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The shit's ridiculous. It also seems the every grunt is lvl 10. They interrupt me every time even when i successfully sneak upon them from the roof. They are bullet sponges. At least 5-6 successful shots need to be made on most enemies for them to go down. If the very first bydlos are already elite, what the xell is next? And i'm only on experienced. Will try the same setup only without this retarded new aiming system, where merc with 85 mrk, agi andd ex + double sniper perk is worse than Gasket and Flo.
You should check if your mercs are actually using sights on the guns, you can toggle sights by pressing "." if I remember well.
You can check out the SDO changes here: http://thepit.ja-galaxy-forum.com/index.php?t=msg&th=20708
Still, ncth is a mess, I wouldn't recommend it.
Hello frens, I have experimented with JA2 in the year of our lord 2022
Stracciatella is still a rock solid choice for vanilla cleaned up. There is also a mod for strac that adds wildfire maps which adds an extra bit of challenge as the sectors are much denser and have more fortifications and traps.
As for 1.13 related stuff, its as labyrinthian as ever and I was chuckling to myself in disbelief because despite attempts to make things less confusing for new players, it's actually ended up even more muddled and now information is stretched out across several forums, a discord channel, google docs and an unofficial repo for the latest builds.
There is also drama (but of course!) - the author of the very popular +AI 7609 branch left the community due to a spat with one of the bear pit admins for politicizing the forum over the ukraine war in typical reddit fashion. His work is still available and quite up to date, just a little harder to find now and is hosted on yandex instead of gdrive.
If you're coming back in 2022, I suppose, like me, you're very interested in playing with the new models and animations. Good news is they are in both the main trunk, and even in the 7609 based AI+ modpack. I generally prefer the 7609 AI modpack because its already got a bunch of the most popular mods integrated, but also because it doesnt seem to have most of the dumb shit they waste their time on with the main branch.
Beyond this, I cannot speak much to individual mod setups! I tried AIMNAS briefly, which was very cool, but I don't really want to play an unfinished mod, and my mercs move at warp speed in combat for reasons unbeknownst to me, so i went back to 7609 + AI base. Currently trying to decide on a few different submods, but I'm thinking arulco revisited + Lev's progression sounds kind of cool.
Since it was mentioned, here's a quick guide on how to install 7609+AI (and mods).
First, you need clean Jagged Alliance 2, you can get it from steam or gog or else, just make sure it is vanilla Ja2, not wildfire, not Unfinished Business, as they have modified SLF files and will not work with 1.13.
Once you installed clean ja2, copy it into another folder (outside of Steam folder or Program Files or any place which is protected or where the system can interfere with files), Ja2 is portable so you can have your vanilla copy and as many copies as you wish for mods and experiments.
Second step is to download 7609 modpack, which can be found here.
You need to download
Code:
7609en+Modpack.7z.001
7609en+Modpack.7z.002
the two files here because yandex limits uploaded files to 1gb size for free accounts.
Place these files into a new clean folder and then unpack using 7-zip, note that 7-zip will automatically find and unpack second file, so you only need to point it to .001 file and select "unpack here" from context menu.
Now you have a folder with clean ja2 and a separate folder with 7609 modpack. Obviously modpack will not work without vanilla game files, so you need to copy it over vanilla game, replacing files if asked, just check that you have the folder structure matched, so Data goes to Data etc, not just put modpack inside vanilla game folder in a sub-folder, it will not work, it needs to replace and update the vanilla game files. Since modpack only needs the contents of Data folder (only SLF files, and possibly Tilecache folder), you can alternatively just copy contents of Data folder from vanilla game to the Data folder of modpack (without replacing files as modpack has updated versions) and you have a working modpack.
Hope it wasn't too confusing.
Now if you have windows 7 or xp, you can play the game, just launch ja2+AI.exe and you will have working 1.13 version 7609+AI with original maps and default 1.13 items.
Update: 7609 modpack now has Windows 8, 10 dll fix installed by default, so you don't need to install it, the game should work well in Windows 7, 8 or 10.
If you have windows 8 or windows 10, you need to update the game folder with DLL fix, or the game may work too slow/stuttering etc. The best dll fix as I know is CNC-DDraw, get it from here, then just unpack the dll contents into game folder, overwriting files if asked.
You may also want to use a modified ddraw.ini file from here which has some tweaks for Ja2.
Now you can either play the game as it is or you can choose the mod or tweak some settings.
Current mod is defined in Ja2.ini file, which is plain text file, so just use any plain text editor like built in Notepad or Notepad++.
By default the line you are interested in looks like
Code:
; JA2 1.13
VFS_CONFIG_INI = vfs_config.113.ini
where semicolon means that line is commented out and is not used by the game, and vfs_config.113.ini is the name of the file which configures the mod.
So if you want to play Arulco Revisited + SDO, you need to comment out the default line, so it looks like:
Code:
; JA2 1.13
;VFS_CONFIG_INI = vfs_config.113.ini
And then uncomment the required line:
Code:
; Arulco Revisited + SDO mod
VFS_CONFIG_INI = vfs_config.AR+SDO.ini
You may also want to change game resolution here:
Code:
; The screen resolution of the game
SCREEN_RESOLUTION = 4
which points to 1280x720, which works very well for 16:9 scaling, for example it works best for my 1920x1080 monitor.
Note that if you want to have 10 mercs in a team, you need a game resolution which is at least 1024x768, for widescreen it's for example 1280x768, which means the following setting:
Code:
; The screen resolution of the game
SCREEN_RESOLUTION = 6
You can also use supplied INI Editor (launch INI Editor.exe from the game folder) which does exactly the same thing but with graphical interface.
Some notes:
If you plan to change INI setting in modpack, you need to know the INI structure of the game. The game uses feature which is called INI merging, that means, there is hierarchy of folders in the game and INI option from higher folder supersedes INI option from lower folder, so for example for default 1.13 maps it looks like this: Data->Data-1.3->Data-User->Profile.
Data-User folder has common settings and modifications that are applied for all mods in modpack, for example it includes INI tweaks or weapon sound mod. So, if you want to change some INI option, you need first to check if it exists in Data-User and change it there, it will be used instead of the same option from other mod folders, and if it doesn't exist there you can add it in correct section which is defined by square brackets:
Code:
[section name]
or you can change option in lower folder (Data-1.13 has all options that base 1.13 has).
This may sound a bit complicated, but you don't need anything of that if you just want to play the game, and be warned that the game has literally thousands of options, and you can literally spend more hours browsing the INI files and tweaking than actually playing if you decide to dive into it.
Also some notes about +AI modification:
It is based on 7609 version of 1.13 so if you ever played 1.13 most of the things will be familiar.
One change is pretty significant and that is vision bonus from scopes and binocs, in official 1.13 you immediately get a vision bonus once you raise weapon or take binocs into hands. In +AI, there is no vision bonus of that kind (which is similar as vanilla works), instead you can focus on certain point and get vision bonus in a small area, which allows to scout beyond normal vision distance or uncover enemy hiding in grass in camo etc. Some players highly dislike this change, in this case they may use older +AI version (anything earlier than r1978, exe can be taken from here) or +fix version or just stick with official 1.13 exe.
Useful hints:
When playing +AI, you can press [APPS] key on keyboard which will show a list of useful hotkeys.
If you enable right panel in the ingame options (press [O] in tactical to access them) and if there's enough free place on the right side of the screen, there will be a list of clickable actions that you can do in tactical mode, for example unjam weapon or drop backpacks or open useful menus.
You can also press [A] key which will show sector menu with a lot of possible actions and also actions that use the map position where your cursor is located.
If you find it useful, let me know, I can probably make another post with short description of mods used or key features of +AI, or even make it another thread if enough people are enough interested.
p.s. once I typed this wall of text with all those links, I pressed some key and the page was replaced with another page in chrome and all text was gone and it was not possible to get it back in any way. Imagine my frustration. I had to use some German memory hex editing tool to recover the typed text from one of the dozens of Chrome processes. I even didn't know it was possible at all before.
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
I only have experience with 1.13 and it runs perfectly well on my current PC. Hell, it runs great even on Linux simply running it from Wine with no tinkering.
1.13 is quite a different beast. It's like JA2 on steroids and depending on the kind of experience you want that can be a good thing or a bad one. The good news is that you can edit it almost entirely in an .ini file to add, remove or fine-tune features depending on how autistic you want your experience to be. The "bad" news is that it will probably take you an hour of checking all options in that file and you also need to have experience with the base game so you know exactly what you want.
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
I only have experience with 1.13 and it runs perfectly well on my current PC. Hell, it runs great even on Linux simply running it from Wine with no tinkering.
1.13 is quite a different beast. It's like JA2 on steroids and depending on the kind of experience you want that can be a good thing or a bad one. The good news is that you can edit it almost entirely in an .ini file to add, remove or fine-tune features depending on how autistic you want your experience to be. The "bad" news is that it will probably take you an hour of checking all options in that file and you also need to have experience with the base game so you know exactly what you want.
Does it have some default setting where I can just leave it as it is and play? Is it harder than base game? Does it also change the strategic parts or only tactical combat parts?
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
The 1.13 started out as a fantastic project with a lot of wish list items. But since about 2009 or 2010 it turned into mainly gun porn and character exploits the ai often couldn't use.
It still has it's merits but I prefer vanilla ja2 to the modern iterations of the 1.13.
The last time I installed in was years ago and it went really easy. If you have trouble just ask one of the frothing liberals over at Bear's Pit. They are usually good at walking you through installation.
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
I only have experience with 1.13 and it runs perfectly well on my current PC. Hell, it runs great even on Linux simply running it from Wine with no tinkering.
1.13 is quite a different beast. It's like JA2 on steroids and depending on the kind of experience you want that can be a good thing or a bad one. The good news is that you can edit it almost entirely in an .ini file to add, remove or fine-tune features depending on how autistic you want your experience to be. The "bad" news is that it will probably take you an hour of checking all options in that file and you also need to have experience with the base game so you know exactly what you want.
Does it have some default setting where I can just leave it as it is and play? Is it harder than base game? Does it also change the strategic parts or only tactical combat parts?
It has a lot of features that are toggleable meaning the changes can be switched off on specific features while leaving others activated. One of the worst things they did was make a few of their features not toggleable.
As for difficulty it can greatly increase the number of enemy counter attacks and assasins you meet but there are also numerous features only available to players that put the ai at a disadvantage.
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
I had this downloaded years ago and was talking to the guy who developed it but I never got around to playing it. Is there still a resource site like Kermi's Ja2 Downloads site?
As far as I understand; one limitation in modding JA2 has been inability to put new character models into game.
So modders can't make units wearing WW2 uniforms, for example.
As far as I understand; one limitation in modding JA2 has been inability to put new character models into game.
So modders can't make units wearing WW2 uniforms, for example.
I remember them working on maybe doing character animations with sleeves and such but I can't remember how that turned out. There already is a resource that allows you to change the shirt/pants color of the redshirts and the other characters are adjustable in proedit.
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
I had this downloaded years ago and was talking to the guy who developed it but I never got around to playing it. Is there still a resource site like Kermi's Ja2 Downloads site?
My bad ArchAngel i thought you hadn’t played it before. I think without good memories of the ins and outs of the game, configuring 1.13 to your taste will be very difficult. At best you’ll find someone’s config that sounds reasonable to you, gl.
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
I had this downloaded years ago and was talking to the guy who developed it but I never got around to playing it. Is there still a resource site like Kermi's Ja2 Downloads site?
My bad ArchAngel i thought you hadn’t played it before. I think without good memories of the ins and outs of the game, configuring 1.13 to your taste will be very difficult. At best you’ll find someone’s config that sounds reasonable to you, gl.
Last time I fooled around with it it was still in development. I think the guy was asking me to beta test it and I was too busy with my own modding and rl crap to really give it a go.
My understanding of it is sketchy but as I remember it this was a project to 'clean up the code' so future modding wouldn't plagued with a lot of the skeletons of ideas and bad code left in the original.
Yeah, that's in 1.13's recent revisions. Matter of taste, though. Also i don't know how many items are actually supported (have an individual appearance, that is) because i never liked the look of any screenshots produced so never checked it out.
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
Stracciatella's first appeal is that it runs on various platforms and on higher resolutions than Vanlla. You can also do some basic modding and changing various settings. I recently modded it a bit and got to use custom maps too and am looking forward to an oldshool vanilla style playthrough with some new mercs, some new guns, new maps etc. any time soon :D
Yeah, that's in 1.13's recent revisions. Matter of taste, though. Also i don't know how many items are actually supported (have an individual appearance, that is) because i never liked the look of any screenshots produced so never checked it out.
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
Stracciatella's first appeal is that it runs on various platforms and on higher resolutions than Vanlla. You can also do some basic modding and changing various settings. I recently modded it a bit and got to use custom maps too and am looking forward to an oldshool vanilla style playthrough with some new mercs, some new guns, new maps etc. any time soon :D
I read its features on the link provided. Outside that, it is has no changes to speak of. And I am not interested in vanilla with just has better resolution and few QoL improvements. I don't even understand why are you all telling me to play it like you like it.
Well, if you want to do 1.13, the biggest hassle is editing the .ini file with all the settings.
It's provided with a GUI editor (separate file in one of the folders) and most of the crap is sufficiently annotated, but there's quite a bit to parse.
Might want to just take it for a spin on simple settings (no SF, most definitely no Tons of Guns) and just roll with it,
just to get a basic feeling of what's new and what crap you'd want to turn off basically the next time you run it,
because a lot of this crap is basically information overload and micromanagement hell, which can be immediately off-putting.
Just figuring out the new menus will be a process.
The thing about 1.13 is it is lauded as the definite JA2 experience. In a way it is, and in a lot of ways it isn't,
it's more of a tool to build your own JA2 sandbox, and to do that you basically need to spend time tweaking the settings just right,
sometimes impose a rule or two on your game, cause the balance is very delicate. E.g. just one toggle - enemies drop all items on death
is enough to turn the whole economy tits up, so it's up to you to figure how to balance it out and still have fun.
Same goes when you fuck with item progression and let yourself start with midgame attachments.
Yeah, that's in 1.13's recent revisions. Matter of taste, though. Also i don't know how many items are actually supported (have an individual appearance, that is) because i never liked the look of any screenshots produced so never checked it out.
I never played JA2 with all the popular community mods. How different is it from the base game and how hard is to apply most popular mods for it?
Are there any problems in running JA2 + mods on modern PCs?
Stracciatella's first appeal is that it runs on various platforms and on higher resolutions than Vanlla. You can also do some basic modding and changing various settings. I recently modded it a bit and got to use custom maps too and am looking forward to an oldshool vanilla style playthrough with some new mercs, some new guns, new maps etc. any time soon :D
Well, if you want to do 1.13, the biggest hassle is editing the .ini file with all the settings.
It's provided with a GUI editor (separate file in one of the folders) and most of the crap is sufficiently annotated, but there's quite a bit to parse.
Might want to just take it for a spin on simple settings (no SF, most definitely no Tons of Guns) and just roll with it,
just to get a basic feeling of what's new and what crap you'd want to turn off basically the next time you run it,
because a lot of this crap is basically information overload and micromanagement hell, which can be immediately off-putting.
Just figuring out the new menus will be a process.
The thing about 1.13 is it is lauded as the definite JA2 experience. In a way it is, and in a lot of ways it isn't,
it's more of a tool to build your own JA2 sandbox, and to do that you basically need to spend time tweaking the settings just right,
sometimes impose a rule or two on your game, cause the balance is very delicate. E.g. just one toggle - enemies drop all items on death
is enough to turn the whole economy tits up, so it's up to you to figure how to balance it out and still have fun.
Same goes when you fuck with item progression and let yourself start with midgame attachments.
If the New Inventory System and a few other things were toggleable I would be able to play it and have fun. But even when you play on old inventory system there are annoying NIV features that creep in.
Don't like the 100 ap thing either but that's easier to get used to.
I sent some old builds of the 1.13 that I had archived to Kermi years ago but looking on his site I don't see any of my stuff (that wasn't mine I had just archived it).
Do you know of anyone who has some of the older builds? The .687 was the last one I really liked and the 2112 was the last one I had any fun at all playing.
Sorry man, lost my personal backups over the years and the oldest one I was able to recover was 4870.
Fine by me, cause that's just about when shit started to roll downhill.
