There indeed isn't another Goon on the first map. The game just doesn't allow you to navigate away from first sector until you have visited the mansion and spoken to your contractor. Just so you don't miss that part of the story.
In the upcoming patch 1.03 Explosives damage will get 'fixed' (not nerfed, as there currently is a bug). This means Barry will start doing 30% less damage than you have experienced so far. Effectively due to the bug, some explosives multiplier was applied twice. Also the amount of shots during overwatch from a machine gun were calculated off of your MAX ap instead of your CURRENT ap, so you got too many overwatch shots when using a MG. This will also be addressed.
Due to my experience with JA2, I dramatically undervalued Leadership in my first run, and overestimated stat increases via field experience. As a result, my first playthrough ended up way more difficult than it needed to be. I maxed out Leadership in my 2nd run, and it's a completely different experience.
I don't use Kalyna at start, rather get Fox or Mouse which are way better mercs and have decent MED You can find a Gewehr rifle early in 2nd sector, and usually at least 1 other on Ernie Limewire is a must imo, she pays for herself with her hack ability and has an invaluable "radar" that makes you see all enemies when you have sector Intel And the first sector with 3 enemies can be done with a blind merc in wheelchair anyway^^
You want as many of these rifles as quickly as possible if your going to be optimal, because they are vastly better than any of the other weapons you get, for a very long time. You can always hire Fox once you've made some money. But your 85dex/85mark IMP merc will be just as good of a shot early and should be more than enough to clear the first few sectors. You get some cash off of the first Sector, so you can hire her then if you really can't live without her.
Well, well, well. I pick this up as a Christmas treat for myself only to find my BT guru and my XCOM guru, Syken, both of whom helped me take my game from decent to top notch, have put time in. Hardly surprising given the game but a bonus Christmas present nonetheless. Appreciate the effort as usual mate, I’ve already picked up a couple of things I didn’t know and I have no doubt I’ll learn more as I watch. One thing, you failed to touch on just how mind shatteringly annoying Livewire’s personality is. Nice trait etc but hopefully someone can mod that out :) Seasons greetings and thanks again.
I took the test and made a very moderate IMP. Like you, I assumed several things from the second game. I reset my game once and did much better, but I will take all this to heart in my next playthrough when I do mods.
I found with livewire, there appears to be a random chance for her contract price going up and it appears to lessen based on how much time is left on her contract. So just try to increase her contract and if she gives you her ponzi scheme line then just cancel it, wait a day and try again. I've had her not do it at 3 days left and 1 day left on her contract.
7:00 - not to mention that, even after all these updates, melee builds have to be specialized and are more of a mid-to-late game concept best approached *once you know what you're doing* For a beginner, this being very much not the case, best to use Strength as your 'dump' stat - while maxing everything else
@@TheEdmon Especially if you're a n00b I've been watching your Michael Bay run of the game - hilarious xD Obviously, if you ever get blind drunk or brain damaged, the next logical step would be the Conan run -snort- ALL Melee, bitches
You can hire her as your doctor once you've got a bit more money. But with 85 Dex / 85 Mark, your IMP character should fill the role of marksman easily for the first island, especially since we're robbing the rifle from Kalyna. If you were to fit her into a starting team, I am not sure what you'd be able to give up... remember: You want to get those 14 day contracts going, they are far more efficient over the long term... and you definitely want to build your IMP because you need a solid leader. That's not leaving you with a lot of choice - Not having Barry or Livewire would leave massive skill holes in your team.
Fox starts with 100 Dex. Which goes to Edmon's point @ 5mins. She can out snipe Kalyna, who has a starting Marksmanship ~20pts higher. Moreover, Fox has high Wisdom, Kalyna one of the lowest. So she can learn Marksmanship much easier than Kalyna can learn Dex. Which is sad, because I love Ms Cloud Cuckoo Girl. But training her to late game standards is simply too expensive.
@@shawngillogly6873 We're not keeping Kalyna though, we're paying a small fee to rob her weapon. When the short contract is up, we're letting her go (getting back the medical fee) to get someone else. That someone else could be fox, I am just saying I wouldn't start with Fox because she replicates a role you already have with your IMP merc early. Anyone you dumped to fit her in would make a skill hole in your team.
@@TheEdmon AGree, but you just don't need a lot of money for her, since she is cheap and ready to go for 3 days, so either you hire other people for a shorter time o just hire her after capturing of the village.
Barry is one of the best mercs to get starting out. His Explosives and Wisdom is exceptional and will pass any check. Add his low salary and free unique grenades every 2 days and you’ll never be sorry for hiring him.
Feel like everyone talked up Barry in JA2 but when I recruited him he became deadweight. In this game he’s crazy good. Hard mode is just playing with no Barry.
I just finished wasteland 3 and am looking for my next addiction. was told about this game and bought it. starting tomorrow and am really excited. it sounds like an amazing game
Totally agree with this after two play throughs. Well, except for the Kalyna hire and ignoring strength. I usually tank health since my imp merc is always the stealth guy. By end game his damage taken stats are low single digits, and the extra storage space is fun. And, Kalyna is so trash that I can’t stand her even for the rifle. My mercs are Fox, Barry, and Live wire. I pick up Flay to fill my psychopath conversation req by the time I need it.😊
The community says there is 5 free merc ‘s but it spread out over the map it seems . They say there is group dynamics , some caricatures don’t get along . So much to this game .
I somtimes get the guy with the endless knives, he is just so handy to have to finish off dudes. I don´t use him in the traditional stealth way, knives seem to be far too unreliable on stealth approaches and since I am on Iron Man I just use Blood to finish off heavily wounded soldiers with throwing knives. The most OP character in the game seems to be a melee build which I won´t go into here, lots of videos about that. You can pretty much solo the game with the right character using a big melee weapon (don´t know about the very late game maps, havn´t done those). I also like to try different characters on my runs, Barry is the only one I take early on as a regular.
AFAIK, machineguns shoot "Long burst", which aren't affected by "Auto weapons" perk, so getting them both isn't a great idea. And "CQC training" doesn't affect melee (maybe it's a bug). Also, Fox has a fantastic perk, which makes her the best fight opener in the game, so I would consider hiring her over MD.
You aren't going to be running an MG as your primary weapon because it's insanely thristy, anyway. Heavy weapons and Auto go nicely together because it covers all the weapons you'll likely be using with this build (and with Physco added, auto-weapons is a must have unless you plan to never use anything automatic). CQC is useful for a melee build because melee characters can be insanely quick to close and you might decide to bring a shotgun along for crowd control, melee sucks against mobs unless your using the Ivan + 3 AP returned cheese. But a melee IMP merc won't get access to that, of course. Just load your shotgun with any of the extra spicey short range rounds and have at the crowd up close.
I would hire Fox over MD because of Edmon's point @ 5:00. Fox with 100 Dex has the potential to be a fantastic sniper from early game. Add to that her special ability keeping them surprised, and her ambidextrous pistols for when someone does get CQC with her, AND her Medical being more than sufficient for anything other than the Sanitarium questline. AND she gets the Training perk. Honestly, to my mind, the only reasons not to hire Fox straight off are: 1) Offline. 2) You want to use mercs who hate her. 3) You're sick of her innuendo. Otherwise, like Barry, she's an autopick. She's recruit tier who can easily be viable all game.
Nice team! I like the idea of hiring Kalyna for her weapon only! btw: Gewehr is spelled "Ge (like in "get") wear" (which means: rifle) Another thing: You forgot the french smuggler guy on the beach of the first map, which will drop an ak47 if you kill him (which he had coming anyway AND it will affect the defense of the nearby Fort). The AK47 is not the best but it surely makes a huge difference to the handgun Barry carries at this point! 😉😊
~Of course, this is just really a guide on how to build your IMP and who to hire... plus a little demo of the power of rifles in this game... but your right... the AK is pretty sweet early...
The guy at the beach gives you the AK47 for free at the bunker sector anyway, no need to kill him. And later you will come across him several times for diamonds and stuff. The bunker sector (next to Ernie) also have 4-5 Gewehr 98 in the 2nd WW graveyards. You can visit this bunker sector before Ernie and without fighting. Just talk to these "Bastien" guys for AK47 and sneak to the graveyard for several Gewehr 98. No fighting necessary at this time. Then back to free Ernie if not already done.
@@sirbowen4358 Depends on difficulty and RNG, how many you get. Also, beware the AP penalty for doing it, though you can avoid it by sending your physco merc alone to get them.
@@sirbowen4358 how did that happen for you? the guy at the beach ran away with his squaddies chasing him for me (in the rust). How did you not pay him anything, and not fight him, and somehow, get his weapon?
20:33 The extra goon it seems to be talking about may be the guy near a shack you can talk to. If you let him go you meet him again in the square between the town and the base, and it turns out he works with the enemies.
Yeah, you can get a few diamonds off him... you can't leave the first sector until you talk to Emma, so that's why I couldn't travel. Just forgot about it... but it doesn't really matter, the guide was about getting started anyway...
While yes she's not great, she has reasonable combat stats and high leadership that can allow you to put points elsewhere. I give my character the Mosin, give her a revolver, Barry the Uzi, and I grab Fox for her passive. One nice thing she has though is the ability to ignore armor. Not the greatest ability, but it can be useful.
Leader IMP, Barry, Livewire, MD, all for 7 days. Take Ernie Island, then hire Buns and Grizzly, in that order. Grizzly may complain about working with non-Americans if you don't hire Buns first. Use Leader IMP and Buns to train militia (Buns can also train other mercs in Dexterity, hers starts at 100 and she has the Teacher perk), Leader IMP, Barry, Livewire, MD, Grizzly and Buns is an ideal starter team, that was my team on the first playthrough. By the end, I had 6 snipers. In my opinion, all the higher level mercs are gimped with mish-mash builds. The six mercs I have chosen are all low level to start, which gives you the most customization options.
Hiring people for 7 days is far from optimal though, as you lose money doing this. Just wait until you can afford 14 day contracts. You'll save money in the long run...
@@TheEdmon Yes, 14 days is best, but I couldn't afford IMP merc and all three initial mercs with 14 days contracts, so I compromised on the initial contracts. I had no problems with cash in my first playthrough, and for a while I had 15 hired mercs, I ended the game with over 2 million dollars and I was not on forgiving mode. I used most of my tiny diamonds on "loot boxes", I even gave all my artifacts to Emma (which is an awesome way to get militia). I had stacks of unneeded cash and oodles of unused ammo. Something needs to be done with shops and scrapping rounds to reclaim powder.
Well done. Totally agree with your view on rifles, sadly too strong to pass on on it, yet i limit myself to 1 classic sniper per team. Yet since this is an optimal start guide, i understand why you brought this to the viewers attention. What are your thoughts on the game? Am watching your playthrough, yet i have to catch up to be honest. I used to play JA, Fallout and JA2 yet it seems that you played it way more then i did in the 90`s. Noticed that your frist reaction was mediocre with Xcom style repositioning, would be interesting to get your perspective comparing JA2 Arulco and JA3 Grand Chien
It's a really fun game full of content, but it has serious balance issues. That's my take for the moment. Stealth and Sniper Rifles are way too strong and trivialize the game.
@@TheEdmon Agreed! They really put in some effort when it comes down to the conversations with different mercs. Having Grizzly around when you encounter our communist friends has been a very good experience for example. They definitely caught the spirit and humor of JA. All the best for the rest of the playthrough.
My Merc selection is IMP Merc (Leader, Sniper and teach perk), Fox, Barry and Lipwire. And later Meltdown and Wolf. My definitive team is Shadow, Ivan, Vicki, Raider o IMP, Dr. Q and Barry.
@@TheEdmon I mean, he fulfills the role of Sniper and Leader, and has the perk to teach. I am still learning to speak English and I often get confused. I still think there is a Sniper perk if you have 90 dexterity.
@@Candlejack357 Ok, now you have 1, are you planning to only have 1 merc do all your shooting for the rest of the early and mid game? You need two to silently takedown pairs of enemies, at the very least. But I would want a rifle for literally every character, asap.
@@TheEdmon they seem to drop very often for me, they are common and you can get 3 or 4 at the bunker if you rob the grave. I've played with 3x the amount of enemies and still have no problems using the starting pistols. Anyway, gotta go to work. Thanks for the conversation and continued entertaining content.
Be sure to be hidden whenever you can be, fully aim your shots from prone with the rifle. If you get into trouble, use one of barry's shaped charges to get out of it.
@@TheEdmon ok thx a lot for the quick response... my bad do i was talking about where to go; how well equipped; things maybe i should avoid went to the north mine first, got 5 miners killed btw and found flay, the dragunov rifle; and ok cash...for now going south now.. maybe.. east get more miners? not sure how much wiggle room i got here! playing on normal, went for an easy play; my first jagged alliance; can crank it up to
@@thisguy35 The one mine you have should be plenty for a while, you can go wherever really, I think fleatown is where you are supposed to go, but you don't have to.
Once you have taken the Village of Ernie and retrieved the machine gun for Greasy. Travel by boat East to that closet mine and take it over. The fight can be little difficult in the beginning so keep your mercs together and take out the thugs around the pit first, then the hyenas. This will provide you with income to travel, get better mercs for the fight at the Fort. Next mine is the one south near Port Cacao.
so what doe dexterity actually do? does it add to the aim bonus? or multiply the aim bonus? or something else? I haven't really seen much effect from aiming, but I haven't run the mod that reveals all the stats. I notice from the gun stats though, a lot of them only have aiming bonus of 2, and even the "good aimers" at game start have an aiming bonus of 5. which seems very low, to increase the AP cost of a weapon attack by 25% to get 2% increased chance to hit. So if I aim 3 times, I would expect 6% bonus chance to hit with say, a SMG. What does dexterity actually DO to make that not terrible?
It works very close to the old JA2 system: Each aim adds 10% if you dex is 100, 5% if your dex is 50. These numbers are affected by other factors, as weapons all have individual bonuses that they get from aiming, but this above approximation is mostly correct.
Hi edmon, does 1.1 materially change any of your tips or is it more or less the same? Also, in your playthru you sometimes seem kinda disappointed in this game ;-)
I don't think the tips here have really changed, except that the heavy weapons perk has been nerfed as HMG's have been nerfed. But you probably still want it for the grenade launcher (which is a fantastic weapon). As for the game itself, I think it's just very, very easy and the AI has no idea how to handle stealth at all. I'm looking forward to doing a challenge run of it at some point, without stealth or sniping.
I kind of disagree on the health part. You can easily get away with 70 health unless you want the later perks, which is hard to imagine, if you go agi and dex 85. The runner perk for the extra free move is my favorite perk in the game and you only need 70 health for that, but beyond that i think once you get used to combat you don't need more health. I would prefer that extra slot in the inventory over max health, but those can be trained so no big deal....Also for the optimal team, it is always Fox for me if she is available on any difficulty. She has one of the best perks in the game and especially in the beginning, those extra aps that are kept at the start of combat make so much difference. She should always start combat for that reason. You don't have to hire mercs for 14 days in the beginning just because the price rate is better, the game throws money at you like there is no tommorow. Blood and Ice are also incredibly strong in combat and Ice likes Blood. Good candidates to hire for 3-4 days to clean up Ernie Island on the highest difficulty and give them longer contracts once you get that extra money from the first town.
Much easier to get strength up with training with this build though, due to the "all or nothing" strategy that most benefits training. Early on, your not going to have much stuff anyway, so you can live without a massive inventory. If your exceptionally unlucky, a 40x2 (critical) headshot might end you at 70 HP. Though, it's super rare that it happens.
Says I won’t be able to afford Raider, meanwhile my dumbass picked Raider right off the bat because I didn’t know there was a character creator and I wanted high leadership because it “sounded” good
10:05 "So a stealthy character is going to be the most lethal character, not the most stealthy one". Come again? I'm assuming either you misspoke, or I just don't understand this?
A stealthy character is going to be the most lethal character - in other words, the character most able to kill in 1 hit is going to be your most stealthy character. Not a character that is actually good at stealth.
@@TheEdmon That's exactly why I was deflated upon seeing her stats! Never played through the old games too much as the gameplay is harder to get into than say X-Com, but I wanted to as it has more in the way of character based story which X-Com lacked. But I knew that wisdom is a key stat for progression, so my eyes naturally go towards Barry, Buns, MD...
My optimal starting guide for beginners: Forget about Ernie Island. Take the village asap and leave. You are mercenaries, not captain planet and the planeteers. Go capture a mine or three.
On the note of lategame leadership specialists, Scully isn't just expensive, he's *deceptively* expensive as he will pretty much always try to raise his contract for ex-wife reasons. The only mercs with a leadership over 80 are Gus, Raider and Spoiler. Len, Fauda and Thor are all in the 65-75 range, and below that it drops hard. Guess they really valued Leadership highly, as the only good leader that isn't prohibitively expensive or a literal endgame unlock is the otherwise mediocre Raider. Wish it did more than movement speed though.. Edit: Is Kalyna really worth it just for the rifle? There's a guaranteed mosin in the tower on the second map, and the first two encounters aren't too difficult.
Raider pairs well with his wife Raven to get high morale and extra ap, a good personality (imo) and his perk is pretty good. Give him a rifle and give Raven an assault rifle and abuse her perk along with the extra ap from high morale.
I would take every one of these rifles you can get early. It makes your life much easier than using crappy handguns / shotguns. The leadership bonus to movement is absolutely huge, but yeah, the IMP character is the only realistic way to get it.
9:00 Low strength I.M.P. and Heavy Machine Gun Perk? That, Sir, makes not really sense. 8:22 The explanation that you can bypass the Psycho Perk by taking weapons that only have single shot and no Burst mode is correct and makes sense, but then selecting the Auto Weapon Perk makes no sense when I know that I only use single shot weapons because of psycho. So here you contradict yourself. 11:45 instead of a 3 day Kalyna contract (she doesnt has a discount over time anyway), you can easily find Gewehr 98 above the Bunker Sector at the 2nd WW graves. The first two sectors you can do alone with a knife blindfolded and backwards easily, and for the 2nd WW graveyard you need Barry and M.D. to identify the graves and bones and got 4 or 5 Gewehr 98 right at the start in a more or less bad condition. Also one at the 2nd sector and one at Ernie. So imho Steroid, Barry and M.D. are a good choice to start with (take M.D. before Steroid because of the hiring costs) to fill your own lack of knowledge (Tech(76), Explosiv(92) and Medic(81)). Steroid has a bad value in Agility that's true, but it is enough for 8AP Rifle oneshots, since he is a sniper with almost 89 in Marksmanship and with strength and tech he hacks and gets everything open that can't be opened. (You will be surprised what hidden things are already present in the first sectors that can be hacked and found.) The perfect counterpart to Steroid is Barry, who will find and defuse all mines in this game. Then M.D. as a Doctor and militia trainer is all you need ... see math below. With marksmen like Buns and later Raven, after you get some money, and the 6 merc team is completed. 10:00 The Teaching Perk has a hidden multiplier for militia training. Do not underestimate this. The most important thing when it comes to militia training is NOT Leadership (Base 64 + Skillpoints) It is the Trait TEACHING (x2). And Wolfs Jack of all Trade (x1.33) To train a set of militia you need 5829 let me call it Workforce. Every Merc has a base of 64 no matter what. Additionally, the Leadership skill points. And Traits. Workforce = (Base + Leadership) x Traits So for Example: Wolf: Workforce = (64 + 18) x 2 for teaching x 1.33 for JoaT = 226,1 to understand the rules, i give you more mercs. MD: (64 + 4) x2 = 142 Fox: (64 + 21) x2 = 176 Kalyna: (64 + 52) = 119 (she don't have the Trait) Gus: (64 + 85) = 152 (don't have the Trait) So all in all it comes to the x2 Trait TEACHING. Even MD with his very low 4 in Leadership has become a fairly usefull Workforce. And the best thing, you can easily train this low Leadership only once, so he gain even more points and hangs up Kalyna in seconds, because she dont has a multiplicator. So after you can calculate the Workforce, you have to know, to teach a set of Militia, you need 5829 Workpower. So the math for this is. 5829 / Workforce = ingame Hours examples Wolf: 5829 / 226,1 = 25,8h to train a set of militia MD: 5829 / 142 = 41,0h Fox: 5829 / 176 = 33,1h Kalyna: 5829 / 119 = 49,0h Gus: 5829 / 152 = 38,9h So you can see, the x2 Trait (and Wolfs special one) are way more worth than the pure Leadership Skill. Especially when a Merc has a low Leadership skill like M.D. but have the Trait TEACHING, he can level up really quick in Leadership and become a great Trainer for Militia. With this in mind, i can give you a list of some good Militia Trainers. 1.) Raider (64 + 91) x2 = 316 = 18,4h 2.) Len (64 + 68) x2 = 270 = 21,6h 3.) Hitman (64 + 68) x2 = 250 = 23,3h 4.) Wolf (64 + 18) x2 x1.33 = 226 = 25,8h 5.) Buns (64 + 24) x2 = 182 = 32,0h 6.) Fox (64 + 21) x2 = 176 = 33,1h 7.) Gus + Censored (64 + 85) = 152 = 38,3h (no Trait but high Leadership) 8.) MD (64 + 4) +2 = 142 = 41,0h 9.) Scully (64 + 70) = 137 = 42,5h (no Trait but high Leadership) 10.) Fauda (64 + 64) = 131 = 44,5h (no Trait but high Leadership) Hint: MD is a special one here, because of his low Leadership but with TEACHING trait. So for example, a 48h training in Leadership from Raider (3day contract) and MD will raise from 4 to 31 in Leadership ... which means he raises to (64 + 31) x2 = 196 = 29,7h easily and would become number 5 before Buns, Fox, Gus ... With this in mind and looking at the costs, because we dont want an expensive Merc doings this kind of job and left behind, we get this List. 1.) MD (trained 31) -> 196 = 30h = 508$ total Worktime costs per Militia Unit with a 7 Days contract. 2.) MD (4) -> 142 = 41h = 701$ 3.) Fox (21) -> 176 = 33h = 773$ 4.) Buns (24) -> 182 = 32h = 795$ 5.) Hitman (58) -> 250 = 23h = 796$ 6.) Kalyna (52) -> 119 = 49h = 1.225$ 7.) Wolf (18) -> 226 = 26h = 1.235$ 8.) Raider (91) -> 316 = 18h = 1.260$ 9.) Len (68) -> 270 = 22h = 1.760$ 10.) Thor (61) -> 128 = 46h = 3.036$ So you can see, Wolf is great to train Militia because of his 2 Traits (x2 and x1.33) but on a daily cost he is too expensive to left behind to train Militia. So with all that in mind, let's see what the I.M.P. Merc is doing with 85 in Leadership and the Teaching Perk and without any further daily costs. I.M.P. (64 + 85) x2 -> 304 = 19,2h = 0$ So the IMP is nearly as good as Raider in workforce and hours, but without any further costs ... Remember that the next time you provide a mercenary for this, who costs money every day. Oh and the simple math for traveling speed is Leadership minus 25. So you need at least someone with more than 25 in Leadership to get some advance in travel speed. I.M.P. 85 - 25 = +60% Travel speed Barry 29 - 25 = +4% Travel speed Grizzly 18 - 25 = -7% Travel speed so Raider is also the highest her with Raider 91 - 25 = +66% Travel speed Simple math but big impact to the game. Highest here besides the 85% IMP = Raider, Gus, Censored, Scully, Len, Fauda, Thor, Hitman, Smiley and Kalyna which are above 25% Travel Speed.
You can train strength later, you won't be using an MG early because of the ammo consumption anyway. That's why I said, when explaining strength, that it doesn't affect anything that "matters early". Likewise, you want physco with autoweapons in case you want to use an automatic weapon, but you can also avoid triggering it's issues by using a sniper rifle. Having the choice to be fully effective with many weapons makes perfect sense to me. I regularly switch between a sniper rifle, auto-rifle (G36) an MG and a grenade launcher and of course, it depends what you get and when, loot drops are random.
I think you need to do better than simply saying there is no psycho merc. The game start has 3 psycho merc and two negotiators. So it makes no sense to say the game doesn't have good psycho mercs. Psycho Fidel - I like him, but it is hard making enough money to pay him the second week. Meltdown - Doesn't seem that bad. (Good price as she has medical that won't be paid second week) Nails - No agility and a high price tag. Negotiator Buns & Raider Most players at least has the choice of Buns and Meltdown, giving them the choice of Psycho or Negotiator on the custom merc, so I don't get you insist that Psycho is the only choice.
Psycho is the best choice if you want to be optimal, because the mercs that have this trait that you can hire are extremely sub-optimal. In the same way that leadership is highly recommended because there is no way to get it otherwise without hiring raider, who is another extremely sub-optimal merc. Plus the cost of getting a physco early is prohibitively high.
leadership in 2 is for recruiting and conversations too jeebus at least make travel time 50/50 ldr/agi. almost 2 times difference with 85 vs 52 leadership is ridiculous. would a leadership 1 character take days or weeks? such a huge dependence on stats (of 1 merc) for moving between sectors is weird as a concept not even taking into account they have chosen a largely irrelevant one. if i put my tinfoil hat on then kalyna is something a russian developer of the game would create: the myth of a ukrainian female sniper is old news. add recent political flavor that she is obviously stupid, useless, has western, better yet german, better yet ww2 weaponry - which apparently makes her a nazi. this setting is just too perfect to be a complete coincidence.
The travel time thing is insane, leadership is very strong in this game. I think you can recruit pretty much everyone in JA2 without much leadership... either by using threats or bribes... but yeah, that is a thing, but it's a minor thing.
Hiring Kalyna for the rifle is a complete waste. You are guaranteed to get one in a chest in I2, the next sector over along with a guaranteed AK. Wasted money. Her perk is good. Would be better off hiring her for her leadership, it's in the 50 range and is good enough to get you into the mid game where you can use Raider to train your Imp or someone else up and drop her at that point. Raider works well with his wife, has a good personality, teacher trait, and can train leadership quickly. Buns has high wisdom (over 90) and good marksmanship, a good personality and low cost along with the teacher trait. Wolf has the best perk in the game and is worth the price early on. Dropping leadership down to 0 and using Kalyna early on frees up points, you can just train up leadership later with Raider. You can't match buns wisdom, drop it to 80, drop marksmanship to 80 and use them for something else, medical or explosive if you don't like the personality of Barry or MD. You get double value out of the Mr. Fixit perk if you bring explosive and mechanics on your Imp. Livewire and MD have terrible personality imo. Mouse is overlooked, she comes with a suppressed weapon and has high dex and agility.
This advice is more or less what I did when I first played the game, it seemed like a great idea but it actually really hurt me in the long run. So I can see why your giving this advice, but I completely disagree with it. The difference between 50 leadership and 85 is absolutely insane when it comes to travel time. And getting all your guys a proper rifle as early as possible, trivializes the games difficulty. $1800 to start with a proper rifle is absolutely worth it and it will see use throughout the whole game, until you have at least 12 better rifles for your eventual 2x6 man teams. You certainly can't afford wolf early, without leaving massive holes in your squads skills, but no-one is saying you can't grab him when you can afford him.
Well, I missed two shots on an extremely low chance to miss. The characters bark when you miss a shot that should have been a 90%+ chance to hit. Nevertheless, despite the absolutely horrible luck, I still took the enemies down without much issue. So if by FAR from optimal you mean, terrible RNG totally out of control of the player, then sure.
I would rather shove rusty nails in my eye sockets than have to listen to Livewire. Also Fox is amazing... 100 dex is so good for sniping, and combines so well with her trait. She's also great for training dex to other merc since she also has the trainer perk.
Well, the guide is about an optimal start... it's not really about personalities. Fox, as discussed throughout the comments, makes sense to pick up a little bit later when you've got some more money and can offer her a 14 day contract.
Even if one doesn't like her, "Livewire" has a nice perk that allows you to see all the enemies and other npc in a sector you have collected information about AND she is a fantastic mechanic with one of the highest wisdom grade in the game so she is a fast learner. I would always prefer her instead of Steroid or Kalyna!
As for the pronunciation of the German 'Gewehr', it's: /ɡəˈveːɐ̯/ (YT doesn't allow for external links, but easily Googleable of course via 'gewehr pronunciation' .. just in case you're still interested. Final hint: please tone down the background music. In this episode, as so often, you seem to have to shout 'up against' the gain of the bg music. All in all: great hints and I couldn't agree more. Except some people solo this on max. diff. ironman with just a Melee toon 😀(Check, e.g., Callum Bradbury)
A challenge run is not an optimal start though, is it? lol. I think the point of a challenge run is to do things as un-optimally as possible... I listened to this episode from start to end and didn't have an issue hearing my voice over the music?
One thing you have to remember, the start menu music is louder than the rest of the game's music on the same settings. So if you tone it down for the menu screen, you won't be able to hear the music at all anywhere else.
@@TheEdmon Shrugs, dunno how else to explain it. It sounds like your voice and the background music (during talking obviously, not just the menu screen) are about 'on par', instead of, say, your voice at 70% and bg music at 30%. So bg music is competing with your voice. I notice this in many of your videos (vs other YTers). The music is so loud that I want to tone down the volume, but then your voice goes down and fades into the music. Perhaps it's just me. It's just that I don't notice this on other ppls channel, so I keep thinking it has to do with your recording settings. Thanks for trying anyway :)
@@TheEdmon I'll say that i don't have music/speaking balance problems with some average Logitech Z200 speakers, but your voice is a relatively high frequency or outright clipping? A very obvious example is 0:51 to 1:00 where you are speaking **way** louder than the microphone currently can take at its current Gain/volume setting or just too close to you. Very hard to listen to.
There indeed isn't another Goon on the first map. The game just doesn't allow you to navigate away from first sector until you have visited the mansion and spoken to your contractor. Just so you don't miss that part of the story.
Ah, yeah, forgot about that :D.
In the upcoming patch 1.03 Explosives damage will get 'fixed' (not nerfed, as there currently is a bug). This means Barry will start doing 30% less damage than you have experienced so far.
Effectively due to the bug, some explosives multiplier was applied twice.
Also the amount of shots during overwatch from a machine gun were calculated off of your MAX ap instead of your CURRENT ap, so you got too many overwatch shots when using a MG.
This will also be addressed.
Huge nerf, though I suspect Barry will still be very potent.
Due to my experience with JA2, I dramatically undervalued Leadership in my first run, and overestimated stat increases via field experience. As a result, my first playthrough ended up way more difficult than it needed to be. I maxed out Leadership in my 2nd run, and it's a completely different experience.
Same, you can see my blind run and I was like "Who cares about leadership"... boy was I wrong.
Man this game looks sooo frickin' good. I really like the retro-ish look of the UI. Really reminds me of JA2. No fancy BS, just simple but functional.
It is good...
Thank you for these helpful tips. Your video was a huge help.
Glad to hear that :).
I don't use Kalyna at start, rather get Fox or Mouse which are way better mercs and have decent MED
You can find a Gewehr rifle early in 2nd sector, and usually at least 1 other on Ernie
Limewire is a must imo, she pays for herself with her hack ability and has an invaluable "radar" that makes you see all enemies when you have sector Intel
And the first sector with 3 enemies can be done with a blind merc in wheelchair anyway^^
You want as many of these rifles as quickly as possible if your going to be optimal, because they are vastly better than any of the other weapons you get, for a very long time.
You can always hire Fox once you've made some money. But your 85dex/85mark IMP merc will be just as good of a shot early and should be more than enough to clear the first few sectors. You get some cash off of the first Sector, so you can hire her then if you really can't live without her.
Well, well, well. I pick this up as a Christmas treat for myself only to find my BT guru and my XCOM guru, Syken, both of whom helped me take my game from decent to top notch, have put time in. Hardly surprising given the game but a bonus Christmas present nonetheless. Appreciate the effort as usual mate, I’ve already picked up a couple of things I didn’t know and I have no doubt I’ll learn more as I watch.
One thing, you failed to touch on just how mind shatteringly annoying Livewire’s personality is. Nice trait etc but hopefully someone can mod that out :)
Seasons greetings and thanks again.
You should check out my Michael Bay JA3 playthrough... you'll quickly learn how incredibly OP shotguns are in this game... lol
I took the test and made a very moderate IMP. Like you, I assumed several things from the second game. I reset my game once and did much better, but I will take all this to heart in my next playthrough when I do mods.
Thanks man, great video!
I found with livewire, there appears to be a random chance for her contract price going up and it appears to lessen based on how much time is left on her contract. So just try to increase her contract and if she gives you her ponzi scheme line then just cancel it, wait a day and try again. I've had her not do it at 3 days left and 1 day left on her contract.
It's really annoying, for sure. Good tip for avoiding the issue!
7:00 - not to mention that, even after all these updates, melee builds have to be specialized and are more of a mid-to-late game concept best approached *once you know what you're doing*
For a beginner, this being very much not the case, best to use Strength as your 'dump' stat - while maxing everything else
Melee is pretty unforgiving - one mistake and you'll cop a bust at short range and just lose someone...
@@TheEdmon
Especially if you're a n00b
I've been watching your Michael Bay run of the game - hilarious xD
Obviously, if you ever get blind drunk or brain damaged, the next logical step would be the Conan run -snort-
ALL Melee, bitches
Another great guide, decided to take the plunge with this. I was a bit worried about my laptop spec but ok so far.
Fox is one of the best snipers in the game and very powerful character. She is an essential part of any beginner team.
You can hire her as your doctor once you've got a bit more money. But with 85 Dex / 85 Mark, your IMP character should fill the role of marksman easily for the first island, especially since we're robbing the rifle from Kalyna.
If you were to fit her into a starting team, I am not sure what you'd be able to give up... remember: You want to get those 14 day contracts going, they are far more efficient over the long term... and you definitely want to build your IMP because you need a solid leader. That's not leaving you with a lot of choice - Not having Barry or Livewire would leave massive skill holes in your team.
Fox starts with 100 Dex. Which goes to Edmon's point @ 5mins. She can out snipe Kalyna, who has a starting Marksmanship ~20pts higher. Moreover, Fox has high Wisdom, Kalyna one of the lowest. So she can learn Marksmanship much easier than Kalyna can learn Dex. Which is sad, because I love Ms Cloud Cuckoo Girl. But training her to late game standards is simply too expensive.
@@shawngillogly6873 We're not keeping Kalyna though, we're paying a small fee to rob her weapon. When the short contract is up, we're letting her go (getting back the medical fee) to get someone else. That someone else could be fox, I am just saying I wouldn't start with Fox because she replicates a role you already have with your IMP merc early. Anyone you dumped to fit her in would make a skill hole in your team.
@@TheEdmon AGree, but you just don't need a lot of money for her, since she is cheap and ready to go for 3 days, so either you hire other people for a shorter time o just hire her after capturing of the village.
@@shawngillogly6873 Honestly, she can out snipe anyone with stealth kills due to her special ability, it's just overpowered.
I am playing on 1.03 and Barry is still melting faces with explosives
He is so good, he is the games best merc (price considered) and it is not even close.
Barry is the man! ❤😂
Barry is one of the best mercs to get starting out. His Explosives and Wisdom is exceptional and will pass any check. Add his low salary and free unique grenades every 2 days and you’ll never be sorry for hiring him.
Feel like everyone talked up Barry in JA2 but when I recruited him he became deadweight. In this game he’s crazy good. Hard mode is just playing with no Barry.
@@dudestep Explosives kind of sucked in JA2.
I just finished wasteland 3 and am looking for my next addiction. was told about this game and bought it. starting tomorrow and am really excited. it sounds like an amazing game
Totally agree with this after two play throughs. Well, except for the Kalyna hire and ignoring strength. I usually tank health since my imp merc is always the stealth guy. By end game his damage taken stats are low single digits, and the extra storage space is fun. And, Kalyna is so trash that I can’t stand her even for the rifle.
My mercs are Fox, Barry, and Live wire. I pick up Flay to fill my psychopath conversation req by the time I need it.😊
The community says there is 5 free merc ‘s but it spread out over the map it seems . They say there is group dynamics , some caricatures don’t get along . So much to this game .
In JA 2 1.13 leadership also has a role in squad during fighting because leader influences other mercs. Travel time is affected by 'hunter' specialty.
thanks
I somtimes get the guy with the endless knives, he is just so handy to have to finish off dudes. I don´t use him in the traditional stealth way, knives seem to be far too unreliable on stealth approaches and since I am on Iron Man I just use Blood to finish off heavily wounded soldiers with throwing knives.
The most OP character in the game seems to be a melee build which I won´t go into here, lots of videos about that. You can pretty much solo the game with the right character using a big melee weapon (don´t know about the very late game maps, havn´t done those).
I also like to try different characters on my runs, Barry is the only one I take early on as a regular.
AFAIK, machineguns shoot "Long burst", which aren't affected by "Auto weapons" perk, so getting them both isn't a great idea. And "CQC training" doesn't affect melee (maybe it's a bug). Also, Fox has a fantastic perk, which makes her the best fight opener in the game, so I would consider hiring her over MD.
You aren't going to be running an MG as your primary weapon because it's insanely thristy, anyway. Heavy weapons and Auto go nicely together because it covers all the weapons you'll likely be using with this build (and with Physco added, auto-weapons is a must have unless you plan to never use anything automatic).
CQC is useful for a melee build because melee characters can be insanely quick to close and you might decide to bring a shotgun along for crowd control, melee sucks against mobs unless your using the Ivan + 3 AP returned cheese. But a melee IMP merc won't get access to that, of course. Just load your shotgun with any of the extra spicey short range rounds and have at the crowd up close.
I would hire Fox over MD because of Edmon's point @ 5:00. Fox with 100 Dex has the potential to be a fantastic sniper from early game. Add to that her special ability keeping them surprised, and her ambidextrous pistols for when someone does get CQC with her, AND her Medical being more than sufficient for anything other than the Sanitarium questline. AND she gets the Training perk.
Honestly, to my mind, the only reasons not to hire Fox straight off are:
1) Offline.
2) You want to use mercs who hate her.
3) You're sick of her innuendo.
Otherwise, like Barry, she's an autopick. She's recruit tier who can easily be viable all game.
Nice team! I like the idea of hiring Kalyna for her weapon only! btw: Gewehr is spelled "Ge (like in "get") wear" (which means: rifle) Another thing: You forgot the french smuggler guy on the beach of the first map, which will drop an ak47 if you kill him (which he had coming anyway AND it will affect the defense of the nearby Fort). The AK47 is not the best but it surely makes a huge difference to the handgun Barry carries at this point! 😉😊
~Of course, this is just really a guide on how to build your IMP and who to hire... plus a little demo of the power of rifles in this game... but your right... the AK is pretty sweet early...
W is pronounced V in German
The guy at the beach gives you the AK47 for free at the bunker sector anyway, no need to kill him. And later you will come across him several times for diamonds and stuff.
The bunker sector (next to Ernie) also have 4-5 Gewehr 98 in the 2nd WW graveyards.
You can visit this bunker sector before Ernie and without fighting. Just talk to these "Bastien" guys for AK47 and sneak to the graveyard for several Gewehr 98. No fighting necessary at this time. Then back to free Ernie if not already done.
@@sirbowen4358 Depends on difficulty and RNG, how many you get. Also, beware the AP penalty for doing it, though you can avoid it by sending your physco merc alone to get them.
@@sirbowen4358 how did that happen for you? the guy at the beach ran away with his squaddies chasing him for me (in the rust). How did you not pay him anything, and not fight him, and somehow, get his weapon?
20:33 The extra goon it seems to be talking about may be the guy near a shack you can talk to. If you let him go you meet him again in the square between the town and the base, and it turns out he works with the enemies.
Yeah, you can get a few diamonds off him... you can't leave the first sector until you talk to Emma, so that's why I couldn't travel. Just forgot about it... but it doesn't really matter, the guide was about getting started anyway...
While yes she's not great, she has reasonable combat stats and high leadership that can allow you to put points elsewhere.
I give my character the Mosin, give her a revolver, Barry the Uzi, and I grab Fox for her passive.
One nice thing she has though is the ability to ignore armor. Not the greatest ability, but it can be useful.
I tried just hiring Blood and Kalanya for first three levels. Seemed to work well and saved money.
Sure, but your going to miss a LOT of explosive/mechanical/medical checks this way. Not very optimal.
@@TheEdmontrue. Gives me something to think about.
By end-game I usually have 2 fully kitted squads of 6 mercs. And at least 2 or 3 of them have the Gewehr even at the end.
Leader IMP, Barry, Livewire, MD, all for 7 days. Take Ernie Island, then hire Buns and Grizzly, in that order. Grizzly may complain about working with non-Americans if you don't hire Buns first.
Use Leader IMP and Buns to train militia (Buns can also train other mercs in Dexterity, hers starts at 100 and she has the Teacher perk),
Leader IMP, Barry, Livewire, MD, Grizzly and Buns is an ideal starter team, that was my team on the first playthrough. By the end, I had 6 snipers.
In my opinion, all the higher level mercs are gimped with mish-mash builds. The six mercs I have chosen are all low level to start, which gives you the most customization options.
Hiring people for 7 days is far from optimal though, as you lose money doing this. Just wait until you can afford 14 day contracts. You'll save money in the long run...
@@TheEdmon Yes, 14 days is best, but I couldn't afford IMP merc and all three initial mercs with 14 days contracts, so I compromised on the initial contracts.
I had no problems with cash in my first playthrough, and for a while I had 15 hired mercs, I ended the game with over 2 million dollars and I was not on forgiving mode. I used most of my tiny diamonds on "loot boxes", I even gave all my artifacts to Emma (which is an awesome way to get militia). I had stacks of unneeded cash and oodles of unused ammo.
Something needs to be done with shops and scrapping rounds to reclaim powder.
Now the algorithm showed you
Well done. Totally agree with your view on rifles, sadly too strong to pass on on it, yet i limit myself to 1 classic sniper per team. Yet since this is an optimal start guide, i understand why you brought this to the viewers attention.
What are your thoughts on the game? Am watching your playthrough, yet i have to catch up to be honest.
I used to play JA, Fallout and JA2 yet it seems that you played it way more then i did in the 90`s. Noticed that your frist reaction was mediocre with Xcom style repositioning, would be interesting to get your perspective comparing JA2 Arulco and JA3 Grand Chien
It's a really fun game full of content, but it has serious balance issues. That's my take for the moment. Stealth and Sniper Rifles are way too strong and trivialize the game.
@@TheEdmon Agreed! They really put in some effort when it comes down to the conversations with different mercs. Having Grizzly around when you encounter our communist friends has been a very good experience for example. They definitely caught the spirit and humor of JA. All the best for the rest of the playthrough.
My Merc selection is IMP Merc (Leader, Sniper and teach perk), Fox, Barry and Lipwire.
And later Meltdown and Wolf.
My definitive team is Shadow, Ivan, Vicki, Raider o IMP, Dr. Q and Barry.
"sniper" perk? I think missing out on the extra rifle early is a mistake though, it's a huge boon early.
@@TheEdmon I mean, he fulfills the role of Sniper and Leader, and has the perk to teach.
I am still learning to speak English and I often get confused.
I still think there is a Sniper perk if you have 90 dexterity.
@@TheEdmonyou literally get the same rifle the next sector over in a box.
@@Candlejack357 Ok, now you have 1, are you planning to only have 1 merc do all your shooting for the rest of the early and mid game?
You need two to silently takedown pairs of enemies, at the very least. But I would want a rifle for literally every character, asap.
@@TheEdmon they seem to drop very often for me, they are common and you can get 3 or 4 at the bunker if you rob the grave.
I've played with 3x the amount of enemies and still have no problems using the starting pistols.
Anyway, gotta go to work.
Thanks for the conversation and continued entertaining content.
Nice video. Do you keep Kalyna past the initial 3 days or replace her with someone else, and if so, who ?
Sorry if this wasn't clear: Dump her for a medic, MD is a good choice due to his high medical skill AND high wisdom. He trains well.
Just remember to take her weapon 😂
@@bushmonster1702 Yeah... lol. Mercs take their kit back with them! Unlike JA2 where your given a choice.
@@TheEdmon that's actually really annoying. If you intend to let a merc go you need to remember to empty their pockets before their contract expires.
thx,
any tips for for the tactical map part?
it's my first jagged and im having a hard time, still really fun do
pardon my english not my language
Be sure to be hidden whenever you can be, fully aim your shots from prone with the rifle. If you get into trouble, use one of barry's shaped charges to get out of it.
@@TheEdmon ok thx a lot for the quick response... my bad do
i was talking about where to go; how well equipped; things maybe i should avoid
went to the north mine first, got 5 miners killed btw and found flay, the dragunov rifle; and ok cash...for now
going south now.. maybe.. east get more miners?
not sure how much wiggle room i got here!
playing on normal, went for an easy play; my first jagged alliance; can crank it up to
@@thisguy35 The one mine you have should be plenty for a while, you can go wherever really, I think fleatown is where you are supposed to go, but you don't have to.
Once you have taken the Village of Ernie and retrieved the machine gun for Greasy. Travel by boat East to that closet mine and take it over. The fight can be little difficult in the beginning so keep your mercs together and take out the thugs around the pit first, then the hyenas. This will provide you with income to travel, get better mercs for the fight at the Fort. Next mine is the one south near Port Cacao.
so what doe dexterity actually do? does it add to the aim bonus? or multiply the aim bonus? or something else?
I haven't really seen much effect from aiming, but I haven't run the mod that reveals all the stats. I notice from the gun stats though, a lot of them only have aiming bonus of 2, and even the "good aimers" at game start have an aiming bonus of 5. which seems very low, to increase the AP cost of a weapon attack by 25% to get 2% increased chance to hit.
So if I aim 3 times, I would expect 6% bonus chance to hit with say, a SMG. What does dexterity actually DO to make that not terrible?
It works very close to the old JA2 system:
Each aim adds 10% if you dex is 100, 5% if your dex is 50.
These numbers are affected by other factors, as weapons all have individual bonuses that they get from aiming, but this above approximation is mostly correct.
Hi edmon, does 1.1 materially change any of your tips or is it more or less the same?
Also, in your playthru you sometimes seem kinda disappointed in this game ;-)
I don't think the tips here have really changed, except that the heavy weapons perk has been nerfed as HMG's have been nerfed. But you probably still want it for the grenade launcher (which is a fantastic weapon).
As for the game itself, I think it's just very, very easy and the AI has no idea how to handle stealth at all. I'm looking forward to doing a challenge run of it at some point, without stealth or sniping.
I kind of disagree on the health part. You can easily get away with 70 health unless you want the later perks, which is hard to imagine, if you go agi and dex 85. The runner perk for the extra free move is my favorite perk in the game and you only need 70 health for that, but beyond that i think once you get used to combat you don't need more health. I would prefer that extra slot in the inventory over max health, but those can be trained so no big deal....Also for the optimal team, it is always Fox for me if she is available on any difficulty. She has one of the best perks in the game and especially in the beginning, those extra aps that are kept at the start of combat make so much difference. She should always start combat for that reason. You don't have to hire mercs for 14 days in the beginning just because the price rate is better, the game throws money at you like there is no tommorow. Blood and Ice are also incredibly strong in combat and Ice likes Blood. Good candidates to hire for 3-4 days to clean up Ernie Island on the highest difficulty and give them longer contracts once you get that extra money from the first town.
Much easier to get strength up with training with this build though, due to the "all or nothing" strategy that most benefits training. Early on, your not going to have much stuff anyway, so you can live without a massive inventory. If your exceptionally unlucky, a 40x2 (critical) headshot might end you at 70 HP. Though, it's super rare that it happens.
Says I won’t be able to afford Raider, meanwhile my dumbass picked Raider right off the bat because I didn’t know there was a character creator and I wanted high leadership because it “sounded” good
Yikes - that's not leaving you much money for a team... lol
10:05 "So a stealthy character is going to be the most lethal character, not the most stealthy one". Come again? I'm assuming either you misspoke, or I just don't understand this?
A stealthy character is going to be the most lethal character - in other words, the character most able to kill in 1 hit is going to be your most stealthy character. Not a character that is actually good at stealth.
@@TheEdmon ah right, now I see what you mean. Thanks! 🙂
When I saw Kalyna's stats I was disappointed as how she replied when contacting her made me think she would be funny to have around.
She sucks in the long term, because she has dumpster tier wisdom.
@@TheEdmon That's exactly why I was deflated upon seeing her stats!
Never played through the old games too much as the gameplay is harder to get into than say X-Com, but I wanted to as it has more in the way of character based story which X-Com lacked.
But I knew that wisdom is a key stat for progression, so my eyes naturally go towards Barry, Buns, MD...
My optimal starting guide for beginners: Forget about Ernie Island. Take the village asap and leave. You are mercenaries, not captain planet and the planeteers. Go capture a mine or three.
On the note of lategame leadership specialists, Scully isn't just expensive, he's *deceptively* expensive as he will pretty much always try to raise his contract for ex-wife reasons. The only mercs with a leadership over 80 are Gus, Raider and Spoiler. Len, Fauda and Thor are all in the 65-75 range, and below that it drops hard. Guess they really valued Leadership highly, as the only good leader that isn't prohibitively expensive or a literal endgame unlock is the otherwise mediocre Raider. Wish it did more than movement speed though..
Edit: Is Kalyna really worth it just for the rifle? There's a guaranteed mosin in the tower on the second map, and the first two encounters aren't too difficult.
Raider pairs well with his wife Raven to get high morale and extra ap, a good personality (imo) and his perk is pretty good.
Give him a rifle and give Raven an assault rifle and abuse her perk along with the extra ap from high morale.
I would take every one of these rifles you can get early. It makes your life much easier than using crappy handguns / shotguns.
The leadership bonus to movement is absolutely huge, but yeah, the IMP character is the only realistic way to get it.
9:00 Low strength I.M.P. and Heavy Machine Gun Perk? That, Sir, makes not really sense.
8:22 The explanation that you can bypass the Psycho Perk by taking weapons that only have single shot and no Burst mode is correct and makes sense,
but then selecting the Auto Weapon Perk makes no sense when I know that I only use single shot weapons because of psycho. So here you contradict yourself.
11:45 instead of a 3 day Kalyna contract (she doesnt has a discount over time anyway), you can easily find Gewehr 98 above the Bunker Sector at the 2nd WW graves.
The first two sectors you can do alone with a knife blindfolded and backwards easily, and for the 2nd WW graveyard you need Barry and M.D. to identify the graves and bones and got 4 or 5 Gewehr 98 right at the start in a more or less bad condition. Also one at the 2nd sector and one at Ernie.
So imho Steroid, Barry and M.D. are a good choice to start with (take M.D. before Steroid because of the hiring costs) to fill your own lack of knowledge (Tech(76), Explosiv(92) and Medic(81)).
Steroid has a bad value in Agility that's true, but it is enough for 8AP Rifle oneshots, since he is a sniper with almost 89 in Marksmanship and with strength and tech he hacks and gets everything open that can't be opened. (You will be surprised what hidden things are already present in the first sectors that can be hacked and found.)
The perfect counterpart to Steroid is Barry, who will find and defuse all mines in this game. Then M.D. as a Doctor and militia trainer is all you need ... see math below.
With marksmen like Buns and later Raven, after you get some money, and the 6 merc team is completed.
10:00 The Teaching Perk has a hidden multiplier for militia training. Do not underestimate this.
The most important thing when it comes to militia training is NOT Leadership (Base 64 + Skillpoints) It is the Trait TEACHING (x2). And Wolfs Jack of all Trade (x1.33)
To train a set of militia you need 5829 let me call it Workforce. Every Merc has a base of 64 no matter what. Additionally, the Leadership skill points. And Traits.
Workforce = (Base + Leadership) x Traits
So for Example:
Wolf: Workforce = (64 + 18) x 2 for teaching x 1.33 for JoaT = 226,1
to understand the rules, i give you more mercs.
MD: (64 + 4) x2 = 142
Fox: (64 + 21) x2 = 176
Kalyna: (64 + 52) = 119 (she don't have the Trait)
Gus: (64 + 85) = 152 (don't have the Trait)
So all in all it comes to the x2 Trait TEACHING. Even MD with his very low 4 in Leadership has become a fairly usefull Workforce. And the best thing, you can easily train this low Leadership only once, so he gain even more points and hangs up Kalyna in seconds, because she dont has a multiplicator.
So after you can calculate the Workforce, you have to know, to teach a set of Militia, you need 5829 Workpower.
So the math for this is.
5829 / Workforce = ingame Hours
examples
Wolf: 5829 / 226,1 = 25,8h to train a set of militia
MD: 5829 / 142 = 41,0h
Fox: 5829 / 176 = 33,1h
Kalyna: 5829 / 119 = 49,0h
Gus: 5829 / 152 = 38,9h
So you can see, the x2 Trait (and Wolfs special one) are way more worth than the pure Leadership Skill.
Especially when a Merc has a low Leadership skill like M.D. but have the Trait TEACHING, he can level up really quick in Leadership and become a great Trainer for Militia.
With this in mind, i can give you a list of some good Militia Trainers.
1.) Raider (64 + 91) x2 = 316 = 18,4h
2.) Len (64 + 68) x2 = 270 = 21,6h
3.) Hitman (64 + 68) x2 = 250 = 23,3h
4.) Wolf (64 + 18) x2 x1.33 = 226 = 25,8h
5.) Buns (64 + 24) x2 = 182 = 32,0h
6.) Fox (64 + 21) x2 = 176 = 33,1h
7.) Gus + Censored (64 + 85) = 152 = 38,3h (no Trait but high Leadership)
8.) MD (64 + 4) +2 = 142 = 41,0h
9.) Scully (64 + 70) = 137 = 42,5h (no Trait but high Leadership)
10.) Fauda (64 + 64) = 131 = 44,5h (no Trait but high Leadership)
Hint: MD is a special one here, because of his low Leadership but with TEACHING trait. So for example, a 48h training in Leadership from Raider (3day contract) and MD will raise from 4 to 31 in Leadership ... which means he raises to (64 + 31) x2 = 196 = 29,7h easily and would become number 5 before Buns, Fox, Gus ...
With this in mind and looking at the costs, because we dont want an expensive Merc doings this kind of job and left behind, we get this List.
1.) MD (trained 31) -> 196 = 30h = 508$ total Worktime costs per Militia Unit with a 7 Days contract.
2.) MD (4) -> 142 = 41h = 701$
3.) Fox (21) -> 176 = 33h = 773$
4.) Buns (24) -> 182 = 32h = 795$
5.) Hitman (58) -> 250 = 23h = 796$
6.) Kalyna (52) -> 119 = 49h = 1.225$
7.) Wolf (18) -> 226 = 26h = 1.235$
8.) Raider (91) -> 316 = 18h = 1.260$
9.) Len (68) -> 270 = 22h = 1.760$
10.) Thor (61) -> 128 = 46h = 3.036$
So you can see, Wolf is great to train Militia because of his 2 Traits (x2 and x1.33) but on a daily cost he is too expensive to left behind to train Militia.
So with all that in mind, let's see what the I.M.P. Merc is doing with 85 in Leadership and the Teaching Perk and without any further daily costs.
I.M.P. (64 + 85) x2 -> 304 = 19,2h = 0$
So the IMP is nearly as good as Raider in workforce and hours, but without any further costs ... Remember that the next time you provide a mercenary for this, who costs money every day.
Oh and the simple math for traveling speed is Leadership minus 25. So you need at least someone with more than 25 in Leadership to get some advance in travel speed.
I.M.P. 85 - 25 = +60% Travel speed
Barry 29 - 25 = +4% Travel speed
Grizzly 18 - 25 = -7% Travel speed
so Raider is also the highest her with
Raider 91 - 25 = +66% Travel speed
Simple math but big impact to the game.
Highest here besides the 85% IMP = Raider, Gus, Censored, Scully, Len, Fauda, Thor, Hitman, Smiley and Kalyna which are above 25% Travel Speed.
You can train strength later, you won't be using an MG early because of the ammo consumption anyway. That's why I said, when explaining strength, that it doesn't affect anything that "matters early".
Likewise, you want physco with autoweapons in case you want to use an automatic weapon, but you can also avoid triggering it's issues by using a sniper rifle.
Having the choice to be fully effective with many weapons makes perfect sense to me. I regularly switch between a sniper rifle, auto-rifle (G36) an MG and a grenade launcher and of course, it depends what you get and when, loot drops are random.
I think you need to do better than simply saying there is no psycho merc.
The game start has 3 psycho merc and two negotiators. So it makes no sense to say the game doesn't have good psycho mercs.
Psycho
Fidel - I like him, but it is hard making enough money to pay him the second week.
Meltdown - Doesn't seem that bad. (Good price as she has medical that won't be paid second week)
Nails - No agility and a high price tag.
Negotiator
Buns & Raider
Most players at least has the choice of Buns and Meltdown, giving them the choice of Psycho or Negotiator on the custom merc, so I don't get you insist that Psycho is the only choice.
Psycho is the best choice if you want to be optimal, because the mercs that have this trait that you can hire are extremely sub-optimal. In the same way that leadership is highly recommended because there is no way to get it otherwise without hiring raider, who is another extremely sub-optimal merc.
Plus the cost of getting a physco early is prohibitively high.
leadership in 2 is for recruiting and conversations too
jeebus at least make travel time 50/50 ldr/agi. almost 2 times difference with 85 vs 52 leadership is ridiculous. would a leadership 1 character take days or weeks?
such a huge dependence on stats (of 1 merc) for moving between sectors is weird as a concept not even taking into account they have chosen a largely irrelevant one.
if i put my tinfoil hat on then kalyna is something a russian developer of the game would create: the myth of a ukrainian female sniper is old news. add recent political flavor that she is obviously stupid, useless, has western, better yet german, better yet ww2 weaponry - which apparently makes her a nazi. this setting is just too perfect to be a complete coincidence.
The travel time thing is insane, leadership is very strong in this game. I think you can recruit pretty much everyone in JA2 without much leadership... either by using threats or bribes... but yeah, that is a thing, but it's a minor thing.
Hiring Kalyna for the rifle is a complete waste. You are guaranteed to get one in a chest in I2, the next sector over along with a guaranteed AK.
Wasted money.
Her perk is good.
Would be better off hiring her for her leadership, it's in the 50 range and is good enough to get you into the mid game where you can use Raider to train your Imp or someone else up and drop her at that point.
Raider works well with his wife, has a good personality, teacher trait, and can train leadership quickly.
Buns has high wisdom (over 90) and good marksmanship, a good personality and low cost along with the teacher trait.
Wolf has the best perk in the game and is worth the price early on.
Dropping leadership down to 0 and using Kalyna early on frees up points, you can just train up leadership later with Raider.
You can't match buns wisdom, drop it to 80, drop marksmanship to 80 and use them for something else, medical or explosive if you don't like the personality of Barry or MD.
You get double value out of the Mr. Fixit perk if you bring explosive and mechanics on your Imp.
Livewire and MD have terrible personality imo.
Mouse is overlooked, she comes with a suppressed weapon and has high dex and agility.
This advice is more or less what I did when I first played the game, it seemed like a great idea but it actually really hurt me in the long run. So I can see why your giving this advice, but I completely disagree with it. The difference between 50 leadership and 85 is absolutely insane when it comes to travel time. And getting all your guys a proper rifle as early as possible, trivializes the games difficulty.
$1800 to start with a proper rifle is absolutely worth it and it will see use throughout the whole game, until you have at least 12 better rifles for your eventual 2x6 man teams.
You certainly can't afford wolf early, without leaving massive holes in your squads skills, but no-one is saying you can't grab him when you can afford him.
I'm sorry, but the approach for the initial combat encounter was FAR from optimal.
Well, I missed two shots on an extremely low chance to miss. The characters bark when you miss a shot that should have been a 90%+ chance to hit. Nevertheless, despite the absolutely horrible luck, I still took the enemies down without much issue.
So if by FAR from optimal you mean, terrible RNG totally out of control of the player, then sure.
best Leader is spike..and he is free!
And you can start with him... how? :D. It's funny I hear you can recruit him but the game is basically over by then, so why bother?
That's like saying the best companion in Baldur's Gate is Sarevok. I'll take characters we're given too late to make a difference for 1000, Alex.
I would rather shove rusty nails in my eye sockets than have to listen to Livewire. Also Fox is amazing... 100 dex is so good for sniping, and combines so well with her trait. She's also great for training dex to other merc since she also has the trainer perk.
Well, the guide is about an optimal start... it's not really about personalities. Fox, as discussed throughout the comments, makes sense to pick up a little bit later when you've got some more money and can offer her a 14 day contract.
Even if one doesn't like her, "Livewire" has a nice perk that allows you to see all the enemies and other npc in a sector you have collected information about AND she is a fantastic mechanic with one of the highest wisdom grade in the game so she is a fast learner. I would always prefer her instead of Steroid or Kalyna!
It's not sad, sniper rifles are meant to be powerful and deadly.
Not literally all the time at any range they aren't.
As for the pronunciation of the German 'Gewehr', it's: /ɡəˈveːɐ̯/
(YT doesn't allow for external links, but easily Googleable of course via 'gewehr pronunciation' .. just in case you're still interested.
Final hint: please tone down the background music. In this episode, as so often, you seem to have to shout 'up against' the gain of the bg music.
All in all: great hints and I couldn't agree more. Except some people solo this on max. diff. ironman with just a Melee toon 😀(Check, e.g., Callum Bradbury)
A challenge run is not an optimal start though, is it? lol. I think the point of a challenge run is to do things as un-optimally as possible...
I listened to this episode from start to end and didn't have an issue hearing my voice over the music?
One thing you have to remember, the start menu music is louder than the rest of the game's music on the same settings. So if you tone it down for the menu screen, you won't be able to hear the music at all anywhere else.
@@TheEdmon Shrugs, dunno how else to explain it. It sounds like your voice and the background music (during talking obviously, not just the menu screen) are about 'on par', instead of, say, your voice at 70% and bg music at 30%. So bg music is competing with your voice. I notice this in many of your videos (vs other YTers). The music is so loud that I want to tone down the volume, but then your voice goes down and fades into the music. Perhaps it's just me. It's just that I don't notice this on other ppls channel, so I keep thinking it has to do with your recording settings. Thanks for trying anyway :)
@@metamud8686 I'll see what I can do, without killing the music entirely or the clarity.
@@TheEdmon I'll say that i don't have music/speaking balance problems with some average Logitech Z200 speakers, but your voice is a relatively high frequency or outright clipping? A very obvious example is 0:51 to 1:00 where you are speaking **way** louder than the microphone currently can take at its current Gain/volume setting or just too close to you. Very hard to listen to.