A JA3 weapons summary

Weapons that work and weapons that don't; Sun, 16 July 2023 13:31

Pistols
They are supposed to be the ideal sidearm but dont work. Game dumps you vs AKs and Gehwhr 98 snipers from day one. Burst fire seems to be quite accurate. You puny pistol will be outgunned hard. All they're good for so far is to scrap and get pipes to upgrade the range of your rifle.

SMGs
Here I am on the fence because I would love to use them and they're definitely a better choice for a side arm than a pistol. Also Uzi and the MPs use the widely available 9mm ammo. But the game has hardly any penalty for CQB for long weapons (I can headshot an enemy with a sniper a tile away, why would I switch to a smg and do 9-11 dmg?)

Rifles
You get loads of Gewehr 98s, a damn fine rifle.

. Kit it out and becomes a valid sniper rifles until mid game. Only issue is the ammo (7.62 NATO), but you'll soon find Winchester 1894s that work with .44 and are equally good. The game drops a lot of M24 fully kitted sniper rifles on you rather soon and only then you can say they become obsolete.

Shotguns
So far found only two, a handcrafted single shot one and a most common double barrel. If CQB had worked (meaning the AI wouldn't desperately try to keep fight at extreme ranges most of the time, even some shouting to "keep your distance") then shotguns would be vicious against groups. The double barrel option to dump both shots makes it so far the best finisher in CQB so it's a good sidearm. Its only downside is that you can't perform "run and gun" or "move and shoot" special actions with it.

LMGs
Again, game dumps one on your right from day one, when you are sent to recover an MG42 from the cave.
The fact that you can set it up in an automatic, multiple shot overwatch, it is life saving against hordes of incoming enemies. It has an OP accuracy for burst too. Only downside, burns ammo damn fast. Same with the RPK-74, equally good, burns ammo fast (I keep both and switch according to ammo supply). Also must note that it needs to be fire from prone so an clear fov is a must or you'll shoot your cover.

ARs
The most common is the AK-47, insanely good for start weapon. Can be kitted to be silent too. Its only major downside is that if you use it as single weapon to save ammo it's no fun and AP is way too high to count vs AIs that keep using bursts against you. Other ARs are pretty rare (found a Galil, M14s and a FN-FAL) but they suffer from a severe lack of NATO ammo (5.56 in particular). It is the squad weapon of choice whether you like it or not.

Melee
You have a machetter and some knives. But without a plan and go and with a 360 view angle stealth is very hard with melee. So unless you want an extra hard challenge, you'll end up scraping them. Too bad. Same goes for unarmed punches, it is a nice thing it's an option, but you won't win a fight vs an AK dude. I did notice there are some crazy pumped up melee AIs that once they get in close range with a knife they do like 50 dmg, in a sort of a berserk mode. Good for them - I reloaded and blasted their heads off before they even made a step.

JA3 Combat/Weapon Academy | 8 comments

Non-Steam mods?

Are there any?; Sun, 16 July 2023 12:43

So far, only Steam Workshop has mods which are therefore unavailable for other platforms. Anyone knows of someplace that has some non-Steam mods?

JA 3 Modding Talk | 11 comments

JA3: The Bimbo of Jagged Alliance

Sun, 16 July 2023 07:38

Looks nice, but dumb as a box of rocks and has no personality or soul.

I wanted to be proved wrong about this one, that I was just an old grognard that hates new games and lives in the past. But mechanically, JA3 is utterly vapid and I was vindicated in my suspicions.

Sir-Tech Canada put so much love and effort into JA2, that much is clear. Autistic detail, some might say, but it was that detail that made the game something we still play today.

JA3 is a shell of a JA game.

JA 3 General Talk | 35 comments

Trader system???

They really didn't bother with a trader?; Sat, 15 July 2023 14:40

Being playing JA3 for a day or two and was looking for a trader to dump all the loot I've collected. In the second town I've found a lot of them, but to my surprise they have no inventory, just some lines and a couple of "tables" you can "loot" for money. A horrendously lame system, if you ask me. Is there a real trader somewhere else?

JA 3 General Talk | 9 comments

Weird Squad Sorting

Someting happened and IMP Squad sorting changed.; Wed, 05 July 2023 00:27

Howdy JA fans;

Now, you see; I have weird problem here. While playing, some weird shait happened and my IMP squads sorting changed.
At the beginning it was:

1- Squad Leader / Assault Support
2- Assault 1 (Front)
3- Assault 2 (Flank)
4- Assault 3 (Flank)
5- LMG
6- MMG
7- Marksman
8- Sniper

Now, it is: 3-6-4-1-8-7-2-5 (actually it really does not matter IMHO)
I specifically picked their Traits and Attributes for their jobs, but this new sorting... this is seriously buggin' me.

I'm beggin' ya for a solution to fix it, I want my 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 back.

v1.13 Solutions,Tips & Spoilers | 2 comments

Estoni and Shank

Estoni and Shank; Tue, 27 June 2023 23:01

Its been some years since I played.  I remember Shank and Dynamo being in Tixa, found Dynamo, is Shank still around?  Do I need Shank to be able to refuel in Estoni or has something else taken the place of that?

AIMNAS | 3 comments

Dead is dead mode on 1.13?

Wed, 07 June 2023 01:55

So I've recently discovered this game, I've been playing stracciatella for a while and I found the most enjoyable way to play is the Dead is Dead mode (where you can't reload your save, it saves automatically when you quit the game or load another save) because it eliminates the temptation to reload when I lose a merc or a battle goes bad (I'm aware ironman exists but it isn't the same because I can still restart battles whenever i feel like it and try different strategies risk free). I've got 1.13 up and running fine and have been tweaking it for my next playthrough, but I can't seem to find how to play it in Dead is Dead mode like on stracciatella.

I've found a "JA2 roguelike" mod online that I think the stracciatella mode is based on, but the instructions are only clear on how to install it on vanilla 1.12, and because it creates its own ja2_options.ini file I cant figure out how to incorporate it into 1.13 as obviously that also has its own ja2_options.ini, I've scoured all the documents for 1.13 looking for "roguelike" and "dead is dead" but I can't find anything about it, so I'm relatively sure the mode is not built into 1.13 although hopefully I'm wrong about this and it's an easy fix somehow.

Does anyone have any idea how to get this mode in 1.13? I've attached the roguelike mod i found online if there's no easy option to activate in 1.13 somewhere just in case someone can take a look at it and tell me if it's possible at all. Thanks!

v1.13 General Development Talk | 4 comments

Bug Reports-- latest 1.13

I couldn't find if the old Bugzilla was still active so wanted to post what I'm finding here; Sat, 20 May 2023 15:13

Team,

Everyone has done magical work touching up 1.13-- there are some really great changes.

I thought I'd log some bugs I've found and workarounds(if any) as I play through the latest version on my steamdeck.

BOBBY RAY'S
When ordering, if you leave directly from the order confirmation screen immediately after you place an order by clicking something other than part of the web page, your order will not be completed but you will lose the funds. As long as you click the web page and the "Oakie dokie!" Resolves to the main Bobbie Ray's page, you're in the clear.

Kerberus
Even if you aren't using military HQ and associated features, it's available and you can't spend money on it. If you don't have the airport airspace controlled, you can buy militia, spend the money, but never receive the soldiers. Also, later in the game, you can place militia in non-drassen cities.

I'll post more as I find them. I'm running latest unstable version in wine 4. Let me know if this should go elsewhere!

v1.13 Solutions,Tips & Spoilers | 1 comment

Bobby Ray tags in Items.xml

someone knowing what they do?; Tue, 16 May 2023 06:44

Items.xml has some tags related to BR (Bobby Ray)

The ROF seems to be the Rate-of-Fire displayed when looking at weapon stats, ok.

But what about the other tags?

Values I've seen go from 1-20 and it doesn't seem to be a category

Without that, I won't be able to sell my new item at BR, sigh.

I can go for the additional merchants, but ...

So folks, please enlighten me   ^.^

v1.13 XML Customization | 1 comment

Need help with language and text files

Fri, 12 May 2023 16:06

Hello JA friends

I wanted to play Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 again with a mod before Ja3. I searched for a current German version and found one from 23.01.2023 (JA2 1.13 BETA GERMAN (Gr_3985dca) (Dr_12282d2)). Fortunately, I could hardly believe what my ears heard there. The voice output of the additional mercenaries such as Moses, Boss and Mouse is actually in German. I still can't believe that they were sychronized in German after all these years. Thanks a lot! In the older versions and mods (e.g. JA2 1.13(7609) Deidranna Lives v4.50.1 GER) a lot was "denglich" (German and English mixed) and it never felt good.

Native English speakers are lucky that almost every game comes out in their native language. They don't have to worry about that. I don't know if these players can put themselves in the position that everyone else has to go without that luxury and learn another language. Imagine if tomorrow only games would be released in German. It just destroys the immersion if you can't play in your native language. I want to concentrate on the game and not have to translate it all the time. I hope you can understand what I am talking about.

Since it's hard to find a working German version of Ja2 1.13 nowadays, especially with all the mods, I thought I'd try to replace the language files of an older version like 1.13(7609) with the beta files from 01/23/2023. And indeed it worked. Kaboom, Leech and Co. don't speak English anymore. Well partially at least. After some trial and error, the voice output seems to be completely in German as far as I have tested. But many of the texts, which were already translated in older versions, are unfortunately still in English.

As you probably know, you can quickly destroy your game files. If you replace the wrong files it doesn't work as it should, crashes or doesn't start at all. That's why I need help from someone who knows the file structures better than I do. I would like to have as much in the game in German as possible but I am aware that there is not a German translation for everything. I have overwritten the following files:

Data:
AltSound
battlesnds
Mercedt
NPC_Speech
NPCData
Sounds
Speech
stsounds
titesets

Data-1.13
battlesnds
Mercedt
NPC_Speech
NpcData
Speech
titesets

Data-UB
battlesnds
Mercedt
NPC_SPEECH
NpcData
Sounds
Speech
titesets

I am not an expert and don't know which files in the Ja2 folder are responsible for the voice output as well as the text output. Which ones should be overwritten and which ones not. The SLF files (such as SPEECH.SLF and GERMAN.SLF) don't seem to be present in the 1.13 beta of 01/23/2023. At least I have not found any.
Does anyone know the exact files that are responsible for the speech and text output and could write me a listing as an answer? I would be really happy if someone would support me. I also think that it would help many other players who want to translate their respective versions into their languages. If something is still unclear, please ask me.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

v1.13 Solutions,Tips & Spoilers | 5 comments