Screenshots

[justinstyles]

I haven't found this weapon yet, but I assume that if you visit enough missions you can recover more of them.

 

You're correct in your belief.

Basically, as long as one can get an encounter more than once (i.e., any of the random encounters in S2), one can get multiple sets of rare weapons. There's another random in Switzerland that produces another rare weapon (am avoid spoilers in case someone reading doesn't already know), but for each successful completion of the encounter and fetching of that item, one can get that item multiple times.

 

S3's randoms work a bit differently. There are recurring randoms and then another type: random and rare (I've read that one can get these latter types more than once, but for me, they've been unique encounters and I can't generate more than once per play-through). Granted, those latter type of encounters don't produce truly unique weapons, but they do generate decent cash, which is helpful in the mercenary world of S3.

 

Best regards.

[justinstyles]

Yup, it's that "Big Joe" gun. Gee, I wonder what else I have been missing in my previous missions...

 

Big Joe's found on another random map as well (the one with a brick building, a big shed, a wooden watchtower, a gun emplacement, and a fence enclosing all of these elements), but only under certain conditions. If Big Joe's found on that map, it's in one of the footlockers.

 

I'm impressed by your discovery of the truck on that one map; I thought I'd played the game a lot yet never encountered a truck on that map, but didn't play this map nearly as often as you, apparently!

I did "destroy" (to the same point as you; I could never truly destroy a vehicle completely, unlike demolishing buildings to rubble) trucks on other missions and sometimes those tools "fall out" of the truck, but they've always been visual garnish in my case (I never could fetch them).

 

Then again, I frequently had little trouble luring opponents from houses on the two maps you've shown recently. When I had sufficient explosives and grenades, I'd create openings or collapse one floor onto another; I liked seeing the enemy fall from one area to another then have a rifleman remove him from a distance. I'm reasonably patient, but not sufficiently so to knife a path through a wall....

 

Best regards.

[Zombie]

Big Joe's found on another random map as well (the one with a brick building, a big shed, a wooden watchtower, a gun emplacement, and a fence enclosing all of these elements), but only under certain conditions. If Big Joe's found on that map, it's in one of the footlockers.

 

I'm impressed by your discovery of the truck on that one map; I thought I'd played the game a lot yet never encountered a truck on that map, but didn't play this map nearly as often as you, apparently!

I did "destroy" (to the same point as you; I could never truly destroy a vehicle completely, unlike demolishing buildings to rubble) trucks on other missions and sometimes those tools "fall out" of the truck, but they've always been visual garnish in my case (I never could fetch them).

Thanks for the explanation about those unrecoverable items under the truck. Guess I won't rack my brain about this. If I want those items I can always edit them in manually.

 

I have been visiting only random encounters in order to train my squad up lately. I figure that once they are trained up good and proper they can mop up any semi-scripted mission with no problems. As you might imagine, it takes a lot of encounters and kills to do this, but it should give them the upper hand. It seems like the random encounter with the truck is the game trying to "reward" you. The truck only showed up this one time so far and I'm thinking it's a "rare" random encounter of sorts. (Get to this point in the game and it'll spawn a rare encounter along with a weapon you haven't seen yet plus some more enemies to boot: I has 15 on this map). Ran about 5 more missions on the normal map (without a truck) and nothing ever shows up in the attic so it's safe to say this particular scenario is the only variant where things will be different. Next time I run across a map with a different setup I'll be sure to take a screenie and do some exploring.

 

Then again, I frequently had little trouble luring opponents from houses on the two maps you've shown recently. When I had sufficient explosives and grenades, I'd create openings or collapse one floor onto another; I liked seeing the enemy fall from one area to another then have a rifleman remove him from a distance. I'm reasonably patient, but not sufficiently so to knife a path through a wall....

I just don't have many grenades and explosives to play around with right now. Grenades and mines are almost impossible to find on random encounters. I haven't tried to grab all the grenades in the base inventory and then refresh the screen to see if that would give me more. Suppose it would, but the stuff I have to use is junk anyway. Found a few Mark 1 mines along my in-game travels and tried to set it off by shooting it with sniper rifles and machine gun fire. Has no effect as the shots just ricochet and don't penetrate to set it off. Same thing with booby traps (though I haven't tested this extensively). The only way to set off booby traps yourself is to toss a powerful grenade near it (and that in itself brings up another can of worms). My grenadier has terrible throwing range and his accuracy sucks too. Tried training throwing with knives, but that just makes him familiar with knives instead of his primary weapon (SMG). Not quite what I had in mind. I know that once engineers train up to a decent level the damage a stick of dynamite does is increased, but it takes too long to train an engineer up to that level. So I'm basically stuck. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to collapse a building so I could avoid fighting the enemies indoors, but with a lack of powerful grenades to do it I'm reduced to using other (more normal) methods of warfare.

 

Using a knife to poke through a wall takes some time and effort (and a lot of patience which I do not seem to lack), but there are some rewards to it. Melee goes up pretty quick and so does familiarity (my scout Katya has 70 for melee right now and a familiarity of 10 with the combat dagger and she's only an early-L6). Great way to train. Knives also keep you concealed. If you toss a grenade your guy is automatically unhidden. Knives allow scouts to stay hidden unless they are detected. I also think knives draw less attention to the hole than one created with a grenade (though in a recent mission a hole created in a wall with melee made the enemies come running).

 

What happens when you destroy a building and enemies are killed from the explosion or debris? Are their deaths "credited" or attributed to the soldier who caused the building to collapse (sort of like in X-COM)? Or are deaths a team "credit" so to speak where each death increases your level by a fraction no matter if you participated in the carnage? I seem to recall having the console open recently while killing an enemy and it showed that all the members of my team got some XP's from it to varying degrees so this is probably the case.

 

- Zombie

[Knan]

Yup. High INT improves the amount of XP a soldier gets. And unconscious characters get no more XP that mission.

 

Deaths of hostiles gives everyone awake on your side XP. Note that there may be at least four sides to a battle...

[Zombie]

Cool. Good to know my whole squad takes something away from the battle even if they didn't do a thing (it happens).

 

4 sides? What do you mean? Types of characters such as Allied, Axis, Civilian? What's the last one though? Corpses? JK

 

Anywho, did some testing with booby traps yesterday and finally got one to explode by shooting at it. Maybe my snipers didn't have a good shooting skill before. Hehe.

 

Speaking of snipers, Arvid became the first of my group (other than my hero) to get a medal!

 

https://www.postimage.org/gx1P64Di.jpg

 

Here are a couple shots I took on a recent random encounter road mission:

 

https://www.postimage.org/gx1P7MTr.jpg https://www.postimage.org/Pq334p9.jpg

 

My scout Katya took a good many turns sneaking up to where the enemy was and ended up killing an enemy on the road. Even though she maintained stealth with the knife attack, it alerted the enemy behind the fence that something was up. During the axis turn, that soldier walked over to where Katya was laying prone and tried to climb over the fence. Unfortunately he didn't look at his AP units and ended up kneeling on top of the fence during my turn. The obvious happens as you may imagine. Katya stands up and slashes the jugular of the idiot with her knife (familiarity of 10). That soldier ended up in a most peculiar predicament: stuck between the rails of the fence! Fun stuff!

 

Here's another ragdoll shot on the random encounter mission with the 2 buildings and the wooden shed:

 

https://www.postimage.org/gx1PbWNr.jpg

 

The soldier on the balcony was shot by Gator (who is standing in the doorway) with his RPD at the top of the steps. For some reason the shots went right through the bricks and killed the soldier but didn't cause any damage to the house. Viper stopped by (he's below) to leer at the lifeless form just hanging there.

 

- Zombie

[Knan]

Well, yes. Enemies really don't like seeing friends inexplicably turning into corpses nearby, so they tend to investigate.

 

As for four sides - there's one mission I remember that has my Axis team, the enemy Allies, Civilians, and the sneaky Allied Secret Police camouflaged as civilians. There are others

 

Bah. Must Make More Screenshots.

[Kizmiaz]

As for four sides - there's one mission I remember that has my Axis team, the enemy Allies, Civilians, and the sneaky Allied Secret Police camouflaged as civilians. There are others

That's "A Small English Town" IIRC. There's four sides if you play Allies too; Your team, the Allies, enemy Axis and Civilians. And more Axis; The "UK Laboratory" there's your team, the enemy Allies, Thor's Hammer and civilians.

[FullAuto]

If you booby trap a door or window and then shoot it, that should make it blow up IIRC. Good way to make an entrance, certainly, though beware: the more powerful explosives will make entry trickier as they'll take nearby walls and floors out too!

[Kizmiaz]

Speaking of snipers, Arvid became the first of my group (other than my hero) to get a medal!

Medals are nice. They liven up the game somehow. Pity that in Silent Storm they are stored away in a box.

 

https://i42.tinypic.com/b4i6o2.jpg

 

But I kinda like the official document that comes with the medal. It gives it a whiff of authenticy of some sort.

 

But getting a medal is rewarding, no matter the game.

 

https://i44.tinypic.com/4vph0p.jpg

 

Just wish they were visible in the status screen somehow, like this way;

 

https://i41.tinypic.com/ml372q.jpg

 

It's nice to have your achivements displayed.

[Zombie]

Same mission, about 20-30 turns later. Thinking ahead, I sent my Scout upstairs to do some cursory exploration (there's usually a baddie in the upstairs living room/bedroom). So instead of opening the door, I had my scout attack the wall again. Once through that, she had to attack a dresser which was in the way. After that she came barging through the hole to find, well, nothing! WTF! The room was completely empty. Feeling let down, I decided to train her melee stat by attacking furniture. Chop, chop. She blew through most of it quite easily. Then she accidentally attacked the floor she was standing on and fell through to the lower level. Fine, I'll just attack that square black leather chair that sits in the middle of the room. Standing up didn't seem to do anything so I had my scout kneel down and attack the chair. After a couple rounds she hit something on the chair which caused the debris to fly back and close the door! Intrigued, I continued to order my scout to attack the chair. A few swipes later, the chair disintegrated but this enemy soldier came falling down out of nowhere:

 

https://www.postimage.org/gx1kBnhr.jpg

 

Do you think he was kneeling on top of the chair? The floor above was fine, so that would be my only guess... Why couldn't my scout see the enemy though? Was his hide stat good so my scout wasn't able to detect him? Whatever the case, when he fell to the floor below he became visible. Standing that close to my scout with a knife in the ready could only mean one thing: 2-3 stabs in the back with the ol' Combat Dagger. Gotcha! :laugh

Hmmm. This happened to me again!

 

Abala decided to improve his shooting skill a little by going after the windows and doors with his rifle. By doing this, he made the soldier underneath the steps appear to my snipers. They didn't shoot however, Gator managed to target this troublesome enemy with his machine gun and killed him without making a hole in the wall. There was still an enemy on the map though. Different strategy this time. I sent my scout into the room with the fireplace and had her destroy the cabinet against the wall with the door for more maneuverability, then had her hug the wall. Meanwhile, Gator got into position outside the window along with my two snipers for backup. The next round Gator shot a full burst into the chair destroying it, and of course, an enemy "falls" down revealing himself. Well, my scout was more than happy to finish him off with a quick backstab or two. So it's more of a direct strategy and seems to be even more effective than sending my scout in alone.

 

The enemies in S2 must have "spawn points" or "routes" to follow just like in X-COM, because I keep seeing them show up/camped out in the same locations mission-after-mission. I'll tell you one thing though, if I run a few more random missions on this particular map, I'll have all the nodes figured out.

 

- Zombie

[justinstyles]

The spawn points might be the same, but to be precise, the opponents don't always act in the same way... they simply often do.

 

I find that the level of my squad has some impact on the number of opponents and their corresponding spawn points, not to mention the VPs of the opponents.

 

Best regards.

 

PS: Ever leave your game "idling" at the main menu? After some minutes, the screen will change to one of the maps (your favourite being one of them) and you'll see three sets of teams fight one another.... Too bad that doesn't ever occur in a similar manner in the randoms.

[Knan]

You can have some fun with that "demo" mode as a hotseat multiplayer, but y'all already knew that.

[Knan]

https://www.postimage.org/Pq1LhXAA.jpg

 

All quiet, Herr Oberst! We'll have the blood cleaned off the gate in a moment.

 

By the way, we'd like to ask you some questions...

 

... this mission is always fun, and terribly bloody on both sides.

[Knan]

https://www.postimage.org/aV1MKaG9.jpg

 

We made them pay, but retreat seems to be necessary for now. My medic is last woman standing, vs. around ten remaining enemies actively shooting things up. Not much house left. Quite unsporting, blowing up half my squad with bazookas and similar.

[Slaughter]

Looks like mayhem! Retreat seems your only option (or reload ).

[Knan]

Heh. I think about watching old x-files, then go play some S2 instead. Now what shows up in the first random encounter?

 

https://www.postimage.org/gx16_ZW0.jpg

 

(yes, my dear sniper is suicidally brave)

 

x-com storm. Will we ever get one? *sigh*

[Pete]

Gah, still have yet to encounter that thing.

 

I've completed the game and seen all the paperwork relating to ancient scrolls and what-not on how to build fricking laser beams though. Suggested there was much more greatness to come from Silent Storm.

[Puksiskissa]

https://img30.imageshack.us/img30/6075/scrnshot220609125805.th.png

 

Might have been a critical...

[Slaughter]

Ouch! Not likely to get up again anytime soon I think...

[carmichael]

I need more Shurikens!

 

https://chattypics.com/files/SilentStormNinja_ihfvh19v9o.png

[Space Voyager]

He he he, one deadly woman. And if it can't be taken out by a shuriken, she packs a grenade or two just to make way for... a shuriken.

[carmichael]

He he he, one deadly woman. And if it can't be taken out by a shuriken, she packs a grenade or two just to make way for... a shuriken.

 

I played more with that character and the Katana barely gets used. The shurikens only cost 3AP to throw and 3-4 of them is enough to kill, especially since I have the throwing distance perk. Grenades I only use when enemies bunch up. I just took out 5 hammer guys in one room in one turn all with shurikens O_O

[Zombie]

Gangbang anyone?

 

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/SS%20Gangbang.jpg

 

Those creepy allies surrounded my poor female sniper after she stood still for a few rounds (hidden nonetheless). Apparently the allied soldiers will try to "protect" you and will sometimes get themselves in trouble in the process. There were numerous times in this mission where I couldn't wait out an enemy from a short distance away, the allies would rush in and start the fight before I was ready. A couple times I reloaded and ran in first and that seemed to settle them down, but when the enemies were gone their hormones got the better of them.

 

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

I think it's the way AI is handling "hearing" things. If there is a suspicious noise AI will go and investigate it. The only thing that is odd about this screen is that they are kneeling and she is standing. It should be the other way around

[ledong6789]

If you booby trap a door or window and then shoot it, that should make it blow up IIRC. Good way to make an entrance, certainly, though beware: the more powerful explosives will make entry trickier as they'll take nearby walls and floors out too!