JA2 character creation...

[Jarinor]

Okay, I'm looking for some advice from the JA2 veterans. What are the best attributes you can get? Stealth/Night Ops combo? Expert Stealth? Expert Night Ops? Something else?

Also, personality and attitude wise, what should I go for? I know a psycho personality gives you an increased chance to hit, but also a random burst fire (damn that can be annoying), what are other good ones? Ditto attitudes - which one is best? Optimist? Friendly? Normal?

I've read about these, but I'm not sure what effect they have on the game and such, so help in this area would be nice .

Regarding skills, I left strength where it was, pumped Leadership to 70, other "physical" ones to 80, had 85 Marksmanship and the other 3 I dropped to zero. Do I need mechanical/explosive/medical, or is it fine to rely on other mercs for all those skills?

 

[Rosh]

Rooftop/Night Ops
Expert Maching Gun
Some combinations of the above.

Also, here's the trick for Psycho. Don't give them any full auto weapons until the G11. They are often best with a sniper rifle, and help makke the best snipers around.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

You have to get an editor to get the different attitudes; they don't show up regardless of what you say in the quiz. Same with a few of the traits.

My favorite attitude is optimist. Your troops get morale bonuses and town loyalties are also higher IIRC. Aggressive supposedly gives you combat bonuses, but I can't say how much. The personalities are all neuroses and the like. I don't care for psycho since I like to keep control of my merc, and the rest are just pure weaknesses with no advantages.

Night ops is great. Night ops + camoflaged is my favorite. Rooftop sniping, auto weapons, and stealth can also be good.

With skills, I like mechanical to help repair items. Explosives is also pretty easy to level up if you set and then disarm your own explosives. As a side benefit, I think that's the only way you can raise wisdom. Health and wisdom should be maxed. Medical isn't that important, though you still might find a 35 useful for patching someone up. You can easily get away with a 60 or 70 marksmanship since it increases quickly. If you're patient, you can boost agility easily by sneaking around the immobile Crepitus larvae a lot. They never attack, though it can get a little boring once you get past 90. If you only have 35 Agility, you'll probably be getting a point per turn at least to start with, though. Strength and dexterity can be raised by punching stuff, though hitting real enemies raises it a lot quicker.

 

[Jarinor]

Well, my main merc is a friendly psycho . I tried to get optimist, but ended up with friendly instead. I'm realling noticing that bonus to hit psycho apparently gives you - I hit something ilke 78% of my targets, and he's far and away my deadliest merc, like 10 kills and 5 assists and I've only done the first two sectors of Drassen. Igor and Steroid picked up the rest. I also got the night ops/stealth combo - how the hell do you get heavy weapons/rooftop sniping and the others you mentioned?

WwtS, I find that anything less than 70 marksmanship means you can't hit squat, and the skill only improves if you hit your enemies.

I could start over, try and get an optimist, but really I can't be bothered doing all this stuff again, and besides, I want to play through mulitple times anyway . Maybe next I'll try an ambidextrous person...

 

[Rosh]

Ambidextrous really blows. It's really only viable in the early part of the game. The handcannons you get for rescuing the couple are nice, but can't compare to most rifles. Twin MAC-10s are nice, but still just don't have the power for late game.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

60 marksmanship really isn't a problem, you just need to aim harder at first. I like starting with Dr. Q, and he's no problem if you're just patient for a little while.

Ambidexterity can be slightly useful in the late game with night ops. You can sneak up on guys with UV goggles and hit them with twin silenced MAC-10's with AP rounds, but you're going to have to buy plenty of clips if you expect to do that very much. Of course, it's easier to just shoot them in the head with a rifle, then interrupt their buddies who come after you.

How did you manage to get friendly? I've never successfully gotten anything but a normal attitude using the quiz. With the traits, it's like I said, you need an editor to get stuff like rooftop sniping and camoflaged.

 

[Azael]

Stealth/Night-Ops
Night-Ops (Expert)
Night-Ops/Autoweapons

Those are the best combos if you ask me, although I hear that Night-Ops is less powerful in JA2 Gold Edition since the enemies throw break-lights at you.

Starting stats: Always max out Wisdom, regardless of what type of character you're going to play. High Wisdom means all your other skills improve faster. Unless you go solo, I wouldn't raise the Marksmanship skill above 75 from start. If you attack mostly at night, your custom merc (assuming you went with one of the above trait combos) will get to shoot so much that your Marksmanship should hit the roof before the end of the game. Don't bother raising Medical, Mechanical or Explosives above starting stats, in fact take Mech down to 0. There are many mercs (some of them free) with more than enough skill in this area. Explosives can also be raised very easy by exploiting the engine.

Good mercs: Raven, Steroid, Igor (can't have him and Steroid though), Shadow and Reaper.

 

[Jarinor]

Well, I'm not going to use an editor, I don't like cheating . It does seem like Night Ops is the way to go. What does autoweapons do for you?

As for the mercs, you CAN have Steroid and Igor together...just have them in different squads and in different sectors when you renew Steroid's contract. Works for me.

To get friendly, well, you gotta answer the questions in a friendly manner . Seriously, take the more friendly type options when you can, and you should end up with it.

 

[Rosh]

Another few good mercs:

Stephen: Gets very good marksmanship and can often be the 2nd best killero ut in the field.
Sidney: You want a grenade or gas canister tossed somewhere, draw an X on the ground and it's there.
Griz/Grunty: Not a bad starting team, Grunty gets better and can do some good mech skill, Griz is damn good with mortars for some reason. I've taken them to end game and they aren't too bad for support.
Colonel Len: I think that is his name. he tends to be pretty good.
The ex-police duo: Very good for working together, I've had just the two of them take out entire towns before, but need to be near each other.

Bad Mercs: Any wad of crap from that "economy" place. That is, unless you need someone to die.
The Austrailian guy: Far too costly for what he offers.
The Biker: Not bad with a shotgun, SOMETIMES. Other than that, he's nice as a meat shield with his fat ass.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

For your Merc:
lemme also endorse night-ops/stealth. This is to me the single most useful skill set in the game. Later on when you can get a few mercs equally good at it you will have a wicked first strike team.
Do not worry at all about: explosives, mechanical or medical - there are *plenty* of mercs you will get who can handle this. That said make sure you have 2 mercs who can handle medical and mechanical - it will seriously decrease the amount of time you spend healing/repairing.
As Azael mentioned a good wisdom is crucial as are a decent marksmanship and agilty. The more agility the more action points which is good for all the obvious reasons.
Leave Leadership at the default setting - you will have no problem raising this in the game.
Strength Health etc are all pretty easy to get training in so only raise them if you have some points left over.
I never take psycho as frankly it is just too irritating for me to lose control of my mercs. Moreover I don't notice any great benefit, tho I may be wrong.
Also altho the mercs from the bargain bin kinda suck, if you take them early enough they can be decent eventually. Hell as long as I have Buns, Grunty and Stephen I am happy. I honestly cannot seem to play a game without taking them.

 

[Azael]

Len is crap, unless you just hire him for a short stint. He will never improve during the course of the game.

 

[Jarinor]

I prefer to start with Igor, Buns and Steroid personally. It's a good combination of marksmanship, medical and mechanical skills. I do have one question though - what towns are best to liberate after Drassen? Someone mentioned Alma as a good source for guns in another thread. Let's just say I had to reload an older game. Trying to take out barracks' with pistols when they've got rifles and shotguns isn't a good idea.

It would also be nice to be able to hit people better than half the time without having to close to nearly melee range, while they shoot you on the way in.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

At the top difficulty, I like starting with Dr. Q, Grunty, and Bull. Then, I send Bull straight to San Mona to rescue Maria and compete in the deathmatch. If you quit after 2 matches, you can even keep playing for a steady $10,000 per day. With the extra money, you can hire Wolf the first night and it's pretty smooth sailing from then on. Get all the M.E.R.C. people you can, too; they're a better use of your money for mundane stuff like training militia, serving as pack mules, and repairing items.

Alma's probably the best place to go after Drassen. It's a bit more out of the way and more defendable, so it doesn't get attacked as early or often as Cambria. It's also full of great equipment, and there are a couple of fairly simple quests you can get from the townsfolk to raise your popularity.

 

[Jarinor]

See, I can't take Alma. I tried taking the NW sector of it, and got hammered. Or rather, I couldn't get anywhere in it. Could take out half a dozen guys before I got pinned down. Couldn't get to the other sectors without being stopped by overwhelming forces. I think I'm going to play through on an easier difficulty, and learn my way around some more. Thanks for the tips though.