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Merci, M.E.R.C.[message #184946]

Mon, 12 May 2008 15:41

rizzla

Messages:41
Registered:February 2008

Merci, M.E.R.C.

Played with JA2 Gold 1.12

I doubt this is original but I had yet to play without using A.I.M. at all. So only M.E.R.C. and RPCs at my disposal. First reason I liked the idea - dead cheap, I'd be rolling in money in no time. Secondly, the M.E.R.C.s are extremely funny - especially to me, who hardly ever uses them. Thirdly, can't I train the M.E.R.C.s to become bad-ass mercenaries? My personal limitation: No boosting of stats using bugs in the game or placing land mines or anything - either training (being taught or practicing) or learning by doing.

I love economic simulations - Transport Tycoon probably being my favorite - and I love planning to get the most out of my virtual money. First thought here was to get some external teaching. Hire Raider, for example, to train these loveable idiots. Then I came up with an even better plan: Make my IMP into a teaching expert, give him good combat stats and let him teach the others. Sadly, that just doesn't work as well as it should. I would have expected the leadership skill of my IMP to rise while teaching and that's not the case. I also found that the learning speed doesn't improve that much by being taucht - a single point (4 instead of 3) maybe. Patusco's conclusion is right: "It's not that huge an improvement over solo training."

A real shame, I thought I had a great idea. So, back to the drawing board. Medium difficulty, tons of guns, save anytime, nice and easy. My imp became a NO expert once more with a marksmanship (MRK) of 55, no 0 stats, my usual setup. No problem cleaning the first sector, off to Miguel, recruited Ira and now it was time for boot camp, everybody sadly practicing alone. IMP does MRK, Ira LDR. Next morning (Day 2) I get the mail from Speck and all initial M.E.R.C.s are available, so I get them all. I basically divide them into two groups - one learns MRK (Razor, Haywire, Gasket), the other LDR (Flo, Biff, Gumpy). In hindsight I could have let Gasket train LDR, too, since he didn't make it into the fighting squad. With sleep/wake notifications off, the boot camp doesn't take more than 30 minutes of playing time. Just pay M.E.R.C. every day to get those better guys - I have never ever used one of them and I was looking forward to Cougar costing only $900/day.

The first month

Day 2: Hired all available M.E.R.C.s, let them practice. At $950/Day (starting with $35000 in medium, minus $3000 for my imp) I had about 4 weeks.

Day 9: Bubba already available. I decided against hiring him immediately (which I did on my first attempt with a teaching expert imp) - more cost effiecient to hire the better guys just before leaving Omerta. Took longer for Numb to appear (Day 16), but Larry was available only another three days later.

Day 23: Go! I still had $8900 left and could have left it a little longer. But all three other M.E.R.C.s were available (Bubba wasn't for a while) and so, just after midnight, I hired Bubba, Numb and Larry, daily cost increases to $3150, but the Drassen mine alone should cover that nicely. Loyalty in Omerta had dropped down to 0%, Enrico had stopped complaining about the lack of progress quite some time ago.

Here's what the boot camp did for the stats. Note that the imp and Ira had practiced about 18 hours longer than the others. Imp with Wisdom 85 increased MRK by 10 to 66 (had gained 1 point in the first fight). Haywire and Razor both gained 8 points - so their 5 points difference in wisdom didn't become noticable. Gasket only gained 5 points, but I stupidly decided to let him train MEC for about 5 days and he didn't gain one point (see Patusco - at 82 it probably takes 10 or more days), so I switched back to MRK. The LDR crew had outperformed, of course. Ira went up 39 points (from 14 to 53). Flo was even up by 41 points (from 2 to 43). The even more intelligent Gumpy only managed 39 points, but he started with a few more points. And even Biff improved by 23 points from 14 to 37.

Day 23, 20:36 - everybody well rested, now it was really time to move out. The fighting squad included the three better mercs (Bubba, Larry, Numb) as well as Haywire, Razor and my imp. They moved one sector at a time with the militia and repair crew (Ira, Flo, Biff, Gumpy and Gasket) trailing a sector behind. The first fight was a yellow shirt breeze just outside Omerta.

Now, I had a strange odditiy in my game - nobody dropped next to nothing. Not a single item was dropped by the patrol. One puny pistol was dropped in the whole of Drassen and nearly no ammo...

Day 24: By sunrise Drassen was mine. Loyalty already at 59% - that meant the mine income was higher than my daily cost (especially since it would rise with militia training), so I could let my crew practice till kingdom comes. However, especially with the ease of the game so far I decided that I'd had enough of training, I was going to play at a normal speed. Turns out it was good to have enough money to spare so I visited Bobby Ray's. I hadn't even found a tool box for Gasket to use so I ordered two, plus a lockpicking set and ammunition for my poor pistols (only Numb had a weapon with any kind of range). I opted for a 2 day shipment considering the steep cost due to the weight, I'm stingy.

Day 25: I don't need more ammunition yet, I can at least take the SAM site with what I got. At 2000 hours I checked D12 for Skyrider first and fortunately, there he was. Back to his chopper, another quick rest and still enough time to attack the first SAM site under the cover of darkness. Which also was no problem. I had read an account about knifing on the forum and since Razor is an expert I was hoping he'd be a killing machine, having him wait just round the corner at the back of the building, but it didn't go quite as I had hoped.

Day 26 and 27: Larry fixes a few wounds, the team rests first at the SAM site, later once more in Drassen, picks up the ammo and stuff, Ira and Gumpy go to the SAM site to train the militia. No patrols right outside Drassen so as night fell on Day 27, I went out to search for Hamous and his truck. We all know that travelling by car is just so much more comfortable. Hamous isn't in D9, nor in D7, a couple of patrols are just what my squad needs, they decide to go to San Mona and rest there, Bubba dares just one fight.

Day 28: Cougar becomes available. But - he costs $2000/day, not $900 as I thought. In fact in JA2 Gold the M.E.R.C.s stats are different (a lot lower) to the original from what I gather on jagged.gamigo.de. I decide against hiring Cougar, too expensive. Having travelled back to D9 without seeing Hamous it seems like a good idea to take Cambria.

Now I am getting a little desperate. My squad still uses the original puny pistols, the enemies still haven't dropped anything useful. Time to try stealing - for the first time ever. Hairy situations arise, I do need Alt+S/L a few times to get the tactics sorted. By the end of Cambria, I'm happy. Now everybody's got a decent rifle, Numb even has a nice Dragunov as backup. While fighting I gather the 2nd squad in Drassen and even allow them to take the chopper to drop them off closer to Cambria. And as luck would have it - in D9 there's Hamous waiting for them. So they can cruise into Cambria and start training the militia.

Day 30: My imp takes a break from militia training and makes his way to Estoni to get Maddog. For a freebie he's excellent and he'll definitely take a place in my 1st squad. So, who am I to drop? Bubba, though he cracks me up, is the guy who has to go. Larry is the doc, Numbs got NO and he's a good shot and I won't touch Razor or Haywire, these are the guys I really had in mind on the outset of the game. Actually, I had been toying with Gumpy, Flo and Ira as fighters as well... but that would have probably meant more training - or rather, I'm too lazy to control too many people. I guess they could pick off the odd patrol and Ira is a good enough doc, too. We'll see.

Day 31: Cambria's militia is pretty much ready and I fire Bubba. Maybe a mistake, even though money is of no concern I should at least base him in San Mona and have him fight to the death. Maybe I'll rehire him for that purpose. Next up is a trip to the central SAM site, then back to the ice cream truck and probably a cruise through san Mona, then to Chitzena, the next SAM site... and here the diary ends.

The rest

I have to go months without playing the game and forgot the diary after restarting. Basically - more of the same. Next to no drops, maybe about ten guns in the whole game. But since I had a ton of cash, I refitted everbody at Bobby Ray's and Tony's. After taking everything but Meduna I decided to try out the "B-Team" in action, they were allowed to tackle the left over patrols. With good guns even these guys aren't too troubled, despite the fear in their voices. To really make them feel good I allowed them to join the A squad for the assault of the garden and palace of Deidranna. Since they had a spare slot in the team, I allowed Shank to join them late in the game, but he is utterly useless.

And in case there's anybody out there interested in stats, here they are for all 12 team members just before Maddog kills Deidranna (kids should not be hearing what he says after doing so).

http://www.sininen.de/mercs.png

Nearly no stats were boosted. Only the small boosts in explosives of Razor and Haywire were due to a couple of minutes of fooling around with land mines.

My conclusion: Both Razor and Haywire can be turned into decent killing machines. Razor surely is the better choice. Maddog, of course, is excellent - great combat stats once marksmanship is raised, great mechanic and expert lockpick. Larry is also great value for money. Only once did I have to reload because I left him alone with a medkit, he's not much trouble. And Numb is a solid addition to any team, too.

And the B squad? You can't go wrong with these guys. Especially if you have a more expensive first squad and don't want to waste time training militia. Ira, Gumpy, Flo and Biff are great for that. Especially the first three - high wisdom so they learn fast, Ira's a teaching expert, Flo and Biff have got a teaching bonus and Gumpy ain't so bad either. And Gasket is a great bargain choice for a repairman and lockpick. Ira could even make it into a fighting squad, she's a fast learner.

Other final stats:

Day Deidranna gets killed: 54
Balance: $ 494,323
Daily Income: $ 43,824 (Drassen Mine abandoned)
Loyalty: 100% Omerta, Drassen, Chitzena, Cambria, Alma - 99% Grumm - 70% Balime - 58% Meduna
Dismissed: Bubba, Dynamo
Killed in action: Hamous (deliberately)
Total kills: 976

Well, that was enjoyable. Next on the table: Will's Militia Factions Mod.