mercs get a +30% bonus to hit, dodge, and damage. They also have a small bonus to dodge knife blows, but they can't get the damage bonus for brass knuckles. They also have a special windmill kick for weakened enemies which does double damage. Knifing A knifing specialist is expert with bladed weapons and receives a 30% bonus to stab and to parry (avoid being hit in hand-to-hand combat) with a knife. Ambidextrous* Ambidextrous mercs do not receive the -20% to-hit penalty for firing using two pistols or SMGs at once. Camouflage* Shadow has this unique trait, which grants him unlimited camouflage supplies. Night Ops The night ops skill improves the character's overall performance during night-time combat. At night, each level in the skill gives a +1 bonus to the merc's sighting and hearing distances, and to the ability to interrupt (on a scale of 1-10). Stealthy The stealthy trait gives a +25% bonus to be quiet with each sneaky step. Throwing Mercs with the throwing trait get a +12% to their chance to hit, and to their maximum range, when throwing weapons and items. Teaching Mercs with teaching experience receive a +30% bonus when training town militia and other mercs. Auto Weapons Mercs experienced with automatic weapons reduce the to-hit penalty for burst fire to one half (one quarter for Experts). These to-hit penalties range from 5 to 11% for each bullet in a burst after the first. (e.g. the shots in a three-bullet burst might be penalized by 0%, 8%, and 16%). Heavy Weapons The heavy weapons skill trait gives +15% to hit with heavy weapons (mortars, grenade launchers, and LAWs). On-roof to-hit bonus A few characters are expert snipers, well used to shooting from the rooftops. They receive a 15% bonus when firing down from a roof. Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada Index o 1.5.1 – Using Stealth & Night Ops Since most people like them, here's how to make good use of Stealth & Night Ops: Quite the same as daytime tactics, though with camo paint, they can be more effective at night. 1. First of all, make sure you move always with Stealth mode on, odds are they don't see you so much as they hear you first, so this is very important. 2. Camo Paint and Night Vision Goggles will help you a lot in the "surprise" factor. 3. Get your silenced MP5 and move slowly and determined - know where you're going and make sure it has cover. 4. Use cover. Hide behind trees and corners, climb up to roof tops, usual stuff. At night, the enemy's sight is reduced to that similar to yours, hence when you come into contact with one of them, it is usually a fair fight. 5. When dashing from position to position, make sure you're in a half prone position, don't run. Don't even move around standing upright. 6. Prone position is good when you want to avoid the enemy or taking cover, thus, if you're hunting enemies, this is a position to avoid, until you make contact of course. 7. Note that the Night Ops perk, does not guarantee initial movement in an interrupt. Agility does! Night Ops just make the merc less tired during the night. Try this with a non night-ops merc, move him across the map, and boy you can see his stamina plummet (The blue bar). Index o 1.5.2 – Using Martial Arts & Hand-To-Hand Now, here's how to make good use of Martial Arts and Hand-To-Hand combat: When trying to use Hand-To-Hand combat what seems to work best is using two mercs in combination. Here's why: There's usually little problem dashing in and getting one good punch or kick in, but then the next turn the baddie will just open up in burst mode. It seems that you need to get in at least three hand-to-hand strikes in order to be guaranteed the bad guy will be incapacitated for the next turn. And so for one merc to do it alone they have to have 14 action points (minimum)available by the time they reach the enemy (two strikes costing 4 points each, and after the second hit the bad guy will fall down -- so you'll need to crouch to strike again, and the third strike will therefore cost you 6). For a 25-point merc this means they can only use 11 action points to reach their opponent if they want to have a prayer of escaping unscathed. Of course the story grows worse if their AP total is below 25. And unless you've surprised a guy coming around a corner or coming through a door, you rarely get a chance to be this close. So the answer? Use two mercs together, hopefully both of whom have hand-to-hand or martial arts skills (though they don't necessarily have to -- a pistol shot or a thrown knife also seems to deliver enough 'oomph' to serve as your third strike, and keep the baddie sucking wind for a turn). If the two of them together can total up three successful strikes, then you'll be in the clear. This means you only have to get as close as 17 action points to pull the job off (the 'primary' can get in two strikes while the enemy is still standing, costing 8, and the 'secondary' can go for the 6-point attack on the ground). Of course, you won't have much room for error. Here are some other things I've notice about close combat: 1) Because AP are at a premium, and you can't afford to miss, it's best to target the torso. And as far as I can tell, the Hand-to-Hand damage does not depend at all upon location -- there is no apparent payoff for smacking the head instead of the gut. 2) Knives do more damage, but they cost more AP to use than just hands&feet. And from my experience, they miss more often (a knife expert like Scully still seems to swing wide more often than my martial arts gurus). So I'd recommend having your knife-wielder as a secondary, or using the knife only in those situations where you can get especially close. 3) The best situations for hand to hand are when you surprise an enemy coming around a corner or through a door. If you know such traffic is likely (if you can hear movement, or already spotted someone who didn't spot you), this is the time where your hand-to-hand guys really shine. Park yourself against the wall, two squares away from the corner or door (if you're right on up against it, they'll see you sooner, and you may very well not get the interrupt). Make sure you're standing up, so you don't waste valuable action points coming to your feet. Then run at them in stealth mode (when you're that close, it will only cost an extra point or so, and will keep the enemy from getting an interrupt on you) and just go crazy -- a single merc should be able to handle such encounters on their own, with 20 action points or so to make use of. 4) Hand-to-hand combat is really only effective when you can concern yourself with only one opponent at a time. What this means is that it is far more fun with a lower difficulty setting, because the population density of baddies scales with the difficulty. This doesn't make you a wuss, it just allows you to play using a different style. The more crowded the maps get, the more often you'll be forced to stick with the heavy hardware. So if you would really like to be kung fu fightin' as much as possible, I would recommend going with the novice setting. If you're committed to hand-to-hand, it won't make things *easy*, it'll just allow you to exploit martial arts much more often. 5) If you're going to do a stealth/night attack with these boys, make sure they're well- rested. Every AP becomes more precious with hand-to-hand combat, when a single attack costing only 4 AP can make all the difference in the world. 6) Sometimes you can use a gun-wielder to set up hand-to-hand ambushes. Put your martial artist behind a corner, then have somebody with a rifle fire a shot at the baddie, and run out of view. When the pursuit rounds the corner, they'll be met with fists of fury. 7) Enemies that have already taken some damage may require only two strikes to be incapacitated. If you're attacking a "wounded" enemy, you should be able to start from further away and still get the job done. 8) Don't just click on the enemy with the fist icon, and trust the computer to set the right path for you. Plant yourself next to your opponent in the position *you* want to be in (i.e. not exposed to other fire), and only then make your attack. Sometimes the computer puts you in funny, or very stupid, places. 9) Martial arts experts seem to get no damage bonuses (even with their little jab attack) for using the brass knuckles, so don't waste the equip space giving them a pair. Hand-to-Hand folks, of course, will get a nice bonus. Index o 1.5.3 – Using Throwing & Knifing Having a knife specialist (Throwing and Knifing specialties) can be really great. You can wipe out a big number of enemies using the throwing knives technique, without calling the attentions to yourself but sometimes getting close enough seems a bit difficult. The best time to use the throwing knives is by night and it helps a lot being in a extremely built up area (like Alma or Tixa basement) with lots of rooms and corridors. Try to sneak on enemies using Stealth mode and crouch position, till you are in a covered place with range for throwing the knives. Wait a turn hidden to get maximum action points available and then sentence a flying damage with 2 or 3 knives to the enemy. To become even more deadlier pair up knife specialists if possible, to help each other out. Have about 5/6 knives per merc since you'll not be able to recover them till the area is cleaned of enemies. Index ? 1.6 - MERCENARIES RELATIONSHIPS Each merc has it's own personality and with it, it's preference or dislikeness for the company of certain other mercs. It's possible too for the merc to be indifferent at others. The only effects you'll have when you have 2 mercs that don't like each other (or simply one of them doesn't like the other) is that they occasionally bitch about each other and as long as they're together, their morale keeps diminishing. Not extremely important. But when you hire mercenaries, they occasionally refuse working if you hired people they don't like. Or they join reluctantly, if they're desperate. On the other hand, if your reputation isn't that great, but you hired someone that a certain merc likes, that merc will usually sign with you no matter what. One more thing - some mercs don't like certain groups of people. For example, Sidney doesn't like Aussies (Australian people), but he has no problems working with either Scully or Trevor, no job refusal, etc. So I think that's just a fluke, and has no bearings on the relationships. Question marks (?) after a name mean that there is no absolute sure about the relationship. If someone can clarify, that would help out a lot. On a related note, the best way to definitively test for likes is to put the mercs in question in the same (preferably hostile) sector and get one of them killed. If the other likes the first, they WILL speak up. Just a funny info: get a look at some of Buzz lines, definitely owner of one of the most strong personalities (doesn't like men even a little bit…): After kiling an enemy – "Don't carry it around just to look good, Jackass." After seeing an enemy – "At last, with any luck there'll be a couple of males to shoot." Enemies in the sector – "All right, I'm anticipating fun. There are playmates in this sector." After a turn-based battle – "Pisses me off. I haven't got all day to look for 'em. Bunch of whiners." Here is the complete list of the Mercenaries Relationships: Barry Likes: Red Hates: Noone Biff Likes: Flo, unstoned Numb Hates: Bubba, stoned Numb Blood Likes: Magic Hates: Bubba, Cliff Bubba Likes: Bull, Buzz Hates: Noone Bull Likes: Nails, Grizzly? Hates: Biff Buns Likes: Sidney Hates: Fox, Gumpy, Reaper Buzz Likes: Noone Hates: Lynx (duh) Carlos Likes: Miguel, Dimitri, Ira Hates: Iggy Cliff Likes: Noone Hates: Noone Conrad Likes: Iggy, Stephen Hates: Numb Cougar Likes: Wolf, Len Hates: Noone Danny Likes: Noone Hates: Steroid, Bubba, Biff Devin Likes: Red Hates: Buns Dimitri Likes: Miguel, Carlos, Ira? Hates: Stephen? Dr. Q Likes: Vicki Hates: Noone Dynamo Likes: Blood, Shank Hates: Barry? Fidel Likes: Haywire, Razor Hates: Flo, Devin? Flo Likes: Biff, Lynx Hates: Meltdown, Fox? Fox Likes: Wolf, Grizzly Hates: Haywire, Steroid Gasket Likes: Vicki Hates: Ivan, Igor Grizzly Likes: Bull, Shadow, Wolf Hates: Dr.Q Grunty Likes: Ivan, Buns Hates: Noone Gumpy Likes: Noone, seems to like Buns Hates: Noone Gus Likes: Len, Scully Hates: Flo Hamous Likes: Noone Hates: Noone Haywire Likes: Razor, Numb Hates: Biff Hitman Likes: Grunty, Raven Hates: Raider Ice Likes: Magic, Blood, Grizzly Hates: Bubba Iggy Likes: Ivan Hates: Fidel Igor Likes: Ivan, Grunty Hates: Noone Ira Likes: Miguel, Dimitri Hates: Malice Ivan Likes: Grunty, Igor Hates: Bubba Len Likes: Vicki, Dr.Q Hates: Numb Lynx Likes: Ice Hates: Buzz Maddog Likes: Fox Hates: Noone Magic Likes: Blood, Ice Hates: Buns, Bubba Malice Likes: Meltdown, Fox, Spider Hates: Noone MD Likes: Danny Hates: Noone Meltdown Likes: Stephen Hates: Biff, Flo Miguel Likes: Ira, Carlos, Shadow Hates: Iggy Nails Likes: Fox, Bull Hates: Biff Sober Numb Likes: Biff, Flo (pussy) Hates: Steroid, Static Stoned Numb Likes: Steroid, Static (cool) Hates: Biff, Flo Raider Likes: Raven Hates: Hitman Raven Likes: Raider, Spider Hates: Noone Razor Likes: Haywire, Fidel Hates: Biff, Flo Reaper Likes: Blood, Shadow Hates: Numb, Buns Red Likes: Noone Hates: Buns Richard Likes: Magic Hates: Flo Scope Likes: Sidney Hates: Noone Scully Likes: Trevor? Hates: Noone Shadow Likes: Noone Hates: Noone Shank Likes: Dynamo, Ivan Hates: Noone Sidney Likes: Scope, Stephen Hates: Haywire, Biff? Spider Likes: Raven, Vicki, Static Hates: Buns Static Likes: Spider, stoned Numb Hates: Razor, Stephen, unstoned Numb Stephen Likes: Meltdown Hates: Numb, Nails, Static Steroid Likes: Grizzly Hates: Ivan, Igor Steve Likes: Noone Hates: Noone Thor Likes: Spider, Static, Ice Hates: Noone Trevor Likes: Thor, Scully? Hates: Fidel Vicki Likes: Spider Hates: Gasket Wolf Likes: Fox, Lynx Hates: Numb Index ? 1.7 – M.E.R.C. Q: How to get new MERC guys? I've been going for about 12 days game time now and MERC doesn't seem to have any new guys. Has anyone had MERC recruit new guys? Does it seem to be triggered by time or by how much money you give them? A: I've got about 9 MERC guys to choose from now. When Speck lets you know he hired some more mercs he says it's thanks to your patronage. You definitely want to support MERC just in case. They get some decent mercs later on, in particular Numb and Cougar. Q: But by time Bubba, Larry or even Numb and Cougar became available, I can afford way better mercs from AIM, so I'm not going to waste time with them. Don't you think? A: Well, that's subjective since it's variable when they come online. Cougar is one of the best mercs in the game, and definitely the best bargain. Ian Currie - Sirtech Canada Index ? 1.8 – I.M.P. - CUSTOM MERCS SERVICE One of the first things to do when starting a game, is to create your custom merc, as some kind of a reflection of your person. You only have to pay 3000 in order to get this custom merc, and that's it, no salary to this guy. He is yours till you finish the game or he gets killed (what isn't good). So it's a great deal and will help you a lot in your mission. To create him, read the "Psych Pro Inc" mail that is in your laptop mailbox. Now you have the link to the IMP Website. Go there and insert the access code - XEP624 (if you type 90210 as a password in the IMP page, u get the same custom merc you created last time – in the English version, it only works in 1.03). Enter some character data and then you have to complete the character's personality profile, which consists in 16 questions. The answers will determine the personality of your creation. For details on this see sub-chapter below – Answering The Quiz. Now you have to allocate attribute points to your character. These determine character's strength's and weaknesses in several areas. Keep in mind that a skill of 0 can never be improved. To finalize choose other elements for the merc such as portrait and voice. Then your character will be generated according to the choices you made. He'll have all that you have chose freely (name, stats, face, voice) plus a maximum of 2 specialties which are random (you aren't given the option of choosing them) between certain limits set by the answers given to the quiz and one of ten possible types of personality traits. These traits are: Aggressive Makes you a better fighter, but worse at talking to people Friendly More success with talking to NPCs Normal Just like it sounds Optimist Always has a higher morale, better leadership abilities Pessimist Lower morale and likely poor leadership abilities Individualist Tends to work alone. He hates noone but don't likes nobody too Coward May show weaknesses at important over-pressurized moments Disgusting Strange habits, strange ways. Avoid spending much time with them… Impudent No respect for other persons. Tends to be hated by everybody Psycho Causes mercs to be over-aggressive. If they have a burst-capable weapon, they may tend to fire off bursts when you least expect it, for no apparent reason. However, they do have a 15% higher chance to hit The only way to find out what kind of personality your merc has, is to read the email you get from IMP on day 3. Index o 1.8.1 - Answering The Quiz Each answer to the I.M.P. quiz can affect or not the probability of your custom merc getting a certain specialty or personality trait. Some do nothing, others raise the probabability a lot of one specific specialty or trait. Basically the merc specialities are randomly determined based on your answers. Thus, if your answers had Auto-Weapons, Stealth and Night Ops, your 2 (or 1 – being an expert on one) specialities would be picked from those RANDOMLY. In the list below, many of the questions and answers are paraphrased or shortened to save space. Some of the choices may look illogical, but they all really do what they say they do. NIL means that the answer doesn't affect the psychological profile. Note: if you take a female custom merc, some of the questions and answers are different. This does not seem to have any noticeable in-game effect EXCEPT for the first question, for which the answers are different. The female custom differences are in parentheses. After the answer number you can find or not a letter. What this means: All answers marked with an "s" add a SPECIALTY to your possible Specialty selection. These are visible from your "mercs" screen, and your custom merc can have at most two (they will be selected ramdomly from all "s" answers). They have GREEN background. All answers marked with a "t" add a TRAIT to your merc. How the traits interact isn't just known yet; it's possible they add, go into a pool for random selection, or something entirely different. They work in the background, influencing stuff, and you can only know what you have when you get your profile on day 3 (or is that 4?) And yes, "normal" is a trait. They have BLUE background. Final note: Yes, you can make a merc with no skills. "No skills" shows up on his/her stats. But if you want 2 specialties and a specific trait, choose only the answers that lead to that choices. For the rest choose, if possible, neutral answers (NIL), so they don't interfere in the generation process. Also if you choose twice the same specialty you'll become an Expert at that specialty. Now, on with the list... Q1. When you were young, you most wanted to be: 1s. Bruce Lee (Lara Croft) - Martial Arts 2t. Clint Eastwood (Madonna) - Individualist 3s. Rocky (Michelle Yeoh) - Hand to Hand 4s. Houdini (Catwoman) - Lockpicking 5s. Terry Bradshaw (Joan of Arc) - Throwing 6t. The President - Optimist Q2. A punk teenager ahead of you in line sucks at darts. You: 1s. Teach him how to do it - Teaching 2s. Sneakily win for him - Stealthy 3t. Bash his head in - Psycho 4t. Ask the other attendant - Friendly Q3. A guy locks $1M in a locker and leaves. You: 1s. Pick the lock - Lockpicking 2t. Go crazy and shoot the lock off - Arrogant 3s. Follow and ambush him in the dark - Stealthy 4t. Call the police - Normal Q4. You own a pickup truck from Tennessee. It has: 1s. Semiautomatic rifles for those really aggressive deer – Auto. Weapons 2t. A peace sign - Friendly 3t. A Confederate flag - Normal 4t. A silhouette of a naked woman - Unfriendly (A bumper sticker that reads "Keep honking, I'm reloading") 5t. A cartoon character with two guns - Individualist Q5. Barney should be: 1t. Worshipped as a role model - Coward 2 . Hung - nil 3t. Hung and shot - Aggressive 4 . Hung, shot, guttted, and run over - nil Q6. A burglar is in your house. After dialing 911, you: 1t. Scream, loudly and repeatedly - Coward 2s. Greet him with a knife - Night Ops 3 . Hide under the bed - nil 4 . Run away - nil 5 . Go crazy with a gun - nil Q7. You can take 1 item from a looting-in-progress of an Army surplus store. You take: 1s. A computer, minus manuals - Electronics 2s. A set of survival knives - Knifing 3s. A pair of night vision goggles - Night Ops 4 . Bob, the night clerk - nil Q8. You are applying for a position at a butcher shop. To improve your chances, you: 1s. Show off your skills with 2 blades - Ambidextrous 2 . Lie - nil 3t. Do nothing and arrive confident - Optimist 4t. Practice on nearby pets - Psycho Q9. Your wife (husband) is 3 hours late. You: 1 . Don't notice - nil 2t. Don't care - Pessimist 3t. Get suspicious - Pessimist 4 . Worry - nil Q10. You live next door to a frat (sorority) house with frequent parties. You: 1 . Feel you're too old for this - nil 2t. Get suspicious of your spouse - Pessimist 3t. Get revenge - Unfriendly 4 . Do nothing in fear of retaliation - nil Q11. You are behind a slow guy on a highway with no way to pass. You fantasize: 1 . That you push "R" for rocket launcher - nil 2s. That you open up a driving school to teach people the RIGHT way - Teaching 3t. That your car is equipped with a rammig device - Aggressive 4t. That all of your swears could be loudly transmitted to him - Normal 5 . That Mario Andretti takes his license from him - nil Q12. Though you don't usually endorse violence, you would pay $1k to see the fight of: 1s. Jakie Chan vs. Jean-Claude Van Damme - Martial Arts 2s. Crocodile Dundee vs. Tarzan - Knifing 3 . Barbie vs. Godzilla - nil 4s. The NRA vs. Congress - Auto.Weapons 5s. Mike Tyson vs. The Incredible Hulk - Hand To Hand 6s. Bill Gates vs. Robocop - Electronics 7 . Your mate vs the defens. line of the Washington Redskins - nil 8 . No really, I do endorse violence - nil Q13. During the summer, you think: 1 . And that's more than you can say for yourself in other seasons - nil 2t. Your kids are driving you crazy - Normal 3t. Revealing fashions are a good thing - Normal 4 . It's too damn hot - nil Q14. You absolutely will not: 1 . Sit in an airplane circling in a holding pattern for two hours - nil 2t. Admit that you were ever turned on by a comic book character - Normal 3 . Walk through the desert for a week - nil 4 . Do software development - nil Q15. You are a major league pitcher, famous for your: 1s. Accurate pitching - Throwing 2s. Switch hitting - Ambidextrous 3t. Enormous bat - Arrogant 4 . Continual requests for a larger salary - nil Q16. You are one of the survivors of a plane crash in the mountains. You: 1 . Lead the expedition to seek help - nil 2 . Declare yourself chef, and check on that heavyset woman you saw earlier - nil 3 . Commit mass suicide - nil 4 . Find the bar cart and organize one last drunken blowout - nil Now I present a table that summarizes all the info above, making it faster to read and choose what you want. I made it myself, since the ones that exist are somewhat confusing to read. Green squares are Specialties, Blue squares are Personality Traits and the White squares are answers that don't affect anything at all (nil). ANSWERS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Q U E S T I O N S 1 Martial Art Individualist Hand to H. Lockpicking Throwing Optimist 2 Teaching Stealthy Psycho Friendly 3 Lockpicking Arrogant Stealthy Normal 4 Auto-Weap. Friendly Normal Unfriendly Individualist 5 Coward Aggressive 6 Coward Night Ops 7 Electronics Knifing Night Ops 8 Ambidextr. Optimistic Psycho 9 Pessimist Pessimist 10 Pessimist Unfriendly 11 Teaching Aggressive Normal 12 Martial Art Knifing Auto-Weap. Hand to H. Electronics 13 Normal Normal 14 Normal 15 Throwing Ambidextr. Arrogant 16 Example: Most of people wants a character who can sneak around silently, and at night, and be able to pick off people with such skill that no one notices. Your psychological profile will determine which skills will be your specialty. This is the order in which you need to answer the questions to get a Stealth and Night Ops specialties. > 2, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 1 < Some additional notes on custom merc questions and specialties: - In order to get Martial Arts, your merc has to be Male, and have less than 75 in Strength. You get Hand-To-Hand instead of Martial Arts when using Female customs; - Dexterity has no effect on whether you can get Ambidextrous or not; tested it with a 35. - There is no Expert Ambidextrous specialty (don't know if any others) Index o 1.8.2 – Choosing Merc's Abilities To finalize the creation of your custom merc, you will have to allocate 40 points between all or some merc abilities. Note that all abilities have starting points, so you may remove all or some of them in each attribute, and allocate them wherever you wish. There is a possibility in the early version of the game (1.03) of getting 50 points for allocation (appearance was totally random, nothing to do with bad traits) which have been corrected since version 1.04, as you can see in the Readme 1.04: "The unintended possibility of getting 50 points to distribute to skills in character generation has been eliminated." Now, I will present a suggestion for point allocation to the Attributes of the Custom Merc, along with some comments, so you can think and decide for yourself what is best: Health - 85 Give him the maximum you can. I know that if you take 30 damage points, it takes the same amount of time to heal them whether you went from 99 to 69 or from 55 to 25. I also know that if I take a bunch of hits, I can run from back-up anyway. But Health also defines the stamina of your mercs, mercs with high health can walk for 10 hours and then enter combat with almost full energy. Same is true for any other tasks, the high health mercs lose energy much more slowly. So, adding to all this, if you want to stay a little longer in battle without the need of retreating due to your injuries, set this at 85 (this should apply to the "No Reload" addicted guys. You better set it at 85 for sure… Agility - 85 A big one. Combat movement points are based on Agility, as is stealth. The chance you start an interrupt situation is much higher as higher the Agility you have. The combined 85's in Agility and Marksmanship will let you kill and not be killed. Dexterity - 80 Another one that can deserve a lot of points. Dexterity is very important for 3 skills, since it measures a merc ability to perform delicate or precise movements correctly (needed for Mechanical, Explosives and Medical). If I want a good medic at the beginning, it's not enough giving the merc a high Medical value. You have also to give him high Dexterity. Dexterity also affects the Action Points needed to fire one shot. Higher Dexterity means you squeeze off more shots with your limited AP. It also boils to how well you can handle two weapons at once (Ambidexterity – firing 2 guns for lower AP's) and determines if you hit using punches, grenades and various knives (thrown and melee). Strength - 80 I want to be strong enough to haul a lot of stuff around, and open everything that needs to be opened with brute force. If you're not taking someone that has Lockpicking specialty, well, how will you open all these damn doors and boxes? So set it at 80, or else you'll be spending too much time to open something (this is, if you can…). I will not hire a strong merc just to do this job, that's for sure. Leadership - 50 I think this is more than enough to be able to recruit almost any NPC in the game. Remember that this affects the influence and the power of persuasion with NPC's. This value goes up pretty easily too. Wisdom - 85 I would make it 100 if I could. Since you have the same guy around from the very beginning to the very end, he has plenty of time to improve his attributes -if he has enough Wisdom. Also, cannot improve this one beyond what you start with, so it's good to have a high wisdom because he/she will increase skills faster (good learner). Marksmanship - 85 The most important attribute in the game, of course, so why not give him the maximum you can? It's true also that you shoot more than you do anything else, so if your Wisdom is 85, Marksmanship will be up to big numbers in a no time. As Marksmanship grows really FAST, you can set it 70, and spend 15 points for someting else. It depends on if you are willing to suffer for a bit in the beginning. Mechanical - 0 In mechanical jobs, or you're a real specialist or else you'll mess it all up. What this means is that you should give him 85 or else 0. I prefer to hire a specialized merc to do all the Mechanical job (for me, this applies also to Explosives and Medical), so I give him a zero here and spend precious points somewhere else. If zero you can't improve this skill. Explosives - 0 Unless I can give him explosives of at least 80, and I'm not going to do that, zero is the number. I'm not about to give my precious custom merc a 35 & then have him start messing around with RDX. If zero you can't improve this skill. It's true that if you put it at 35, it will be easy to increase it a lot. Explosives is one of the easiest skills to raise. Medical - 0 Since I like to take a doctor as a starting team member, zero is plenty. Also, my philosophy is to run from back-up if I take too many hits, anyway, so medical is fairly useless. If zero you can't improve this skill. But if you are the ones that in the beginning have the team spread out fairly thin, you may find it useful for everyone to be able to bandage themselves if they take a bad hit. Other hints on mercs attributes: If you pick face 1, 7 or 8 and have Strength higher than 75, you get a 'big guy' meaning his body is bigger than usual and he can't have the speciality of Martial Arts. It's not Stealth or Night Ops although it only makes sense if it was Stealth. Index o 1.8.3 – The Equipment You Get Here's some info on what equipment you get with your custom merc. All equipment you get is brand new. You always get a Flak Jacket and a Flask, you may get a Steel Helmet randomly. The rest of the equipment depends on the merc skills & specialties, so here's the list to each one of them: BY SKILLS: Marksmanship You get a MP5K and 2 clips of 9mm SMG ammo if your marksmanship is 80 or above, if is it's less than 80 you get a Beretta 93R and three 9mm clips. Medical If your Med > 60 – You get a Medikit; if you have 30 < Medical < 59 – You get a 1st Aid Kit. Mechanical If your Mech > 50 you get a tool kit (from time to time a TNT also?) Explosives If your Exp > 50 you get a TNT and detonator BY SPECIALTIES: Stealthy You get a gun with silencer Knifing You get a combat knife Throwing You get a throwing knife Electronics You get a metal detector Night Ops You get 2 break lights Lockpicking You get a lockpick Hand-To-Hand You get the dusters (that thing to wear on your fist) Note: You get only one of the 3, medical, mechanical, or explosive item. If your medical is the highest of the 3, then you get a medikit, regardless whether you have over 50 mechanical skill. So you need to specialize in one of these 3 skills. Index ? 1.9 – NPC'S The recruitable NPC's that can be found are Ira, Dimitri, Carlos, Miguel, Dynamo, Shank, Vince, Maddog, Iggy, Devin, Conrad, Hamous, and the Robot. From this list there are six who are volunteers - characters that work for no money. Beside the custom Merc, they are Ira, Dimitri, Carlos, Miguel, Maddog and the Robot. Index o 1.9.1 – Recruitable NPC's Here's the personal files for all the NPC's that can be recruited: IRA She is a rebel in Miguel's hideout. Ira have high Wisdom, therefore will eventually be a better merc than Dimitri. With teaching expert, she is can be defined as "cheap trainer and not all that hot at anything else" merc. Also, she works for you for free. HEA 76 AGI 72 DEX 91 STR 55 LDR 14 WIS 83 MRK 55 EXP 2 MEC 8 MED 40 Experience Level - 2 Teaching Expert 0$ per day DIMITRI A rebel blocking the door to Miguel's hideout. Dimitri is quite a good merc for the time being. Lack of Wisdom limits his future prospect. HEA 75 AGI 73 DEX 51 STR 71 LDR 21 WIS 56 MRK 77 EXP 12 MEC 71 MED 17 Experience Level - 1 Throwing Expert 0$ per day CARLOS Another rebel along with Miguel, Ira & Dimitri. No comment, doesn't look impressive despite having 91 Agility. To recruit him, you have first to capture 5 towns, and then talk to Miguel, he will say that he and Carlos are ready to join you. Just recruit them. HEA 79 AGI 91 DEX 61 STR 68 LDR 38 WIS 71 MRK 67 EXP 20 MEC 11 MED 34 Experience Level - 4 Throwing / Stealthy 0$ per day MIGUEL The leader of the rebels. With 98 Leadership, wow, a good merc overall. You only get him after securing 5 town/mines. Then talk to him, and he will say that he and Carlos are ready to join you. Just recruit them. HEA 88 AGI 73 DEX 76 STR 83 LDR 98 WIS 80 MRK 85 EXP 31 MEC 22 MED 13 Experience Level - 6 Night Ops / Knifing 0$ per day MADDOG Just go to the junkyard sector (Estoni) to recruit him (he works for free). Great Agility & Dexterity but his Marksmanship is about 60, otherwise… He's pretty unreliable in combat (whenever I needed him most, he got crazy), but he can open ANY door. He's an expert in Lockpicking. HEA 91 AGI 91 DEX 92 STR 78 LDR 8 WIS 56 MRK 66 EXP 18 MEC 68 MED 7 Experience Level - 1 Lock Picking Expert 0$ per day HAMOUS He is the guy near the Ice Cream truck. He has Stealth specialty and poor/average abilities... Cruddy but cheap. There's hope for him if you recruit him early in the game. Additionally, if you don't recruit him, you don't get the Ice Cream truck. HEA 68 AGI 68 DEX 66 STR 69 LDR 5 WIS 35 MRK 78 EXP 0 MEC 19 MED 0 Experience Level - 2 Stealthy 250$ per day CONRAD A military in the Weapons Facility of Alma. He's a pretty good all-rounder, with excellent marksmanship and high leadership. His specialties are Teaching (very good one - make good use of this since he improves low mercs in a flash) and Auto-Weapons (give him something like HKG41 with a laser scope and he will be extremely deadly with his bursts even at medium (25-30) ranges. Speak to Conrad after clearing the sector using Direct. Sometimes it's very difficult to hire him. If you hit Friendly twice he'll say "This does not interest me. Killing you interests me. Remain calm.... While I Shoot you." And he will… But if you can hire him, he will ask for 5500 per day. Say No and he'll drop his price to 3300. Another good thing about him is that when he goes up a level he doesn't ask for raise but still works for $3300 a day! Noone else (except for free Miguel) will cost you so little on level 6 and up. HEA 76 AGI 69 DEX 84 STR 81 LDR 51 WIS 88 MRK 95 EXP 68 MEC 22 MED 49 Experience Level - 5 Teaching / Auto-Weapons 3300$ per day VINCE He is from the Cambria hospital, a very good doctor, although he needs to work on that terrible markmanship. Shouldn't be a problem with the high wisdom. To get Vince you have to: 1) not steal anything from hospital warehouse 2) fulfill quest with Martha/Joe (not sure though) 3) raise Cambria loyalty to >80% HEA 94 AGI 49 DEX 92 STR 69 LDR 33 WIS 94 MRK 35 EXP 3 MEC 13 MED 94 Experience Level - 2 Teaching / Ambidextrous 500$ per day DYNAMO He is being held in Tixa Prison. He is also brother of a miner who wants you to get him back from Tixa. Dynamo is a pretty good repairman with pretty good wisdom. HEA 76 AGI 57 DEX 67 STR 55 LDR 8 WIS 78 MRK 68 EXP 9 MEC 67 MED 21 Experience Level - 1 Lock Picking Expert 50$ per day SHANK You will find him in Tixa. He is damn useless, but have pretty good wisdom. He says he is good with throwing knives. If you hire him, he'll ask you to take him to Estoni, and he will give you a good deal on gas. You should take him where he wants to go. HEA 73 AGI 36 DEX 43 STR 31 LDR 7 WIS 80 MRK 45 EXP 9 MEC 11 MED 17 Experience Level - 1 Throwing Expert 20$ per day DEVIN An Irish explosives dealer. You'll find him in bars at several towns (ie. southern Drassen). If you choose to hire him, you'll not be able to buy explosive stuff from him no more. HEA 73 AGI 61 DEX 88 STR 71 LDR 11 WIS 72 MRK 67 EXP 96 MEC 34 MED 2 Experience Level - 3 Electronics / Knifing 800$ per day ROBOT A robot mercenary that is assembled by the missing scientist. (More details about him can be found at chapter 6.4 – The Missing Scientist & The Robot Merc ) HEA 95 AGI 50 DEX 30 STR 30 LDR 1 WIS 5 MRK 80 EXP 0 MEC 0 MED 0 Experience Level - 1 No Specialties 0$ per day IGGY A russian ex-army member, who is an Heavy Weapons Expert, having pretty good stats, a level 5, who asks for 1950 per day, and equiped with Rocket rifle. He is a random encounter NPC, that can be found in almost every places, right after you kill Mike. So, you will only find him at the end of the game, because of the game balance. However, try bars in cities. Some people got him at a bar in San Mona, others in the SE corner of the NW sector of Alma. HEA 88 AGI 81 DEX 79 STR 85 LDR 15 WIS 71 MRK 87 EXP 21 MEC 42 MED 33 Experience Level - 5 Heavy-Weapons Expert 1950$ per day Index o 1.9.2 – Non-Recruitable NPC's Here's a small description for a couple of NPC's that you cannot recruit: MICKEY - He can be placed randomly to any bar of any town. ( for more info on this NPC, see section 6.2 – Mickey & The Bloodcats ) CARMEN – An international Bounty Hunter. He travels between San Mona and Drassen, you can find him in the bars of both towns on different days. ( for more info on this NPC, see section 6.3 – Bounty Huntin' Terrorists ) MIKE – He makes an unexpected appearance, somewhere at the midgame in JA2, seduced by Deidranna's big bucks. (Traitor!). His location is highly random, so you'll be able to find him in all important locations (cities, SAM sites, Orta, Tixa, etc). Expect a very hard encounter that should end with Mike's death since you'll not be able to hire him. Mike carries a guaranteed G11, plus a single clip of ammo. Just make sure you've got good stuff beforehand or you won't survive. Index ? 1.10 – ENEMY INFO The enemies are much similar to your militia which is green, light blue and dark blue. They may appear with yellow, red or grey shirts (grey ones may appear with or without camo). Yellow ones (rare) are the weakest. Red shirts are those you always see at start/mid of the game, and mainly in the easy mode game (they are intermediate level). Grey ones are the elite forces, and Mike is one of the grey ones. The grey ones are damn good… The camo guys just have tougher armor, they aren't nearly as accurate as the grey ones. These guys never miss a shot, use heavy weapons like rocket launcher, and when you place a cursor on them, it should display excellent. But the toughest enemy that you'll ran into is that Queen bug.. damn, you near have to nuke that witch!.. Index 2. WEAPONS, AMMO & ITEMS ? 2.1 - WEAPONS ATTACHMENTS All attachments can improve your chance of hitting the enemy. Remember, you can use them together to improve even more the shot… The way the aiming works is not different if you have scope, bipod or laser sight or nothing at all. Note that there are 2 types of attachments: some are temporary (can be dismounted), others are permanent (forever attached to the gun or until they go flying off the gun…). Remember also that most of the time, using a damaged attachment will simply give you less of a bonus. A heavily damaged laser sight, though, will give you a penalty to hit as the misaligned laser makes your weapon less accurate! Range Penalties Due To Sight (in Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada) This is a penalty to hit based on the "sight range" between you and your target which is unaffected by the gun you are using. In the day, for each tile of sight range beyond 5, there is a 2% penalty to hit. So, if you are making a shot at a distance of 25 tiles in the daytime, the sight range penalty is (25-5) x 2% = 40%. The penalties for head and leg shots is based on the sight range: -3% and -1% for each tile, respectively. At night time, the sight range is scaled. If your maximum sighting distance is half of normal, then each tile between you and your target will count as two for sight range purposes. Now here's the list of all existing attachments by type (some info is from the Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada) : TEMPORARY ATTACHMENTS: Sniper Scope – The sniper scope decreases the "sight range" by 20% for each point of extra aim devoted to a shot (if the minimum cost to shoot is 8, and you spend 10 AP's to fire, then your shot will have a decrease of 40% in the "sight range"). Having a sniper scope is a must if you want to nail people in the head at long range! Laser Sight - The laser sight produces a simple, flat 20% bonus to hit. The rocket rifle also gets this bonus due to its built-in laser sight. Bipod – They give a +10% bonus to hit if you shoot while lying prone. To better see the difference it makes, try a burst fire while prone without the bipod, and then with... Silencer - Keep in mind that a damaged silencer will not completely silence the weapon it is attached to. Duckbill - A shotgun with a duckbill attached will fire buckshot in a horizontal line instead of a circle. However, at short range this will probably will not make a difference. PERMANENT ATTACHMENTS: Gun Barrel Extender – To get it, you have to merge a Steel Tube, Duct Tape & Quick Glue. Then attach it to a gun. It gives an extra 10 tiles of range when its status is 100%. Since it is only held on with glue and tape, however, it can lose status every time it's fired, and if it is not repaired, the extender will eventually fall off, giving a 30% penalty to hit on that shot. Rod And Spring - To get it, you have to merge an Aluminium Rod and a Spring. Attach the result to a gun & you'll get a gun that takes less Action Points to fire.The rod and spring ("spring bolt replacement") decreases the AP cost of firing a gun by about a sixth. Fractions are rounded down, though, so that a shot that would normally cost you 10 APs would be reduced to 8. The rod and spring also reduces the burst cost for a gun by the same amount (so basically it will reduce the burst cost by 1 AP) but cannot make the burst cost lower than 3 APs. Attention: These are permanent modifications!!! After you do it, you can't go back to the original state of the gun!!! If you drop the extender on a gun's spot and it fails, you should reload. Both the Extender and the gun have been damaged. Knowing that the condition of the Barrel Extender affects the increase on range, you should probably repair it before you put it on the gun. So make sure you have a good mechanic… It may happen sometimes, that during a battle, the extender goes flying off the gun (especially if you fire in burst mode). This can make many people think that the Extender is somekind of useless. Q: I tried putting Glue on the Tube, then putting Tape on Tube, then i tried putting Glue on Tape, then Tape on Tube, and so on. With no luck. How you do it? A: First make sure you use a merc with good mechanical skills to do that. Well the way I made the Barrel Extender was by first putting the steel bar in my hand, then I put the Duct Tape on it, like putting a Sniper Scope on a rifle, just right click the bar and place the Tape in an accessory slot. Finally I put the Quick Glue in a second accessory slot of the bar and voilα, a Barrel Extender. Remember, if you have low mechanical skill, it ain't gonna work. You have to have the skill to use the equipment. ( for more info on this question, see section 2.6.1 – Merging Items & Purposes ) Index ? 2.2 - WEAPONS AMMUNITION Q: I recently captured the military base in Alma, and found a H&K G11. It uses 4.7mm ammo, which I found a 50 round drum in the sector, but so far, I haven't found any other places with that type of ammo, even at Bobby Ray's. Will he eventually sell it, or is there a place in Arulco where I can get it? A: I found some clips for that weapon once when I went to the gun shop in San Mona, he had 5 clips of the 4.7 mm ammo which I quickly bought. I also managed to buy some 5.7 mm ammo, that are also not very common, since the only gun that uses it, the FN P90, is the most difficult gun to find in the game (not to say impossible…). Q: What is the 5.7mm ammunition for, because it doesn't work with H&J G11 which uses 4.7mm caseless also they look very similar. Got them from Tony. A: The only weapon in the game that uses 5.7mm ammunition is the FN P90. Also the G11 is the only weapon in the game to use 4.7mm ammo. Both the 4.7mm and the 5.7mm clips hold 50 rounds, more than any other ammo clips. Q: Where to get 7.62mm Ammo? I have the weapons but zip of bullets… A: I got 3 of those rifles plus Ivan carries some super sniper rifle that also uses same ammo...It's almost impossible to come by with armor piercing bullets (red ones) but the blue ones are sold on the Bobby's ray's website on the first page of ammo page...but still those blue ones are practically useless because everyone wears armor. What I do is take some guy like custom merc or other with AKM loaded with red bullets do the first shot then with Ivan I finish the guy even with a blue bullet because armor is down... Some locations where to look for this ammo are the SAM Sites and C5, in the A.C.A. building, inside one of the lockers. Index o 2.2.1 – Differences Between AP & HP Ammo Soon you'll note that beside normal ammo, some other ammo are labeled with some strange letter combinations. AP? HP? What's this?? Well, AP comes from Armor Piercing and HP from Hollow Point. Here are their differences and best uses from the normal ammo: Normal Ammo - This is the baseline for ammunition. Deals normal damage to all unprotected enemies, but effect is reduced by wearing armor. HP (Hollow Point) - Deals extra damage to unarmored/unprotected parts of the body/enemy by forming big holes. For example, you shoot a guy in the head with an HP round. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a helmet on. Boom, his head splits open like a ripe melon -100 damage. However, if he was wearing any armor at all, say a steel helmet, the damage would be significantly reduced, doing only pretty good damage if you were at close range. HP bullets cause less damage against armour than Normal bullets and more damage against non armour. But HP's are not completely useless against armored targets, they cause more energy loss to a target wearing armor than AP rounds do (ie, the person wearing the armor gets the crud beat out of them from the slug flattening itself on the armor as opposed to going right through with AP rounds.) So if you do ever find yourself cornered with only HP rounds in the clip go for easy torso shots and you should be able to "collapse" enemies and get some easy kills or at least take them out of the fight temporarily. So it's possible to kill anyone, even the gray elite people with HP bullets, but you will experience more difficulties doing so. Tip: HP works wonders against Bloodcats (large and unprotected bodies). AP (Armor Piercing) - This is the type of ammo that goes right past any armor. The damage dealt is about more or less than the normal bullets do, but does almost no extra damage to unarmored targets. It just goes right through the guys. Only down side to AP is that they tend to cause less damage to enemies, compared to HP. Go with the AP because trying to gamble with who and who's not wearing amour can get you killed. Here are two examples for better comprehension of the AP/HP differences: - When I found Mike in my game, Grizzly and Steroid were using G41s with HP ammo, scopes, and bipods. I was really worried when Grizzly put 2 rounds in Mikes head and only did 4 or 5 points of damage. However, after a few more hits he was completely out of energy and just laid there on the ground while my custom merc, Harry, waltzed up and put a burst of AP rounds in his noggin at point blank range, sending Mike for good. - Kingpin's crooney came up with a message. I shoot at him not knowing i had HP load in my gun. First shot, damage 0. Didn't knew still and I shot again, maybe in disbelief, damage -1. Turned Scope around with the AP loaded in Mini-14. He went down. Since then it's been AP for me. Maybe Kingpin0s crooney had that special kevlar vest or something, but the HP sure didn't get the job done. Index ? 2.3 – GRENADES & CO. First of all, let me dissipate the doubts that some people have about the relationship of explosives skill and throwing grenades. You can safely put the Explosives skill to zero and not die throwing a grenade. My custom merc has 0 explosives, and has never blown himself up with grenades. The explosive skill only affects things like using TNT or RDX. Now some advices on Grenades and how they seem to work: I have found that the enemies stance has a bearing on the damage they take. I can only assume that multiple (unarmoured?) locations are hit (head, torso & legs). Crouching and prone opponents are often just stunned. And those are the ones that get up and blast you. In a night battle I had recently, my custom merc threw a breaklight, revealing four standing redshirts clustered together. Blood threw a frag grenade at the middle opponent. The blast blew the target to red mist. Two others were critically wounded, the last one was just wounded. Therefore, my advice is: 1. Use a person with Throwing skill - ie Blood - and a high Strength stat (so he can throw the grenade more accurately at longer distances). 2. Use grenades only against groups of opponents, aiming at the middle of them. The closer you get the better! Do not waste them with only one enemy! They are too valuable. 3. Prone targets are a waste! Only grenade them if Mercs with guns can finish them while down. 4. I assume that the Thrower's level and skill also counts, in a manner similar to markmanship. 5. Stun grenades do just that - STUN! Don't expect them to kill. While the damage modelling may seem to make grenades rather weak, grenades are not the fireball producing pyrotechnics seen on the movies. Grenades attack their victims in two ways - blast (concussion) and fragments. Blast is effective only in close proximity (or in an enclosed space), but is effective against opponents in body armour, as all unarmoured parts are still vulnerable. Fragments are small metal chunks produced by a serrated metal jacket. They generally are low velocity and are stopped by walls, car bodies or flak-jackets (which were designed to stop fragments). Grenades are great wounders but poor killers! Q: I have some land mines, the BOOM kind, when should I >use them? Should I use them after taking a sector or when I am attacking it? A: Don't waste mines to get a 1% chance of enemy stepping on it, use it to train your explosives skill. Index o 2.3.1 – Grenade Launchers Q: Where to find Granade Launchers? A: I found two or three in Grumm and there's a lot of heavy duty weaponry in Alma. Q: Why can I throw a grenade farther than my launcher? I was so excited to find a Grenade Launcher, until I used it and found out that it's nothing more than a grenade TOSSER, which offers no advantage over the range of my Mercs arms - and arms don't take up an extra "big" slot! A: The range does suck, but you can sure fire off a grenade faster than you can throw 'em. Scully needs around 12 to throw (or was it 14 ?) but with a grenade launcher, only take 8. Not to mention that you need to stand straight up to toss a grenade - make yourself a target for enemy snipers. The M203 Grenade Launcher lets you shoot a 40mm grenade while prone or crouched. Q: Ok, has anyone worked out how to use this yet? I have the Talon as an addition to a rifle, and I get a little yellow star that tells me the rifle has it attached... Then when I click a 40mm grenade on the rifle to load it, it also adds as an attachment (one of the four spaces). But, I can only shoot the rifle as a rifle? How do I tell the merc to let rip with the 40mm??? A: When you open the merc menu in tactical mode (the picture of the merc plus the controls) you get a new icon in the button used to change between Single/Burst Fire fire. When the Talon is attached there should be 3 switch modes, as exposed below: - First click on the icon: Burst Fire - Second click on the icon: Grenade Launcher - Third click on the icon: Back to Single Shot. Index o 2.3.2 – Stun Grenades Q: Stun Grenades are useless? I threw a Stun Grenade at two redshirts sitting close to each other. Knocked them down, but next turn they both get up, one fires a burst and two shots, the other fires three shots. I threw another grenade, out of curiousity. This time only one of them was knocked down - the one who was hit directly by the grenade remained sitting. And again they each fired several times, and now MY merc is lying unconscious. This happened again and again. Enemies hit by a stun grenade almost never stay down the next turn. So, what are they good for? A: They are most usefull in urban combat. Before running into a house/room, toss a stunner in (cheap but effective way of negating the opponents interrupt). Let 2 scouts sneak, to spot the enemy (they only engage when forced to). Arming them with smoke and stunners. The 2 scouts allow my ground assault team to move freely. When I don't have the time /ability to see into a house, first thing in is a stunner. If possible put also 2 snipers on roofs providing cover for the rest of the mercs. Index o 2.3.3 – Shaped Charges Shaped charges are little explosives designed for opening secure/well locked doors. What it actually does is decrease the lock strength. Once you place the charge on the door, give it a few swift kicks and it'll open. I tried using Grizzly once to kick open the door at the Drassen SAM site and it wouldn't budge no matter how many times I kicked it. Barry then used the charge and kicked twice and it opened. 'Course, I could've just blown the whole thing to kingdom come but I was seeing just how the shaped charges work. :) Personally I think a TNT is more fun, but you can carry more shaped charges. Q: How do I use shaped charges? A: It's one of the options on the "use-door" screen (lockpick, force, crowbar…): left- click on a closed door with a merc who has a shaped charge and select the option "use shaped charge": just like you would do with a crowbar, or a lockpicking kit. You need a merc with reasonable explosive skill - otherwise it will blow up in your face :) Index o 2.3.4 - RDX Q: RDX is supposedly a highly explosive material. How do I detonate it? A: Merge it with C1 to make C4, and it says it's unstable. Or merge it with TNT to make HMX (do it yourself to see what it is). RDX jars are fairly stable to carry around. I've taken full bursts in the face while carrying it. But you can detonate RDX by tossing a grenade on it. Index ? 2.4 – ROCKET RIFLES Q: Where to find Rocket Rifles? A: After you take over Alma, you will find a general in one of the buildings, when you speak to him, speak being "direct", he will mention that there are weapons being made in Orta, which is north of Meduna. Once you take this area, move into the building, there will be a Bloodcat researcher, bribe him (took $20,000 to do it for me) and he will lead you to the basement. The basement is almost as well fortified as the outside of the building, after you clear it, you will find a scientist in back. Threaten him until he starts walking, follow him to a room, it will be full of crates, which contained, the first time I played, 6 rocket rifles and several packs of minirockets (HE, AP, and a few HEAP), and the second time found 8, all with no fingerprint ID. Q: I found a Rocket Rifle on a dead enemy elite, and the user ID was programmed to his fingerprint only. I need to know if I can reprogram the user ID so I can fire it. A: There is a guy in the southwest part of Grumm, called Fredo (looks and talks like a transvestite) that has an electronic shop that can erase the fingerprint ID from the Rocket Rifle. Only way to get rid of them. Just take it to him and he should have it fixed in a day. Also, don't take anything from his shop. I did that and the only thing he did from then on was calling me an asshole. NOTE: Before taking it into combat give it to the person who you want to use it have him fire a shot, it won't shoot but it will get his fingerprint, then your all set. Index ? 2.5 – LAW'S The LAW has a backblast, just like in real life. A merc standing just behind someone firing a LAW takes 10 points of damage (this seems to be a fixed number, though I've only tested it a few times). So make sure not to have two mercs standing behind each other when the foremost uses a LAW, or the second will get a roasted face. ? Index ? 2.6 – BODY PROTECTION Unless you hire a high end merc, it is safe to say that pretty much everyone will be starting with Flak Jackets. Sure, they may be good in the first few battles, but once you meet half decent weapons (MP5Ks), don't count on them. The next step up will be a Kevlar vest, which is a decent vest providing good protection. After that comes the Guardian vest which offers a bit more protecton than Kevlar, but doesn't compare to the Spectra vest. Of course, if you combine any of these with Compound 18, the armor will become stronger, but I suggest that you save the Compound for Kevlar, Guardian and Spectra vests. Adding pants for legs protection, means more body protection for you. Naturally the Spectra pants are a better thing to wear, but they're pretty rare, so you'll have to settle for Kevlar, which is decent. Take for example Queen Deidranna. She wears body armour that protects her from bullets, especially non-armour-piercing ones like the HP's. The armour, however, doesn't protect her from knife or martial arts attacks since that's not what Kevlar and other anti- ballastic armour was designed for. Eric T. Cheng – Sirtech Canada Index ? 2.7 – ITEMS Q: Just restarting JA2 after an abortive first effort. But now, Doreen's locker is missing something… This time, Doreen's lockers don't have that MP5K!!! Is its presence random? Should I reload to a point before entering the Drassen sector? A: Yes, items are somewhat randomized (every item has a probability of existing, from 10 to 100%). If you REALLY want the MP5K, you need to reload your game from before entering the sector. You may also need to do something different before entering the sector (so the random cards get shuffled a bit). Ian Currie - Sirtech Canada Index o 2.7.1 – Merging Items & Purposes For trying to merge items, make sure you use a good Mechanic, for the most of stuff, but if you want to merge electronic stuff (ie. to make X-Ray Detector) it's also good to use someone with Electronics specialty. Here are some of the merging possibilities & uses (don't know if there are more…): Marbles (on the ground) = Enemies Fall Flat Rubber Band + Rocks (or other stuff) = Makes enemies investigate the noise (Ambush!) Empty Can + String (attached to a door) = Alarm Aluminium Rod + Spring (attached to a gun) = Less Action Points To Fire Steel Tube + Tape + Quick Glue (attached to a gun) = Longer Barrel/Wider Range Compound 18 + Armor = Stronger Armor Ceramic Plates + Vest = Stronger Vest Queen Bug Slime + Armor = Stronger Armor TNT + RDX = HMX C1 + RDX = C4 TNT + Platin Watch + Tape = TNT With Timed Fuse Lameboy + Copper Wire = Display X-Ray Tube + Fumblepack + Chewing Gum = X-Ray Device X-Ray Device + Display = X-Ray Detector (batteries needed) ( To know where to find the above stuff, go to 2.7 – Where To Buy/Sell/Get Goodies ) Q: I tried to combine the Spring with the Tube, didn't work, I also tried the Steel Tube with the Duct Tape or Quick Glue, didn't work either. So, to combine you just take one and put him on the other? Or you need to do it with mechanics and toolkit? A: It works like this: put the Steel Tube (for instance) in your secondary hand. Pick up the Duct Tape with the left mouse button, then click on the Steel Tube with the right mouse button. You'll get the description of the Steel Tube with four grayed-out boxes. Disregard the grayed-out boxes. Click the left mouse button on one of the boxes and the tape will dump in. Do precisely the same thing with the Quick Glue, and the Steel Tube will disappear, only to be replaced with a "Gun Barrel Extender". Then pick up the Extender and use it on one of the empty spots on a gun. ( for more info on this question, see section 2.1 – Weapons Attachments ) Q: Is it possible to make a Cocktail Molotov? How? (3 answers available) A1: - The making of Molotov Cocktails is only possible in Jagged Alliance 1. This feature is not availeble in Jagged Alliance 2. That means, you can not make Molotov Cocktails in JA2. Topware Interactive A2: - You can't make Molotov Cocktails. Why use them when there are plenty of fragment grenades around? Eric T. Cheng – Sirtech Canada A3: - As I know, all fire-based weapons are disabled in JA2. You can't make Cocktail Molotov, and you can't find and use Flame Thrower. Flamer is only available by cracking savefile, Cocktail maybe not available at all... Although some people said that you could get it, using a knife to cut up T-Shirts into rags, and combine them with Alcohol, in a Jar. I've got those things, but can't seem to make this work. Index o 2.7.2 – X-Ray Detector The X-Ray Detector gives you the curent position of nearby enemies for the duration of the turn. In order to get the X-Ray Detector, you must find the items needed and merge them yourself into 3 separate parts which combine between them after they are done. The parts and their order are: 1. Lameboy + Copper Wire = Display 2. Fumble Pack + Gum = Fumblepack+Gum 3. Fumble Pack/Gum + X-Ray Tube = X-Ray Device 4. X-Ray Device + Display = X-Ray detector Use someone skilled in Electronics to combine the things. Gasket has some problems with them, takes a lots of tries to combine the items and when not successful the parts take damage, so you must have the parts repaired before you try. One thing that Gasket was not able to repair was the X-Ray tube. I don't think that it is repairable. You also will need batteries to run the X-Ray Detector. A place to get bateries is one of the shops in Balime. Index o 2.7.3 - Night Vision Goggles Q: Can you please explain to me how the Night Vision Goggles work, in mine it only makes light a couple spaces away my guy. It sucks. A: The Night Vision Goggles don't light the way for you. You'll see the enemies from farther away. The enemies, not the ground of other dead things. The range of the Night Goggles is not equal to the light radius and they don't suck at all. Q: I found Night Vision headgear. Doesn't "appear" to do much. It mentions slot for AA batteries. Are these needed in its attachments area? Is there another way to "turn it on"? If I wear it all the time, will it only work at night)? A: No batteries required for the headgear. You should get a bigger radius of lighted squares around your character if you got this option on. Might only be one or two squares but it's worth it (You can look farther than the lighted squares anyway). Especially if you equip someone with them who's got the night ability. Index o 2.7.4 - Canteens Q: What do Canteens do? A: They give your merc a boost of energy (blue bar). If the blue bar goes all the way down, your merc collapses and cannot fight for awhile. Index ? 2.8 – WHERE TO BUY/SELL/GET GOODIES Since the presence of some items in a certain place may be random, they may not be there when you go looking for them. But there's also a big chance that they are there… The items in shops are always certain to be there. Just try! Index o 2.8.1 - Where to find some Goodies (By Item) Item Stashes - There are 4 sectors that may contain a stash of items (they are random, but at least one will always have a stash). These sectors are H5 (grenades), J12 (armor), E11 and H10 (weapons, armor and misc. for both) Fumblepack - Balime Lameboy - Balime L12 Video Camera - Balime L12 (Franz or Sam's shops) Darts - Pharmacy in Balime eastern sector after 9:00 am - The Hicks Farm F10 - back farmhouse (4 darts and dart pistol) - Tony's hidden weapon shop in San Mona (buy like 15-20) Marbles - Drassen Batteries - Cambria hospital - Sam hardware store in Balime (4/5 packs) - Jake in Estoni Springs - Junkyard in Estoni (at least 3) Bipods - Bobby Ray's on-line store - Jake in Estoni - Tony's hidden weapon shop in San Mona Elixir - Gabby in I4 or H11 Ceramic Plates - Estoni - Orta basement - Balime Gas Cans - South of first Omerta sector, between Cambria and Omerta - look for a small set of houses and a barn, in the barn's storage shed there is usually a can - B15 in a shed there's 2 full cans of gas - 3 cans in a crate out the back of a house in Alma - Jake in Estoni LAWS - In N7 (two sectors away from Meduna) is an army barracks. Sometimes the sector is not protected so you can walk right over it and not notice. I got 18 LAWs from there - Bobby Ray's on-line store H&K G11 - Mike CAWS - Maddog - Bloodcat lair - Tixa basement Rocket Rifle - Meduna shelter - Upper left Alma sector - have to get to it before someone pushes the alarm button and blows it up. Hint: Make one your merc stand front of that button, so enemies can't push the button. They just run near that button, so it's easy for your other mercs knock down those enemies and steal their weapons - Orta basement – about 5 of them hidden in a storage room Mortars - Tony's hidden weapons store - Bobby Ray's on-line store Mortar Shells - Tony's hidden weapons store - Bobby Ray's on-line store - Devin – Irish explosives dealer Grenade Launchers - Grumm - Bobby Ray's on-line store - Tony's hidden weapons store Alma Military Compound - Lots of good weapons, ammo, protections & other sorted stuff. There's a mortar and a LAW. You just have to prevent the bad guys blowing up the two lockers in which they are stored. Index o 2.8.2 - Where To Find Some Shops & Dealers Bobby Ray's On-Line Store Most of the stuff he sells is shit, but sometimes he has nice stuff, bought a Dragunov off of him in the beginning of 2nd week. His wares change several times a day, so check often. The only drawback is that overnight delivery fee is $200 for every kilogram, so it comes out to be pretty expensive Tony's Hidden Weapon Shop He sells guns, ammo (CAWS, G11 ammo), darts. He also buys stuff. He's in the back of the xxx shop in San Mona, but you gotta get rid of the annoying lesbo in there by giving her a porno tape. After you do that, Hans will let you in to see Tony Devin The Irish explosives dealer – randomly appears in the bars of Drassen and San Mona. He only takes cash, and only sells the heavy stuff like C4, TNT, detonators, etc... If you kill him, you get a Comando and a load of stuff for free... Keith This guy will buy all those Steel Helmets, and Flak Jackets that you no longer want. He'll buy almost anything. He is in the bottom right sector of Cambria...there is a shop (long building) flat roof, pretty much in the middle of the map, but the building lies on the east side of the other buildings... He's not always behind the counter, so you need to check every so often. He won't buy arms though if you don't do the Hick quest for him, but after he will. Also, if you don't do the Hick quest, he will go out of business... Gabby The bug's stuff can be sold to him in I4 or H11. He also sells you some Elixir (bug perfume – makes you smell like a bug). Mickey He only buys bloodcats parts like pelts, teeth, etc. Can be found randomly at city bars. Electronic/mechanic repairing shops Grumm H1 - two shops (fix the Rocket Rifles ID in Grumm electronic shop) and one shop in Cambria Index 3. STRATEGICAL & TACTICAL ISSUES ? 3.1 - CITY CONQUER ORDER The Official JA2 Strategy Guide suggests the following order to conquer the cities: 1 Omerta 8 Grumm 2 Drassen 9 Balime 3 San Mona 10 Tixa Prison 4 Chitzena 11 Creature Quest 5 Cambria 12 Orta 6 Alma 13 Meduna 7 Estoni Q: Any recommendations where to go after overtaking a city? A: Read the intelligence reports and figure out where the key locations are. Talk to people in each town to get quests. Index ? 3.2 - MILITIA Q: Can any Merc train militia? Does the merc doing it make a difference? A: Yes. Basically low Leadership, long time to train. Militia training is based on your leadership and teaching skill (teaching increases the base rate of generating militia, which is based on leadership). Conrad is a teaching expert like Ira but he has higher leadership than Ira, what makes him a better trainer. Then there's Raider and Miguel, who are very good too. Q: Does who trains the militia make a difference other than the speed at which they train? Will a better mercenary with teaching abilities, say, train a more ruthless militia? A: To my knowledge it doesn't make a difference other than the speed. Q: When you train militia, does it ever stop (no more training required?). It keeps giving me the option to train for $750. I've done it several times and it seems to keep adding more men - is there an end point? A: The limit is 20 men per city sector. Militias come in 3 different varieties. Green militias are rookies. Aqua militias are regulars, meaning they have some battle experience or have been trained extensively (this means that after you reach the 20 men limit, if you keep training them, they'll reach the regular status - aqua). Blue militias are veterans, and only get to this stage through battle experience (no way to achieve it with intensive training). When you look at the militia in a sector (using "show militia" icon), you can see something like 10/0/0. First number is rookie militia, second is regular, third is veterans. In the beginning 20 green guys will do the trick. Later in the game 20 rookies don't stand a chance against veteran attackers. Q: Can militia be trained anywhere or just in city sectors? A: Only in city sectors and SAM sites. In the hidden areas like Orta and Tixa there is no possibility of training militia. Q: Any way of healing militia after a battle. You can't heal them with your medics? Will assigning someone to doctor in the sector help? A: You can heal Militia guys that are "Dying" if you have a Merc on the map during/after the battle ends. The Merc needs both medical supplies and a few points of Med skill. Equip the Med Kits and heal them just as if they were your own... since they are! This is a great way to preserve the Militia and even more so when in particular it's a Veteran Militia dude with an Auto-Rifle that is bleeding to death. Index ? 3.3 - MINES Q: Do all mines run out of Gold/Silver? A: Short answer: No. Q: Can you go in mines and explore? A: Yes, you can go inside and explore all the mines. Can usually find silver in them which can be added to your bank account, same way you would add money. You can also find there breaklights, duct tapes, tool boxes, even some TNTs with detonators! Absolutely random, of course. Q: Happened to someone else that the Chitzena mine was tapped out? If so any idea's if you can do something about it? A: In real mode one mine might tap out. Nothing to do about it. It happened to me with the Drassen mine. But it's random. Just a nasty little surprise to make the game harder. Occasionally and in no necessary order one mine might stop working (in real or sci-fi mode). There's no way to start producing there again. There's just no more silver/gold. Another note about mines is that the loyalty of the town is the same as output from the mine (ie. if town loyalty in Cambria is 67%, you only get 67% of what you could have from the mine). Q: Someone said you have to convince head miners to start getting mine profits. I didn't have to convince anyone in Drassen, I just talked to the head guy, he turned it over to me and I seem to be making money. Are there multiple people to talk to for each mine, or just one? A: Just one - no convincing necessary. They were always happy that I wanted their money. Some might require a couple of "talk" sequences. Index ? 3.4 – WEAPONS RANGE AND ACCURACY Weapons Range Q: What does a gun's range mean? A: It's a simple question, but fortunately, the answer is equally simple. When you make one of your mercs fire a gun in Jagged Alliance 2, the merc's chance to hit is calculated based on marksmanship, weapon condition and whether they've just been shot. Well, you get the idea. Then, whatever the merc's chance to hit the target based on all other factors, if the target is out of range, that chance to hit is halved. Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada Weapons Accuracy Q: I have a MP5K sub-machine gun, and I have a Steyr AUG assault rifle, and I need to get a hit on an enemy who is 18 squares away. Both guns are in range, so does it matter which I use? A: The answer is - definitely! The AUG will give you a better chance to hit. Aside from the "out of range" penalty, there is an additional penalty to hit based on the gun's range, which is calculated with the following formula. If the formula produces a negative value, then it's ignored. ( (Current Range x 3) - Gun's Maximum Range) / 1.7 At range 18, this formula works out to: MP5K: (18 x 3 - 20) / 1.7 = 20 AUG: (18 x 3 - 50) / 1.7 = 2 So the MP5K has a -20% chance to hit, and the AUG has -2%! I know which gun I'd use! To give a broader perspective, here are some range penalties at a distance of 26: GUN TYPE RANGE PENALTY Glock 18 * 12 -38% MP5K * 20 -34% G41 30 -28% Steyr AUG 50 -16% M24 80 - 0% *These guns would also have their chance to hit halved for being out of range. Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada Other info Q: I heard that a sniper scope reduces range penalties, so does that mean that there's no point in putting a sniper scope on a sniper rifle? A: Well, no. I didn't say that the gun-range penalty was the ONLY penalty due to range, did I? Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada Q: What is the percentage penalty for shooting at a ducking enemy as opposed to a standing one. What about a prone enemy? A: If you're firing at an enemy who is crouching, you can receive up to a 20% penalty to hit, or 40% for a prone target. At a range of up to 5, the penalty is 0; it increases by 3% by each tile until the maximum is reached. So at a range of 10, the penalty to hit a crouched or prone merc is 15%. At range 15, the penalty to hit a crouched merc has "maxed out" at 20%, but the penalty to hit a prone merc has increased to 30%. Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada Q: Does a weapon's condition affect the weapon's ability to fire? A: If a character's marksmanship skill is greater than the status of their gun, then their base chance to hit is reduced by half of the difference between the two values. For instance, if Sidney (marksmanship 92) is firing a beat-up Colt .45 with a status of 60, then his effective marksmanship is (92+60)/2 or 76. Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada Q: Is a character's chance to hit affected by being shot? A: Definitely. First of all, there's a hidden "shock" value in the game which penalizes a character by 5% per point. The shock value of taking damage is equal to 1/10th of the life loss plus 1/20th of the breath loss. So a shot which took away 10 health and 20 breath would inflict 2 shock points. Characters recover from shock naturally: a character's shock value gets halved every time they get a new turn. Being shot will reduce the character's life and breath values, of course. Breath loss can reduce the chance to hit by up to 50% (if they had no breath left at all… although, of course, they'd be unconscious at that point!). This penalty is reduced by the character's dexterity value. A character with 100 Dexterity would only lose 1/10th of this penalty. Actual wounds can reduce the chance to hit by up to 66%, with experience level as the compensating factor (a level 9 character would only receive 20% of this penalty). Bandaged wounds only penalize the character half as much as untreated ones. Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada Putting It All Together Here are some examples of shots and their basic chances to hit: Example 1: In daytime, spending 4 APs to aim, Scope fires a Glock 17 at an enemy standing 15 tiles away. Scope's marksmanship: +99 4 APs for aiming +40 Range 15 sighting penalty -20 (-2% to hit for each tile beyond 5) Range 15 gun penalty (gun range=12) -19 (13-15*3) / 1.7 Subtotal 100 Out of effective range penalty / 2 Total 50 Example 2: Instead, Scope fires a burst with an MP5K at the same target. (Her gun is now in range, but she can't get an aiming bonus.) Scope's marksmanship +99 Range 15 sighting penalty -20 Range 15 gun penalty (gun range=20) -14 (20-15*3) / 1.7 Total (Chance for first shot) 65 Chance for second shot (-8 * 1) 58 Chance for third shot (-8 * 2) 50 Chance for fourth shot (-8 * 3) 42 Chance for fifth shot (-8 * 4) 34 Example 3: Without aiming, in daytime, Scope fires a Dragunov (with a sniper scope and laser scope) at a standing enemy's head at range 26. Scope's marksmanship +99 Range 26 gun penalty -1 (75-26*3)/1.7 Range 26 sighting penalty -42 Head shot (-3% per tile of sighting range, x26) –72 Laser scope bonus +20 Total 4 Example 4: The next turn, spending 3 APs aiming points, Scope fires again. By spending 3 APs aiming, her sniper scope reduces the sight range by 60% for this shot (from 26 to 10). Scope's marksmanship +99 Aiming x 3 +30 Aiming at same target as last shot +10 Range 26 gun penalty -1 (75-26*3)/1.7 Range 10 sighting penalty -10 Head shot (-3% per tile of sighting range, x10) –30 Laser scope bonus +20 Total 118 (maxes at 99) In Official JA2 Website - Sirtech Canada Index ? 3.5 – KNIFE THROWING As for knife throwing - throw knifes with high level mercs to enemy's head! Kills unaware enemies 4 of 5 times (70-90 damage), even within ~10-12 squares (however your merc have to gain high marksmanship). Anyone who has not used throwing knives yet, give em a spin! They eat ass crackers, in a good way. I took two cities at night (Drassen and Cambria) using only 2 throwing knives. You gotta love that one-toss-one-kill. Of course it doesnt work every time, I think it has to do with your range from the enemy, the alertness of the enemy, and i think there's a part of it thats just random as well. I've killed just as many enemies facing my direction as I have those facing away. Index ? 3.6 – PICKING LOCKS Q: I seem to have the biggest problems opening metal doors and other things. I can shoot lockers open but am not successful shooting the metal doors open. I thought I was doing it before, is there maybe an option I checked? How does everyone else open a door if they dont have the key. I dont feel like wasting all my heavy explosives. A: 1. Use a merc with high Mechanical and the lockpicking skill (make sure he has a lockpicking kit). If he doesn't open the door in first attempt, try again & again until he opens it or he says that he really can't open that damn door. Lots and lots of times they will open the doors after some frustrating attempts. The best men for the job are Trevor, Magic, Static, Vicki, Gasket, Steroid, Maddog & Dynamo; 2. Use a merc that has high Strength with a crowbar; 3. Use Shaped Charges (door locks explosives) Index ? 3.7 – "HEADS OFF" Q: How to blow the head of an enemy? Is it random or you got to be close? I love it when that red blood juicy brain cracker erupt from that screaming dead face!!! A: The best way is to crouch on the roof over a door and wait. You'll be close enough to do the head shot without missing plus it'll pop every time. Best done at night. There's a similar animation if you pop somebody close up in the torso. They'll go flying back with blood coming out of their back and their inventory will be spread out over the distance traveled. BTW you can't cut off the head if you blow it off so don't do it to the intercept most wanted people. Q: How do you cut off the head of the terrorists like Druggist or the Imposter because I already found them and after I kill them there is no head. A: You have to knock the enemy down or simply kill them so when they are on the ground you should be able to chop the heads off with a machete. Simply attack the body, and the head will be yours. Tried with lots of dead guys, worked all the time. Look then for the Bounty Hunter, since he'll buy heads of terrorists. ( for more info on this topic, see section 6.3 – Bounty Huntin' Terrorists ) Index ? 3.8 - STEALING Here, I'll explain a trick to get weapons that enemies won't drop when they die. The idea is to knock out enemy soldiers, take their gun, and not get shot up in the process. Ideally you should only be doing this with the last remaining enemy unit or a secluded unit that has wandered into run n' punch distance of 3 of Mercs. Though it is worth while to take some major damage to get a kick butt Rifle (like the SKS) during the beginning stages of the game. So, to do it, manage to get close an enemy, and punch the badguy in the torso (usually 3 hits) or hit him with a crowbar or a stun grenade to make him fall to the ground. Do not inflict serious damage to him, only put him unconscious. That leaves an enemy who won't rise in about two turns, which gives alot of time to rob him and kill silently (you can steal from a standing enemy but it helps that he doesn't shoot you with his secon gun the next turn). What I've tried so far and works is to use a group to pull it off. I find this works best for at night with my mercs camo'd up. Load up some silenced SMG's and a bunch of tear gas and stun grenades in case things go sour. If you run into only one guy, move in close, pop a couple of silenced shots into him to soften him up, and have someone run up and punch him into submission. Then grab the weapon and finish him off. If you find a big group and want to get them all or if you get rushed, just start tossing out as many stun and tear gas grenades as you can. Oh btw you may get the load/wait cursor for awhile (spinning stopwatch). But it should be alright. Some tricks to get close: 1) Sneak close at night to his back in stealth mode if your merc have corresponding bonus; 2) Just plain run to enemy; 3) Hide and wait right at the corner of a building or behind door; 4) Use smoke grenade/tear gas first. They will be laying on the ground suffering. Then use stun grenades. But make sure you have gas masks on! 5) Try a tranquilizer dart. It only do 1 or 2 damage, but takes down any merc regardless of ability; 6) Trick him to a place where you can ambush him. To pickpocket enemy, you must have both hands free and stand next to him having enough APs. Then do CTRL over the body and left click. You might get a gun which is really useful in the early game. Don't trust white number of necessary APs over grabby hand set over enemy, this is MINIMAL required APs. Pickpocketing takes all your APs, so have other merc or two nearby to kill enemy after robbery. However if enemy is in "dying" state you will almost never get anything from him. If you doing robbery with your custom merc with both hands free, you'll get some weapon ~100% cases. Other mercs could steal guns too, but with less chances. I have never succeed to steal anything exept guns enemies holding, but maybe it is possible to get some other items too. BEWARE! Most enemies have more than one gun. If you took his gun, you're not safe anyways, he can: 1) Take his other gun and feed you with 4-5 bullets; 2) Get a knife/machete and cut you; 3) Punch you several times. But in any case pickpocketing (especially from grey and camouflaged enemies) is good way to obtain good guns which are hard to be found in other ways, because after the death of enemy his gun disappears in most cases. In some versions of the game it's even possible to steal the same item multiple times. Q: As for stealing, my game didn't crash, it just appeared to do nothing. Am I doing this right. Will stolen items simply "appear" in inventory or will a selection screen come up? Can some mercs steal while others can't? Again, I walked up to a living, breathing enemy who was still very much in on the fight and put the grabbing hand over him at close range, the stopwatch came up and, seemingly, nothing happened (but no crash - game simply continued). Should he be unconscious? A: Same here (with the game doing nothing). Seems to depend on the speed of the machine because the program seems to calculate quite alot when you steal. If you're successful you should have the gun in your hand or receive a message on screen that says you haven't been succesful and even tells you which gun the enemy has. I tried to steal again from an unconscious guy from which I took a gun. The game just hung for a couple of seconds an then returned to the normal state ... But there are confirmed bugs in stealing. Sometimes you can steal weapons in amount one man (or one tank) can't hold. I have stolen 4 LAWs from one guy (yeah, it is possible guy had it in 4 slots, but all were in same % condition! I have also read a message on stealing 7 FAL's from one guy – this bug has been fixed in 1.05r). Captured weapons seems to be just duplicated in such cases. Stealing Tank cannons is bug too, so you will not have any ammo for it. Index ? 3.9 – STEALTH Q: When stealthy, how do you know EXACTLY when the enemy spots you? I assume that you go into turn-based mode when you spot them, but have they seen you? How do you know whether to sneak further or start blasting? A: When they see you they'll come running to you to initiate hand to hand combat, shoot immediately, go into the "ready" stance for shooting or use their walky talkies first before shooting. You won't know which effects the step to the next square will have. Q: Is it possible to knife or martial arts kill an enemy silently without a guard right nearby noticing? How stealthy can you get? A: Silencer is also an option. About a guard right nearby - not sure about it. 5-6 squares might be possible if he doesn't look into the direction. Index ? 3.10 – SURRENDERING There are 3 locations where your imprisoned mercs are to be kept. Before you capture Alma, prisoners are taken to sector I13, Alma military prison. After you capture it, the mercs will be imprisioned in sector N7 (where normally are loads of LAW's) or at Tixa Prison. Prisoner will then be interrogated by Deidranna and her assistants (Joe and Elliot) if the merc made prisioner is your CUSTOM merc. Not just ANY merc will do. I found only one difference if you answer Yes/No/Lie. If I told the truth, there was a knife in the room next to the room I was kept hostage, if I lied, there was no knife (can be very useful to escape). BTW, sometimes, there's no one at that sector, you can easily escape with loads of stuffs. But other times, a guard may be expecting you, just outside the first door… And if you're playing in Expert, expect many enemies there. Watch out! The simplest way to be taken prisoner is right after landing. The first enemy you encounter will offer you to do it. Another way is to wear a "Deidranna Rules" T-Shirt. I've tried this with both custom merc and AIM merc. Result is the same except for the interrogation (whether it's your custom merc or not). Main thing is to avoid the imprisioned mercs to get killed while in prison (pure luck). I've got only 2 such cases. Both happened after seizure of Alma but before assault to any other town. It seems there is some regularity, but I can't confirm this for sure. Now I'll try to give more detailed description of some cases that happened to me: CASE 1 After the seizure of Alma, bugs appeared in Drassen mine. I have not paid attention, but then (when bugs crawled to surface and killed all militia in sector) I've been forced to gather all mercs able to fight and send them to Drassen. It was small team - Shadow, Scope, Sydney, Ivan and Wolf. It was all easy from beginning, but bottom level appeared to be real slaughter. I've had too few clips (I've met bugs for first time) so Shadow and Scope were killed and others were covered with bug gas cloud, and unconscious. That's all... Got message: "Battle is lost, your mercs unconscious and imprisoned" (I wonder why bugs haven't eaten them but extradited to Deidranna). Few seconds later I've seen video cut of interrogation scene. Sector N7, prison block cell. Enter Deidranna, Joe and Elliot. Deidranna asks "who hired you", "how much of you", etc. You can answer true or lie. I've lied all the time. Joe slashed Wolf for each unfair answer. After interrogation was over, D. asked Elliot to close door when leaving, but he forgets to do it of course (he looked badly by this time). Video cut is over. Wolf is unconscious. Ivan and Sydney creeps to next room, there is knife here. Ivan kills guard in next room with knife, finds silenced Beretta in closet. Headed outside, there is nobody here. Found medi kit and 1-2 R-boosters in medical store. Sydney returns to heal Wolf, and all mercs moves to weapon store through south door. There are boxes here... Some of them contains LAWs, and some - guns and equipment of my guys! Now they are equipped. Opened door to big room, there are 3 or 4 redskirts here, Ivan fires Beretta. Redskirts pays no attention. It wasn't interesting to continue, so I've reloaded. Now I wonder - if I would answer true, what happens then? Maybe Deidranna would send assassins to Enrico? And maybe there should be video cut where D. slashes Elliot because he have not closed the door? Maybe I'll check it later. CASE 2 This time I've decided to let someone be captured since the very beginning. I have not created custom merc. Hired Bull for 1 day, have not equipped him at all and sent with just letter in pocket. After landing I've dropped letter to ground (little trick, to prevent letter being read by enemy), and surrended Bull. Got message in log: BLANK captured! What is BLANK? (I'm sure this is a bug and where BLANK is, should be the name of the captured merc). Then I've created custom, hired team and landed in Omerta by 13-30 of same day. There were no enemies here. Just letter on ground with message from Bull: "Guys! I was framed! Help me!" (Joke :)) All other is usual - Fatima, rebels, Drassen, Cambria, Chitzena, etc. Sometimes when saving there was description "I13 Alma". Day 21: assault on Alma. On entering sector I13, message appears: "Prisoners are being held here", And I see Bull in cell of prison. I can't order him anything but can see guard walking by his door (no interrupts). I have had TNT, but decided to do it in silence, without blowing the wall. Killed outer guards silently, then one guard jumped from roof (maybe heard something). Found dead elite, but instead of alarm, he just took the gun dropped by his collegue. Big and final mistake. Meltdown with 2 MACs goes forward, in room with computers finds a key. Now back to court... Redskirt's here! Meltdown killed him, but alarm started. Somebody released gas... I've thought Bull is over, but nothing bad happened to him - gas is only in corridor, cells are clear. I've finished battle and got new entry to log: "Prisoners are free", and "BLANK captured" message turned grey. Included Bull to group. CASE 3 Same game as Case 2. After Alma battle, Raider, Sydney, Buns and Meltdown were sent to attack Balime. They've met a group of 32 enemies... It was ok from beginning, Sydney and Meltdown crawled by edge and were killing single enemies. Then direct battle begun. Enemy has one elite with UV goggles in group. Sydney and Raider were killed, Buns and Meltdown, wounded but bandaged, were covered with tear gas cloud and lost consciousness. Then there was interrogation cut like in Case 1. By the end of interrogation both were unconscious. Elliot offered to call medic, but D. disallowed. Both girls died because of blood loss. Funny Note: Even Deirdranna can be killed in this sector ! If you escape from the jail and place your soldiers close to the door to the fore-room and then speed up the time in the tactical screen, a battle in the sector where the soldiers have been captured is announced. But no one of your caught soldiers is there, s you can leave the battle screen again and speed up time. After some time go back to N7 and Deirdranne has returned, standing right in front of you (maybe to continue the inquisition ?). Until she is not attacked, you can speak with her and Joe (maybe even recruit him for money ???). If you have fast meelee mercs she can be killed. I knifed her in the neck with Bull, hit her twice (with a lot of luck and many tries) and after she went down, Q has beaten the shit out of her. That's it ! Index ? 3.11 – SAVING TIME Because as time goes by, the game may become harder – city loyalties may drop, mines will run out of gold/silver, Deidranna's patrols are stronger, I leave here some suggestions for you to save some time while playing: - Move the landing site for newly recruited mercs from Omerta to Cambria (the best city to establish a base) as soon as the central SAM site has been secured. That way mercs can be equipped from your stockpile and immediately join a squad. - Don't send your squad back to Omerta for Dimitri. Hire a mercenary from AIM and use this guy to grab Dimitri before he leaves to join up with your squad. - Mercs can sleep whilst riding in vehicles. Alternate drivers so they all get a rest. - Don't have mercs stand around doing nothing. If they aren't tired get them to repair items or to explore nearby sectors. - Don't take the gas out of Drassen. You will need it here later in the game. - Once you have more than one squad. Use them to attack seperate sectors simultaneously. - Try not let a merc get so exhausted that he falls to sleep. It takes a long time for him to recover. Short cat-naps are best. Keep mercs fully rested. - Have specialist mercs spending all their time performing one task - repairing items, training militia, etc. - Alternate 2 mercs doing the same task. One merc does it for a couple of hours, the 2nd one takes over letting the first merc sleep for a while - this keeps the mercs fully rested in case of attack. Index ? 3.12 – MAXIMIZING YOUR MONEY Here are some advices on how to get the maximum profit, so that you don't have money problems later on: - Only hire 2 or 3 mercs on the first day. With Ira and your custom merc you have a squad of 4 or 5. This is enough to secure Drassen. - When hiring more mercenaries later on in the game never pay for their equipment. You will have plenty of spare gear to equip them. - Try and secure the Drassen mine (D13) on the first day to get income coming in as soon as possible. - The higher the town loyalty the more income you will derive from the mines. - Always attack Deidranna's patrols when you see them. This will give you a regular supply of weapons to sell to Tony. - Don't buy from Bobby Rays more than is necessary - freight is a killer. - The helicopter is expensive. Only use it when it is necessary. - Try not to extend a merc's contract until you have enough to afford 2 weeks. It is the most economical rate. - If you have a choice between buying damaged items and fully functional items, buy the damaged ones and repair them. - For some spare change buy badly damaged items, repair them, and sell them back. - Make business with local merchants. Note that each merchant offers different prices for each item and they renew their cash supply each day (see the table below for details on the merchants available). - A final advice: Cambria is the best town to use as a base. It is central to everything plus Keith is the best guy to sell most items to. Tony (C5) Tony in San Mona (C5) gives the best prices for weapons and ammo (exception: throwing knives. Jake in Estoni offers $40 for a bloody knife which is more than Tony offers for a clean one). Dump all excess weapons in San Mona to sell to Tony when he is in his office. He's in the back of the xxx shop in San Mona, but you gotta get rid of the annoying lesbo in there by giving her a porno tape. After you do that, Hans will let you in to see Tony. Keith (G9) Keith in Cambria (G9) offers best prices for all stuff with the exception of the weapons and ammo (see Tony) and some few items (see Jake). Keith only has a limited amount of cash (about $1,500) each day so leave excess items in the sector and come back tomorrow. Also, he won't buy weapons if you don't do the Hick quest for him, but after he will. Also, if you don't do the Hick quest, he may go out of business... Jake (I6) Jake in Estoni (I6) offers the best prices for: bloody knifes, alcohol, beer, wine, canteen, discarded LAW's. For other items it's better to sell them to Keith. Franz (L12) Franz in Balime (L12) sells cheap goods but he also buys cheaply - don't sell anything to Franz if you can sell the stuff to other merchants for far more cash. Index 4. VEHICLES There are only 3 vehicles that you can get, to help you travelling in Arulco. These are the Helicopter, the Ice Cream Truck and the Hummer. You'll not be able to use other vehicles that you may find during the game – trucks in some farms & a bunch of tanks in Meduna. The Ice Cream Truck and the Hummer are good, especially when the enemy still has SAM Sites, because they can move into territory where the Helicopter might get shot down. Also, if you've got more than one team, operating in different parts of the country, the Heli comes very expensive and as long as you've got no other airport than Drassen he has to return for fuel. The ground vehicles are also pretty useful to transport weapons to the store and back. Index ? 4.1 – THE HELICOPTER If you want to be able to use a helicopter to transport your mercs, you'll have to find the pilot (Skyrider) who is hidden somewhere, and control at least one airport, that should be the one at Drassen. The heli moves mercs very fast, but cost $$$ though, and after some time it will have to return to the base for refuelling. To use the helicopter after you found the pilot, go to the Strategical Map screen, click on the helicopter icon. Skyrider will ask what you want. Then you can move the helicopter like your mercs. To load mercs in helicopter, use the same screen, select merc squad and select vehicle, followed by helicopter. ( for more info on this subject, see section 5.2.3 – Skyrider: The Chopper Pilot ) Index ? 4.2 – THE ICE CREAM TRUCK Getting the Ice Cream Truck can be difficult sometimes, since it appears on some random locations that are the roads between Drassen/Cambria, San Mona/Cambria and Cambria/Chitzena. There are reports of finding it in D3, D7, D9, D11, F12 & G6. So visit these sectors and you should be able to find the Truck. Note also that you can do this in the Strategic Map, because when you enter the sector where the Truck is, it will bring up a message informing you of an encounter with something or someone. Another thing to have in account is that when you find the Truck, you should also find Hamous, who owns the Truck at the time. You have to recruit him, so that you can use the Truck, and Hamous will be the driver. Giving him the money he wants do the trick. You should be able to put an entire team of 6 mercs in the Ice Cream Truck. You can do it in 2 ways: - Put people in the truck by going to the sector map screen and clicking on the mercs you want in there and then selected for them to be in the vehicle of choice. Note that you have to hold down CTRL and click on the truck for your second to sixth merc. - Use the strategic map to get the mercs inside the vehicule. It's the easiest way. Where you assign mercs to a squad select Vehicle, then the one of your choice. Q: If you encounter enemies in a sector while ridding in the Ice Cream truck, will you lose the vehicle if you retreat the sector? A: In that case you'll have to go the sector (you'll get the menu if you wanna flee or fight). In case you ride a vehicle your team will be dismounted but close to the vehicle. In tactical mode the vehicles can't move. So if you decided to fight but then try to leave you'll have to leave the vehicle behind. Q: In one sector found Hamous and his Ice Cream Truck. Had to kill 8 guards and made Hamous join the team (to get the Truck). Went to a battle with another team in another sector. Finished that fight and went back to the sector and the truck was gone!! What happened? How to solve this problem? A: That's what happened to me yesterday: found Hamous, went to the sector, Tactical map. I went to the web then etc, etc and in the end the Truck didn't appear on the Strategic map anymore and it wasn't possible for the two mercs in sector to mount the truck in the team/task list. When I went to the sector in Tactical mode it still was there and I could mount it (steering wheel cursor). Once that was accomplished I could see it as an icon again. Index ? 4.3 – THE HUMMER The Hummer is in the sector just east of Balime (L10). You'll find a guy named Dave, that will sell it to you for 10.000. He will also refuel it for free. There is only one but, that is that you have to wait a day for Dave having the Hummer ready for you. About how to put the mercs in the vehicle see the Ice Cream Truck chapter above. There are also rumors of being able to replicate a Hummer. This may not work in the more recent versions of the game, since it may have been corrected. But try anyway: - Drive the Hummer you bought out of L10, then go back to the gas station, and voila, another Hummer appears out of nowhere. The NPC which sold the Hummer, didn't even have a clue that the Hummer's still there. Just pop in, and drive it out, now you've got two Hummers. - If you drive the Hummer into a sector occupied by any other mercs on your payroll, it will replicate and you will then have two. Someone stated that presently owned 3. Index ? 4.4 – THE TANKS It's possible to capture and use Tanks as a transport vehicle (you cannot fire it's guns). To do it, I captured Meduna Gardens, trained militia, and got attacked by enemies, when I heard the tank turrets going. I thought to myself, "oh shit, more tanks, and I've used all my LAWS!" but the things didn't shoot at my militia… Turns out they were militia tanks or something. (BTW they didn't fire then either, they just moved their turrets around). So after the battle I went to the tactics screen and saw the tanks under "Repair- Vehicles-Tank-Tank" there was 2 of them. I couldn't fix them so I tried putting a guy in one on the tactics screen, and he went in. I drove it up to the Airport in Meduna, and it acts like any other vehicle. Really weird, but its true. BTW, after I saved the game and came back later. The 2nd tank dissapeared. So I only had one, but hey, better than the hummer! Index ? 4.5 – FUELING THE VEHICLES The Helicopter is refueled automatically, you just have to authorize it. For the other 2 vehicles, you have to do it manually with Gas Cans. Gas for the vehicles can be obtained in Estoni after you escort Shank there. He is rescued from the basement of Tixa. In Estoni make Shank talk to a guy named Jake, from there you can buy gasoline from him. There are also gas cans placed all around the map. There's usually one just South of the first Omerta sector, between Cambria and Omerta (look for a small set of houses and a barn, in the barn's storage shed there is usually a can). Here's how to see how much gas a vehicle has in the moment: On the strategic map, select the vehicle in your merc list. It has a picture, health bar and energy bar. The health bar shows any damage that needs to be repaired. The energy bar shows how much gas it has. As an example, the Ice Cream Truck holds about three full gas cans. To gas up the vehicles with the gas can, go to the in sector view, have the merc with the gas get out, put the gas in his hands and right click and left click on the vehicle. It looks like if your merc is just standing next to the truck, and you order him to refuel, he will do nothing. You have to make him walk towards the vehicle and refuel it. So go away some steps before you do it. Index 5. CITIES & QUESTS RELATED In this section you'll find detailed information on all cities of Arulco (that island where you're at), what you'll find on them, who you'll find (the NPC's – Non Player Characters), what tasks should be completed there (the quests) and how to complete them. Tried to put total and precise information about all this, so you can discover all that this great game has to offer. If you have additional info please send it to the e-mail on the first page. Each city or VIP (Very Important Places!) in Arulco will have it's own chapter, having all quests that you should complete there (or part of it) a sub-chapter inside the corresponding city chapter. At the beginning of each city/VIP, you'll find a table that resumes some basic info on that place. The NPC's you'll find and whether thay are recruitable or not, if they appear randomly in the city (means that they travel a lot between cities, so you may not find them at those places all the time) and the places you'll want to visit, by sector, since thay have something or someone that might interest you. That table contain most of the time many links to other places of this Guide with other useful info about what you've just clicked on, besides the one that's already on that chapter (ie. If you click on Miguel, you'll be directed to the NPC's section in the first chapter, where there is additional info on him). Let's begin by the city you encounter when you start playing the game, the city of… Index ? 5.1 – OMERTA Recruitable NPC's: A10 - Ira, Dimitri, Carlos, Miguel Non-Recruit.NPCs: A9 – Pacos (son of Fatima – talk to him and he'll take you to her) Fatima (a friend of the rebels – give her Enrico's letter) Random NPC's: ----- Places To Visit: A9 - Fatima's House A10 – Rebel Headquarters o 5.1.1 – A Letter For Miguel Just when you start the game, your boss, Enrico, has already dropped a quest on you. You should find Miguel Cordona to deliver him a letter from Enrico, asking for help. To start kill the enemies in the first sector you start in, then take a look around and you'll find a young boy named Pacos just south of where you landed. Talk to him. However Paco's mother has told him not to talk to strangers (especially with guns!). He'll eventually run away no matter what you say to him. Follow him into the building. Pacos will lead you to his mother, Fatima. Talk to her nicely and when she asks for something to prove that what you say is true, give her the letter, and she'll lead you to Miguel (you'll have to walk with her to the sector in the right). Once inside the rebel HQ, listen to everything that Miguel, the rebel leader says. He will tell you that they are in need of food and ammunition, and to contact a Father Walker in Drassen. This is your next mission. Then try to recruit him. You'll be directed to recruit Ira, another member of the rebels' team. Now that you've got a new mission and a new team member, leave the rebels' basement hideout. Just another note: if you kill Fatima and Dimitri (the man standing at the door of the building with the secret entrance to rebel HQ), you'll not be able to get to the hideout, since the stairs leading to sub-level 1 won't open. Index ? 5.2 – DRASSEN Recruitable NPC's: XX - Skyrider (the helicopter pilot – he's in surrounding swamps) Non-Recruit.NPCs: B13 - Pablo (he supervises the shipments at the Airport) Sal (will replace Pablo on the job if you kill him) C13 – Doreen (owner of a factory exploiting child labor) Herve (bar owner) D13 – Father (he will organize the food transport to the rebels) Fred (lead miner) Random NPC's: C13 - Carmen (head hunter) Places To Visit: B13 - Airport C13 – Doreen's Factory, Bar D13 – Church, Mine Administration, Bar o 5.2.1 – Doreen: The Child Labor Exploiter In the middle sector of Drassen, you will find a big factory building, with lots of kids working inside. If yau talk to them, they will say that the owner of the factory (Doreen), is really bad and makes the kids work like dogs through the day. So, they wished that Doreen just "disappeared". It's up to you to do that task. However, just like most things about this game, there are more than just one solution for any given problem. For this quest you have 3 possibilities: - Go the easy way & drop a bullet in Doreen's head, putting her 6 feet under; - Convince Doreen to close the factory first and then shoot her (outside the factory, taking care of children feelings), you'll get not only MP5K and stuff from her closet but also extra 2% of Drassen loyalty in comparison to each other solution of problem; - Through dialog you can convince her to change her ways. Have your Custom Merc speak to her Friendly-like. Keep speaking friendly, even though see gives some half aggressive answers. Eventually, she says she sees the errors of her ways, and leaves. You can confirm that you have done right, by speaking to the children, they all say something about being free. This may require a certain leadership to do. NOTE: If you choose the third option, you may not be able to get the items on her storage room... though it seems you can find a key to it in the houses nearby in a bathroom cabinet (not always there). Plus, it is so much fun to waste her! Why would you want to keep her alive? Shoot that b*tch!!! Index o 5.2.2 - Father Walker When you have already talked to Miguel, in Omerta, you will be asked to somehow get food to all the people hiding in the basement hideout. The only way to do this is to find a certain priest (Father Walker) that is able to organize the food transport for the rebels. It will give you a raise in loyality, and access to recruit more rebels for your team, who don't cost a penny… so it's important that you do it. He can be in two locations. One is in the middle sector of Drassen inside a bar, the other is in the northern sector of Drassen inside his church. Remember to try during the day. If you do a night time assault on Drassen, wait till morning and go find him. Then talk to him, but if your mercs have poor Leadership, you better speak to him by using Ira. Then give a bottle of wine/beer (something with alcohol) to the Father. He'll become very talkative and at last say that the Queen found a way to use dead bodies. This info is to be included to your log (think it has to do with the bugs…). He now will also organize the food transportation to the rebels. Index o 5.2.3 – Skyrider: The Chopper Pilot If you want to be able to use a helicopter to transport your mercs, you'll have to find the pilot, named Skyrider that is hidding in the swamps near Drassen. After you found him, to use his services, you'll have to clear some SAM Sites or he won't be able to do his job since the airspace is not secure and he will be shot down. He will also tells you the locations of all SAM Sites, a short time after you find him and start moving by chopper. Finding Skyrider: If Waldo (airport mechanic) says you killed the helicopter pilot in Drassen, don't worry. Who you killed was the military pilot of the helicopter but Skyrider (another pilot) is still hiding in the swamps. To find him talk to the girl in the church in Drassen after talking to Father Walker (others locals also do the trick), she will ask if that is your hideout in the swamp and give you a direction, east, south, southwest… etc. The location is random, but will be limited to the swamp areas around Drassen, that are three sectors around Drassen (around means they can be two or three sectors away and don't necessarily have to border on Drassen). He's in one of them, usually inside a house. Recruit and escort him back to Drassen. Also, you don't need to go to the Tactical map. When you enter the sector where he is you'll get a message telling you that your team has met someone (same with Ice Cream Truck and other quest related NPCs). ( for more info on this chapter, see section 4.1 – The Helicopter ) Index o 5.2.4 – Pablo & The Gun Shipments After you have captured the Drassen Airport sector you'll be able to order weapons and other stuff through Billy Ray's on-line weapons store, to be delivered in the Airport. Pablo is the man in charge of the shipments work in the Airport. But sometimes there are some problems, when ordering the stuff… Q: Problem with Gun Shipments. I don't know where they went in the Airport… A: Are you looking in the crates in the building marked SHIPMENTS? I found that if you talk to Pablo before opening the crates may help reduce the losses. Also need to use merc with high leadership. I found also that if I bribe Pablo, usually with $100, from time to time, I'll get all my stuff intact, and always assume a friendly posture. If you already have militia, just withdraw $10 from your account & give it to him (don't choose "give" option in chat options, instead withdrow $10 from bank and put them with cursor on Pablo). Your history log will read "Greased Pablo's palms" and from then on he will guard your stuff 100% just as if you had shot him in the legs. If you rough him up that helps too but be careful with the violence. Just use the fist icon on him (punch) a few times, and it'll work wonders for your relationship... If you attack Pablo after you have militia at Drassen airport, your loyal militia will interpret Pablo as an enemy & go ballistic. Pablo will not survive. If you kill him the locals will turn against you. But if decide to cut Pablo's throat (Ira tells you that he works for Deidranna and you should kill him), he is replaced by a nice boy named Sal who's kind of stupid, but not any better at shipping stuff either - he loses your shipments sometimes too. You can bribe him with $100, or kill this one as well, but if you do this, your loyalty in Drassen is gone… Killing only Pablo's seems to have no effects on Drassen loyalty. Q: First of all, Eric T.Cheng said earlier that it's worth killing Pablo because Sal takes his place and does a little better. However, in the "official" strategy guide, it says that Sal is not nearly as reliable as Pablo, so you should keep him alive. So, there are two contradicting sides. Who is more reliable, Pablo or Sal? A: I don't recall saying that Pablo is worth killing. I do remember saying that you should beat Pablo up a bit to get him to return your stolen shipments from Bobby Ray's. And yes, Sal is MUCH MUCH worse than Pablo, he won't steal your shipments but lose them outright! P.S. I even tried giving Sal $50 and he said I "move to the head of the line" but still can't find the shipment he says is there. Eric T. Cheng – Sirtech Canada Index ? 5.3 - ALMA Recruitable NPC's: H13 - Conrad Non-Recruit.NPCs: H13 - General (talk to him to get the location of Orta) Sergeant (talk to him for a loyalty boost and a Rocket Rifle) I14 – Auntie (gives the Bloodcats quest) Matt (lead miner) Random NPC's: ----- Places To Visit: H13 – Training Facility H14 – Weapons Factory I13 – ??? I14 – Mine Administration, Auntie's House Alma is a Military Weapons Facility, so don't expect anything but some hard time taking the 4 sectors of this town. The upper right hand corner sector of the town, may be the most difficult of them all, it has loads of enemies well equipped and 2 snipers in the roofs of two warehouses that are full of stuff. You can recover the Soviet Dragunov 7.62mm Sniper Rifle from the snipers (what a weapon!!!). Expect some other cool rifles (Colt Commando (5.56mm M-16 carbine), a French FA-MAS (also 5.56mm assault rifle) and AK- 74 Soviet 5.45mm from Alma). Alma is a "must" for getting lots of quality equipment. So, going to Alma right after Drassen can be the right way to elevate the pistols at the beginning while the enemy has rifles… Why not? It's not that well defended that it's impossible to take it at that point of the game. You will be able to take it with just a good merc and your custom merc with more one or two average mercs for medical backup and transporting items and if you are really good you can even get a Rocket rifle before it is blown up. You just need to come in from behind at the training ground sector and cut through the fence and take out the only elite on the level on the roof which a good merc can do without a problem. You get decent rifles from the guards and are more then capable of taking out the "easier" cities. If you are REALLY desperate for good guns you can kill the General and Conrad to get their G3A3 and AK-74 and you are nearly unstoppable. You just have to make sure you get the jump on them and shoot them in the head for near the doors to the rooms they are in as to avoid their wrath. It's possible to find a Rocket Rifle in Alma. Here's how: In NW sector of Alma, in the building where are located the General and Conrad, there is a guy named Sergeant in one of N-E rooms. You need to speak to him BEFORE somebody will press red button to detonate the Rocket Rifle. A hint to do this is to make one of your mercs stand front of that button, so enemies can't push the button. They just run near that button, so its easy for your other mercs knock down those enemies and steal their weapons. But you may not have to do this if you talk to Sergeant quickly. Sergeant wants to desert the army and gives you Rocket Rifle for you not to kill him. This Rifle is clean (first merc who takes it, can use it), so you don't have search for technician to reprogram it. If you delay the talk with Sergeant until later, the Rifle explodes and Sergeant gets wound. You can cure him, and speak in any case. Sargeant will later increase the loyalty of Alma. Index o 5.3.1 – Saving Dynamo When you talk to the Head miner of Alma, besides for getting the money of the mine, he will ask you to recover his brother who is imprisoned at Tixa Jail (you'll get now the location of Tixa on the main map). So to resolve the quest you need to go to Tixa and just set Dynamo free. Index ? 5.4 – CAMBRIA Recruitable NPC's: F8 - Vince (medic) Non-Recruit.NPCs: F8 – Steve (medic) Jenny (nurse) G8 – Martha (asks you to search her son - Joey quest) G9 – Keith (buys/sells items – gives hillbillies quest) Perko (repairs non-electronic items) H8 – Lead Miner F10 – Darrel & Darryl (2 of the hillbillies) Random NPC's: F9 – Terry (terrorist) Jasmin (terrorist) G8 - Annie (terrorist) G9 – Carmen (head hunter) Devin (sells explosives) Places To Visit: F8 – Hospital F9 – University G9 – Cafe, Keith's Shop, Perko's Shop H8 – Mine Administration F10 – Hillbillies House Cambria seems to be a tough town to conquer. Dreidranna's men will try to retake her intensively, especially the mine sector, with several squads from different directions. So make sure you start training your militia the moment you've taken a sector of the city. As you capture more sectors of the city, continued militia training will expand appropriately to fill in the newly captured areas. Train the militia up to veteran status.. and don't leave either the Hospital or the mine sectors until it tells you you can't train any more. It may be important to pay a visit to the Hospital, where you might get some help. As for quests, some people of Cambria will ask you to get rid of the Hicks, a not very friendly family living in a farm just outside Cambria. Index o 5.4.1 – Joe & Martha In sector G8, a woman named Martha is looking for her son Joey, whose father is an old friend of Steve, the head doctor in Cambria Hospital. Talk to her to get the quest. Then go find Joey, he should in San Mona, searching for the hidden treasures of Kingpin. He usually hangs by the Shady Lady, a whorehouse of San Mona, or near/in the mine but it's kind of random his emplacement in San Mona. The local XXX shop owner, Hans, can give you a hint where is Joey if you speak to him several times. When you found Joey, threat him several times and escort him back to Martha. You'll now get +10% in Cambria loyalty and a price reduction in Hospital treatments (sometimes the reduction is partial, others are total – For FREE!) thanks to Joey's father who has some talking in the Hospital with his friend, Steve. Index o 5.4.2 – At the Hospital There are four people at the Hospital that you can talk to: Jenny (nurse), Vince (doctor, can be recruited with some conditions – see below), Steve (doctor) and Bob (shocked patient). You can talk to Bob about the mines and he will say that he is terrified by what he saw in there. There is a warehouse separate from the Hospital that has lots of medical supplies in it, but if you take them the docs won't be able to help you. They say that someone has been stealing their supplies and there's nothing they can do. Also, you need Cambria loyalty to be at least 30% to make them help you. When these conditions are met, to make the doctors heal your mercs, talk to the nurse out front using the direct option when you are wounded, she'll go get a doctor for you. If you have your loyalty in Cambria pretty big, on occasion, one of the doctors will treat you free if you go straight to him instead of talking to the nurse (it's the younger doctor). Note as well, that if you already finished the Martha/Joey quest, you'll get special prices for the Hospital treatments. If you want to recruit Dr. Vince for $500, you have to: 1) not steal anything from hospital warehouse 2) fulfill quest with Martha/Joe (not sure though) 3) raise Cambria loyalty to >80% Index o 5.4.3 – The Hicks Family The Hicks are an inbred farm family just east of Cambria. You'll get the quest of getting rid of them, from the storekeeper who won't sell you guns, since they are not good neighbours to the people of Cambria. He tells you that taking care of that problem would make the people of Cambria trust you more. Beware, though, because it's an incredibly tough fight. But when you kill all the Hicks, it will raise the loyalty, adding to the fact that they have some nice items in their shed. If you try to take any of it, even without opening fire, they start blasting away and will slaughter you in a minute if you're not prepared. A good way to be able to get all the goodies from the Hicks, without entering World War 3, is to make one of your female mercs marry to the redneck son (Darrel). To do it, you must talk to his dad first (Darryl). The chief hillbilly is inside the large house, in one of the small rooms near the central door (to the right of the dormitory) with a Mini-14. Don't confuse him with his son who's name is pretty much the same. A good suggestion is to marry off FLO, because any married female will be gone from your squad. You will beckome "kin" and you can take whatever you want without being shot at, plus some funny cut scenes. Whoever you choose, she will not be amused at all, in fact she will sure be pissed off. But even Flo may be too much waste of a merc to leave there (I'm listening Buzz already if I tried to marry her with one of the guys: "WHAT!?!? Getting MARRIED??? I would only marry to my GUN!"). Another tactic to get the goodies, if you think you're not strong enough to just take them out (you will need to eventually), is to go in at night from the southwest side... sneak up to the shack with the goodies, set a timed TNT charge by the wall opposite the house and run off into the dark... they don't seem to be bothered by the explosion and you can go back and enter the shack without being seen and loot the crates. In the end you'll have to kill'em all anyway, but before that, you can get some stuff the easy way (just a note: you'll find darts and the gun for them in some crates). Here's some hints to help you killing them for good: Go in with at least 6 mercs loaded for a bear. You can open a hole up in the shed and blasted them as they walked through the door. You may get mauled a bit, but you should be able to do it without losing any people. They're all armed with shotguns and Mini-14s. To gain some advantage, attack at night and using Tear gas to slow their charge. Take a Night Ops/Stealthy merc and 2 other Mercs (try to give the 3 of them Night goggles) and send them into the West edge of the tile. You'll come up behind the shed area and make your specialized merc climb the shed and approach the bunkhouse area. Then have one other merc toss some Tear gas grenades to the door of that bunkhouse. After they noticed you, and opened the door to come out, have that same merc drop another Tear gas grenade through the door and into the bunkhouse itself. That will keep the people inside milling about without them taking shots at you. You should be able to see into the building and pick them off without too much problem. Let the other two mercs stay out in front of the main building and help to pick off the people trying to get around the tear gas. This works pretty well and can be even easier if you bring more mercs. At the start you have no idea that there were going to be that many bad guys to zip. Also, watch out for the one in the shed. When ever you are trying to maneuver around to get a look on the bad guys, all the Hick-brothers go swarming around you real close all the while, almost collecting near you for safety. It can happen that you may have a merc lying down in a paddock trying to finish off one guy with a shotgun, and had about a dozen Brothers, all crouched on the ground behind him, watching him perform, as if they were making judgements on how good a shot he was or something. They would also follow you around when you were running anywhere as well, even get in the road. A good advice to when you go inside is to don't take their beer or all hell breaks loose and appear about 12 of them shooting you at the same time and they rarely miss. Index ? 5.5 - SAN MONA Recruitable NPC's: C5 - Iggy (only available after meeting Mike) Non-Recruit.NPCs: C5 – Hans (XXX shop owner – talk to him to see Tony) Brenda (XXX shop customer – give her a porno tape) Tony (sells/buys items on the back of XXX shop) Kyle (tattoo shop owner – he wants the leather shop) Maria (whore in Shady Lady – return her to Angel) Madame (Shady Lady owner – pay her $400 to see Maria) Billy (security guard at Shady Lady) Frank (bar owner) C6 – Angel (leather shop owner – gives Maria quest) Alberto (bar owner) D5 – Kingpin (ruler of San Mona and leader of criminal gang) Darren (works at the club - offers fist-fight tournament) Random NPC's: C5 – Carmen (head hunter) Devin (sells explosives) Joey (son of Martha – return him to his mother) C6 - Mickey (buys animal parts) Devin (sells explosives) Places To Visit: C5 – XXX Shop, The Shady Lady, Tattoo Shop, Bar C6 – Leather Shop, Bar D4 – San Mona Mine D5 – Kingpin's Lair and Bar When you get into the city, you'll realize none of Deidrenna's men are there, and you can't even train militia. This can be cool, since you don't have to waste your time training, and so conquer other city instead. But there is so much to do in this city, that you'll spend a lot of your time in it, doing quests, visiting shops and meeting interesting people. The sector C5 of San Mona is one of the sectors you'll be returning to, all the time. San Mona is ruled by Kingpin, leader of a gang of criminals that live and control all the city. There aren't many normal civilians in the city, but the ones that exist can be very useful to you. San Mona will always be a neutral city, UNTIL the moment that you attack any of Kingpin's men (or do something that they don't like). In this case almost the whole town will turn against you (except the friendly and useful civilians). This also means that you will always not be able to train milita or gain loyalty in San Mona. Another thing, the mine is abandoned, so you cannot get money from it (at least from mining…). Later in the game, after you found Mike (AIM legend hired by the Queen), another mercenary contracted by Deidranna, Iggy, will show up in a bar of San Mona. He is very useful and has a Rocket Rifle. If you find him, talk to him, and he will join your cause (you can recruit him). So if you met and killed Mike - go to San Mona and look for Iggy. Index o 5.5.1 – Tony: The Weapons Dealer A woman in the beginning of the game may tell you that someone has a hidden shop where he sells/buys weapons and related stuff. It's in the XXX (porno) shop, owned by Hans, at San Mona that you'll be able to find this guy (Tony). You DON'T need to execute Kingpin's guys in that sector to get to the shop. Hans (the XXX shop owner) has a door behind him. He'll only let you through if Brenda (the annoying punk freak woman) is gone from the story. She may eventually leave on her own, or if you're in a hurry, you can give her a videotape to make her leave. To find the videotape, in that same sector, there is a house on the extreme right of the map. Inside that house, there is a chest, open that chest, and you should find the videotape (Pant Suit Lorletta 6). Hand that video over to Brenda, and she'll get the hell out of there. Another place to find the videotape is in the hall of the Shady Lady (whorehouse) in San Mona also. If you don't want to get the videotape, just shoot her and move on. Apparently this doesn't bring any ill effects later. Talk to Hans when she's taken care of, and you'll have access to Tony, the arms dealer, hidden in the back of the shop. Tony is the few guys who can sell you underslung grenade launchers. After visiting Tony once, Hans may say that he's stepped out and to come back later. It will take time for Tony to get more stuff and money & to appear in the shop... so wait a full day at least, until you return there. If he's still not there just keep visiting him every day and wait till he gets in. And another thing that might interest you: Tony uses a Steyr AUG. Index o 5.5.2 – Rescue Maria!!! Angel who is in the Leather shop in San Mona (C6), will ask you to search his sister – Maria – and bring her back to him. But you have to talk to Angel, a couple of times with a reasonable Leadership merc to get the quest. Remember, the higher the Leadership, the more positive an NPC will react to that character. You don't have to buy the jacket he offers you to get the quest, but it is pretty cool and the equivalent of a regular Kevlar vest (there is one great use for this jacket. You can replace the original leather vest which Nails uses, and doesn't want to trade for any other vest, with this one. Thus, you can add up those few extra percentiles to his protection. There is just no other way to give better torso protection to Nails). But if you don't want to buy it at this point, Angel will give it to you later if you finish the quest. You'll be able to find later that Maria is in a whorehouse named Shady Lady also in San Mona. You have to get her out of there, and escort her all the way to Angel who is in the Leather shop, but make sure you search for Angel only during business hours (day). He's got a life too, ya know. He will not be in the shop by night. Index ? 5.5.2.1 – Inside the "Shady Lady" In one of San Mona sectors (C5) you'll find a whorehouse named Shady Lady. Inside, in the last room is Maria, the sister of Angel, that may already asked you to return her to him. You'll be suggested sneaking Maria out without getting caught, so you can't make any mistakes. Go there, and talk to madame Layla (kind of manager of the place). Pay her $400 for Maria "services". Then go find Maria… From now on, there are 3 ways to resolve the quest: - Shoot up everyone in the place and get Maria out, but this is bad because it makes the rest of San Mona hostile to you for the rest of the game, so understand the suggestion of sneaking Maria out without getting caught (if you only kill Billy and the other guard, without engaging anyone else, no one will be hostile to you though) - As you walk down the hall, to meet Maria, your merc will spot a key in an open room. A guard is moving around all the time, so just wait until the moment when he's not seeing you, to sneak into the room, grab the key and turn off a red switch to an alarm of a door in Maria's room (it looks like that if you go to the sector inventory screen, you'll be able to pick the key up from there without entering the room). Then go into Maria's room. Talk to her and then she will follow you. But now you're "stuck" in the room with all the doors locked and trapped with alarms (if you turned off the switch the alarm is disabled now) . So use the key you just grabbed a few moments ago to open the back door and escort Maria to Angel; - Don't bother yourself with the key and go straight to Maria's room. Talk to her to make her follow you. You're again "stucked" in the room, so have a merc disarm the back door alarm and open it picking it's lock (another tactic to open it is to use a crowbar with a very strong merc) so you can get out and escort Maria to Angel. During the escort, if any of Kingpin's men sees Maria, outside the Shady Lady, they'll start to shoot. So move carefully. This is what triggers the hostility of San Mona to you. To know if you completed the quest without getting caught, listen what Maria says when she meets her brother, Angel. If you killed any of Kingpin's men or they saw you and Maria, she will say something like "Kingpin's men will be after us sooner or later". Now if you really did the job right, she will say "These mercs were really discrete, noone will find out anything". Though in both of them you'll have completed the quest, in the first situation you'll have all Kingpin's men in San Mona against you, so expect difficulties when entering there later on. As a sidenote, male mercs can actually use the Shady Lady as a brothel… There's a pretty cool little animation that comes up on the screen when you do by the way... Q: I agreed to escort Maria to her brother, but after I've assigned her to a squad I can't move them to take her to Angel… I get a message that "Maria can't be given movement orders at this time". A: You can't move her via the Strategic Map. You have to move her in the Tactical Map. This was done to avoid players cheating and moving her out of the brothel undetected by simplifying using the Strategic Map movement. Take her and the rest of the squad that she is in and walk to the far right side, when the walking man icon appears, click on it and you will manually walk to the next sector. That's the only way to travel sector by sector with Maria. Eric T. Cheng – Sirtech Canada Q: I don't quite understand how, since I took out the Madame and her dumb henchman silently and in just one tactical turn, the whole city of San Mona (and Kingpin) knew I was now "enemy". The Madame did say "wait til Kingpin finds out", but this seem unrealistic. Is this throughout the whole game? If I enter an area that sees me as neutral or friendly like San Mona and move silently killing thugs, will others somehow magically sense my new "enemy" status? A: Well, they know you're not friendly anymore. The explanation may be that someone saw you and informed the others. I think they'll attack you every time you come back to the San Mona sector until you've eliminated Kingpin and his whole gang. I'm not sure about respawning of Kingpin's men as long as he is still alive. Index ? 5.5.2.2 – Back to the Leather shop When you brought Maria to Angel, he'll give to you the deed to his Leather shop as payment because he's going away with Maria (he'll give it to you directly if you're close enough, otherwise he should leave it on the counter, but you have to go inside to see it). If you already talked to Kyle (owner of the Tattoo shop) you'll know that he has the dream of owning a Leather shop. So take the deed to Kyle and he will give you 10.000 for it. This will make him a very, very happy man… Index o 5.5.3 - Kingpin Kingpin's can be by far the most complicated "quest" in this game. He is a ruthless leader of a gang of assassins and other criminals in the city of San Mona. He is also very rich, so you'll have the opportunity to earn and steal a lot of his money. But don't underestimate his power, because if you do, you won't leave San Mona alive… There is a way that you can complete the quest earning a lot of money (a maximum of $95.000!!!), and have none of Kingpin's men after you. But you'll have to do exactly like this: - DON'T kill any of Kingpin's guys, at any point of the game (except the Kingpin himself later on). This is VERY IMPORTANT! You don't have to kill them to keep playing! All necessary NPCs still speak and deal with you despite the presence of Kingpin's bandits. - Participate in Kingpin's fist-fight tournament in his bar, to earn a maximum of $25000 (see sub-chapter Kingpin's Fist-Fight Tournament for more details) - Start the quest of retrieving the Chalice Of Chance, that begins in Chitzena. Get the Chalice in Balime and BEFORE you return it to Chitzena, give it to Kingpin (he's after the Chalice too) for making another sweet $20000 (when you kill him, he will drop the Chalice, so you can return it to Chitzena and make more money with this Chalice!) - Kill Kingpin (if you're playing US version 1.03, use Tear and Mustard gas, since the grenade explosion is not treated as an attack, so NONE of Kingpin's men will be after you). You'll get $20000 and a Steyr (a C-7 in realistic mode) from his body (also the Chalice if you gave it to him). (see sub-chapter Killing Kingpin for more details) - Finally, accept Angel's tip and go down into the abandoned mine of San Mona, where Kingpin has a lot of hidden money. In total you'll take 30000$ from the mine, and still no assassins will be wanting your head. (see sub-chapter Stealing Kingpin's Money for more details) Beware! Some items in Kingpin's sector are "owned" and grabbing them will get you in a lot of trouble. All the items in the ACA building and in the other northern building will get you shot if you take them and one of the guards sees you. The only way to know what you can take and what you can't without repercussions is to go to the sector inventory screen and those items will be greyed out. Index ? 5.5.3.1 – Kingpin's Fist-Fight Tournament A good idea is to hire a merc with good fighting skills (Hand-to-Hand or Martial Arts specialists) and getting some more money from Kingpin first, by winning the fist-fights tournament in Kinpin's club, where you can bet money on fights as long as he's still alive (one of your mercs against Kingpin's fighters). These fights can get won but you've lost some money if you killed Kingpin already. Each fight won can make you earn $5.000. You need to come to the club in San Mona, near the Kingpin's residence at between 6 PM and 11 PM and talk to the manager (Darren), he will offer you the tournament. Take a good fighter along an energy booster and it should be easy. You can have a maximum of 3 fights in the same day, but if you do it you'll not be able to fight anymore for the rest of the game. For example to be possible to have 5 fights instead of 3, you just have to fight only twice at first day, and you'll be allowed to fight 3 times more on the next day. So you'll get 25K instead of 15K. Someone will go get Kingpin who likes to watch every fight. If you win the third fight (3 fights in the same day), Kingpin will invite you to his home and tell his watchdog at the door you are expected. If you fail to meet Kingpin by winning the tournament, then just go to his house and through the back door. He'll speak to you that way. Another way of winning the fist-fights, not as good but pretty cool, is to throw a knife into the ring before the fight. When the fight begins the other fighter should pick up the knife and stab your merc. Then every NPC will start to shoot the "cheater"! Ain't that cool? Note also, that you may experience problems (bugs) regarding the fights. Many times, I've paid my money and jumped into the ring only to have absolutely nothing happen. The fighter would turn in my direction but not get into the ring. Darren conveniently forgot I gave him the money and I had to give him more money to get the fight. Also, I've won the fight and Darren forgets to give me my winnings. I'm not sure what causes this and it doesn't happen all the time but I believe it can be a problem if you do anything in between the fights, like healing, taking the boosters, or what not. So, save the game before every fight, in the case you experience some of this problems. Beware! During the tournament you can't use guns but enemies can! I've been shot by the third enemy "fist fighter". In case someone of the boxers shoots you, you still CANNOT use a gun if you do not want to fight all city! Index ? 5.5.3.2 – Killing Kingpin The first tactic is the best one to use if you're playing US version 1.03. If you're not, read the other suggestions below. If you won 3 fights in a row in Kingpin's fist-fight tournament, Kingpin will invite you to come to his house. This will be your golden opportunity to kill him without turning the all town against you. Simply go through the front door (the guard there will be expecting you) and go meet Kingpin. When you are alone with him, kill him ONLY using grenade with poison gas such as Tear or Mustard gas grenades. This will not be considered as an attack to him (only works in the 1.03 version) and so you will not have anyone after your head. But if you didn't want or been able to win the 3 fights, the guard at the front door of Kingpin's house, will not let you in, saying that you are not expected. A way to get in, so that you can kill the Kingpin is to simply throw a mustard gas grenade at the guard. Make sure you *hit* him so that he gets -1. Otherwise he won't die. Another way is to check that the coast is clear (i.e. the blast won't hurt anyone) then blow a hole in the southeast wall near the bathroom or to lockpick the back door or just open it with a crowbar. Then go have a few words with Kingpin and kill him the same way described above and no one will attack you. For all guys using the 1.04 or above versions, here are some other ways to do the job right: - Kill Kingpin by aiming at something behind him. The bullets will still hit him, it'll just take a while. When he drops, just let him bleed to death. This works for other NPCs too. - take a guy with low explosives level that you don't need and have him set and defuse explosives near Kingpin, over and over till he messed up and blows himself and Kingpin up. It may be messy but it seems to work. Sometimes your merc will even survive the blast. Works for other NPC's too. - Go to the club with a strong force of mercs. Accept the invitation to fight, but first, position all your mercs for the upcoming (hopefully minor) firefight. Kingpin will arrive to witness the fight. Put someone real close to him. Remain armed at all times, and when the start of the fight is announced, let loose :) As long as the fight is contained within the club, the Rest of San Mona apparently doesn't know about it! Index ? 5.5.3.3 - Stealing Kingpin's Money To get Kingpin's hidden money in San Mona mine: enter the mine from the San Mona mine screen (the abandoned mine screen from the map screen). Follow the tunnels until you get to the section that requires you to exit to the next part of the mines (like you where leaving the mine screen). In the next section of the mines is a room with many chests. The money is in there (it will be about $30000). Be careful about going up the ladder, because Kingpin's men will not be amused if you pop up inside his house. But if you get out by the same way you got in, then none of Kingpin's men will be bothering you (this is if you already killed Kingpin). If you steal Kingpin's money that is on the San Mona mine, while he is still alive, he will send you an e-mail after a couple of days asking for his money. He'll send killers that will appear "out of nowhere", attack you wherever you are for the rest of the game, and they get tougher as they go on, if you don't bring him the money back. They'll look just like normal civilians, you won't know they are killers. Once they are close enough they start shooting. Doesn't sound good, does it? So if that's happening to you, don't have any choice but return to San Mona and kill Kingpin and the complete gang (all very tough guys) or simply return the money to him (if so, why did you take the money anyway?!?). Index ? 5.6 - CHITZENA Recruitable NPC's: ----- Non-Recruit.NPCs: A2 - John & Mary (2 tourists – give the quest of escorting them) Yanni (ruins caretaken – gives the Chalice of Chance quest) B2 – Oswald (lead miner) Random NPC's: B2 – Annie (terrorist) Jasmin (terrorist) Joe (terrorist) Places To Visit: A2 – Ruins B2 – Mine Administration Chitzena is a turistical town, due to his ancient ruins, with not much to do here. You'll find 2 quests to fulfill, one envolving the tourists themselves, and maybe the opportunity to kill some terrorists. There's also the mine that you should make give you the money. Index o 5.6.1 – Escorting The Tourists Two tourists (John and Mary Kulba) can be found in the Northernmost sector of town. They require an escort to the Drassen airport. Upon completing this quest you will receive about $2.000/3.000 in cash. In addition, the gentleman has two "custom-modified" Automag III pistols that he sends to you which arrive somewhat later in the game (you are notified via email). These pistols define "handcannon" and are by far the best pistols featured in the game (29 dmg, 20 range, but only 5 rounds at a time). Carrying these as a back-up, especially for an Ambidextrous merc is a nice way to build individuality. Note: Don't give any weapons to John, to help him to protect his wife, although his marksmanship is not bad! He'll not be able to fire it, though he is under your control, and you'll not be able to recover it either, so it will be a lost weapon for you. Index o 5.6.2 – The Chalice Of Chance The monk-like (Yanni) caretaken of the Chitzena ruins (A2) wants you to retrieve a Chalice stolen and being held secure in Balime. He promises you great fortune in an indefinite kind of way. It is, however, the very same item the Kingpin asks you to get for him in San Mona (I prefer blowing him away for his money - he is a fat, evil bastard, after all). When you deliver the Chalice back to Chitzena, giving it to Yanni, you'll get 100% loyalty in the city and +10% in all other towns. ( for more info on this Quest, see section 5.8.1 – The Chalice Of Chance (Part 2) ) Index ? 5.7 – GRUMM Recruitable NPC's: ----- Non-Recruit.NPCs: H1 – Arnie (Iron Worx owner – he repairs non-electric items) Fredo (Electroni-Fix owner – he repairs electronic items) Tina (no special purpose to the game) H2 – Charlie (terrorist) Manny (ex-owner of bar – kill Charlie to return bar to him) H3 – Calvin (lead miner) Random NPC's: H2 - Terry (terrorist) Places To Visit: G2 – Industrial Compound H1 – Iron Worx (repair shop), Electroni-Fix (repair shop) H2 – Weapons Factory, Bar H3 – Mine Administration Regarding Grumm: This is not a town to be taken lightly. It's the industrial center of Arulco, and the people within are armed to the teeth. Not as much as in, say, Alma, but still extremely dangerous. All of the sectors are full of redshirts (in a average of 16/sector in novice between days 15-17!). The southern center sector (H2) is a weapons factory and depot, be very cautious here and be prepared to take damage. You can find one of the terrorists here (the only one that has a fixed location) in a bar near the weapons factory disguised as a barman. Killing him lets Manny (one of the Santos brothers) get his own bar and they're all happy. I recommend that the northern center sector (G2) be saved for last, then assaulted from 2 directions (make sure you have wire cutters!), and it has an important Industrial Compound. The southwestern sector (H1) should prove to be very useful in terms of repairing items. There is an electronics store where Fred, a transvertite/electronics technician can remove the fingerprint ID from a Rocket Rifle (the only one in Arulco) and repair all electric items. There is a repair shop also (Iron Worx) where Arnold can repair anything non-electric for money, but with extreme speed. There is also a girl here that you can talk to (Tina) but it seems that she has no special use in the game. The southeastern sector (H3) is, of course, the mine, which connects to a 2-sector underground area with piles of valuable gold just waiting to be taken. The northwestern sector (G1) is just a residential area. All in all, an extremely lucrative place, but only if you're up for a really nasty fight. Index ? 5.8 – BALIME Recruitable NPC's: ----- Non-Recruit.NPCs: L11 – Armand (a rich guy – threat him for money) Lora (Armand's wife) L12 – Eldin (museum security guard – distract him to get Chalice) Franz (tools shop owner – buys/sells sorted items) Sam (tools shop owner – sells sorted items) Howard (drugstore owner – sells medical items) L10 – Dave (gas station owner – he has a Hummer to sell) Random NPC's: L11 – Imposter (terrorist) Annie (terrorist) Places To Visit: L11 – Mansion L12 – Museum, 3 Shops L10 – Gas Station The city of Balime is known for is optimal weather and good beaches. So it's full of rich people who just live here or come to spend their vacations on a paradisiac place. Here you'll be able to continue the quest of Chalice of Chance initiated in Chitzena. Also, make sure you check Balime eastern sector (L12). There is a museum and 3 stores there: 1) A drug store where you can buy E-Booster, R-Booster and medical supplies. 2) A electronics shop, where Franz, the shop owner buys miscellaneous stuff you have (armor, watches, different small items). Sells some useful items (Lameboy, Fumble pack, Batteries necessary for X-Ray Detector and a Video Camera necessary for Madlab's robot). 3) A tools store where you can buy mechanical items, ammo, and maybe guns, very cheaply. The museum contains the chalice that Yanni and Kingpin wants. You'll find there a museum caretaker (Eldin), who also acts as the security guard (you can talk to him during the day when the museum is open, but if he sees you in there at night and/or with the chalice, he will attack you). Outside Balime (L10) there is an old gas station where you can buy a car for $10000. To be able to train militia in Balime, you can't kill the security guard. You must sneak the Chalice out of there without the security guard being alerted (you have to have him out of sight and turn off the alarm). Then you need to take the Chalice of Chance to Yanni in Chitzena, and this will raise your loyalty up to 23% or something around there, then you can train militia in Balime. The rich couple at the Mansion: In L11, there is a rich guy (Armand) and his mistress in a mansion. He says he's a friend of the Queen, but if you threaten him, he will give you $10000. There are golf clubs in one of the mansions, but there's no use for them. Index o 5.8.1 – The Chalice Of Chance (Part 2) In the attempt to take the Chalice of Chance from the museum, if your mercs are forced to kill the security guard, you'll immediately lose all town loyalty (down to 0%) and stand no chance of raising a militia. Here's some tactics that DON'T work on this: using a tranquilizer dart on the geezer (just pisses him off), give him booze (he didn't want it), and try to sneak past him (no luck, he always sees you and turns enemy). So, here's how ya do it... First you need 5 mercs in there with him. When he goes off into the room to the left take 4 mercs and block his path so he can't go out to the main area. Then have the other merc go in his office and hit the switch to turn the alarm off and then get the Chalice, make sure he doesn't see you and do not talk to him. Then get your mercs out. Although less reliable, there is another possibility: go sneaking into the museum. Go at night and use stealth mode. All you need is to get in the front door, but you may need to pop some zits along the way. There is a room with a switch to disarm the alarm. Don't go into the backroom where the old geezer is. I found a hole or "bug" on the right side of the Chalice room. I manage to find myself outside the museum. I just leave the map without getting into a big fight. Only one merc need to enter the museum, that should have Night Ops and Stealth. When you have the Chalice, return to Chitzena, giving the Chalice to Yanni, that will raise your loyalty and then you can train a militia in Balime. Don't give it to Kingpin, later on you can go in the San Mona abandoned mine and steal his money. But if you want, you can always kill Kingpin after you get the reward from him. After Kingpin paid you, set up and start to waste him and his little friends. After the immediate area was clear, check his corpse. There will be the Chalice and then go off to Cambria to give it to the locals. They will just love you there. ( for more info on this Quest, see section 5.6.2 – The Chalice Of Chance ) Index ? 5.9 – TIXA JAIL Recruitable NPC's: J9SL1- Dynamo, Shank Non-Recruit.NPCs: J9 - Warden (the prison director – kill her) Brewster (Warden's husband – talk for a key and info) J9SL1- Gordon (no purpose for the game Random NPC's: ----- Places To Visit: J9 – Southeast corner house, Jail J9SL1– Jail basement Tixa is a sector close to the SAM site at Cambria (J9). It's a prison with a ground floor and a basement. You'll have the location on the map when Alma's Head miner asks you to go get his brother (Dynamo) which is imprisioned at Tixa. In the basement you'll find at least 3 prisioners (that's where the cells are), Shank and Dynamo, both recruitable and Gordon Jeffries, who is afraid to death of the bugs and is simply useless to you. Also, you'll find a cool looking greyish gun at Tixa. The gun is called a Steyr AUG. Austrian Army standard issue. It fires 5.56mm rounds. Takes 30 round clips and have a range of 50 that does 30 of damage. There's always a Steyr AUG in Tixa, one of the guards has it, and the rest are scattered about. When you attack Tixa or fire your weapons, the alarm may go off. The guards are alerted and will put their gas maks on because after that, the buildings start to fill with gas. No affect on the prisioners, but let me offer some alternatives to trying to take that place head on. The Warden's husband: Sneak in from the eastern side of Tixa. Enter the house at the southeast corner. Be very nice to the warden's husband (Brewster). He'll tell you everything you need to know (you have to wait until 17:00 PM and sneak into the Jail house to catch the Warden off guard (hey, even she has to eat)). He gives you also the key from his wife's office if you spoke enough to him. Go and get her before she sets the alarm. A visit to the Warden's office: To prevent the 'gassing' you have to go to the warden's office. Inside there's a red square switch and another switch to the right. The red switch, as you might be familiar with, sets off the alarm for the guards to put on thier masks. The switch to the right floods the prison with knockout gas. Wonder what would happen if you forgot to alert the guards BEFORE setting off the gas…? There's another tactic avoid the gas: you need at least one guy with a silenced weapon, or be lucky enough to not encounter a guard before you do the following (it may take a few tries to do it right, so SAVE OFTEN, you'll need it). What you need to do is to come at night, preferably with full camo. There is a small house in the SE corner of the map- approach it from the south. North of the house is a metal door on the larger structure- this goes to the Warden's office. Set up a guy with good explosives skill and some dynamite (or I guess you could use a LAW as well, haven't tried) right oustide the door, while you situate 1-2 more mercs with good Marksmanship outside the door and out of the blast radius. Put them where they will be able to get a good shot into the office. Set the bomb, take explosives boy away from the wall, and let 'er rip. If you're lucky, the Warden will have been standing close to the wall (within 3 squares or so) and the explosion will knock her down before she can do anything. Then it's fish in a barrel time for your sniping mercs while explosives boy runs in and hits the gas switch before the guards come get you. Having said all that, it really isn't that practical. Most of the guards are outside, and the few times I did it I found myself too busy fending off shots from them through the windows to try getting to the gassed guards inside. Fun in principle, not so much in reality. Index o 5.9.1 – Saving Dynamo (Part 2) This quest begins in Alma, where the miner asks you to save his brother – Dynamo – that is being held in Tixa Jail. To complete the quest, you have to hit the road to Tixa, and set Dynamo free (you'll be able to recruit him). You don't have to return to Alma to say the miner that his brother is free now. Simply save him in Tixa and the loyalty in Alma will rise. If you have trouble to set Dynamo free or recruit him, here's how you do it: Recruit Dynamo, hand him a Lockpicking toolkit and have him get himself out (he is a Lockpicking expert after all…). You may have to heal him first so he can pick the lock. Another way to open the door of Dynamo's cell, is to get the prison Key. It's silver and could be in the little locker in the wardens office. If not you'll get one when you clear the basement. Open the cell door and talk to Dynamo. He is free now, if you already cleared the Jail of enemies. To recruit him, you have to approach him friendly with someone with high leadership. He'll come with you. Index o 5.9.2 – Escorting Shank For A Gas Deal You'll also find another prisioner in Tixa, near the location of Dynamo. His name is Shank, and when you talk to him, you will recruit him. But he will mention an arrangement for some gas. You have to escort him all the way to where he wants to go, to have him get you a deal on gas. When you get to the escort destination, simply talk to Jake with Shank. Jake then starts selling you gas. That completes the quest. Index ? 5.10 - ESTONI Recruitable NPC's: I6 - Maddog Non-Recruit.NPCs: I6 – Jake (buys/sells items – make Shank talk to him for gas) Skipper (an old man at junkyard – gives you a keycard) Random NPC's: ----- Places To Visit: I6 – Junkyard, 2 houses Estoni is a small sector in Arulco with a junkyard and a house. There are only 3 people in Estoni, and one of them is not available at the start. You'll find Maddog, that can be recruited, and he will work for you for free. He's got a CAWs, a high Mechanical and Agility and he is a Lockpicking Expert, but his Marksmanship sucks. The second person is Jake who sells junk and other stuff. Sometimes he has the X-Ray tube necessary to the X-Ray Detector. When you rescue Shank from Tixa, and agree to escort him to Estoni, make him talk to Jake, to arrange a deal gas to your vehicles. Now you can relocate the chopper base here at Estoni, for a fast refueling. The third person is an old man, Skipper, who may only come somewhere later in the game. What event makes him appear, it's not known. There are rumors that you have to visit Estoni a few days later of your first visit, to get Skipper. Anyway, he can give you a keycard for the basement of Orta, if you give him any item (cigars, porn mags or other junk will do the trick). Without card you'll be forced to pay $20.000 to the scientist to open the door. Index ? 5.11 - ORTA Recruitable NPC's: ----- Non-Recruit.NPCs: K4 – Walter (scientist – give him money to open basement door) K4SL1– Ernest (scientist – talk to get a load of Rocket Rifles) Random NPC's: ----- Places To Visit: K4 – Research Facility K4SL1– Research Facility basement Orta is not on the map initially. It's the General in the Military Facility who gives you the Orta location, saying that it's kind of a research lab for Deidranna's weird purposes. The exact location of Orta is K4. On the ground floor there is a scientist (Walter) who opens a locked door that leads to the basement, if you give him 20.000 in cash. After he opens the door, you can kill him to get the money back. Other option to open this door is to simply use explosives (make a hole on the wall) or go talk to Skipper (old guy) in Estoni (I6). Give him an item – any item – and he will give you a keycard for this secure area – the basement of Orta, where are loads of elite enemies and a whole truckload of Rocket rifles waiting for you. First you have to kill the enemies and then find a scientist (Ernest) who can open the door to the room with the rifles, you'll find him in the western part of the cellar. There are three or four small rooms behind a locked door. He usually is in the room in the south, standing in a corner. If you haven't entered all the rooms, you may probably missed him. Talk to him, until he speaks no more or says "it is time to be generous". Hand him about 20.000-25.000 in money and he'll open the door for you. You can then kill him to take the money back. In the room you'll find about 5 Rocket rifles in there, all usable. Or simply threat him 3 times, and he'll go open the storage room door. Index ? 5.12 - SAM SITES The SAM Sites, when in enemy hands, prevent you using safely the airspace surounding them. So don't even try to fly with the chopper when the area you want to travel by is still in red. Only what you see in green is a safe airspace for you. When you start the game, you are not given the locations of the SAM Sites. There are 2 ways of finding them: going on foot through the sectors until you find them or when you find Skyrider, the Chopper Pilot, he'll eventually tell you where ALL of them are on the map! But as far it seems, their locations are not ramdom. So I checked their locations, and there are 4 of them. Their locations in sectores is the following: D2 / D15 / I8 / N4. As soon as you conquer the SAM sites, you are able to train militia there, so make sure you train a lot of guys, because the Queen's troops are going to return soon for a payback. You can also destroy the SAM's if you like. A mortar should do the trick. In the SAM site near Drassen, there's a locked room with no windows. To get in use explosives to blow the wall. In there you'll find 3 crates of ammo with the locks trapped, so just shoot them. In the one near Meduna, to open the chests you need to disarm them first and them pick the locks with a very good Mechanical. In the chests there should be three or four LAWs and a couple of mortar shells. Index ? 5.13 - MEDUNA Recruitable NPC's: ----- Non-Recruit.NPCs: P3 – Elliot, Joe, Deidranna (they all may be in Sublevel 1) Random NPC's: ----- Places To Visit: O3 – Maze Gardens (shelter secret entrance near statues) P3 – Palace P3SL1– Palace basement Meduna is the last city between you and the final victory. All enemies in the city are by far the most difficult ones, since most, if not all, are "Excellent", carry big, big guns and there are LOTS of them, Everywhere. To participate in the party, some Tanks make their appearance as well. Those are the most frustrating enemies, since their range and power damage is HUGE. See below for more details on how to defeat them. A strategy point that's probably pretty obvious - once you take out the SAM site and airport in Meduna, you can have both supplies and mercs flown in there. This is a great opportunity to re- equip and make sure you have all the best mercs that you can afford. Since this is the end of the game, there's no reason not to let folks like Carlos, Ira, Dimitri, Hamous, etc. Go and replace them with top-end mercs as long as you have the money. As for getting the Queen itself, there are two ways to get her: Solution 1: Go along the surface killing everyone and everything in your way and enter the Palace (more like a fortress) by the front door, proving that you are a fearless fighter. Inside the Queen's palace, she will be in the lower left corner of the building, if you catch her and Joe fast enough, and you can kill them there (you can also pay Joe off, he'll leave, and you only have to deal with her). She has an Auto Rocket rifle, so be careful. If you don't catch her quickly, she'll run into the fireplace, and you have to go on a hunt underground. The fireplace is in the southwestern room of the mansion that has a piano inside, and to go down a level, simply put the cursor over the fireplace and the cursor will change to a ladder. After entering the new level, kill all the "excellent" guys around (if Joe is still there, try paying him to leave, if you can, since he is a tough guy). Make a beeline southwest. Use your keys/keycards/resident locksmith guy to go south, keeping an eye out for a mine field once you reach a large corridor that runs NW to SE. So make sure you have a merc with a metal detector or you'll have to trust on luck. There's a door in this corridor that leads SW. So open it and SMILE! Whip out your pistols and extol the virtues of the democratic system of government. You're done! Solution 2: The other way is much, much more easier. You need to find a secret passageway to the underground level of the Palace, avoiding to fight at the surface of Palace sector. The secret passage is on sector O3, in the labyrinth, near the four statues (the one cut off by the legs) and to open it you need a remote control that is found close to the statues. Entering the passageway will lead you to an underground level. Continue and you will be lead to the basement of P3 (Queen's palace). Since no one knows you are down there, the Queen is not expecting you so soon, so expect to find her, resting in the throne room, where she used to slap Elliot. She has tough guards so beware when you open the door to that room. When you shoot her, the game is over, so concentrate your efforts on her if you can. Index o 5.13.1 – Blowing Tanks On your way to the Queen's palace through the city of Meduna, you'll find tanks, which are a difficult obstacle in your way to the final victory. There are possibilities of control them (read the Vehicles->Tanks sub-chapter). In version 1.03 of the game, it's even possible to steal weapons from the tank (a bug corrected in the later versions). To do it, go up to a tank and CTRL click it. And apparently your merc will take a Tank cannon and a Minimi. The problem with the tank cannon is that it has no ammo (because it's a "bug"). The description of the weapon, only says "No Description Necessary". Self-explanatory, don't you think? Once the tank is weaponless, you can use it as a punching bag literally. Every few blow deals no damage but it will improve your Dexterity and Strength! I've raise my character in these two stats by 3 points each until i got tired of it! How to destroy them: Tanks get pretty easy to kill with a merc specialized in Heavy Weapons. The key is to get close enough to shoot the rocket ... What you should do is sneak at night time, spot the Tank with a camouflaged merc, pull out of Tank spotting range, bring the Heavy Weapon expert and, BANG, from a safe distance. You may use rocket launchers and even the mortars at close range have good results in the right hands. Also, if you go out at night, you can even get closer (for obvious reasons). Note that the LAW is one weapon require total line of sight. Despite having over 90 marksmanship, doesn't always guarantee you fire straight. Hide behind major objects that can absorb the tank fire. Try targeting the centre top to get a better shot. It seems also that the tanks are weaker on the sides than on the front or back (not sure about this). Another way but more difficult one is to run towards the tank. If you have the luck of it's shot goes wide, run right up to the tank. Crouch and the tank will not be able to shoot you as long as you stay ducked. Plant some explosives around the tank and run away. You need to remain with 2 AP's to click the remote detonator and then watch the tank burn!!! You can use 40mm grenades instead of explosives aplying the same tactic. Index 6. OTHER QUESTS ? 6.1 – ALIEN BUGS (SCI-FI MODE) First of all, the bugs in the game aren't real aliens from the outer space. At least from what I've seen so far in the game, Deidranna's happy ass is behind their genesis. They drop no weapons, and they spit acid/smoke crap at you, and try to swipe you with their claws. The Alien Bugs are pretty much just one more thing to do in the Sci-Fi mode. They are serious pain in the ass until you eradicate them, since they make mines stop producing money, but they are quite fun to blow away. When one mine stopps producing and the chief worker tells you that the mine is infested with bugs, you then have to fight your way down to the lowest mine level and kill the boss creature plus his offspring. Killing them seriously boosts morale! Your mercs just LOVE blowing those shits away. And since there are so damn many of them, it's really easy for your morale to go through the roof. On the converse side, if your town loses a fight to the bugs (milita are, for some reason, totally inept when it comes to fighting bugs, even though mercs easily dispatch the bastards left and right), your loyalty in that town will drop like a ROCK (we're talking like from %40 down to NOTHING). How to exterminate them for good: 1. Make sure you bring Gas Masks for all your guys because the bugs spit poison clouds or whatever it is. 2. Bring a LOT of Ammo, like, a crap load at least 100 + rounds for everybody, and some Mustard Gas. You should use HP ammo. Just for the Queen use AP. HP does far more damage against bugs while AP might just go through them. It might be better to equip your guys with submachine guns temporarily because a lot of the combat will be at close range and you do more damage to the bugs if you have two submachine guns on auto fire. 3. Also there is an Elixir that "hides" you from the bugs (unless you shoot or make noise). Combat will then be reduced to picking on one bug with a shoot and move. It's like candy from a baby. The Elixir can get obtained from a NPC – Gabby. But he only produces it one or two jars at a time - to get a squad of mercs down to the bottom of the mine, you'll need some jars of Elixir. You can bring him some bug parts to help producing the Elixir, but he still produces it slowly. 4. Go into the infested mine and kill the bugs. Don't bunch up your mercs, but keep a reasonable distance, since the Bugs gas spit is very inaccurate and will hardly damage a single merc, but in a bunch a single bug might get your whole team critical. Also don't stand in front of walls, or a miss might hit the wall behind you and gas you just as well. You've to go down 3 levels, sometimes moving to another sector on the same level. There are small holes, similar to the exit in the first level of the mine. This should lead you to the lair of the monsters. Just go killing the Bugs. This will go on quite a while. You can't miss the Bug Queen. 5. The Queen is not that bad, but she is hidden behind some rocks. If you try to get in sight she will interrupt and kill you. So throw grenades over the wall without seeing her, in the entrance where she sits plus one or two mustard gases and she should die but if she doesn't use some explosive grenades to finish her off. That's the most secure way to do it, at least in Grumm and Drassen Mines. Another way is to find the last space where she doesn't see you, and from there run forward, empty a burst of AP into her and run back. If there wasn't enough points, then just shoot a single shot, and there should be more points next time around. 6. The Bugs drop body parts like the Bloodcats. You can get Organs, Claws and parts of their skin. Later on they may be useful/sellable. Also the Bug Queen's blood makes your armor better. So make sure you pick it all up. If you have problems picking the Queen's blood (Jelly) make sure you hold down the CTRL key before moving the cursor over it. If that doesn't work, go to the strategic map, and activate the items filter and move the items from there. 7. Just make sure that you don't leave once you go down because once you leave, you will have to fight your way down all over again. 8. The mine will be operational again once you kill the Queen. There are people who claim that you need to blow up the eggs as well. But the mine is operational without you blowing them up, so I didn't tried that out. Q: Am I supposed to go down with a certain number of mercs or at a specific time? The Bugs sometimes refuse to appear in the mines, even after receiving the message from the head miner about their infestation; the lairs are empty and the Queen is also gone. A: They are not there all the time. If you're searching at night, remember, bugs are nocturnal, always attacking at night. If they attack at night, they ain't in the cave. Go in during the middle of the day. The Queenie bitch'll be there, along with PLENTY of baddies. But the consensus seems to be that the Queen only appears after 4.00 AM, so try going back later on, it worked for a lot of of people. Sometimes just save before entering the cave & reload till they appear. Q: I've read other posts that indicate the Queen only shows up after 4am or so. I've gone down maybe half a dozen times at all hours of the night, and I just can't find anything in the mines. If I have to I'll just keep checking 'round the clock, but frankly it's a pain to have to trek down there time and again with no results. Can anyone help me out? A: I've had the same problem (in Drassen), and the only workaround I've found is to save the game at the mine entrance, quit to the desktop and then reload the savegame. You should encounter the bugs on the first level; if not, it didn't work. This is probably a bug and not a time issue. It seems to have something to do with the placement of the mercs as they appear in the zone triggering the bugs to appear. Index ? 6.2 – MICKEY & THE BLOODCATS The Bloodcats: There's an NPC in Alma by the name of Auntie, who gives a quest to kill Bloodcats, that have a den, that is two sectors to the east (right) of Alma. She says the Bloodcats have been killing children in the town, and wants it to stop. So it's your mission to find and kill these wild creatures. After you kill them all, in order to complete the Bloodcats quest, you must return to Alma and talk to Auntie again. The same is true of some other quests. Completing this quest improves Alma loyalty and consequently the mine output. It's a pretty fun mission, if you rip the Bloodcats up with mortars and assault weapons. But if you prefer to kill them using guns, you should use HP ammo, which is more effective against the Bloodcats. It's also the ammo of choice against the Bugs if you're in Sci-Fi... (also, it looks like if you're travelling in vehicles the Bloodcats won't attack you). Beware! They appear in other several places attacking you, when you travel outside cities (normally at night). Here are some locations of where the Bloodcats may attack: C3, D4, D9, E13, F7,I6, K12 (they attack you anywhere in Arulco close to wooden areas). Mickey: After you kill the Bloodcats you can pick some stuff from them: their pelts, claws and teeth. Later you can sell all this stuff to Mickey if you can find him. Mickey is the Irish guy that sold items to you from JA Deadly Games. He is now dealing exclusively in animal parts and the only one to buy them in Arulco. He should be in city bars, so try the one in Drassen or San Mona. When you find him, he will ask you to buy him a drink – do that and he will disclose some info. He says he would be in that bar or others in the area (it seems since his retirement he has been hitting the sauce pretty hard). The Bloodcats pelts go for about $400 each, and claws and teeth for about $100/150. Since it's not much, you can also try to kill him. You'll get $10.000, a G41 and ammo. Be sure to hide somewhere (behind the "bartending brother" is a safe place) before you shoot him! Index ? 6.3 – BOUNTY HUNTIN' TERRORISTS The Bounty Hunter: There is a Bounty Hunter in the game. His name is Carmen and you'll find him in the bars in Drassen, San Mona or Cambria (cafe). He buys heads and so he gives you a list of people to kill (6). If you take their heads to him, he will pay you anywhere from 10.000 to 25.000 (half the actual reward). Good way to get money! Also, you won't get paid right away. Carmen takes the heads then pays you later on. So, if you are strapped for cash, this may not be the easiest way to get some. It only takes a day (24 hrs) to get the money but if you find him somewhere other than Drassen, you'll have to go back to Drassen to collect. Also, only give him 1 head at a time or you won't get all the money coming to you. Don't forget that when you return to bring him the heads he may not be in the same place since he travels between Drassen and San Mona. But if you buy a drink from Frank, the bartender in San Mona, he will tell you where to find Carmen. The Terrorists: In the computer disk Carmen gives you, you'll find a list of 6 terrorists whose heads are wanted. So you can kill them and chop their heads off for an extra money. About finding the terrorists, well, 5 of them are in random locations. It means that they may appear in your game in one of several places. Only the Druggist is in a fixed location, in a Grumm bar as a bartender (misfit Mannie Santos will possess his place after you'll kill the terrorist). IDentifying the Terrorists: They are looking slightly different from photos at Carmen's disk and have other names. So to ID them you have to remember what they look like. Your mercs won't tell you on the tactical screen when you actually meet the terrorists. They think they are normal citizens. They don't want to draw attention to themselves and can't do anything for you, except yap. They don't attack you immediately, so if you notice someone suspicious, you can get the chance to go & review your files, to see if you remember seeing one of these guys. When you or they have initiated a fight their name will change to the "Real" name and you should be able to figure out if it was one of the terrorists by comparing the name to the disc you got from Carmen. Could even be a good idea to check these files, after you have freed a town sector & have looked at all the Citizens that you can look at, just to see if any look like one of the terrorists. I noticed also that Carmen said you might find 3 or 4 of them in Arulco, so you might not find all of them in one game. Another note, the wanted list characters are not among Kingpin's gang. Real Name Fake Name Disguise Whereabouts Items carrying Specialties Druggist Charlie Pretends to be a bartender Bar in Grumm (H2) AKM Stealth Expert 5.45mm Mag Kevlar Helmet, Vest and Pants Tiffany Eddie Joe Pretends to be a tourist Balime Chitzena San Mona Thompson Automatic Weapons Expert .45 SMG Mag Kevlar Vest Imposter Chris Pretends to be a Canadian Balime Cambria Grumm AK-74 No specialties 5.45mm Mag Kevlar Helmet and Vest MOM Annie Pretends to be a student Chitzena Cambria Balime San Mona G3A3 No specialties 7.62mm NATO Tear Gas Mustard Gas Kevlar Helmet and Vest Slay Terry Pretends a wheelchair man Cambria Univers. Grumm Alma M-14 Automatic Weapons ------ Head Hit Bonus 7.62mm NATO Steel Helmet Kevlar Vest T-Rex Jasmin -------- Grumm Chitzena Cambria MAC-10 (2) Ambidextr. ------ Hand-to-H. .45 SMG Mag AP Spectra Helmet, Vest and Pants Index ? 6.4 – THE MISSING SCIENTIST & THE ROBOT MERC Somewhere at the beginning-middle of the game, you'll know from an animated scene of Queen Deidranna and Elliot, that a scientist that worked for her is now missing, leaving the queen totally pissed off, since he was working on a important secret project. What this scientist is working on, is in a Robot mercenary, trying to develop a kind of super mercenary that fights all day long, with no need to rest or eat and don't keep complaining about his teammates (an all-day reality in JA2…) So, if can find the scientist, maybe you can convince him to borrow the Robot, to help you liberating Arulco, this of course, if he has already finished the Robot… The Location of Scientist Locating the scientist (most known as "MadLab") can be a little bit difficult, because is location is random every game. But his location is always limited to Farmland sectors somewhere at central/south map. The best way to find him, is to keep travelling a lot in the Strategic Map screen between sectors. If you pass through a sector of interest (that could have the scientist) you will get a message like.. "Your squad notices someone in sector xx". Then you might want to look to see if he is in there. But even being random here are some locations of where he was already found: o H7 (between Cambria and Estoni) o E4 (below San Mona Mine) o I11 (between Cambria, Alma and Tixa) o Around Balime o East of Alma When you get to the sector where he is, you should find a house and a barn. He's in a hidden compartment of a barn that you can open by operating a swith in the house. To find the switch, enter the house, find and open a drawer (cabinet) and there will be a switch in there. Turning on the switch will open up the secret door to a room in the barn. Go in the barn and talk to the escaped scientist, who is working on the bot. How to get and use the Robot: If you talk to the scientist using someone with pretty high leadership, he will tell about his plans and explain what you have to do to get the Robot. He'll say in order to finish the Robot, you have to bring two items to him. A rifle and Video Camera. You can get a Video Camera in one shop of electronics or in the Museum of Balime. Go get them if you don't have them and return, giving them to the scientist. NOTE: You should repair the rifle and the Video Camera before giving them to the scientist, if they are not in perfect condition. To activate the Robot, one of your mercs needs to wear the headset (remote control) the scientist provides you. Then move the Robot like you would move a normal merc. To have reloaded his weapon, make another merc do it for him (he's kind of limited still…). If you need to repair him later, go to the Strategic screen (map and assignments), you can change someone's assignment who has a toolbox to Repair/Robot. Also, sometimes when giving the stuff, the Robot may ask for "7.62 cyber ammo" or "0 caliber ammo". Well, don't take it literally, he only needs his weapon reloaded. Robot Merc abilities and capabilities: After one of your mercs put the Headset remote control, the Robot can move, shoot, and act almost like a merc (he can't climb, lay prone, throw grenades though). The Robot may not have great stats, but he can be very useful to you. First take a look at his stats: Agility – 50 Dexterity – 30 Strength - 30 Leadership – 1 Wisdom – 5 Marksm. – 80 Explosives –0 Mechanical – 0 Medical – 0 Health – 95 Experience Level - 1 As you can see only Health and maybe Marksmanship are the good things about him. But it's his Health what can help you. The Robot takes a lot less damage than a normal merc would when has been shot. And a good Mechanical merc can fix him up pretty easy. So the Robot is especially good in close quarters situations when you'd rather not have your mercs get hurt. One example is when taking out the Bloodcats since they are in large number and get close to you pretty easily. With some backup from the rest of your guys he shouldn't be beat up to bad (it takes about 5 to 8 damage off for each hit from a Bloodcat compared to the 20+ damage it would do to a merc). Another bad thing about him is that the remote control is worn on somebody's head prevent this guy from using gas mask, headsets, night goggles and sun glasses. Choosing a weapon for the Robot Merc: When the scientist asks you for a gun to mount on the Robot, you should choose wisely, because the gun you choose will be forever attached to the Robot. So you can't change it anymore! If you want him to be in the front line in close quarters situations, that means you need to give it a weapon with low action points and large ammo capacity (no need for long ranges). Thus far I find the M16A2/C7 (with rod and spring) to be one of the better choices for the Robot. The G11 also fits these criteria as many others. But giving him a low end weapon may limit him a little bit. So you can also think "I should give him the most powerful weapon I currently have right now 'cause once it's attached to the robot's body, it'll be the only weapon the robot'll ever use." So, once again, choose wisely. Also, it seems you can't give modified guns to the Robot (either permanent or temporary). When you try giving one to him, all the attached stuff to the gun, end in a pile on the floor (not certain about this). BEWARE! If you give him the Rocket Rifle as the weapon make sure the gun is "clean of fingerprints", because if it has been already used by someone, you'll not be able to use it and therefore useless to the Robot (get the "Invalid fingerprint ID" message). If you want to do that, get the Rocket Rifle fixed by the electronics guy first and then give it to MadLab, and the Robot will be able to fire it. Trust me, I've done it! Index 7. MIXED ISSUES ? 7.1 - DIFFICULTY LEVELS Ok, here are some things I know for sure, mixed with some personal impressions I've got from playing, but which could be wrong... First, the certainties: - You have less money to start with as difficulty level increases - You have less money produced by the mines also - Your 'popularity rating' in towns climbs slower, which also has an impact on the money you receive - The enemy patrols are much more frequent as you climb in levels, and they are also better equipped. However, this is compensated by the fact you'll find better equipment on their bodies, and also (not 100% sure) in the towns - The enemies 'level' (red, yellow, grey...) is improved as difficulty increases (even in Drassen, all the guards I met until now were yellow - at Expert level) - Contrary to widespread belief (and this info comes from a Ian Currie posting – read it below) the enemies don't have an advantage in hitting you, except at the Expert (Hard) level. At Novice (Easy) level, they are at a small disadvantage; at Experienced (Medium) they are on par with you. However, one advantage the enemies ALWAYS have is that they KNOW their chance of hitting before firing, which is never the case with you. Now to the things I'm not so sure about: - The AI seems better as level increases - It seems there is less silver/gold to be found when exploring the mines And finally some wild speculations: - Merc insurances cost might be higher - Mercs might more easily refuse to work for you, depending on mortality rate and general performance - Quest enemies might have better characteristics Q: What's the real effects of difficulty levels? I chose the middle level of difficulty (experienced?) and I can't do squat against my enemies... they are standing up in the middle of the field and i'm prone behind a tree and I can't hit them with a shotgun, but they can peg me with a handgun???? I read that the computer units have a MASSIVE bonus to hit against me. I may replay the game, but not on Hard if the cheating gets worse than this. It's one of the real annoying things about this game that wasn't in JA. Now you know why they have a Fast Save and Fast Load. A: Err...no, it's NOT true. Computer units do not have any bonus to hit (at least not on easy or medium difficulty). Swear to God. On easy level, enemies have a "chance to hit" penalty. In EVERY JA game, people have thought the same thing ("I can't hit the broad side of a barn, but the computer never misses"). I've experienced the perception myself when playing, but it really is just that perception. The computer does have the advantage of knowing it's chance to hit in all situations (while you don't) and exploits that. Ian Currie – Sirtech Canada Index ? 7.2 - GAME LIMITS Q: Just 2 questions. Is there a time limit in JA2? I trained too long once and i got an email saying that i got to move on, from my boss? What happen if i ignore this? Second, can the mines ran out of money? A: The game itself, I predict (since I have not finished it), does not limit the time taken per game. However, the mines DO run out of money and Deidranna's forces appear to grow throughout at least the beginning of the game, so there is serious incentive to keep moving. Obviously, eventually her forces would become too strong and your cash flow too weak to sustain any kind of reasonable resistance, let alone take the country. My advice: do not spend too much time training. I recognize the impulse to create a trained custom super-merc, but the game will penalize you seriously for days of training. Your best bet is to create your custom merc with an understanding that some skills improve far faster than others through action, set those that don't a bit higher and those that do a bit lower. Then improve through action, and always maintain the understanding that it is highly unlikely that you will ever be outstanding in all categories. Index ? 7.3 – TRANSPORTING GEAR Q: Is there anyway to shift a lot of gear from one sector to another? A: One way to make it a bit easier (between sectors of a town) is to station a merc or mercs near the edge of the map, load them up from the Map view/Inventory screen, walk across to next sector and drop, repeat ... With 6 mercs, you can move a lot of items in one hit. Another way is to use the vehicles to transport the items for you (a lot easier). Index ? 7.4 – OTHER COOL THINGS IN JA2 o 7.4.1 – The Flower Service Q: Anybody found a use for send flowers yet? I was experimenting sending them various places. But never got any indication that the stuff was recieved. Is there a point or just a way to blow like 200 bucks real stupidly? A: Just pick out a bouquet, attach a nasty message and select Meduna as your destination. Pick overnight delivery, wait one day and get ready to laugh your head off. It's pretty funny 'cause she gets all pissed off and poor Elliot gets slapped about 6 times. Index o 7.4.2 – The Funny Tourists If you haven't done it yet, get John and Mary (the tourists in Chitzena who want to go to Drassen), and make them run in the tactical screen (real-time mode). The animations are hilarious! Index o 7.4.3 – Cool Death Scenes Slaughtering children Did you see the animation when you blow a kid in two with a powerful gunshot? :) Eric T. Cheng – Sirtech Canada Killing with heart attacks Want to see your approval in Cambria drop from 100% to 65% just like that? 1) Escort Joey from San Mona to Cambria. (Martha's house); 2) Bring him back to Martha, chit-chat for a bit; 3) Kill Joey; 4) Martha will drop dead from a heart attack; 5) After killing Joey (and Martha indirectly) you will find a copy of Bustier Magazine. Guess Joey just wanted some time to himself. Poor guy; 6) Now restart your game (hopefully you've saved before doing this and get that approval (approval=money) rating up and get the Queen! Index o 7.4.4 – Duplicating Items There's a bug in the game that lets you duplicate items like ammo, 1st aid kits, grenades, etc. This is how it works: When you buy something from Tony the Weapons Dealer or anywhere else, you can buy more than what you can place in a single pocket (ie: you can buy 6 mags of 5.56mm ammo in one slot, but you can only place 4 mags of 5.56mm in a large pocket). 1) Buy the 6 mags and in the purchase screen and hold shift and drag it to the side of the screen where you can drop the item onto the ground. 2) Then, on the same tile as the 6 mags, place another item (any on will do, even a single 5.56 mag). Now, you should have on the ground 5.56mm (6) and 5.56mm (1). 3) Take a merc that has ONLY 1 large pocket open and all other pockets filled (ie: if he has any 5.56 ammo, the pocket must be filled with 5.56) and make him pick up the stuff on he ground using the "select all" button. Now, he should have his large pocket filled with 4 mags of 5.56mm and another item in his hand. 4) Place the item that is in his hand back on the ground. There should now be the 5.56mm (6) and 5.56mm (1) on the ground PLUS the 5.56 (4) in your pocket. The trick can also be done with a small pocket: Place 3 or 4 mags plus another item on the ground and follow step 2) except that you must have ONLY 1 small pocket empty and not a large pocket. This trick can be used for any item as long as you can place it in a grouping that is larger than a pocket. So it can be done with compound-18, springs, steel tubes, ammo, but not with med kits, tnt, guns. This is because you cannot place 2 of these items into one large pocket. Here's some more info on duping: Remember that this is *not* a one-time deal. Once you dupe, you can empty a pocket and pick up the large stack to dupe again, apparently indefinitely. I got $20,000 selling mags to Tony like this on my way to Chitzena on day 4 or 5, which is quite a windfall at that point of the game (Tony ran out of money or I would've had the 18 best mercs in the game by the time I got done ;) I also left over 200 mags on the ground in San Mona, as I just duped up a shitload before I began selling them back in earnest. On my way back East, I stopped in San Mona again, saw that all those mags were still there, and made another wad of cash for the trouble (Tony gets a new bankroll every day when he refreshes his inventory). This is a key thing: you don't have to be at a shop to dupe! However, you can only dupe in a small pocket elsewhere, as you can't get a stack bigger than large pocket will hold outside of a shop. I dropped 4 7.62 NATO mags on the ground, dropped wire cutters on top of them, and picked them up with only a small pocket empty. The dupe worked like a charm, and I did it repeatedly (I ended up filling everyone's pockets with them, just because I could). This is very useful to avoid running out of ammo - as long as you have 1 more mag than will fit in a small pocket, you can just dupe up some more on the spot between battles. However, it is definitely preferable to dupe in a shop if one is handy, as this is the only place you can get a stack larger than will fit in a large pocket (thus doubling your productivity). Also, remember that you can sell a stack of items to a dealer and then buy them back to initiate the process in a large pocket. Thus, even if the dealer doesn't have what you need, as long as you have enough on hand and the dealer will buy them, you can dupe in a large pocket. One last thing about duping - if the merc is weilding a one-handed weapon, his empty hand will take one item off the stack. This means you either need to make sure his hands are full (e.g. carrying a rifle) or you need to buy 2 more than the number that a large pocket will hold. Index o 7.4.5 – Automatic Save Games If you create a file named AutoSave.pls and place it in the same folder where JA2 is installed, the game will automatically be saved during turn based combat as soon as you hit Done (turn). The save will either be named auto00.sav or auto01.sav (they alternate every turn). These are regular saves that can simply be renamed and loaded from the normal Load Game screen. They also can be loaded without renaming them using ALT+A (for the LATEST save) and ALT+B (for the older one) from the Load Game screen. Note: It doesn't matter what the contents of the AutoSave.pls file is; the program merely checks for the existence of the file. Index 8. JA2 LINKS - My own page for the Guide (will always be the first site to have it, of course): http://members.tripod.com/patusco - Official Jagged Alliance 2 Website (from Sir-Tech): http://www.jaggedalliance.com/ - Official Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business Website (from Sir-Tech): http://www.jaggedalliance.com/unfinishedbusiness/index.html - Terravirtua JA2 Discussion Board: http://www.terravirtua.com/ - TacticalPlanet JA2 Discussion Board: http://forums.tacticalplanet.com/secondary.asp?topic=236&ArchiveStart=0 - Bear's Pit – Jagged Alliance Discussion Board: http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/cgi-bin/ubb/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro - Jagged Alliance Galaxy (the old Voice of Arulco): http://www.tacticalplanet.com/ja-galaxy/ - The NetHQ – Home Of The Rebellion – JA2 Fansite: http://ja2.gzone.de/engnh/index.html - Jagged Alliance 2 Character Information: http://users.lmi.net/rpourr/ja2char.html - S.E.A.L.'s Board For Jagged Alliance 2 http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Tower/2096/jaggedalliance2.html - Tactical Planet JA2 On-Line Guide: http://www.tacticalplanet.com/strategies/ja2/ Index 9. THANK YOU'S… Personal Thanks: In first place I'd like to thanks all the help from Migas to this Guide. Hints, tactics, savegames (the end!!!), ideas & for being kind of a beta tester of this guide. You rock, man!! Thanks to the ex-MGC Crew, (you know who you are), to Smirnoff for letting me open his eyes for this great game & for listening me over and over about JA2 till it finally got out. This applies also to many other friends such as: Vampirus Brothers, Ostras, Joγo and Pedro. Public Thanks: Above all possible people, I have to give a Big THANK YOU to Sir-Tech!!! Great job!!! Then I'd like to give thanks to all that contributed with the first hints of this Guide, by giving them on the boards. Since I haven't take note on your names due to the large volume of text I had to deal with to compile the first version, I can't do other thing than thank you all. Sorry for this, but the prize is that this Guide is for you after all. Special thanks goes to Jason Pickett (Wizzo) for his great help with hints and spelling /gramatical mistakes detection (I wish everyone was like you), to Adam Foster, Warren A. Smith Jr., Eystein Holm, Rakki, Roine, Dohi and Roland Roy Santos for their helpful hints which lead to version 1.22 of this Guide, to Rexer, the guy from Tactical Planet who has also put a JA2 Guide on-line with some hints from my guide; to Eki's JA2 Site for posting my Guide and giving me the credit for it (not frequent these days…). Then there's all the guys who e-mailed me after the release of the first version of the Guide, sending comments, ideas, hints and some questions that I hope this new version can answer them all (sorry for missing some names but I lost my address book recently…) Here are their names: Anthony (S.E.A.L.) Smith (big thx for the revised Guide you gave me), Andrew L, Bo Humphrey, Ben Huo, Bobby F. Boyd Jr. (sorry for not giving you the credit for most of the general tips), Boris Bonin, Brian Stilwell, Christopher Blough, Carol Tucek, C.H. Lee, Charles, Chief, Chris Bromley, Dwight DeKuyper, Demiter Stankov, Eric Gerard, Ernie Moulton (thx for the files!!!) Fish Saviour, George Soropos, Gerard Demanuelle, Grant S. (thx for the files!!!), Hεkan Johansson (thx for the file), HappyStoner, Hock Jin, Roger D Hayes, Ja^m[e]s L{ee}, Jack Post II, Jacky Dabah, Johnny, John Galeazza, Kenneth, Kensou Sie (thx for the bug/cheat), Kknd Mdk, Kyle Oksiuta, Marco Behrmann, Matthew D. Przybilla, Maxim Gromov, MegAtomic, Michael Hanna, Murray (thx for all your work!), Nicolae Herisanu, Oleg Werner, Oscar L. Ocampo Jr., Rafi, Ragelic, Raymond E. Graham, Robert Abbosh, Tiago Simυes, Tim Wuyts (thx for converting the Guide to a .txt), Quay Jones, William Wei, Yaqin, and a Korean guy that due to the very different character they use, I was unable to know his name. Index 3