My (recent) Jagged Alliance 2 Mods

[Papill0n]

As the codex doesn't seem to have a specific subforum for mods, I guess this may go here into the workshop.

I'm posting my most recent Ja2 mods here. In order to avoid confusion: these are my mods even though they were posted by some of my friends over at the Bear's Pit Forums.

They both base on the 1.13 mod/modding engine but have various tweaks. We can discuss! pro's and con's of such tweaks here in this thread.

The mods are fully playable - still any suggestions are welcome even if time for future development is very rare now.

Kingpin's Side Mod

Info:

The Bears Pit: JA2 v1.13 Deidrannas Side Mod » Kingpin's Side Mod (ja-galaxy-forum.com)

Core Features:

We play from Kingpin's perspective starting in San Mona, hiring his goons;
Hundreds of custom maps;
Dozens of former NPC's are now playable RPC's
Increased map interaction: weaker walls as well as most objects can be destroyed by (most types of) gunfire;
Simplified New Inventory: When Playing New Inventory mode (NIV), actually equipping load bearing equipment (lbe) is made optional. Players will have very spacious lbe by default
Some (very few) custom quests of moral ambiguity
Various combat rebalancing elements (can of course be adjusted for players needs in the respctive .INi files)

Downloads:

If you already have Deidranna's Side Mod installed, you can unpack the small install 7zip 'KSM Update' inside the folder where you have DSM installed. You have it correct if the KSM folder sits alongside the DSM folder.

If you don't have DSM installed already, make a fresh Ja2 (english) install and unpack the full install 'KSM Full' inside the folder where your ja2.exe sits.

Play by starting with the ja2_r8734_368fbd.exe DO NOT use the ja2.exe!


Deidranna's Side Mod

Info:

The Bears Pit: JA2 v1.13 Deidrannas Side Mod » Deidranna's Side Mod Download & Installation (ja-galaxy-forum.com)

Core Features:

We play from Deidrana's perspective starting in Demoville, liberating Meduna, join up with the queen, elliot and Joe and fight our way from there to Omerta. The objectves are to Kill Mguel and Force Enrico to surrender.
Hundreds of custom maps;
Inversed strategic situation;
Dozens of former NPC's are now playable RPC's, most notably all types of friends and associates of Deidranna
Increased map interaction: weaker walls as well as most objects can be destroyed by (most types of) gunfire;
Simplified New Inventory: When Playing New Inventory mode (NIV), actually equipping load bearing equipment (lbe) is made optional. Players will have very spacious lbe by default
Moral ambiguity all over the place
Some quests changed to reflect the change in player's motivation
Various combat rebalancing elements (can of course be adjusted for players needs in the respctive .INi files)
Interaction from Deidranna and Elliot when in the same squad

Downloads:

Installation Instructions
-------------------------

You have two ways to install it now;

1. Full Archive (No separate 1.13 install required) https://www.mediafire.com/file/mlnqwhhxe3hoxxb/DSM_-_Full_Sep19_21.7z/file

Do this by making a new copy of ('Vanilla') English JA2(1.12)

Unpack the latest DSM archive over the install. It should ask whether to overwrite ja2.ini

2. Partial Archive (1.13 needs to be installed first)

Do this by making a new copy of English JA2(1.12)
Install 1.13 over this vanilla base
Unpack the latest Partial Archive https://www.mediafire.com/file/tn4iajzf4p8d0f6/DSM.7z/file over this


This mod uses it's own EXE, so the new exe to use is ja2_r8734_3686fbd4 which fixes some bugs that were occuring previously.

This latest installment (Sept 2021) includes additional custom maps.

To be clear use ja2_r8734_3686fbd4 to run the game, start a new game, do not use any other exe or you will corrupt your data! The starting sector will be P1

 

[Papill0n]

Fight For Freedom (FFF) is also still relatively recent

It's an attempt to port Ja2 to a WW2 pacific scenario (of course all fictious)

Release thread, screenshots and information here

The Bears Pit: All about modding JA2 » Fight For Freedom update (ja-galaxy-forum.com)

 

[Papill0n]

Reference is made to this posting in the Ja3 thread:

Jagged Alliance 3 announced

I'm making a more refined Calvin Barkmore character for use in any Ja2 mods where he is playable (such as the mods mentioned here so far ITT, but also others)

While before we only use the basic necessary speech output, we're now using much more of his (often hilarious) speech lines

Also I'm setting up a version where you can play solo als Calvin/start the game with him. Basics are implemented:

There's tons of options we have for such mods so an input is welcome (well not "any" input in the technical sense but you get my drift)

 

[The Dopamine Cleric]

Ahhh Ahhh Best thread in a while.

I haven't messed with getting 1.13 working on Windows 10 in a while and I'm eager. Never works.

I need to play XCOM 2

 

[Papill0n]

Hey thanks

what always works for me to run these mods under win 10 is to run the respective .exe's in:

- compatibility mode to xp sp3
- limited colours mode (16 bit colours)
- as administrator

also worked for other 1.13 mods I tried recently

There are other means to get them to run under win10 but for me, these options do the trick

 

[The Dopamine Cleric]

The only option I can manage is windowed mode and it crashes everytime I move to a new area.

It's probably my PC being one of those 7-10 Windows upgrades.

 

[Papill0n]

The only option I can manage is windowed mode ...

what do you mean? I risk stating the obvious here, but all the three optons I use
- compatibility mode to xp sp3
- limited colours mode (16 bit colours)
- run as administrator
should be available under win 10 when right clcking the respective .exe and then go to properties/compatiblity

The fact that the game crashes hen loading a new area however is unusual and I wouldn't link it to win10. Win10 is usually more a performance issue. Crashes upon loading (i.e. a new map) could be related to Anti-Virus, though, but that's a wild ass guess here.

 

[Papill0n]

So we need to reflect some of Calvin's individual perks as a self-declared superhuman

Though we may need to still slightly overstate his people skills - or accompany him with someone who has them

 

[Papill0n]

So.. I gave the mod where we initially start the game with Calvin a longer spin and this works quite well so far. Here, Calvin and the woke squad take on the central sam site.

For those who care who am i kidding, anyway, I replaced Calvin's function as a head miner with a different, previously unused NPC and that's worked thus far as well. So we're not losig the mine income he used to provide.

I carefully advance bit by bit

 

[Papill0n]

In a streak of luck, after the first mine ran out, the second mine got infested with crepitus. Luckily that's the mine with Calvin's replacement head miner so I got to test that and it seems to work.

Thanks to his awesome people skillz, Calvin is super popular with teh crepitus

They probably consider him one of their own. Living in bunkers (or caves) for decades comes with a particular smell.

Anyway, crepitus quest worked and Calvin and the beta sapiens who carry his ammo make their way further into the country.

 

[Papill0n]

So I played this mod where we start the game with Calvin through and it appears to work including Calvin's replacement head miner. I made some refinements and additions, though.

Thus I can present the "Start Jagged With - Calvin" project (SJW-C).

For anyone who wants to test it (or just have some random fun with Calvin's unique personality) I uploaded a version that uses the same revision and core data as the above mods (KSM, DSM). You can get it here

https://www.mediafire.com/file/fts0pjn0fsg99yv/Calvin.7z/file

Installation: install KSM and/or DSM. Then unpack the zip archive to the main folder of your install (ja2.ini will be overwritten)
Please let me know if that works

The "Start Jagged With..." mod principle can work with an entire host of characters that are otherwise RPCs or NPCs, I'm available for any suggestions.

 

[Sevenfm]

I wonder what are the changes in exe and does this mod use some specific features from unstable which should prevent easy conversion to 7609?
Just thought it would be great to play with new maps and RPC, but also with all things that +AI provides.

 

[Papill0n]

Hi Sevenfm

I think KSM/DSM and SJW-C should in principle also work on an code base / "engine" that includes your AI changes. There are no code changes except for fixes Realist made back in the day for the executable used for DSM/KSM. I have a .diff file for these changes if that helps you.

Other than that, it should simply be (quite a bit of) grunt work to carry over the faces, speech, scripts, profile, xml changes etc. that come with DSM/KSM. DSM of course has more changes to the game than KSM, but it's still all made in external game files, not in the code base.

On a sidenote, I may be updating this thread in general and DSM/KSM in particular for additional content in the not soo far future. We could probably try to also update the codebase but i wold require a lot of help with all th new files I'm not familiar with.

 

[Sevenfm]

If you have a source diff and a revision number to which it should be applied, it will definitely help.
What I mean is it shouldn't be a problem to run your mod on 7609 unless you used some new added features like lua merchants etc, or your exe has some tweaks that allow non standard NPCs to work as RPC or something like that (for example, VR mod will not work with regular 7609 exe even if it is made on 7609 base since it has specific changes in the code for it's quests to work).
Regular maps from unstable work well in 7609, for example I use latest Aimnas maps in 7609 modpack without problem, and NPC scripts are the same too.

I'm not very familiar with new features from unstable, but I may try to help if you need some understanding on how it works.

 

[Papill0n]

I can provide the diff and patch files that i have for KSM/DSM latest exe's. I didn't do the bug fixing myself, it was done by someone other. I don't know if the fixes have otherwise found their way into later revisions. just send me a message or e-mal and i'll provide the download links. I don't know if all the features I used were present in 7609 already, as this is all very long ago and I didn't follow release notes or the like.

I see you uploaded a video and download for a DMS/KSM release based on.. unstable? what kind of version is that and how much did you test?

 

[Sevenfm]

Unstable + DSM/KSM modpack is just latest 1.13 gamedir + your DSM exe which is recommended for playing as I understand. I haven't tested it with other exe or played it far from starting sector. I don't think there should be issues from updated gamedir as it's generally backward compatible.
I also have some default ini tweaks for balance and convenience in Data-User and also some content like improved weapon sounds mod and sector ambients mod but that's optional and all contents from Data-User can be safely deleted.

 

[Papill0n]

Azazel and myself released the first major mod for JA2 Stracciatella. It includes over 120 new custom maps, several additional playable characters, changes to the early game story, an entirely new part of the map with a new town (San Amaro), various new guns and more.

Ja2 Stracciatella is a platform-independent version of Vanilla Ja2, allowing you to play Ja2 in high resolutions on pretty much any system. It also features tons of externalisations to allow changes of many aspect of the game.

More information for the mod / screenshots can be found here The Bears Pit: Return to San Amaro » Return to San Amaro (ja-galaxy-forum.com)

Latest download link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/7pn5zqmxoq4lsla/return-to-san-amaro%282%29.zip/file

This is the mod's first release. It may be updated for more content if we see interest

 

[Papill0n]

DEIDRANNA’S SIDE MOD UPDATE

Features:

Expanded Dialogue for Deidranna, Elliot, Ernest, Jake, Sam. Additional new playable character (former NPC): Dr. Nathanial “Madlab” Kairns. Additional Dialogue for Madlab reacting to i.a. Deidranna.

Check out Madlab, he has great voice acting, funny lines and expanded dialogue.

Expanded bickering between Deidranna, Elliot, Madlab and others.

Download:

DSM: requires previous DSM install or matching 113 revision

https://www.mediafire.com/file/hs1f6y9gqjfr1j0/DSM_09_03_23.zip/file



DSM FULL: requires Ja2 only

https://www.mediafire.com/file/mt2swplqza29dr6/DSM_-_Full_09_03_23.zip/file

Additional information in 1st post of this thread



SCREENSHOTS

Deidranna complains about Elliot

Elliot's response

Elliot compliments Dedranna during combat

Elliot hears movement

Deidranna responds by ordering troops there



Madlab and Robot



Please let me if download, install etc. work and whether there are any hickups with the new characters and their new dialogue.

 

[Sevenfm]

So I made a short video with DSM mod (actual version adapted to 7609 to play with +AI) showing how to move from initial sector to Queen's place and hire her in case anyone is interested.
May be considered as spoiler, so if you like to find out everything in the game by yourself, don't watch it!

 

[Papill0n]

*reuploaded the Calvin Mod after it was recommended in some other thread*

https://www.mediafire.com/file/fts0pjn0fsg99yv/Calvin.7z/file

 

[Papill0n]

So I just recently found out some guy was playing our Ja2 1.13 FFF SET mod and put it all on youtube :D

#1 Fight For Freedom (WW2 Theme) | Jagged Alliance 2 Mod | Novice / Ironman - YouTube

It's cool to see other playstyles and really enlightening to see what changes are not immediately evident for other players. What features do they even use, how long does it take them to figure new stuff etc.
I'm absolutely gonna have to watch more of the videos, there's hours and hours no end. Maybe this dude actually finished it. Head's up! :D

I didn't think much about it in the past but the amount of adjusting that a reasonably creative mod requires from a player is actually quite massive. The more I see that the more I get the appeal of very straightforward mods. More of the same. Moar!!

Still, whenever he figures something out, I'm celebrating him. He's my hero!