Ichthyic

I'd be happy to, but it would be so much easier if you just sent me even a giant text file with the dialogue in it. formatted... so much the better, but even just blocks of text with punctuation will work. fisheyephotosAThotmailDOTcom cheers.

yes, familiarity directly adds to the percent chance to hit with the weapon. some weapons max at 10, others at 20. usually the ones that max at 20 are rifles, but not always. almost all pistols seem to max at 10. everything in the game has an armor value, including destructable objects. the more penetration your weapon has, the more of the damage will bypass the armor value of the object/person. shoot JHP ammo at a building... it takes forever to do damage. shoot an mg42 at the same building with over 40 penetration.... the bullets both damage the walls and pass through them more than half the time. Likewise, body armor (the wearable kind).... it works great if for some odd reason, you are being shot at only by low level pistols with 5 or less penetration. also works great to limit bleeding damage, which is a bug of course. However, get something with some penetration on it (over 10 for light armor, 20 for heavy), or get a critical hit, and it's like it isn't even there. in Hammer and Sickle, body armor is very heavy (realistically so!), and weight limits you ap drastically if you go over your weight limit. the ONLY time I have ever had body armor save anyone, is when they get hit for low health, and it prevented them from bleeding to death (actually kept "evading" the bleed!). so... really not thinking even heavy armor has much value by the time you find it, considering the weight. will likely protect you better from grenade shrapnel than it will from weapons fire, so if you plan to wade your grenadier through a minefield, or expect they will be getting hit by light grenades... by all means, wear armor. Otherwise, I can think of a few items that weigh a similar amount that actually might be more useful.

no, it's not mass. this is entirely wrong. Through much experimentation while buffing evade by making my characters bleed (yes, I am a sadist), I have discovered what it relates to is the absolute skill level required to even use the weapon. "Hard" to use weapons require a much higher shooting skill to use than "easy" weapons. that's it. that's all there is to it. The reason nobody usually notices this, is because by the time you find decent weapons that are hard to use, your shooting skill likely is already well high enough to use them. You will only notice this if you are grievously wounded, and your shooting skill is down in the toilet. all of a sudden, you can't use your hard to use gun any more, no matter how familiar you are with it. heal yourself up with even just a basic adhesive plaster, and presto... you can use your gun again. Tested this over and over again. this works the same in all 3 silent storm games, btw, but the only place it is really noticeable is in the 3rd one. all of the skills and stats appear exaggerated to make the game a bit tougher in that one. specific example: silenced mauser. it's a "hard" handling weapon. turns out, you need at least 20 shooting skill to use it. if your shoot skill falls below this, you simply can't use it at all. Now... how many times has your shooting skill in any of the 3 games fallen below 20? yeah. so, bottom line? handling is really a non-issue. ignore it entirely.

you can fake an antidurability mod by simply spawning in items fresh and new via the console. you don't lose your familiarity with them, so in effect it acts like there is no durability issue.

no, you don't need to go to forrester, since larry told you where to go. as SOON as larry tells you about the water pumps, get your stuff together and head to the blue exit area in the upper part of the the city map. that will take you to the train station. walk up to the middle of the train and find the foreman, then bribe him. then you will go to the next train stop, where there are some decent items to grab, and then again... go to the blue area up top of that little map, and you will end up at the water plant.

wouldn't that just make it "Call of Duty"? naw. it's fine like it is. I just wish more people would spend time modding it. I rather like the basic engine. turn based, decent physics, decent graphics. a little clunky, but not overly so.

I have read the only walkthrough that appears to be available (like the one posted on gamefaqs). My experiences differ a bit from the author of that faq (and are based on using the unofficial 1.15 patch available on this site), so let me add a few things here to make the game a bit more enjoyable for some. -it recommends picking a scout or sniper, but really you can pick anything you want. the skill trees now have enough diversity in them that you can balance your team out just fine, no matter what role you pick for yourself. -the guide often recommends you grab a rocket launcher whenever they appear. Don't. this is bad advice, since you can throw a medium weight grenade just as far and with much higher accuracy than you can fire a rocket (it has been this way in ALL of the silent storm series; someone should mod that so rocket launchers actually make sense to use). what's more, in H&S rocket launchers are the heaviest single useable item in the whole game, hands down. they weigh 16kg! oh, and before you gasp at how heavy that is... EACH rocket weighs another 3.2kg!! so... no. they totally screwed up on the rocket launcher. it is a giant fucking paperweight. don't bother with it; use grenades. for comparison... a pwm 1 heavy grenade does just as much damage as a rocket, and only weighs 1kg. -play with the fast move mod (enable it in the custom game menu before you start). it makes the game so much less annoying. -cheat. No, really. This game does a TERRIBLE job of providing you with proper equipment for your role. If you pick to be a sniper say... give yourself a sniper rifle of a reasonable class right off. Otherwise, you will have to wait a long time before you even get one! In all previous silent storm games, each character got appropriate equipment to their class, but in H&S, they just give you a lame smg and send you merrily on your way, no matter what class you pick. So... cheat. you can find the cheat codes online easily. -the game is not as hard as the author seems to think it is, it's just that you need to develop strategies to avoid getting hit by bullets. in fact, I even ramped up the difficulty in custom mode to have the enemies do even MORE damage (full damage - 100%) to further encourage good play tactics. you really should only be able to take one or two shots before going down without any armor. played tactically, this game is not hard at all. you will be mopping the floor with your enemies in no time. -on the entry mission (sneak across border fence area). DO NOT TRY TO SHOOT ANYONE. the game is programmed to make you miss (99% hit, the enemies will just ... duck), apparently, and if you get spotted, you're dead. simple as that. this is entirely a mission of not getting seen, so stay in combat mode, move from tree to tree as far towards the bottom of the screen as you can get. try to move as close to the fence as you can, then go back to real time until the tank scene starts. then go back to combat mode, clip the wire fence, and again move from tree to tree, crouched, or even crawling if you have really bad hide skill. once you reach the tree closest to the exit zone, and have full AP available to you, change to run and book it to the exit bar. you should be ok. do not try to run across the map, do not try to explore, do not try to shoot anyone. you will die. simple as that. this is the ONLY reason I think people think this game is hard. you will not encounter another level like this, so don't sweat it. -as irritating as it might seem, on any map where you aren't 100% sure what the status is, go into combat mode. The reason is that there are timers on almost every map, and ambushes on a lot of them too. staying in combat mode slows that timer way down, and you are MUCH more likely to spot ambushes and avoid them. -hide and sneak does not work much like the other storm games. You can't hide during the day, for example, even if you are in a building. Only when you are underground or at night can you hide. Don't ask me why. It's bloody stupid if you ask me. Also, you cannot train hide skill AT ALL. it will never go up for you, during the whole game. so, if you like stealth.... better pick a scout for your PC as all the other characters pretty well suck at it. Also, this means that stealth weaponry is not worth the loss of damage, range, and most especially, durability. IOW... going stealth is really just a way to make the game HARDER for you, in total contrast to other storm games. There are very few maps where stealth will actually play out well. Mostly, your best bet is power and range, moving slowly, and good spotting skills (which, thankfully, ARE trainable, and even easier to train). -you cannot train your shooting skill. It will be directly tied to your dex stat, and increase as you level. You can, however, train your burst and snipe skills. -weapon familiarity now applies to multiple weapons, so long as they are different classes. so, you can familiarize yourself with both your sidearm, and your rifle, for example. or your smg and your knife, etc. this is a welcome and sensible change from the previous storm games. Unfortunately, your limitation is ammo, and the durability of the weapon you choose to use. You will get a decent engineer fairly early on (Larry) who does a decent enough job repairing your gear, but of course, the max durability will always decrease (significantly) with each repair. This suggests primarily using weapons that end up being commonly found or purchasable. keep your eyes open for what drops, and what has the most units available at the weapons merchant (when you get that far). There is no way to get near perfect repairs like in previous games, so take that into account. train your snipe/throw/burst/melee skills with items/weapons that are very common, then go back to your primary weapon to increase your familiarization with it. -money is not an issue really, especially after the weapons dealer opens up, so don't worry too much about that. Just make sure you always keep a grand or two in pocket, as there are quests that will ask you for limited amounts of cash (usually around 600, though up to 1200) -you might freak a bit when it seems that all of a sudden, you can't see people you are standing right next to (like they are hidden). What's happened is that this game actually applies whatever visual modifications your active weapon has to your vision at all times! so, if you are holding a sniper rifle, you vision narrows to a tiny fraction of what it is when you are holding a pistol. keep that in mind when you are walking around; your best off swapping to your alternate weapon slot when looking around. -the prison can be completed entirely without bloodshed, so long as you: wear the allied commando uniform, have the id papers from the convoy attack, and can pass a moderate intelligence check. Just walk (by yourself) into the office that is to your left as you enter the map, and talk to the warden. My guess is that you need an int of at least 6 to pass the check. Mine was 7 at the time. No muss, no fuss. level done in 10 seconds, and you get a ton of xp. -before you go to the water scoop, make sure you have plenty of room in your inventory; you will need it to pick up a buch of weapons and a couple of large canisters. after foiling the iniital attack on the water scoop plant, make sure to pick up as many of the weapons as you can (at least all the easily identifiable russian ones), all f the cigarettes, and probably at least one of the canisters (I grabbed both). STAY IN COMBAT MODE AT ALL TIMES. go into the office area (not through the big "garage door", but through the front door up top). pick the lockers for a couple of goodies. then bring your engineer or a good spotter near where the ladder goes down through the floor. Wait until the big-ass mine gets spotted. Now... move WAYY back towards the front door, but leave a person with good piston/smg skills in the corner, on the metal grid, between where the hallway exits onto the metal grid and the big garage door. Now, have someone either shoot the mine or toss a grenade at it. BOOOM! this will take out half the baddies waiting for you just below the ladder, and the person you left in the corner can jump down off the edge of remaining metal grid and likely get a suprise attack on the remaining baddies that are just below them. just make sure eveyone is at least 6 steps away from the mine when you destroy it. Drag all the russian weapons at the cyanide with you down into the sewers (the manhole at the bottom). after you enter the sewers, I *think* you can safely dump all the excess gear and toxic waste. At least, I didn't get the "bad" transition afterwards. -shortcut: when you get to the sewers, after the first "bend" you will notice there is a room with a ladder on your right, that you can't get to because there is a wall there.... if you brought a heavy explosive with you (lyddite works fine, or a heavy mine or grenade), you can simply blow a hole in the wall here and bypass the entire clusterfuck that is waiting for you at the end of the long way round. stand right at the edge of where the ladder goes down (to the sides), and you will notice baddies start to cluster at the bottom of the ladder. Now.... let's see... you're standing over a big hole, with a bunch of enemies all grouped in one spot. yip, it's grenade time. hopefully you have a few small grendades (the big ones will blow back on you), like srcm's or bredas. just toss them down the hole (manually target the area at the bottom of the ladder). baddies will die without you even seeing all the blood and gore. Now, all you have to do is climb down, and then there are really only 3 baddies left to deal with, two on your right as you pass the first junction, and one more in the depression after you reach the first left turn and have to climb down. So, grand total: you need to kill one before you hit the first wall, one as you reach the first wall (that is beyond and to your left), four at the bottom of the ladder you need to climb down, two on your right after you climb down, and one more after you make that first left turn. that's it. if you go the long way, I think there are about 8 more you would need to kill, lots more mines to have to disable or avoid, and it takes 3 times as long. -after you leave the sewers, STAY IN COMBAT MODE. run your fastest guy up to the house and open the door. quickly exit combat mode briefly, and hit the loot button. collect the benzies and the IV bag, and leave. don't hang around, or you will be ambushed by a large group of army dudes. don't forget to pick up siegfried and take him with you, and then head to your arms dealer straight away. you can "cure" his crippled hands with your medic and an abbey clamp or bullet remover after the brief discussion plays out. -at the hammer base Siegfried points you to... going at night makes it a bit easier; you have more control of the battle. if you are at your home base (where the radio is), leaving at around 8pm should put you at the base at around 4am (early dawn raid!). maneuver saunders and larry (assuming you made him a sniper. you made him a sniper, right?) so they are near the bottom of the screen, at the fence, hidden from sight (crouched). manuever your PC to clip the fence with your wirecutters. move fidel to the trees just behind the truck, and for now, leave siegfried where he is; move him along the powerpoles once the battle has started, to keep an eye on the civilians. after you cut the fence, run larry and saunders to the back corner of the building closest to the bottom of the screen (the barracks). wait a turn. have larry poke back around the corner and snipe any hammer guys he sees in the open. have saunders do a blast at the boarded up door with an SMG or machine gun to blow it open. when larry is done, take saunders and larry to clear the barracks, move your pc and fidel to pick off people in the courtyard, and move siegfried along the line of the power poles. after the courtyard is clear, and the barracks are under control, go ahead and shoot any civilians you see with a weapon in their hands. they are not your friends. this will start a new round of combat, and you will immediately see that some civilians are still in blue. just don't shoot those civilians, and you're good. one enemy civilian will be hiding at the bottom of the barracks in the bathroom area, so watch out for that. -after the base, guide does a good job with setting you up for the ambush at the larry's dad's place, but for foresster, you can actually take out the motorcycle with sidecar machine gun in the second turn of combat. before you investigate the house, move siegfried near the edge of the forest by where the well is (move him past the well, but at the edge of the forest) and give him one of your heavy grenades (pwm 1). move saunders to the right of his position, nearer to the road, but still in the forest, and put another unit nearby that position too. on your first combat turn, move those two units up, away from the well and the house, towards the road, until you spot the group of enemies that is approaching from that direction (call it west?) clear those enemies as best you can (grenades work great), now siegfried is clear to run towards the morocycle until he is close enough to lob his heavy grenade at, or even just very near it. Boom. he should even have enough ap left to take out the driver if he's still alive. then have him take cover behind what is left of the motorcycle, which you no longer have to worry about. Oh, also, Fidel has the key to the door to the basement. if you use him to open the door, you don't have to pick it. -your new sewer rat base. you will find some paybooks on the floor here. one of them is very interesting. the scene you get next entirely depends on who, exactly, you let pick up the paybook first. try saving before you pick them up to see the what happens. -the nuke bomb level is really stupid. you have to be way too far away from it to do any direct damage, even with the rocket launcher. again, bad guide, bad. instead, toss a heavy grenade near the tail of it to star the damage going, then run your sniper all the way as far away from it as they can get down to where the gate closes on you (yes, you have to be that far away), and snipe it with a high penetration rifle until it is destroyed (you'll know, because the area goes green). Now, there is a really nasty bug here, in that you can only open the gate ONCE. if you trigger it to close again, you will never be able to open it, no matter how many times you push the damn button (even plays the sound effect, but the gate does not open). so... don't ever go through the gate. instead after you climb through the hole before the gate and clear all the baddies. ...including the ones guarding the bomb itself (there's one hidden on the other side of the wall you can't see; climb through the furthest hole in the area that links the switch room to the bomb area, and then look right). Ok, all clear? good. climb into the room where the bomb is, and go across that room to the other side, where you will see a hole blocked up with boards. grenade or shoot those boards out, and climb through that hole into the passage beyond. work your way down, and you will see a machine gun next to another hole, that leads right back to where the gate is, now, the problem is, that gun is in the friggen way. you can't climb through the hole with it there, and you can move it so... blow it the hell up. use a heavy grenade or nitro on it and get rid of it entirely. NOW after your sniper does the bomb, he will be standing right next to this now clear hole, and he can crawl through. likewise, move your whole team OTHER than your sniper into the passageway where the gun was at least as far as that hole so they won't be exposed to radiation when the bomb is destroyed. Now destroy the bomb, and have your sniper climb through the hole. the rest is just clearing a few baddies on your way to the exit. *whew* Really, the guide sucks total donkey balls for this level. Follow my advice and NOBODY WILL TAKE ANY DAMAGE. suffice it to say, bring at least a couple of heavy explosives (like nitro and hex).

where is the key to the cells? I've killed everyone inside up to and including the Warden. you'd think the key would be on him or in his safe? if it's not a bug, you should make finding the key to unlock the cells easier, or make the pickable, so that those who actually want to use a team instead of going solo actually CAN. otherwise, level design is good; lots of corners to hide behind. My rating goes down for minor bug with the room mentioned in my other post, and for the lack of early acccess to cell key. rating for the first part: 7/10

I notice that since you can't scroll in the rooms in the first area, it's often hard to see where the exit is. In fact, you actually CAN'T see the exit to the room in the upper right in the first area at all. if you go in there, no exit. have to reload a previous save. suggestion: make the rooms so you can scroll around a bit.

I played up through mission 3. quite a bit tougher than the original game, but I like it. It seems you changed how turns work, or gave everyone very high interupt rates? that third mission took 5 minutes before I even got to move! really gave a nice impression of a big firefight in progress. I like the weapon customization system, though I don't see why you only get to mod your gun once? or is there a guy later who will add/remove mods? overall, I really like the direction you are going with this; even the global map fits right in with the theme you are building. all the visual details look quite nice too. my only nagging complaing so far is the frequent and egregious spelling errors and typos throughout all of the dialogue. How about even running a simple spell checker on the text files before importing them into your database? oh, one question: it implies there is a new bandit mission after mission 3, but the mission choices are what you would see in the vanilla game, and no new area opens up for exploration on the global map. is mission 4 not done yet?

I'm playing your revision right now. chose an engineer with focus on pistols. is there any place that documents the info that scrolls across your screen the first time you enter the armory? what do the modifcations do, for example. would be good to have a text file with that info in it somewhere. edit: nevermind, duh, it's in the journal

nope. tried that of course, the first time I captured the PK unit. it spits out 16 1 charge clips!

yay me. finished. difficulty level was 1.40 (enemies with same damage as you 130%, enemies move faster, hide better, enemy level +1; no auto heal at base) played a pistoleer engineer, that played most of the game just using a Browning HP. ended up using a caputured LZ PK (with lionhead on front) from the egypt special random. 95 kills total, tied exactly with "shade". this is the very first game I can recall where an engineer actually works well as a primary player character. mines go boom, hexagen goes bang, fox says what? FWIW, the most powerful character in the whole game is shade! friggen ninjas, how do they work? I took the time to level him (he levels at less than half the rate of any other unit) and found out why they made him level so slowly... at level 14, he had 88aps, 173 attack (melee and ranged), 167 hide, and could throw a friggen SHURIKEN halfway across the screen right into someone's eyeball! unless someone was specifically searching for him, he typically could walk right up to enemies. then use the katana to cut their heads off before they could blink. yes, i can see why they chose to nerf his levelling.... easily would have had the most kills if I let him. the ONLY thing he had trouble with was armor, and of course, with 173 throw... heavy grenades have a decent range. or, I shove him in a pk with a mechanical saber and some medium mortars. I love that they fixed melee pathing in this game for PKs. it was broken badly in s2. I felt this game was actually better designed than S2, the level design (all except the "secret base") was far superior. could use another set of missions, and aboout 50% more random encounter types to fill it out a bit more, but I really like this engine for both looks and tactics. I'm VERY surprised more people aren't modding it! it's an awesome engine. seriously; what is there to compare? the Jagged alliance engine doesn't even come close to the physics detail and graphic detail of this engine. are turn based strategy games just a dying breed? I hope not. This game rocked.

I'm on the very last mission; assault version. I noticed there are some new "Hammer" pks, that basically are just the "Axis" pks from S2. I decided to compare them all, mark for mark. designations I will use are based on those used for S2: "US" = the first basic kind you can get, with 260hps and swappable wep slots "THO" = the ones you have to kill the driver to get, with 350hps and fixed wep slots "Axis" = the ones with open heads (with german helmets), with 300hps and swappable wep slots. first off, there are no differences to stat boosts for any of the PK types i have tested (US, "THO", and "Axis") however... the heavier units (the THO and Axis) move more slowly than the US (260hps). I've tested this over and over and over again, on different terrain types. it is sure as day, the heavier the PK, the slower it moves. It is readily apparent even between the 260hp and 300hp versions. The 350s move even slightly more slowly than the 300s, but not as noticeably as between the 260 and 300. The difference between a 350 and a 260 is about 20% movement rate, and between the 260 and 300 it's about 15%. It adds up on large maps. if you are like me, and are more offensive minded than defensive, and think PKs already move too slowly.... I'd stick with the 260hp versions for the 20% bonus over the heavier models in move rate. If you play defensively; setting up traps for close range fighting, you would be better off with the heavier units. for fun, there actually are stealth "scout" versions of the US pks you can summon for your use. they have the same hps and move rates as the other US pks, but you can actually go stealth in them and hide! if you want to try it out..... (scroll down for spoiler) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . First, enable the cheat mode in the config file in your sentinels director (just search online for "cheat codes silent storm sentinels) next, go camp somewhere outdoors. open the console with the tilde key (it's over the tab key on most US keyboards) type: summonunit 318 that is the old scout class pk unit from s2, but works fine and dandy in s3. some other models to choose from: US units: 317 - US unit, with shark mouth painted on front 319 - basic US unit with shKas THO units: 320 - LZ energy blasters, black with red cross on front 321 - Gatling gun, black 322 - Gatling gun, red 544 - AGS rocket, black 549 - LZ energy, black with skeleton on front 482 - LZ energy, red 483 - AGS rocket, red the game will summon those right in front of you while you are on a camp screen, or where you start on any mission. all are completely useable in game.

Ok, I understand the single shot lz clips for the energy rifle... but what happened to the 16 shot energy clips for the PK energy gun? it is a HUGE hassle to carry around a backpack full of single shot energy clips to recharge that gun. anyone modded into s3 the same 16 shot lz clips that were in s2?

I've never had this game crash before, unlike s2, which crashed frequently on almost any large mission map. however, I cannot even start the stash mission (egypt). every time I try to enter the mission, the game crashes. i have done all the random missions, and the secret base, up to this point. I tried to see if it was the robot causing the problem, so I killed it. nope. still crash. dismissed all of my team BUT the robot and shadow. no good. tried freeing inventory space to see if a hidden item was trying to be placed... nope. anyone else get this crash? any ideas? EDIT: I figured it out; I had manually added Cookies Character Mod to a savegame wayyyyyy back towards the start of the game, and forgot it was broken. never caused any problems until now. removing it solved the crash issue.

...here's the takeaway for the secret mission: if you want a robot that is indestructible to anything with under 60 penetration (can take a full clip point blank from a johnson lmg, or frankly ANY machine gun or submachine gun, and not get a scratch), then it's worth the effort. otherwise, by the time you can go there, all of the weapons you can find there can be bought at the store. iow, don't go there for loot. seeing if you can take out the robots without losing anyone BEFORE you activate the prototype bot (which has little problem dealing with its brothers) is really the only fun to this whole mission. It's a real pain trying to get your PKs through the narrow ass portals.

fwiw, I'm using the "gold" version of the game and didn't have any problems getting this to trigger once I picked up the last code book. one thing I would note for those planning on this mission though.... the transition from the first area to the next is very narrow. if you try to bring more than 3 pks through, one of your units (flesh or armor) will end up outside of the moveable space (trapped between the walls) so, sadly, I highly recommend you bring a max of 3 pks with you for this mission. OTOH, most of the fighting areas are fairly narrow and small, and well suited to normal combat anyway. bring energy pks or snipers; if a 3rd, grenadier or abs rocket launcher (if you got one from the random special in Egypt). lead with your toughest pk, and have your snipers pick off anyone who attacks the leader. shouldn't be too tough for the first part. then comes the robots in the second area.... if you managed to get your pks into here, it's fun to figure out good strategies to take them down. make sure you use stuff with lots of damage and better than 60 penetration. mines, energy weaps, and pk sniper weps are good. the heavy mortars and the AGS rockets will also damage them. or... you can sneak by them and get to the next area after talking to the scientist, and come back with a friend. if you are very patient, you can get one pk at a time to fit through the portal into the last area. frankly? don't. you won't need one there. bring the robot back with you to the second area and get your pks back then. someone should mod this level so it has better portals. the area you need to stand in is VERY small. hard to do some of them even with normal units, let alone pks.

hey, this is kinda like CalvinBall.... you can make up the rules as you go along. I just realized while doing this another great game comes to mind that this would work with... checkers. you'd actually have to arrange the corpses into the proper pattern first though; probably have to spawn some extra units for corpses. but I found it's not hard to jump one corpse over another....

OK... I should be thinking I have a problem for doing this... but I have found a great game to play with PKs when you get bored. -requires a sniper PK unit (act as major ball mover). The more powerful the sniper gun, the more like a driver it is, the less so, more like chippers and putters. you can compete against other pk units with different gun setups for fun. -a piece of graph paper or computer equivalent. -random number generator. After you finish a mission (random or otherwise), there are usually a pile of corpses lying about. some of the outdoor missions have some really interesting terrain. right... so it's sniper golf time. with the body physics being what they are, you can bounce bodies across the terrain by hitting them with your sniper rifles. I say to use PKs because the most powerful guns are on PKs, and you can use them to move corpses far and fast. right, first off, NO REARRANGING CORPSES. you have to play them where they lie! first, you have to generate your course, so divide up your "Playing area" into sectors (x,y). probably 15 sectors on a side is good for most maps. once you have your sectors set up, use a random number generator of any kind to generate where the "holes" will be. probably a nine hole course would be more than sufficient. or you could just have each team member compete to get the best score for any given hole. then, start snipin' those corpses! again, use the big guns like drivers to move bodies far, go to smaller weps for finer adjustments... sick fun can be had by all.

frankly, my favorite weapon was the browning HP pistol I used with my engineer for the first 4 missions. not the most powerful, but I loved the sound of it and it sure got the job done. also like the Johnson light machine gun for my gunner, has a real thunderous machine gun sound.

I see there has been no update to any of the walkthroughs for this mission, and I just figured out how to properly (with stealth) complete it, so I'll go ahead and add the info that is missing from the walkthroughs. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> This mission not only requires that YOU never be seen, it requires that no unconscious or dead guard you take out is seen by any other guard. You CANNOT have any body seen, or it triggers a general alarm. You will know if you have triggered it, because the civilians will start panicking and jumping out of windows to get away from you, and the guards on the top floor (the room opposite the study) will begin to search for you (you should be able to hear them moving around upstairs if you have units in the house). make frequent saves, and if on your turn, civilians panick, or you see those upstairs guards move.... reload because it means someone saw one of your bodies. Don't even bother with trying for the stealth complete unless you have a unit with at least 70 stealth, preferably much higher even! for best body removal... have your best stealth unit move as close as possible to your target BEFORE you use knockout darts or stealth weapons. then make sure your stealth unit moves the body out of the potential sight lines of ANY guards (that means being patient, and monitoring how the guards do their patrols, especially in front of the house, where there are 3 patrolling guards, and two mercs standing outside the door (with body armor). that brings up another point. The two mercs standing outside the front door MUST NOT EVER BE ATTACKED, or it will trigger a general alarm (you can, however, take out the two mercs standing outside of the complex main gate, provided you can take down both of them on a single turn without being spotted; it's not that hard. one of them drops a nice rocket launcher and ammo). Yeah, that's right, you're gonna have to sneak past them... not only that, but you have to sneak past IN FRONT of them. Why? well, because if you try to enter the main foyer on the first level (where the stairs are) via the door near the bathroom, you will get spotted by a russian soldier standing underneat the nearest stairs. you might get lucky and sneak past him, but even with 97 stealth, I could not. I think you are not supposed to. ok, what that means, is that you have to take out all the patrolling guards in the front courtyard area. other than the two standing by the car, 3 are actually on short back and forth patrol routes, so you will have to take them out one at a time, and quickly move the body before the next patrol can see it. Again, a scout with good stealth should be very close to the target when you take them down, then run them out of the patrol route towards the outside main gate (dropping them just outside the gate works. if the gate is open, the door will block the view of the mercs there if you didn't take them out). I found that Shade (if you found and leveled him up a bit) is perfect for this task, as he can both stealthily take down a guard with shurikens or throwing knives (or a dart pistol) and be right next to them when they drop so you can also start hauling the body away. Taking the three patrolling guards in the front courtyard out without any bodies being seen is by far and away the hardest part of this mission. If you manage it, the rest is gravy. ok, assuming you have taken down all the guards in the courtyard, take your stealthiest unit, and belly sneak as close to the edge of the wall in the courtyard as you can, and you should be able to sneak past the mercs standing by the front door. Once past them safely, enter the window of the room on the right of the front door (facing the house). you can safely move to crouch position now. move to the door of that room that leads to the foyer, but make sure you have full AP before you open it (wait a turn if not). open the door, and you should see a russian soldier standing under the stairs on the far side of the foyer from you. this is the last guy you need to take down stealthily. use whatever means you choose (killing is fine, so long as you are quiet). Whee! that complete the hard part of the mission. now you can bring in whatever stealthed guys you have through the other door in the foyer. but really, all you need from this point is your PC, an engineer, and maybe one more guy to haul loot. move up the stairs and pick the lock on the door to the left, and then the chest in that room; grab all the fine cash goodies. Now, take your engineer and have them climb up the ladder near the entrance to that room. unlock the door at the top. turn left and you will see a trapped chest. disarm for a very nice grenade, then pick the lock for DP machine gun (if you don't already have one). leave that room and go across the floor to the room opposite and pick that door lock. there's another trapped chest with goodies, and a medical locker to pick. you can collect this loot now, or wait until you reach the leave area; it will all be available. go out of that room, and up the second ladder just outside it to the narrow storage area, at the end of that is a nice suit if you want it. ok, all locks picked, traps disarmed, etc... done NOW, because you will NOT be wanting to come back this way soon.... move all your units except your PC back downstairs, and OUT of the foyer area (side rooms are ok, so long as the doors are closed). take your PC and sneak them to the door to the study (it's the door on the left-front of the second floor, above the room you entered the house in after sneaking past the front door mercs) . if you are in sneak mode with your PC (MUST be PC; no other unit will work) when you reach that door, a cutscene will trigger. gratz! you have completed the stealth objective. now, after the cutscene, DO NOT TRY TO SNEAK BACK DOWN THE STAIRS. there is a new guard right by the ladder that leads to the attic that will detect you unless you have near 100 stealth. There is one last chest in the room diagonal from the study on the same floor, just walk over to it and picklock the chest there. Whee! lots of cash, and a nice suit on the bed you might want too. Now, move back out to the room just outside the study, and go to a window on either side of the window directly over the front door. open it, move right to the edge of the windowsill facing out, and click on the ground one level below you. you will jump out the window to the ground and take a couple of points of damage. House exited! lastly, move your PC to the exit arrow, which is exactly where you started the level. then, one at a time, move the rest of your units to the arrow. As the last one reaches it, your objectives will all be complete, and you can leave. ALL the goodies from chests, guards, etc; everything you saw during the level, will be there for you on the leave screen. if you left some room to carry crap, your haul here will be nearly 100K! for some weird reason, the exit area doesn't always trigger correctly, so make sure to move your guys there one at a time. if it doesn't work, exit the game entirely, reload, and move your units one at a time there again. your mission reward money will be exactly double (the main mission money, and that again as bonus for a nice total of over 8k!) congratulations on completing the most irritating, tedious, slow thief-clone mission ever.

huh. I would have thought they were simple database tables, compressed? figured it wouldn't be hard to open them up in sql; i just don't happen to have it installed atm. plus, i know other mods are simply scripts (the one that stops durability loss, for example) you can edit that one in notepad.

S3 mod "Cookie's Character Modification" is broken. one: the game will not recognize it as an installable mod in the custom game menu (recognizes others just fine) two: you can add this mod to a savegame file via the addmod program but... three: all it does is lower merc prices to 5k each. it does not alter their level, it does not remove their high level equipment. if someone could fix this mod, I would love to try out some of the other soldiers and level them up myself, like this mod was supposed to allow me to do. cheers all.