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I played a couple hours of JA2 and it seems like something really, truly excellent. Unfortunately, the vanilla executable is horrifically unstable, with various lighting/screen scrolling glitches and multiple CtD's in just a few hours. Thus, I'd like to find a better way to play the game. I know a lot of people love 1.13 to death, but the added content (and the apparently extreme challenge it brings with it) definitely doesn't seem like "first playthrough" material, unless there is a way to play 1.13 with purely vanilla settings/content (just bug fixes and widescreen support). Stracciatella seems like it could be what I'm looking for. But is it stable?
Also, are the expansions (Unfinished Business and Wildfire) any good?
Stracciatella gives you an almost vanilla experience with hi-res support. I've tested it and it seemed to work fine, but I haven't played through a whole campaign.
I've tried to like 1.13, but I find it a bit too easy to get bogged down in trying to tweak all the settings to my liking, which unfortunately is almost mandatory because it really doesn't have sensible defaults. Unless you've played vanilla or preferably 1.13 before you won't know what to tweak and how, and may just get sick of replaying the first parts of the game before you get going.
The everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to features in 1.13 is both really cool and an Achilles heel; you can't just tell people to RTFM, since there isn't one. Instead you'd have to read a vast number of partly outdated forum threads that document the new features.
Yeah, you can do that, and then suddenly at some point you'll be bombarded by artillery and wonder "wtf? this never happened in vanilla" and read up and realize you need a radio operator to jam radio signals, which you don't have, and it's too late to disable this stuff in the options and when that first happened to me, I'm pretty sure there were no mercs with the right skill yet (but I think there are some now).
1.13 looks better than Stracciatella, with options for higher resolutions.
1.13 has a Vanilla option, but it was obviously just an afterthought and is quite buggy. I was able to fix most of them (by editing some table files) except the bounty hunter quest (that I know of, at least) and complete the game.
I played a couple hours of JA2 and it seems like something really, truly excellent. Unfortunately, the vanilla executable is horrifically unstable, with various lighting/screen scrolling glitches and multiple CtD's in just a few hours. Thus, I'd like to find a better way to play the game. I know a lot of people love 1.13 to death, but the added content (and the apparently extreme challenge it brings with it) definitely doesn't seem like "first playthrough" material, unless there is a way to play 1.13 with purely vanilla settings/content (just bug fixes and widescreen support). Stracciatella seems like it could be what I'm looking for. But is it stable?
Also, are the expansions (Unfinished Business and Wildfire) any good?
Stracciatella is stable but something is different with the cursor, it feels less responsive somehow. Its mentioned somewhere in some changelog what they did but i cant remmember the specifics.
JA2 Stracciatella Release 0.17.0
Posted on August 3, 2020
The Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella team is proud to present a new release. Over two years in the making, it includes several new features, plenty of bugfixes compared to previous versions and the original game, more work in externalizing data and innumerable clean-ups of the old code base. Also notable is the better launcher experience and easier tweaking of settings for power users and modders.
Through over 1520 commits at least 61 bugs were fixed, 28 of which affect vanilla.
New Features:
A redesigned graphical launcher with more toggles, multiple mod support and the location of the main settings file (game.json)
Data files are now searched for in several places and more easily overriden
Several hardcoded values and assumptions are now externalized to json files for easy editing
The map editor now works out of the box, using bundled dummy graphics
Several smaller features like IMP import and better screen scaling options
We are shipping pre-built packages for Ubuntu, Windows and OS X. This should help users to easily get started with Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella. For users willing to take a risk we also provide automatically created nightly builds.
New dependency: string theory, a string library (also bundled in the repo)
Warning: SDL2 2.0.6 on Linux has a fatal bug in the audio conversion code. As a workaround, the game automatically disables all sounds if it detects this version during startup. Please downgrade to version 2.0.5 or use version 2.0.7 or later.
JA2 Stracciatella Release 0.18.0
Posted on April 23, 2021
The Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella team is proud to present a new release. It includes several new features, plenty of bugfixes compared to previous versions and the original game, clean-ups of the old code base, and most notably much more work in externalizing hardcoded game data.
Through 479 commits at least 30 bugs were fixed, 5 of which are known to affect vanilla.
New Features:
Modding improvements
Several hardcoded values and assumptions are now externalized to additional json files for easy editing (SAM sites, merchants, game items, M.E.R.C. soldiers, sector info, weapon cache location, strategic AI policy, NPC placement)
Initial scripting support via lua scripts
Supporting Unfinished Business tilesets
Support for ogg and mp3 audio formats
Configurable game speed (set ms_per_time_slice in game.json)
Self-contained AppImage Linux builds
Preliminary Android build (beware: not adapted for touch input)
A chance-to-hit F hotkey
We are shipping pre-built packages for Linux, Windows and OS X. This should help users to easily get started with Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella. For users willing to take a risk we also provide automatically created nightly builds.
Warning: SDL2 2.0.6 on Linux has a fatal bug in the audio conversion code. As a workaround, the game automatically disables all sounds if it detects this version during startup. Please downgrade to version 2.0.5 or use version 2.0.7 or later.
Bugfix (vanilla): Game freezes for about 4 seconds when a fight starts or a round is finished. (#1219)
Bugfix (vanilla): Game hanging after an attack (#1318)
Bugfix (vanilla): Player can compress time or move the squad while being ambushed by Bloodcats (#412)
Bugfix (vanilla): Small bug-fixes from Unfinished Business (#1199
Bugfix: Arrows in IMP attribute allocation screen not exact (#683)
Bugfix: Correcting unsigned int comparison in NPC.cc (#1208)
Bugfix: Fix the Tileset defaulting logic (#1218)
Bugfix: Fredo refuses to repair extended ears (#1309)
Bugfix: Game hangs when loading a new music track (#1249)
Bugfix: Ja2.exe: exited with status code -1073741819 (#1196)
Bugfix: Segfault at G1 map inventory (#1234)
Bugfix: Fixing game stuck after halting soldier (#1325)
Bugfix: Fixing illegal array access flagged by Coverity (#1203)
JA2 StracciatellaRelease 0.19.0
Posted on April 15, 2022
The Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella team is proud to present a new release showcasing a year of work. It includes several new features, plenty of bugfixes compared to previous versions and the original game, clean-ups of the old code base, and most notably a new saving&loading screen. Our Chinese fans will now be able to play the game in their own language (zh_CN).
(stats as of 2022-04-13) Through 275 commits at least 41 bugs were fixed, 15 of which are known to affect vanilla.
New Features:
(Simplified) Chinese language support
Support for arbitrary amounts of saved games which are all displayed in the same list whether with or without mods
Modding improvements
More hardcoded values and assumptions are now externalized to additional or improved json files for easy editing (item graphics, vehicles, starting sector, squad size, weapon shooting sounds)
Mods can provide manifest files with important metadata — to be displayed in the launcher and stored in saved games
Configurable website loading time, maximum squad size game speed and an option to refill totally defeated patrol groups (set in game.json)
The optional chance-to-hit now accounts for aiming and is not tied to F, but show_hit_chance in game.json
Improvements to the android work-in-progress port and support for the Apple M1 chips
IMPORTANT: If you had several save game folders from using different mods, you will have to manually (arbitrarily) rename the files and move them into the main SavedGames folder.
NOTE: Automatic brightness correction has been disabled, so pass eg. -brightness 1.3 on the command line if you need to increase brightness/gamma to 130%.
We are shipping pre-built packages for Linux, Windows and macOS. This should help users to easily get started with Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella. For users willing to take a risk we also provide automatically created nightly builds.
It'd be nice if they could fix the suppression system in vanilla. I'm guessing they think its working as intended, but I dont think so. It would give a bit more utility to auto weapons in the game, instead of just bee lining straight for the longest range weapons.
The Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella team is proud to present a new release showcasing about half a year of work. It includes several new features, plenty of bugfixes compared to previous versions and the original game, clean-ups of the old code base, and most notably the first official release of the Android version and support for touch controls.
Through 490 commits at least 76 bugs were fixed, 20 of which are known to affect vanilla.
New Features:
Touch Controls: Control your mercenaries with the touch of a finger on touch-devices
First Official Android Release: Play Jagged Alliance on the go on your Android device
Modding Improvements
More hardcoded values and assumptions are now externalized to additional or improved json files for easy editing in JSON: item names, item descriptions, aim and range bonuses
More extension points for LUA scripting: change shop inventory and prices, react to merc hiring, create message boxes
Stability Improvements: Fixes in memory management should lead to improved stability and less crashes
IMPORTANT: If you used older versions of JA2 Stracciatella on Android before you might need to uninstall them before installing the new release. Make sure to backup your data before doing this as it might erase your saves.
We are shipping pre-built packages for Linux, Windows, macOS and finally Android. This should help users to easily get started with Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella. For users willing to take a risk we also provide automatically created nightly builds.
The Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella team is proud to present a new release showcasing about half a year of work. It includes several new features, plenty of bugfixes compared to previous versions and the original game, clean-ups of the old code base, and most notably the first official release of the Android version and support for touch controls.
Through 490 commits at least 76 bugs were fixed, 20 of which are known to affect vanilla.
New Features:
Touch Controls: Control your mercenaries with the touch of a finger on touch-devices
First Official Android Release: Play Jagged Alliance on the go on your Android device
Modding Improvements
More hardcoded values and assumptions are now externalized to additional or improved json files for easy editing in JSON: item names, item descriptions, aim and range bonuses
More extension points for LUA scripting: change shop inventory and prices, react to merc hiring, create message boxes
Stability Improvements: Fixes in memory management should lead to improved stability and less crashes
IMPORTANT: If you used older versions of JA2 Stracciatella on Android before you might need to uninstall them before installing the new release. Make sure to backup your data before doing this as it might erase your saves.
We are shipping pre-built packages for Linux, Windows, macOS and finally Android. This should help users to easily get started with Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella. For users willing to take a risk we also provide automatically created nightly builds.
Some in the reviews claim the "classic" version above is the "original" one, how different is it from the "non-classic" version? Which one should I play? It IS a bit suspicious that the classic version is just DLC for Wildfire, but games aren't exactly strangers to corporate fuckery.