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New JA2 1.13 stable release now available!

Luka-boy

Arcane
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Sep 24, 2014
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Old-school infiltrations tend to be extremely difficult even if you have the appropriate traits.

The thing that I found helps a lot consistently is camouflage. When the enemy only can see you from ten tiles away you have a much wider margin to maneuver and wait until they are in a decent position to use your most silent weapons or even melee them.
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
The little success I had with night fighting in 1.13 was literally taking one step at a time, shooting a guard maybe once and then retreating way back into the dark until I could end combat again (but I think I only really tried this at the airport in one short playthrough).
 

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
1,056
From a programming point of view I can see why someone would be wary of delving into things, because as soon as you start you become the "AI guy" and suddenly every complaint about how the AI works becomes your responsibility.

on the flip side of the coin, the AI would be exactly where a really good coder would make his skills shine. That said, some gripes with the AI aren't a result of bad AI code, but of messed up CTH calculations. These gripes tend to dissappear in OCTH.


As for my own game, i made a playthrough to test as few of the less silly Features. The added Ja1/DG Mercs have good looking face animations, but the speech selected from ja1/DG to be used in Ja2 often doesn't match the Situation at all. So when it comes to those mercs, the question is largely which of them are less cringeworthy. That their loadouts often don't quite work is a minor detail considering there's what, 4 or 5 loadouts per merc? Traits, Backgrounds etc. absurdly overpowered makes some mercs very useful (almost a requirement for certain things). For example scouting, spy and Radio Operator are IMO dubious as skills/traits. Is it really completely impossible for a seasoned battlefield Veteran to use a Radio set? Or to avoid being ambushed from an opposing suad whose Location is well-known down to the exact number of enemies? And what super Special Attribute it requires to wear enemy clothes to disguise yourself is downright bullshit. These skills should improve a merc's ability to perform these Actions, but as requirements for the use of this feature, they're absurd. And they're not even the worst skill/trait balance-wise.

For an official "stable" release, the number of bugs is astounding. The bug when mercs jump into a fence instead of over it is ages old, bugs relating to interrupts are ages old. Then, AT weapons seem to have been super-nerfed, not without causing bugs. "Ambush" Features is super buggy and had Ja2 freeze up time and again. Food system is bugged, even if I play without that system, some npc's will drop shit tons of food items. Enemies fleeing the battlefield can still enter a sector held by the Player, not without causing bugs of course.

But in the end, some weird "helicopter data corrupted" bug has ended my game.

Still, the bugs aren't the worst thing. The changed random number system goes too far for me. Almost every aspect from the tactical gameplay has become so super random that it annoys the crap out of me. Every time a merc misses i just know i could reload N times until he critically hits and kills the enemy. The old random number system was way better. And guess which change isn't optional...
 

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
1,056
still i feel like i might try an older save game and finish the playthrough and test some remaining things :addiction:

:outrage:
 

whatevername

Arcane
Joined
Sep 2, 2013
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666
And the enemies don't get interrupts or anything? I've tried to do the solo or small-team night sneaky infiltration things multiple times but they eventually always fail because it only requires one enemy to get an interrupt to cause an alarm and then there's 10-20 enemy soldiers crashing down on you. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.


You need:
-night ops skill
-NVG
-camouflage
-85+ agility, dexterity for sneaking
-hide in the grass/behind the trees/etc
-extended ear
-10x scope for even more cheesiness. 4x and 7x are worse. You can also be a sniper with scouting instead of night ops.

With the scope and extended ear you will know how many enemies are there.
Obviously you need a gun with the lowest noise stat if you use a silencer.



If you want to see some funny stuff, lure some dudes into water and shoot them with a tranq dart.
 

Luka-boy

Arcane
Joined
Sep 24, 2014
Messages
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Location
Asspain
If you want to see some funny stuff, lure some dudes into water and shoot them with a tranq dart.
Aw shit, I need to try that :lol:

Water is rare but great for some hilarious moments. Nothing like catching an enemy taking a swim in a river at night. Or running after an enemy that's out of ammo and trying to escape into the sea and slitting his throat when he's waist-deep in the water.
 

Serus

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
6,680
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Small but great planet of Potatohole
It's far from "stable". You can end up with 0 AP at the start of your turn. I also got stuck in the boxing ring and had to spam buttons to move and jump over the ropes, and the game became bugged after that... Back to 4870.

Boxing ring was always slightly bugged, in all the 1.13 versions (4870 included) and in the vanilla afaik. It sometimes works flawlessly and sometimes it freezes or some other shit happens.
 

GarfunkeL

Racism Expert
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Nov 7, 2008
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I often get the bug that there is no-one to fight or talk to, at all. And yeah, it was horribly bugged in vanilla but it's weird that 1.13 hasn't managed to fix it after all this time.
 

Luka-boy

Arcane
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Sep 24, 2014
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I also got a bug in the boxing ring with the latest stable version. Darren wouldn't accept the payment to participate in the third match no matter what. In the end it got fixed by leaving the sector and going back the next day.
 

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
1,056
I often get the bug that there is no-one to fight or talk to, at all. And yeah, it was horribly bugged in vanilla but it's weird that 1.13 hasn't managed to fix it after all this time.

Fighting is possible during certain times only. I never had any bugs concerning the extreme fights in any of the "vanilla" versions i played, though.
 

GarfunkeL

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You lucky dog. I've never had a completely bug-free fighting ring. And I know that but my guys stay in the building for three days straight and there's never anyone there.
 

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
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there's a ton of scripting involved concerning how some NPC's are present or not. Then, Ja2 tends to add some random factors to most of that scripting for fake suspense replyability value. Still, Darren not there for three days straight without any special events sounds like a bug. What i get more often is that Carmen doesn't appear when he's supposed to. In 1.13 that is, though.

in 1.13, no matter the Version, i also got a lot of bugs concenring the san mona fights. In my stable release playthrough, there was no bug, though. I tend to have one character talk to darren, give him Money etc. and a different charatcer doing the fighting. That has been giving me very good results the last few playthroughs i made. In my experience the fighting is more error prone if you use the same character for fighting and for handling Darren.
 

Dominae

Educated
Joined
Jan 13, 2014
Messages
43
I've been toying with 1.13 the last couple weeks, but only with the OCTH system, I might try the new system soon as I've reached that "I broke the game" situation where I have ever increasingly good guns and just steamroll the AI at range now.

I've ended up having to drop to task manager and kill JA2 a dozen times now, usually because of AI-issues (and then, its mainly pathing I think) causing infinite stop-watch "loading":

- The fighting arena usually dies on me because when the dude goes to fetch Kingpin, he just never returns. I think at that brief moment one of Kingpin's other men just happened to step into the pathing they planned to use to come back, and they got bugged and are just standing in a doorway eternally. I don't think the game ever checks to make sure they made it, and if not, rerun the pathfinding and try again.

- Same thing twice when returning the people from Ohio to the Drassan airport. They go to hand me something, and the AI just freaks the hell out and derps ... NPC runs up to my soldier, stands right in his face with her hand in her pocket to give him cash and then never completes the transaction ... just ... infinite loading situation again. Another situation where the game should go "did what I try and complete .. you know .. actually complete? No? .. ok try again" but it doesn't, you just end up staring at the loading icon and a frozen moment in time.

- I usually have some enemy soldiers pacing back and forth like idiots issues. This is usually the saddest, because it directly affects the challenge of the game if 2 or 3 soldiers in a sector run back and forth in and out of the front door until I walk up and kill them.

- A new one I've noticed is "I can't hit a damn thing" issues with some of my mercs. Ira with 80+ accuracy and an AK-74 at nearly 100% condition .. 3 steps from an enemy, aiming fully, and missing every-single-shot. My IMP merc went through a phase too, where I missed every single shot with her for a week of game time, no matter the distance, no matter the aim. She was missing hitting "dying" enemies at point blank range with fully repaired LMGs. It was bizarre really, it felt like like their stats were performing at fraction of what they should have been for a while. The bullets would even take weird trajectories (especially when standing over the dude bleeding out) because there was almost zero way for the shot to miss on screen .. it'd like, fly nearly 75degree angles from the point of her guns and stuff, and hit a tree next to the dude bleeding out.
 

Dominae

Educated
Joined
Jan 13, 2014
Messages
43
Did you try pistols at point blank range?

Pretty sure I did, my IMP was ambidextrous so I stuck to 1-handers. I believe I still had pistols when at that point ... and tried different ones, as well as small SMGs.

My attempt at playing with the New Change-To-Hit System just failed, the AI is tragically broken for me. They stay two squares out of pistol range and run back and forth until I kill them. Plowing through sectors like they're tissue paper because the AI doesn't fire back, they just derp back & forth, and maybe squat sometimes. Did some searching and can't figure out if its a common issue or not for people with NCTH.
 

GarfunkeL

Racism Expert
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I'm thinking that something went badly wrong with your install. NCTH makes hitting harder, especially at the beginning, but it isn't that bad. AI screwups happen occasionally as well - the dreaded run back and forth thing - but never constant. Delete, reinstall, try again.
 

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
1,056
- The fighting arena usually dies on me because when the dude goes to fetch Kingpin, he just never returns. I think at that brief moment one of Kingpin's other men just happened to step into the pathing they planned to use to come back, and they got bugged and are just standing in a doorway eternally. I don't think the game ever checks to make sure they made it, and if not, rerun the pathfinding and try again.

you'd be surprised they (original devs) actually teleport some of the NPC's in this script for this to work better and faster. But there are still residual risks (and possible screw ups in 1.13 pathing changes)
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,149
NCTH can very well cause you to miss targets that are in melee range, especially with pistols and starting stats. One key thing to know about NCTH is that it aims where you click the mouse, so if you aren't clicking the target dead-center you are shooting yourself in the foot (almost literally).

OCTH shouldn't have any of these problems unless something is really fucked up. Did you download some kind of NCTH-based weapon rebalance, which would mess weapon stats up in OCTH? I also certainly have never seen the AI consistently that bad.
 

GarfunkeL

Racism Expert
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NCTH can very well cause you to miss targets that are in melee range, especially with pistols and starting stats. One key thing to know about NCTH is that it aims where you click the mouse, so if you aren't clicking the target dead-center you are shooting yourself in the foot (almost literally)
What?!?

I thought that the targeting reticule just gave a rough estimate of how accurate the shot will be? Now you're telling me that I have literally aim with the mouse? Fuuuuuck me!
 

Luka-boy

Arcane
Joined
Sep 24, 2014
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1,629
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NCTH can very well cause you to miss targets that are in melee range, especially with pistols and starting stats. One key thing to know about NCTH is that it aims where you click the mouse, so if you aren't clicking the target dead-center you are shooting yourself in the foot (almost literally).
This is the first time I've heard something like that anywhere and after one hour of testing firing both at point blank and with long range sniping from different angles with mercs of different levels I really don't think that's the case. That said, when not aiming at enemies it seems that yes, you aim where you click, but when aiming at humans it snaps to the usual head/torso/legs and as far as I can tell the mercs always try to aim at the center mass in that case when shooting.

Mind telling where exactly I could find some official statement on that? Because that'd change everything if true.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,149
I'm 90% certain I read it as I stated and I'm not imagining it, but forum search is as shitty as ever. One easy to find thing that is emphasized about the new system is that there is no specific calculated CTH, and that % of area of your reticule that the target fills determines your chance of hitting. That could certainly be glossing over any element of body part lock-on though.
 
Last edited:

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
1,056
there's a bunch of Features that may cause ridiculous misses:

short-range penalties (scopes and such cause this)
Shooting from the hip

ncth being a mess (but i don't think it matters where exactly you point with the mouse)
 

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
1,056
*add scope modes to the list above



also i tested the UB-1.13 hybrid in the version that came with the stable release. Most of it works, but it looks a bit undertested considering the obvious little mistakes. But the UB specific code seems to work (with the exception of a hickup i had ith the end Boss) which is cool.
 

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