Character Speech Issues

Sat, 10 December 2022 16:15

So playing the original Jagged Alliance, I was getting very frustrated by my characters not seeming to say anything when discovering new items, Fidel not wanting to leave his target, and especially when winning a sector and giving a triumph speech (from whoever killed the final guy). I couldn't figure out why the speech wasn't happening for the longest time, despite uninstalling/reinstalling the game, deleting old save game files in case something was corrupted and checking all the control panel settings in the game. No forums I found on the internet could explain what was going on, but I FINALLY figured it out, and created an account here to post what I found.

It may sound stupid to veteran players of the game, but I was trying to get rid of all of the junk on my characters, and didn't realize what one item did. Namely, the headset. Yes, this crappy headset every character comes with and has the apparent value of an alarm clock -- if your characters are not wearing either this or an extended ear set, you will NOT hear victory speeches, complaints that your characters are getting shot at, discovery of items and all the good speech stuff that gives JA1 its personality. I nearly purchased a second copy of this game from Steam because I thought the GOG Galaxy cloud saves were corrupt, but you just need to have your characters wear a headset. To be fair, I haven't tested how many of your characters need to wear one, but logically, if someone isn't wearing one and makes a discovery, he/she won't have any way to communicate it to the rest of the team. So probably no sound from that character that day. It makes sense realistically speaking, just another kudo to give the game designers of JA1. What an awesome game.

So as needless as it may seem, keep those headsets on your characters if you want to enjoy many of the sounds Jagged Alliance 1 has to offer!

Jagged Alliance & Deadly Games | 0 comments

Merc lines

Is there a file with all the lines?; Mon, 05 December 2022 16:30

Hi guys! I wonder if it is possible to get a list of all the Mercs' lines? Is this something included in the JA2 source code, or externalized in 1.13?

v1.13 Modding, Customising, Editing | 2 comments

Merc skill rebalancing

Mon, 05 December 2022 07:22

1.13 introduced great character traits and skills. At the same time, other changes affected the attractiveness of some mercs. For example, no more to-hit bonus for psychos, or generally easier to raise skills and level up makes the expensive mercs questionable for their price. Some mercs got shortchanged with the new skills they got. Or new skills were introduced but too few mercs get them. Here are my suggestions to rebalance:

You can do these changes by modifying MercProfiles.xml in TableData

Hamous: add Survival.
Dimitri: replace Demolitions with Technician. Dimitri was an apt mechanic in vanilla. In most 1.13 versions, demolitions boosts grenade throwing but that still no reason for him to somehow become an explosives specialist.
Bull: add Melee. Bull was special in vanilla because he was the only h2h expert. Now he's inferior to Grizzly in every way.
Vicki: replace Gunslinger with Technician. In my games I just add it instead of replacing.
Trevor: add Radio Operator. Most expensive merc when he levels up, this deserves a 4th skill to choose him over Barry, Rusty and co.
Fidel: add Auto Weapons. His bio mentions proficiency with firearms. H2h is not that useful without stealthy and/or athletics. Lost the psycho to-hit bonus in 1.13.
Sidney: Gunfighter Throwing. No reason to recruit him otherwise for his price.
Gus: add Teaching. With first row mercs reaching level 7 by the time you capture your 3rd mine, he's too expensive for what he brings without a 4th trait.
Buns: add Scouting
Cliff: add Marksman
Raider: add Hunter. As it stands there's little reason to pick him over Len or Stephen.
Static: add Radio Operator... with that name, he just had to!
Len: retain no evolution but reduce salary 2000 / 13000 / 25000. Got less attractive compared to other mercs now that they all gain skills and levels faster in 1.13.
Scully replace Throwing with Auto Weapons. Melee and throwing become less useful later in the game against tougher encounters. Nothing wrong with that except when these are the skills of 3rd most expensive merc and typically gets hired later.
Malice: replace Melee with Athletics. H2h and melee are a bit redundant and hardly benefit one another.
Nails: add Hunter
Doc: add Teaching
Stella: add Deputy
Blood: add Survival. Otherwise little reason to choose him over Dr. Q.
Fox: replace Teaching with Gunslinger. She only seems to have teaching because she's a woman. Ambidextrous is only really useful when paired with Gunfighter.

v1.13 XML Customization | 1 comment

WW2 Restricted Weapons

Cutting down the weapons list to WW2 only weapons; Tue, 29 November 2022 00:30

Hello everyone.

For a while I've been wanting to mod 1.13 by removing the vast majority of weapons down to only those used during WW2.

1.13 mod already has a decent number of WW2 era weapons implemented like the 1911A1, M1A1 Thompson, Kar-98K rifle, Browning M1919 machine gun, etc.

My initial idea was to just go through the weapons.xml file and delete out any weapons I didn't want to appear in the game, however, I'm concerned that this might break some scripted events in-game like the enemy mercenary that is supposed to carry the HK G11.

What obstacles will I run into if I just start deleting out weapons en-masse?

Eventually if my first idea works (IE deleting out non-WW2 weapons), and I am motivated to do so, I might want to start adding in other WW2 era weapons that the game doesn't already feature. But that is certainly a phase 2 step and not something I want to contemplate right now.

So please let me know if I'm setting myself up for some issues. Will I break scripted events? Will I cause the game to crash? Will I need to edit the starting equipment tables?

Thank you.

-MadMechanic

v1.13 Modding, Customising, Editing | 15 comments

Was Stealing/Targeting limbs originally part of JA2 or patched in later?

Asking about 2 features of JA2 that seem officially undocumented.; Fri, 25 November 2022 00:19

2 odd mechanics not mentioned in JA2's manual are the ability to aim for the head or legs of a target (if your crosshairs are over them when attacking) and the abiltiy to steal from knocked down enemies.

I've not seen all of the in-game help tool-tips but I don't recall these mechanics being present there either.

To any older JA fans, did I miss something and they're in tool-tips? were these just 2 mechanics oddly not mentioned anywhere? or (which sometimes happens) were these mechanics actually patched into JA2 (so not in the original release) hence their omission from the manual and it was actually the patch-notes for JA2 that would tell you about them?

Jagged Alliance 2 General | 2 comments

Explosives Gameplay Mechanics

Ability to Detect Explosives; Fri, 18 November 2022 22:14

What affects merc's abilities to detect and disarm explosives?

One of my mercs can't pick up a timed TNT without it blowing up.
Her AGI,DEX, WIS and EXPL stats are 85 and MECH is 45. She also has the Technician and Demolitions skills and her background is sapper.

She can place the TNT on the ground and gets prompted to set the timer, but when she tries to pick it up the charge detonates without a prompt to disarm the booby trap.

Another merc with AGI,DEX and WIS stats also at 85, but lower MECH and EXPL stat at 35 has no problem with detecting and disarming the TNT. The experience level of both mercs is 2.

Game version: JA2 v.1.13 7609 (2014 Official Release) (Build 14.10.24)

v1.13 Solutions,Tips & Spoilers | 0 comments

Enemy-Item-Choices and -Drops

how is this working in 2022 ?; Thu, 17 November 2022 03:58

ja2_options.ini says:
-
01

-
02
-
-

So, if "drop-all" is chosen, the xmls mentioned in 01 are not taken into account.

It further mentions that it this case it will fall back to default drop system.

Guess what, I can't find out what the "default drop system" is supposssed to be.
Anyone knows?

--

For choices, I can't find out from which xmls they are choosing.

There are (xml sounding like general ones)

EnemyGunChoices.xml and EnemyItemChoices.xml

but also (xml based on enemy classes - Admin, Regular, Elite)

GunChoices_Enemy_Class.xml and ItemChoices_Enemy_Class.xml

-
For those, I'm not able to find out if there are settings that determine which of those are used.
Anyone knows?
-

I read in another post, that if drop-all is not used, the drops would be chosen randomly. Fine, but based on which of that xmls?
Anyone knows?
-

In the class-based xmls, there are commnets giving %-values. What are those based on?
The % in the index is game progress, but that makes those values in comments only more confusing.
Anyone knows?

-

Also, in all these scenarios, what is the deciding factor that instead all of this, the items chosen via MapEditor are chosen instead?
Anyone konows?
-

I currently started a game (r9405), tweaked ini to meet more ASD and Elites, drop-all on

Bad idea. What I wanted was a more challenging start. Instead it became easier.

By the time the team of six mercs had tarveled from Omerta to Drassen, i gathered enough loot to equip them all with end-game gear (vests, armor, weapons, kits, all of it).

Tried the same with more standard ini-settings, it's not as worse, but it still takes a lot of challenge out of the game. Boring.

So, if anyone knows how we can alter the item choices and drops of enemies in 2022, please help me out.

you can also answer at discord.

thanks.

v1.13 XML Customization | 1 comment

JA2-Stracciatella 0.20.0

New release!; Thu, 17 November 2022 01:08

The Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella team is proud to present a new release showcasing about half a year of work. It includes several new features, plenty of bugfixes compared to previous versions and the original game, clean-ups of the old code base, and most notably the first official release of the Android version and support for touch controls.

Read about the details, feature documentation and fixes here:
https://ja2-stracciatella.github.io/2022/11/14/release-0.20.0.html

Packages for Linux, Windows, OSX and Android are available.

Stracciatella Project (Platform Independent JA2) | 0 comments

Can't accelerate time on map screen

Sat, 05 November 2022 01:18

Hello friends,

I kind of made my account to ask this question, but I hope to stick around because I'm a big fan of the game and also the 1.13 mod.

Does anybody know the phenomenon where you can't accelerate time anymore on the map screen? Like setting the speed to 5,30,60 minutes. Time just doesn't progress anymore and no movements are possible.
In the tactics screen, I can hold "-" key and time progresses. I can also walk to other sector and time progresses. But not on the map screen. It happens on Day 48 7:03 but once it stopped, I can just load any savegame and none will have progressing time. Very strange.

Is there anything I can do to get it going again without restarting game?

Thanks all

v1.13 Solutions,Tips & Spoilers | 0 comments

Windows 11 hotkeys - can i turn them off?

Fri, 28 October 2022 00:02

So i currently use windows 11 ( )
and when i use the alt + enter cheat to skip enemy turns (yes i'm a dirty cheater), the game switches to windowed mode, pressing it again returns it to full screen.

It's very annoying!

Any idea on how to turn of the alt + enter windows hotkey specifically? Would like to still be able to use alt + tab

Cheers and much love,

Joshua

v1.13 General Gameplay Talk | 4 comments