Octopus Overlords

stimpy wrote: Tue Jul 18, 2023 7:24 pm But I watched a video and the guy had Mouse sneaking around practically right in front of the enemy and they didnt notice her.
I started over and added her to my roster.

At night or in a sandstorm perhaps? Wearing camo also helps.

Smoove_B wrote: Tue Jul 18, 2023 7:26 pm Is it possible they tweaked the difficulty?

Something is going on.
This is a snapshot of the video:




There is no indication of the red hidden status in my game.

As far as weather and such....it's the first map. Clear skies and no access to camo yet, I dont think.


EDIT:
And holy crap.....just discovered the stealth button.....duh
Still doesnt show a red hidden status above my toons.....

EDIT 2: Yes....yes it does.....lol
I need to go lay down.....

Updated with Madmarcus's tip, plus tweaked the one about starting off at zero on skills and training. The latter was something I'd only read about and hadn't tested. Sure enough, a single training session with a mediocre trainer took my IMP merc from 0 Medical to 20.

Scoop20906 wrote: Tue Jul 18, 2023 2:19 pm Even though Im having a good run with my current squad I think I am going to restart with after all things I have learned so far. I busted my IMP merc's stats and don't like the way they are playing and I am missing a couple import needs on my squad. I also lost a whole squad of militia because I didn't train enough and was too far away and tired to get back to stop the assault squad.

Question:

Spoiler:

I know in the first tutorial town you can set up a machine gun emplacement for the Militia. Is that possible at the mines as well?

I'm really enjoying this game and all the stats and history for each merc. The devs really pulled this off.

I haven't seen an option for that. I think it happens in the initial town only because there is a special quest for it. You aren't actually setting it up yourself.
Might be a good mod option though.

I'm playing with the default difficulties at 30+ hours and haven't found the enemies to be enhanced or given unfair advantages.

I did something I had been thinking about, brought my old squad and my new squad together in the same location so they could divvy up parts, meds and items. And the old squad had some mod parts that the new squad could use.

And something even more interesting... without giving too many details , combat started in this location and both squads are taking part! I didn't know if that was possible, but apparently it is. Moving into an enemy held location would probably prevent being able to get both squads there at the same time, but if the enemy moves into my location where I have both squads, it seems I can fight with both of them. Handy!

jztemple2 wrote: Tue Jul 18, 2023 10:56 pm I did something I had been thinking about, brought my old squad and my new squad together in the same location so they could divvy up parts, meds and items. And the old squad had some mod parts that the new squad could use.

And something even more interesting... without giving too many details , combat started in this location and both squads are taking part! I didn't know if that was possible, but apparently it is. Moving into an enemy held location would probably prevent being able to get both squads there at the same time, but if the enemy moves into my location where I have both squads, it seems I can fight with both of them. Handy!

Nope. You can do that with combat too. Just close the pop up window instead of fight then move the other squads there, then fight with everyone.

Punisher wrote: Wed Jul 19, 2023 12:44 am

jztemple2 wrote: Tue Jul 18, 2023 10:56 pm I did something I had been thinking about, brought my old squad and my new squad together in the same location so they could divvy up parts, meds and items. And the old squad had some mod parts that the new squad could use.

And something even more interesting... without giving too many details , combat started in this location and both squads are taking part! I didn't know if that was possible, but apparently it is. Moving into an enemy held location would probably prevent being able to get both squads there at the same time, but if the enemy moves into my location where I have both squads, it seems I can fight with both of them. Handy!

Nope. You can do that with combat too. Just close the pop up window instead of fight then move the other squads there, then fight with everyone.

Oh wow, that just opened a whole new possibility for my strategy

stimpy wrote: Tue Jul 18, 2023 7:51 pm EDIT 2: Yes....yes it does.....lol
I need to go lay down.....

LOL

The Haunted Mansion quest can go f*** itself.
Whoever designed this map/mission needs to be flogged.

Brian wrote: Wed Jul 19, 2023 11:07 am

Spoiler:

The Haunted Mansion quest can go f*** itself.

An unavoidable ambush where the baddie starts off with a free shotgun blast into your clustered mercs set there by default and you can't change your dispersion until AFTER the fight starts and you've already been blasted.

As far as I can tell, the only way to get through this fight is to cheese your way in and out of the travel point to the underground portion of the map.

Whoever designed this map/mission needs to be flogged.

Spoilers?

“I think there is potential with this game it just needs some post launch developer support and to listen to the community. It's a good foundation, but let's turn it from an X-Com to a proper JA game.”

Saw this comment on the JA subreddit and felt like it pretty much encompasses how I feel.

It will be interesting to see how much the devs listen (if at all) to ‘the community’ or if they will let the hardcore JA’ers as it were, just do whatever they want via mods, and leave it pretty much like an XCOM clone.

Carpet_pissr wrote: Wed Jul 19, 2023 12:13 pm “I think there is potential with this game it just needs some post launch developer support and to listen to the community. It's a good foundation, but let's turn it from an X-Com to a proper JA game.”

Saw this comment on the JA subreddit and felt like it pretty much encompasses how I feel.

It will be interesting to see how much the devs listen (if at all) to ‘the community’ or if they will let the hardcore JA’ers as it were, just do whatever they want via mods, and leave it pretty much like an X-Com clone.

As someone that really doesn't remember what distinguished JA2, despite it being my #1 game before XCOM2, can you give me an idea of what kind of changes you would be looking for or if someone has already posted it somewhere, point me there?

I feel like JA2 is vastly more complex in tactical combat and somewhat more complex in the strategic layer. I can definitely see how it plays out very similarly to XCOM in combat, but it feels like the similarity ends there. I certainly don't see "XCOM clone" but you actually are saying X-COM clone, do you mean that or are you talking about the modern XCOM games. Yes, I'm picky about XCOM vs X-COM.

Yes, mostly (at least me, not sure about guy I quoted) talking about combat.

But I really don’t see the devs “demoting” the combat system they have painstakingly built for the past X years to mesh with what people who still played a version of JA2 up until 3 weeks ago prefer.

And my comment about XCOM is referring to the modern ones, not the OG, sorry. Will edit my post.

You may have hit on the issue with your comment about complexity - the devs took a relatively complex game and streamlined a lot of things that old school players loved: things that gave it character and a richness that’s often missing in modern games. Interestingly, though, the one part they made much more complex (and clunky, IMHO), is the actual combat mechanics.

I feel the need to restate that I’m enjoying THIS game quite a bit so far, and can’t wait to see how it plays after a couple of patches.

To start with, they can add an active pause to initiate combat, and take away the 'free move' that the enemies all get when attacked.

Not sure what you mean by “active pause to start” (auto pause on hit, spotting enemy, etc. like in the BG games?) but would welcome the second one.

Carpet_pissr wrote: Mon Jul 10, 2023 5:27 pm All I needed to read from a reliable source that spent 60h playing already was “Basically, Jagged Alliance 3 plays like its predecessor from 1999.”

Achievement unlocked. Woot!

Whatever that “reliable source” was seems very unreliable now after having played through a few battles myself. WTF

In fact, in all the ways it actually IS similar to the 1999 game, “plays like” would be near the bottom of the list IMO.

Well, again, I don't remember enough about JA2 to say that this is like it was or that isn't, and really it doesn't matter to me all that much. Are there some things that could be better? Sure. Am I have fun with the game as it is? Yes, 35 hours in and I'm still really excited to play it each day.

I have no real interest in using Steam Workshop mods right now as 1) I'm not sure how I'd enjoy changing the game balance and 2) I'm concern I might be messing up a save game. So I'll play vanilla right now.

Just as I started playing today I hired a thirteenth merc, Grizzly. I'm going to swap him in for Madman, my IMP created merc. My created guy has great leadership because I wanted him to train militia, but I left him with only 35 strength so he doesn't tote too much. So I'll put Grizzly in his slot on the new squad and leave Madman to run around the map beefing up militia and doing FedEx runs.

And since the universe doesn't like me to have 13 as my team count, I just had a merc join me for free...I now have to figure out how to re-juggle my old squad and the new guy and see who ends up doing FedEx runs too

I'm being very cautious with mods myself, as I don't want to have an update mess with my save. I am using a couple of simple cosmetic ones (one to improve the portraits, one to show some extra info in the targeting interface, one to add the active pause. I'm avoiding anything that interacts with the inventory. I'd hate to have it update and find that everything that was stacked too high or in the wrong place suddenly ceased to exist.

Carpet_pissr wrote: Wed Jul 19, 2023 2:51 pm Not sure what you mean by “active pause to start” (auto pause on hit, spotting enemy, etc. like in the BG games?) but would welcome the second one.

Active pause, as in the ability to pause the game outside of turns to give orders (and probably the most requested change I've seen.) The ability to pause the game to set up a shot. Having your mercs in place for an ambush and trying to get whoever you want to open up first to successfully target an enemy who is walking back and forth is a huge pain. Especially if you need to hit him at a certain point before he walks into a place where he can see you. Set the ambush, wait until the enemy is where he needs to be, pause, give the targeting/fire order, and enter combat.

Or when you start something like a defense where you have to deploy with enemies moving toward you, but then you need to get your sniper up onto the rooftop, have your heavy gunner deploy, get your guy on the machine gun emplacement, and get the other three into cover, and you have about five seconds to do it all before the enemy attacks you standing around in plain sight. Place your squad. Hit 'Deploy.' Pause, order everyone to their place, unpause. These are trained mercs. They know what to do, and they're not going to prepare for an oncoming enemy attack by waiting in the middle of the street for them to show up, then stand there exposed to be given instructions one by one.

(As an aside, I wish they wouldn't spread the militia out so much when an attack is coming, either.)

Blackhawk wrote: Wed Jul 19, 2023 4:52 pm I'm being very cautious with mods myself, as I don't want to have an update mess with my save. I am using a couple of simple cosmetic ones (one to improve the portraits, one to show some extra info in the targeting interface, one to add the active pause. I'm avoiding anything that interacts with the inventory. I'd hate to have it update and find that everything that was stacked too high or in the wrong place suddenly ceased to exist.

Carpet_pissr wrote: Wed Jul 19, 2023 2:51 pm Not sure what you mean by “active pause to start” (auto pause on hit, spotting enemy, etc. like in the BG games?) but would welcome the second one.

Active pause, as in the ability to pause the game outside of turns to give orders (and probably the most requested change I've seen.) The ability to pause the game to set up a shot. Having your mercs in place for an ambush and trying to get whoever you want to open up first to successfully target an enemy who is walking back and forth is a huge pain. Especially if you need to hit him at a certain point before he walks into a place where he can see you. Set the ambush, wait until the enemy is where he needs to be, pause, give the targeting/fire order, and enter combat.

Or when you start something like a defense where you have to deploy with enemies moving toward you, but then you need to get your sniper up onto the rooftop, have your heavy gunner deploy, get your guy on the machine gun emplacement, and get the other three into cover, and you have about five seconds to do it all before the enemy attacks you standing around in plain sight. Place your squad. Hit 'Deploy.' Pause, order everyone to their place, unpause. These are trained mercs. They know what to do, and they're not going to prepare for an oncoming enemy attack by waiting in the middle of the street for them to show up, then stand there exposed to be given instructions one by one.

Yep, that would be great.

If anyone cares, reception is creeping upward on the Steam reviews: 84% of 2500
Metacritic is down a bit, to 81, with 28 critic reviews represented.

Brian wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 9:20 am Looking forward to this. I finished Aliens: Dark Descent last night (recommended if you are fan of the franchise), tonight is our online group game night, so that means I can start directly into JA3 tomorrow night.

I remember way back in the months before JA2 was released and they had a demo that was a one-off level not tied to the storyline. I must have played that thing a dozen times before the actual game was released.

OMG I am so glad you posted this. I guess in the back of my mind, for YEARS, even relatively recently when I was playing JA2 Straciatella, I had this vague, VERY fond memory of playing a level of a game that I thought HAD to be a JA game (and admiteddly it could have been JA1 I was thinking of), but just remembering a short level, and I LOVED it. Also played it a million times, and it has to be what you posted here. My God. THANK YOU!! Was the demo level based around advancing on a house that was situated kind of in the middle of a sector? It's so vague and distant I don't remember more than that. I just remember using explosives (RPG maybe?) as one "solution" and it was glorious.

Carpet_pissr wrote: Wed Jul 19, 2023 7:46 pm

Brian wrote: Thu Jul 13, 2023 9:20 am Looking forward to this. I finished Aliens: Dark Descent last night (recommended if you are fan of the franchise), tonight is our online group game night, so that means I can start directly into JA3 tomorrow night.

I remember way back in the months before JA2 was released and they had a demo that was a one-off level not tied to the storyline. I must have played that thing a dozen times before the actual game was released.

OMG I am so glad you posted this. I guess in the back of my mind, for YEARS, even relatively recently when I was playing JA2 Straciatella, I had this vague, VERY fond memory of playing a level of a game that I thought HAD to be a JA game (and admiteddly it could have been JA1 I was thinking of), but just remembering a short level, and I LOVED it. Also played it a million times, and it has to be what you posted here. My God. THANK YOU!! Was the demo level based around advancing on a house that was situated kind of in the middle of a sector? It's so vague and distant I don't remember more than that. I just remember using explosives (RPG maybe?) as one "solution" and it was glorious.

I'm guessing this is the answer:

Blackhawk wrote: Wed Jul 19, 2023 8:33 pm I'm guessing this is the answer:

Heh. No, I guess I must have been thinking of the original JA then. Memory is a bit foggy that far back!

Just reached 40 hours played, still on my first playthrough. I had "that mission" where you start off in the middle of the map with enemies all around. However, not too much of an issue since I brought two squads . I took care of the bad guys on one side by using a mustard gas grenade and then used Barry's shaped charge to take out a couple in the other direction. And with two LMGs I was able to effective hold off the others until I could deploy my shooters into defensive positions.

Just like XCOM, it is vitally important to put your mercs in partial or full cover. I think I've only made two melee attacks in the whole 40 hours. I've gone for long guns with scopes and silencers for almost everyone. I haven't found that the lack of an "active pause" has been much of an issue. I just put everyone on their bellies and go hidden, then crawl each to a good combat start location. Then I use my best shooter to trigger the fight to start.

Some people from Geneva would like a word with you...

jztemple2 wrote: Thu Jul 20, 2023 1:18 am I think I've only made two melee attacks in the whole 40 hours.

As a counterpoint, I just cleared a map with 8 enemies and stealth killed 6 of them with melee attacks before one of them saw me. It was highly effective!

I used stealth melee to take out about half of the surface at The Good Place last night. It was also the first place that I've had to reload to try multiple times. It's also the first map that had the very JA2 feel of knowing that there are a couple of enemies holed up some where who just won't come out. When I found them I had some issues with their good armor and reaction shot abilities.

Edit to add that I just came across a reddit thread about the same issue in The Good Place. Wonky pathfinding plus an AI that (unusually) has many of the enemies hole up. On the other hand I found it tough but ultimately fun. Many of the redditors seemed to mad that they had to change tactics at all.

I accidentally wandered into an area for a main quest. I guess the squad of 16 defending should have been a hint. Luckily I accidentally cheesed most of the enemies. The enemies really don't know what to do if you Considering the crap that they pull on me, I don't feel too bad about it.

Spoilered just in case... there aren't a lot of areas that tactic is useful but it was an amusing revelation.

jztemple2 wrote: Thu Jul 20, 2023 1:18 am I just put everyone on their bellies and go hidden, then crawl each to a good combat start location. Then I use my best shooter to trigger the fight to start.

Yeah, when I have the leisure to position myself before attacking I do something similar. I set everyone up to cover as many enemies in overwatch as possible, then have Fox start the party since she gets her AP refunded when she opens combat. As they react and start to move, they trigger overwatch shots, so with luck the whole team has the chance to inflict some damage before the enemy gets into cover.

The problem is that on a small sector map, you can find the enemies right on top of you almost immediately, even when you're nominally ambushing a squad moving into a sector where you're waiting. An active pause to get a handle on the situation would be useful in those cases.

Wow, just lost three mercs in one day. One was prone with an LMG when a bad guy ran quite a ways and attacked her with a machete . No one else in the squad got a scratch.

Then later on in what should have been an easy combat I got sloppy and didn't put my folks in cover and two died. Luckily one of them who died netted me $7,500 from a quest (he wasn't one of my hires). The other will be sorely missed

At least now I'm not undecided about what to do with those two spare mercs I had floating around

I've had enemies move into the same space that one of my mercs is in, the two of them overlapping. I reported it as a bug - it seems to be caused by the move when you leave overwatch after your last shot and move back into the position you started from. Enemies apparently see the space as 'vacant' while you're in overwatch, and can set that as their destination. You fire at them from overwatch when they approach, then go back to your starting space, after which they finish their move into the same space.

Also, I love that the overwatch door/chokepoint trick (a variant of the 'two line infantry' tactic from the 17th/18th centuries) from JA2 still works:

Two mercs on their bellies right in front of a door.
Two mercs kneeling right behind them.
Two mercs standing behind them.

All on overwatch. Enemy opens the door or steps out and the get obliterated by all six firing at once.

Updated the tips post:

[*]General: Don't avoid minefields! Take a high wisdom character and move them around, either a couple of steps at a time, or in a crouch to slow them down. They should detect the mines. You then send in your explosives specialist and have him dismantle them all. It gives a ton of parts, which are important. Bonus: Barry, the cheapest merc, has very high stats in both explosives and wisdom.

Blackhawk wrote: Thu Jul 20, 2023 4:25 pm Also, I love that the overwatch door/chokepoint trick (a variant of the 'two line infantry' tactic from the 17th/18th centuries) from JA2 still works:

Two mercs on their bellies right in front of a door.
Two mercs kneeling right behind them.
Two mercs standing behind them.

All on overwatch. Enemy opens the door or steps out and the get obliterated by all six firing at once.

Damn.
Could have used that in the bunker.

Blackhawk wrote: Thu Jul 20, 2023 6:22 pm Updated the tips post:

[*]General: Don't avoid minefields! Take a high wisdom character and move them around, either a couple of steps at a time, or in a crouch to slow them down. They should detect the mines. You then send in your explosives specialist and have him dismantle them all. It gives a ton of parts, which are important. Bonus: Barry, the cheapest merc, has very high stats in both explosives and wisdom.

I like Barry in general but Nails has been my go to for that. Do far only failed on 1 mine out of dozens but he survived.

Blackhawk wrote: Thu Jul 20, 2023 6:22 pm Barry, the cheapest merc, has very high stats in both explosives and wisdom.

Barry is awesome. Except he is so slow because I've loaded him down with good armor, I don't want to risk losing him.

UPDATE: And I've also finally hired Ivan. I'm starting to run low on hireable mercs!

Oh, this is cool on the Steam library page for JA3. I can not only look at my achievements, but I can compare them to Coop as well

MUST EVERYTHING BE A COMPETITION??!!!?

Sounds like I need to start achievement farming!

Patch Notes 1.02

Highlights:

• Economy: Mines will drop income much slower when they begin to deplete
• On combat end, interactables are now automatically highlighted, and toggle state (on/off) is now persisted across maps.
• Zooming is now possible in overview mode.
• Hand-to-hand specialization can now be used while merc is unarmed
• Fixed issue where no mercenaries are available for hire & AIM database would be empty.
• Fixed issue where free move APs could be used for an attack.
• Fixed issue where music and some other sounds would play in mono instead of stereo.
• Fixed giving ammo from one squad to another.