Jump to content

My first JA2 game!


Azrael Strife

Recommended Posts

Well, reading FA's thread I could resist getting such a great looking game, so I have it already installed and ready to play, so far I love how combat seems to work, but I've only played a single test battle.

 

Any tips for a really beginner player from the experts? ;) this seems like my kind of game :oh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Combat tips:

 

Use cover. Use cover a lot. If you can't shoot from behind cover, run away and find some. Use crouch and lie down a lot, too. Crouch behind windows, lie down behind bushes, use corners.

 

Enemies can't react fire to you opening doors AFAIK, so getting behind one when it's closed, opening, shooting and closing is a good way to nail enemies behind it.

 

Shotguns are good early on. Pistol as your main weapon, shotgun in your inventory. When the enemies get close, whip out the shotgun. Head shot will do more than 100pts of damage and it's goodbye frontal lobe.

 

At close range, try head shots. By all means go for the easier torso shot, but try for the head after getting a centre of mass shot in the bank. At 2-3 squares range, don't worry about spending APs on aiming, you'll do okay rattling off shots as fast as you can.

 

Use burst at close range, and at long range when the enemies are laid down perpendicular to you. For some reason the game counts this as a wide target and they take lots of hits.

 

Get rifles ASAP, doesn't matter which ones, as they all have roughly double the range of pistols. SMGs are great for close range/poor marksmanship mercs, as they need to get close anyway to hit anything.

 

Don't worry about wounds. You can heal easily enough (first aid kits), recover the points fully with sleep (takes a while, but if you haven't got a medic with a medical kit...), and permanent damage only occurs if the merc's health dips below 15, and usually you can recover it with training anyway.

 

Buy some mercs that are good value for money (cheap, in other words), sign them up for long contracts, and take things as slow as you like. Don't always follow the way the game points you.

 

If you have a team sketched out, but it has gaps in its skills (as is natural when you're buying cheap), tailor your IMP merc to fill in the gap(s). Got a medic and mech but no bomb doc? Sorted. Need a 100%-combat oriented merc? No problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are so many ways to go about this game that you can come back to it again and again and try different things.

 

Some good cheap mercs to go for at the start are Bull (he's the best bang for your buck with the weekly packages) and Steroid. Dr. Dawson's good for a medic and he learns fast. Buns is good too as she's got sunshades (+1 visibility in daylight) and she's quite accurate. I highly recommend getting Steroid when you hit the Drassen SAM site or even Alma (tons of great equipment there). If he can't picklock, he can use his brute strength to kick it open.

 

I'd recommend hiring a really expensive merc for one day just to buy his equipment. Len has a Colt Commando, which is not the best 5.56 weapon there is, but a vast improvement over pistols. Others like Nails or Trever Colby have shotgun. If you have plenty of cash to spare, Gus Tarballs has great equipment and he'd make Omerta and maybe Drassen a breeze.

 

If you've got 2 or 3 mercs up close to an enemy who has a really good weapon, don't be afraid to switch off stealth and run towards the enemy and use HTH combat to knock the enemy out. Even a weak merc like Ira can knock someone down after 3 or more hits. Once the enemy has fallen, give another punch to knock the wind out of the enemy then have another merc 'grab' the soldier. This might take some time for the game to compute, but you might be able to steal the enemy soldier's weapon. If not, on the next turn, punch the soldier again so that he doesn't get up and repeat the process. This is a good way to get some good weapons early on when all you've got are pistols. Punching enemies also exercises your strength/agility.

 

Note that when firing, the first shot costs a few extra APs just for your merc to point the gun. After that, the standard firing costs apply. Try not to shoot, do something else, and then shoot again on the same turn if possible.

 

Note that not spending all of your APs will mean that some of the APs might carry over into the next turn if it's under the maximum. Note, tired or injured mercs don't can't build up 25 APs.

 

If you're like me and start with a 35 accuracy merc, aim your shots at first. Once you get to 50+ accuracy, you can get away with unaimed shots, which exercises your accuracy a lot faster.

 

When using pistols, consider dualing them when up close. They're weak, so a small accuracy hit and perhaps an extra AP for general firing costs is worth the extra damage.

 

If you find any Regen. Boosts, save them up and ration them out only when absolutely necessary. They heal your wounds instantly - so you can get your top fighter from near death back to 100% health in a matter of a minute.

 

- NKF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for all the tips :oh: I'm reading through the FAQ thread; thanks for making me excited about a game again! this sure looks like a gem, cannot wait to have the time to play it! been in school pulling 24-hour programming marathons for the last three days (5:36 AM and I'm right there, as a matter of fact ;))
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I prefer to play the vanilla game before using any mods, I can live with the resolution.

 

Time for newbie questions; how does aiming work exactly? I mean, I don't seem to have any sort of on-screen indicator of which body part is more easier to hit, I just aim at the head if I'm at relatively close range; also, when right clicking to make the shot more accurate, the last click does not make the target circle smaller, it just makes it yellow, why is that?

 

Omerta is freed, now I think I need to go clear the way to the Drassen airport for food supplies for the rebels :oh: fun game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It doesn't matter which version you play, it's a fun game regardless.

 

Aiming is pretty practical: Body > Legs > Head. Body shots do moderate damage with a chance to lower dex, leg shots do light damage with a chance to incapacitate the target, and head shots do high damage and can lower wisdom.

 

I think the yellow circle is just supposed to be a safety click/indicator before it cycles back to no aim bonus.

 

Have fun in Drassen :oh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The yellow circle is maximum accuracy, or the maximum that your remaining APs will allow.

 

By the way, you can also pick which body parts to hit when using burst fire mode. The game doesn't tell you which part you're aiming at, but it follows the same rules as single shot modes where you point the firing reticule. One easy way for you to get used to it is to aim in single shot mode, then hit B to switch to burst mode.

 

- NKF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It doesn't matter which version you play, it's a fun game regardless.

 

Aiming is pretty practical: Body > Legs > Head. Body shots do moderate damage with a chance to lower dex, leg shots do light damage with a chance to incapacitate the target, and head shots do high damage and can lower wisdom.

 

I think the yellow circle is just supposed to be a safety click/indicator before it cycles back to no aim bonus.

 

Have fun in Drassen :oh:

Does this mean that aiming at the head has the same difficulty% as hitting the body? if not, is it displayed anywhere?

 

Thanks NKF, I'll try burst fire, but I'll try to watch my ammo while I have no access to more weapons. Not all bodies carry loot right? I mean, I cannot seem to be able to find the weapons my enemies were carrying before I killed them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does this mean that aiming at the head has the same difficulty% as hitting the body? if not, is it displayed anywhere?

From what I understand, it is much harder to hit the head than it is to hit the torso or the legs. :oh: Accuracy and chance-to-hit are not displayed, you'll just have to assume you merc will miss no matter what. ;)

 

Thanks NKF, I'll try burst fire, but I'll try to watch my ammo while I have no access to more weapons. Not all bodies carry loot right? I mean, I cannot seem to be able to find the weapons my enemies were carrying before I killed them.

Technically, all the enemies have loot. It just depends if the game is nice enough to spawn it for you when he/she dies. I did a few tests on this and overall you'll probably recover an enemies loot 50% of the time if you managed to rip the weapon out of his hands first. Not sure how often the loot shows up if you just kill the enemy, but I think it's a lot less often. And even when it does, it usually only crap your squad is carrying. (Not sure on this though). :)

 

Good luck. :)

 

- Zombie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not all enemies drop their weapons. You have to steal the weapons if you really want them. To do this early on, you need to knock out your enemies (mainly via hand-to-hand combat) and then 'grab' them to steal the weapon. Once the enemy has been knocked down, have a weak mercenary punch them one more time to ensure they stay down on the next turn in case the steal attempt fails.

 

By the way, try not to use a really strong HTH expert with knuckle dusters when doing this except perhaps for the initial knockdown. You want to keep the enemy soldier out of breath and alive so that you can attempt the steal. Once the enemy soldier status goes to 'dying', you can't steal anymore.

 

Armour isn't designed to stop hand to hand attacks - so bear that in mind if you managed to be surprise a black-vest up close. Even if they're wearing coated Spectra gear with extra plates, they'll still go down easily after a few good punches. The black vests usually have quality weapons so it's worth it.

 

- NKF

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not all enemies drop their weapons. You have to steal the weapons if you really want them. To do this early on, you need to knock out your enemies (mainly via hand-to-hand combat) and then 'grab' them to steal the weapon. Once the enemy has been knocked down, have a weak mercenary punch them one more time to ensure they stay down on the next turn in case the steal attempt fails.

 

By the way, try not to use a really strong HTH expert with knuckle dusters when doing this except perhaps for the initial knockdown. You want to keep the enemy soldier out of breath and alive so that you can attempt the steal. Once the enemy soldier status goes to 'dying', you can't steal anymore.

Shooting out the legs of the enemy usually works just as well as a straight HTH punch. Once an enemy drops, you can grab all you want. Just make sure to have backup in case the cripple gets up again. :oh:

 

Fox is pretty weak at punching. I don't think I've ever seen her dish out more than 4 pts per hit. So you should be safe using her to keep the baddie down. She isn't a bad medic either. But she hates Steroid. I was forced to split up my squad because of this. ;)

 

- Zombie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you've got a merc who has 90+ Marksmanship, and is prone, and has a weapon equipped with a bipod, scope, and laser scope, you can hit heads regularly at range, but you still miss a fair few. Your best bet is to get a torso shot 'in the bank' so to speak, then try for the head.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does this mean that aiming at the head has the same difficulty% as hitting the body? if not, is it displayed anywhere?

 

For your basic standing baddie the body is easiest to hit, next the legs, then the head being the most difficult. Out of laziness I tried to represent that with the '>' signs in my previous post, oh well :oh:

 

Once you wrap up your vanilla campaign, you may be pleased to know that 1.13 provides an option for a ToHit display as well, if you choose to give it a go.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
  • Create New...