Vincent J. Claymore wrote on Wed, 28 December 2016 00:22

I feel weapon's condition degrades too fast. I don't like playing with militias, so what I usually do is leave a single merc in every sector I need to keep (mostly towns and sectors with a lot of loot), but him in sone room without a window and ambush all the attackers when they come through the door. Gamey, I know, but I don't see an alternative, since I simply don't like militias. Long story short: I was defending Tixa with Shank and he went through two rifles (Mini-14 and M4, I think), each starting out with 85+ condition. With the Mini-14 he couldn't even get through half a mag before it jammed so badly he had to drop it. I know it's a desert sector, but he never left the armory next to the bathrooms...

How many bullets did you fire? I tested with several weapons including a MP5K and MG36 in semi-auto and auto fire where I fired at least 10 full clips without the gun building up too much dirt. I experienced a few jams which should be normal if you empty multiple mags in a row in a "clean" sector. I got the MG36 to overheat which increased gun jams but that is an intended feature of the overheating system. I have to admit that I didn't test in a desert sector but your feedback gave me an idea. Building interiors should usually be cleaner than outside so I might just halve the dirt penalty inside buildings.

Vincent J. Claymore wrote on Wed, 28 December 2016 00:22

Also, some questions regarding the new repair system: Does this mean that you need MEC to clean guns now? Gun-cleaning skills drilled into recruits are a far cry from actual engineering skills, so I would really object to a situation where low-MEC soldiers take hours cleaning there guns.

The game uses the same formula for cleaning that it used for repairing the status in the past which includes the Mechanic attribute. I didn't change that but you have a good point. Gun cleaning isn't rocket science so I guess I will modify the formula so that MEC plays a lower role and DEX is the main factor plus a little EXP. With that change mechanics will still get a bonus.

Vincent J. Claymore wrote on Wed, 28 December 2016 00:22

What do you consider the "default" setting in your new system? If set to only allow Perko and Arnie to actually repair weapons, doesn't that completely invalidate all the engineers?

MY default setting is MERCS_CAN_DO_ADVANCED_REPAIRS = TRUE. This isn't what the standard 1.13 GameDir is set to at the moment but players can easily change that. It's only required to repair actual item damage (repair threshold) so you can still run around with a 95/95 gun which will work fine or you change the option or bring your guns to one of the NPCs.

Vincent J. Claymore wrote on Wed, 28 December 2016 00:22

Biggest problem: Guns jamming can very quickly lead to the gun being ruined (dropping to 1%) - does this affect the dirt status only or does this reduce the threshold to 1% as well? The latter would be terrible, because this would mean a rifle in pristine condition could very well be utterly destroyed in single Tixa defence.

Every time a gun jams it might take some amount of damage (0-5 points) so if you keep firing a low condition overheated gun you have a good chance to break it. Chance for damage is minimal if your gun happens to jam while it's still in good condition but if you keep pushing the status downwards it will eventually take damage. If you stress a gun hard from 100/100 you might end up with a 50/85 status for example. That's what's intended and I don't plan to change it. The system is not designed to allow sector defense with a single merc against an army. If you plan to do that you better provide multiple weapons he can use and clean afterwards.

Btw. keep in mind that semi-auto fire has a lower chance for gun jams than auto fire.