Durrr, Jagged Alliance 2 combat is HARD

[circ]

What I would like to see in the future - don't know if this will ever be possible - would be the option to create custom weapons, for example crossbows that fire tranquilizer arrows and break lights over larger distances, and object creation like in Arcanum, with the option to create spiked traps, molotov cocktails, poison, etc.

Molotov cocktails have been in since vanilla JA2, tranq gun also. There are already teargas/smoke/mustard gas grenades so the animations are there. Then just have it work like a mine or something. There was a crossbow in Deidranna Lives, but it's a time issue mostly I guess. Suggest that stuff at the Bearcave.

 

[hal900x]

Another note regarding the folks concerned about supression: with 1.13 there is an entirely new enemy weapon progression. Very early, they have automatic weapons capable of suppression fire, and they are not afraid to use it. If you havn't got HAM wired, you will find yourself getting suppressed as often as you are doing the suppression. Noobs complain about this a lot, but I'm sure the Codexian types will find it about right. As far as the sniping war that unmodded JA2 can become(and zomg, it does seem like you referring to pre-ham gameplay in your complaints) , HAM fixed that for me..assuming you enable all the sniping limiters (and there are several) present in default 3.5.

There will always be loopholes and exploits in any game. 1.13 and HAM do a pretty good job of addressing them, though. It's not perfect, and smart Codexian types will still be able to find them. But if you play it real, it will do a nice job of responding in kind.

Also, one more time: each and every HAM feature can be very finely tweaked, or disabled entirely. I actually got on Bear Pit and complained about the overload of features when I first tried. But after being smacked down, I took the time to learn all of them and was glad I did. You can make it your own game, to a large extent. If you don't like have to approximate (it's not guessing unless you've got a really inept merc) your ammo at lower levels/skills then just turn that off. If you want more or less accurate tracer fire, you modify the number of tracers per 5 shots. HAM 3.6 Alpha, when it's baked, will have so many new features it will truly be a new game.

 

[Zomg]

HAM AI does know how to use suppression. It's used aggressively like sniping and (to a lesser extent) mortars in normal 1.13 - if one of your guys gets spotted, every enemy in a reasonable range will unload autofire at him. With HAM suppression making every bullet a "debuff" the guy that was spotted will be made useless even if he doesn't get hit or if he's heavily armored enough to shrug off an SMG hit or two. He can't even retreat because his APs are drained out. It makes movements a lot more decisive and important because a guy that's out on a limb is toast.

 

[MisterStone]

Are normal headshots more serious in the mod? Cause in 1.12, if I head shot a commando guy (or chick), he just goes "uh" and continues to slaughter everything within eyeshot.

 

[hal900x]

Are normal headshots more serious in the mod? Cause in 1.12, if I head shot a commando guy (or chick), he just goes "uh" and continues to slaughter everything within eyeshot.

A headshot does serious damage. You just ran into a mitigating factor(s):

- You didn't actually hit, but grazed. It can happen in this game in certain situations.

- You used a low-damage gun.

- He was wearing a good helmet.

- You used the wrong ammo and/or crappy ammo

Different ammo types do different types of damage. I would hazard a guess you fired something like 9mm HP/Glaser against an armored skull. In this case you would cause basically zero harm.

 

[Zomg]

Are there any well-known workarounds for all the bugginess in the extreme fighting championship thing? I guess besides manually giving myself 7.5K per day?

 

[MisterStone]

Yeah, I was being facetious, and I know they usually have good armor. Actually a headshot does pretty serious damage, but it seems like even if it does not go through their helmet though ought to be stunned if not knocked flat on their ass, for a couple of seconds. The worst that usually happens (when the shot does not kill them) is that they lose a couple AP and are rotated about 90-180 degrees and lose more AP turning back around.

 

[hal900x]

Are there any well-known workarounds for all the bugginess in the extreme fighting championship thing? I guess besides manually giving myself 7.5K per day?

No. It's completely fucked, and the single worst/most broken part of the game. I have yelled and screamed on the bear pit. Nobody gives a shit, and it will not be fixed. Skip it.

it's a fucking shame, because it reminds me of the Dragon side quest in Fallout 2. I put Bull there with his Dusters, which would have been a steady source of gladiatorial income.

If you can somehow many to always kill your opponent, via energy boosts, MA/H2H experts, dusters, high-level merc etc, that helps. Not worth the headache with all the bugs tho, IMO.

 

[hal900x]

Yeah, I was being facetious, and I know they usually have good armor. Actually a headshot does pretty serious damage, but it seems like even if it does not go through their helmet though ought to be stunned if not knocked flat on their ass, for a couple of seconds. The worst that usually happens (when the shot does not kill them) is that they lose a couple AP and are rotated about 90-180 degrees and lose more AP turning back around.

Try bringing it up on the Bear's pit. It's totally doable, since Buckshot aoe has that effect already. They are generally responsive, unless you are asking about the MMA fights.

 

[GarfunkeL]

You can also tweak damage through the .ini files. I immediately doubled everything, across the board.

 

[MisterStone]

Ugh, so now I am stuck fighting bugs in the mines. The fuckers just bumrush you and start spraying green shit everywhere, and it seems like I never get interrupts when I need them. Also, I though hollowpoint ammo was suppose to fuck these things up, but a single round still only does like 5-7 damage on the big suckers. FUcking bullshit.

The bug quest is horrible: unoriginal, tedious, lacking in tactical depth... if I had known what turning on "SF Mode" would get me into, I would have never gone near that option. What a bunch of shit.

 

[Nostradumbass]

Ugh, so now I am stuck fighting bugs in the mines. The fuckers just bumrush you and start spraying green shit everywhere, and it seems like I never get interrupts when I need them. Also, I though hollowpoint ammo was suppose to fuck these things up, but a single round still only does like 5-7 damage on the big suckers. FUcking bullshit.

The bug quest is horrible: unoriginal, tedious, lacking in tactical depth... if I had known what turning on "SF Mode" would get me into, I would have never gone near that option. What a bunch of shit.

i never tried it cos i knew from googling that it sounded like it blew chunks of shit. looks like I was rite.

 

[Nostradumbass]

that purple ammo which had the effect of jhp and armor piercing at the same time owned, btw.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Huh? My experience from both vanilla and 1.13 are completely opposite. You need mercs with good levels as your pointmen to get any interrupts. Also, bring as many mercs as you can - I think I had like 14 mercs down in the mine. Then find a room big enough so everyone has clear lines of fire, plant a mine or two at the entrance if you want, make sure that none of your mercs can be spitted up from inside the entrance and use a quick merc to lure the beasties to the killing field.

Also, ditch sniper rifles and just use burst fire guns a lot. End result? You can kill all the monsters in that level in a single room.

The queen is somewhat nasty but grenades work well, just don't stay in her FOV if you want to live.

 

[MisterStone]

This is what I have been doing, except I only have a single full squad of 6 mercs. I believe I am near the nest where the queen is. I set up a ambush in the big chamber near the entrance, but even if I have everyone up against the wall at a 90* angle to the entrance, someone always get smeared pretty bad and dies. I should probably start over with the bugs from an earlier save and try to make it down there without my mercs being so torn up already.

I guess if necessary I can get even more people, though I think it is pretty retarded that I have to pull all of my forces away from all of the important shit they are doing just to finish this dumbass quest.

 

[circ]

Well you probably already know this, but just in case you don't! Wear gas masks.

And there's no need to finish any 'sidequests' in JA2. But it helps with money and/or town support, and if you plan on being in country a while, you'll need it. You don't think a mine is going to work fine when weirdo bugs run around eating people, and that people will be like whatevvarrr about it.

 

[Deadeye Dragoon]

This is what I have been doing, except I only have a single full squad of 6 mercs. I believe I am near the nest where the queen is. I set up a ambush in the big chamber near the entrance, but even if I have everyone up against the wall at a 90* angle to the entrance, someone always get smeared pretty bad and dies. I should probably start over with the bugs from an earlier save and try to make it down there without my mercs being so torn up already.

I guess if necessary I can get even more people, though I think it is pretty retarded that I have to pull all of my forces away from all of the important shit they are doing just to finish this dumbass quest.

It's not dumbass, it's just very difficult. And at that point in the game clearing the mine is the most important shit your mercs can be doing--maybe your priorities are off. If it's really tweaking your balls use the GABBI cheat to kill them all.

 

[Higher Game]

Burst shots with hollow points will work just fine, if you have decent guns with good attachments. The queen can be mustard gassed easily. Bring a couple LAWs in case a bunch attack at once. Gas masks, drugs, and chemical lights all help too. It's not so hard, and in fact is good for training up weaker mercs.

 

[MetalCraze]

Jagged Alliance 2 combat is NOT hard - we all know that it sucks donkey balls - a combat can't be challenging unless your party members get auto-resurrected after each battle and auto-regen'ed in seconds. JA2 is just a casual crap. Twitching space-bar to pause the game is where the complexity's at.

Also what JA2 is doing in RPG discussion? I mean the lack of the great variety of dialogue options that would lead to the exactly same responses makes me cringe.

 

[Silellak]

Jagged Alliance 2 combat is NOT hard - we all know that it sucks donkey balls - a combat can't be challenging unless your party members get auto-resurrected after each battle and auto-regen'ed in seconds. JA2 is just a casual crap. Twitching space-bar to pause the game is where the complexity's at.

Also what JA2 is doing in RPG discussion? I mean the lack of the great variety of dialogue options that would lead to the exactly same responses makes me cringe.

Wow, I really had no idea you were so butthurt over people disagreeing with you that the butthurt had to be spread to entirely different threads.

Someone needs a HUG.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yeah, it's supposed to be "HUGE CRISIS", your mine doesn't produce money anymore and miner are running around like headless chickens. But the game doesn't really convey you that feeling, unfortunately. There's also little plot related to it - there's two NPC's you can talk about the bugs and they offer advice and help, iirc.

 

[Thor Kaufman]

There's a guy who sells "perfume" made from monster parts so they won't smell you unless you shoot them or get too close to them.
He can be found in two places, either he is between Alma and Cambria or southeast of the mine sector from Grumm.

Just use that stuff on your team then and box/crowbar/throwknife the monsters from behind or shoot them with silenced weapons loaded with hollow point ammunition.

The queen drops armor enhancing goo btw and you can get infinite dosages from her corpse if you use empty glasses on her.

 

[Frankie]

Jagged Alliance 2 is the BEST turn-based game out there, and in my opinion one of the best games of all genres. It's a shame that Jagged Alliance 3 has been put in the hands of so many incompetent jackasses that it most likely won't ever see the light of day.

 

[Black]

SO WHICH NPC IN DA DO YOU LIKE THE MOST AND THE LEAST?!

 

[Frankie]

SO WHICH NPC IN DA DO YOU LIKE THE MOST AND THE LEAST?!

I'm going to ASSUME you mean JA, since I'm sure what DA is. My favorite NPC is really one that makes a cameo apperance for the bad guys in JA, and that is Mike. He's a bad-ass. Since he's not one you can use I would have to say that my favorite would be Magic. My least favorite would be Speck. He is a playable character for the MERCS if you hire enough of them, as their only use is for training since some of them do a decent job of that.