Struggling to get started?

[Edmon]

If your struggling to get started, I've put together an optimal start guide, to get you going on your JA3 journey will all the tools you'll need to succeed.

On a side note, I'd love to hear what you'd change to make things more optimal.

Included in the guide are:
IMP setup - Your primary leader/marksman for the early game.
Early 14 day hires - You save money by going long on contracts, which is obviously optimal, but that restricts choices to only a few mercs early.

There are definitely some optimal choices if you want to meet all the checks from the start, but I think pretty much any selection of mercs is viable as it's an easy(ish) game.

In terms of optimal at the start:

Optimal for Explosives / Wisdom: Barry - It's not even close.
Optimal for Mechanical / Wisdom: Livewire - Once again, stats for cost, she's untouchable.
Optimal for Medical / Wisdom: MD - Once again, this isn't much of a contest either.

These three are not only cheap, their primary skill with high wisdom means they will always be at the front when it comes to their respective niche and you don't risk failing any of the games checks. These are the characters that ensure you don't miss or fail anything and all of them can be trained over time to be monsters, thanks to that high wisdom.

Now - the other question is "What is optimal for making the enemy dead" which is a very different question. Now your thinking about characters like:

Fox, Buns, Barry (Only person on both lists, which is why everyone recommends him), vicky (2Handed), Shadow + SMG, Ivan + 3AP cheese, and so on and so forth.

How "needed" optimal for combat characters are is going to depend on your skill level. The more skilled you are, the more easily you'll be able to go without getting of these "optimal for combat" mercs.

You can find the guide here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3014892936

Some common feedback and Q&A:
Why not hire Fox? - You can't afford her early, and you -need- an explosives expert and a mechanic to be optimal, neither of which she is. But you can hire her pretty quickly, there is plenty of money to grab in the first few sectors, if you can't live without her.

Why hire Kalyna? - You hire her for 3 days to get her rifle, you can then dump her after. These rifles (the Gewehr 98 rifles) are extremely potent and ammo efficient early. You'll likely want one for every member of your team. Though you can get at least 1 early, additional copies are reasonably rare and they will see heavy use until you farm Draganovs (from the poacher camp) or are lucky enough to get some PSG-1s or M28's.

On this note: You can rob the grave to (potentially) get a few extra, but beware - the AP penalty for doing this hurts early. Though a physco IMP (on his/her own) could do this task for you. Still, more is better. If your happy not getting the extra rifle, it's a fair move to not bother getting it, but I think it makes the early game much easier.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Edmon:

On a side note, I'd love to hear what you'd change to make things more optimal.

Suggestion, make a steam version of the guide, reason, for foreigners not very fluent in listening English guides.

Second suggestion but just from your post, you can stick to be more general. I doubt it's very useful to push to a limited set of start mercs, and still the game very obviously need a low spoiler starter guide to enter faster in the game, for those who would want it.

Double version is double work and eventually not fully the same content, but clearly there are players that won't bother read anything and will prefer the video.

[Edmon]

You actually don't have a lot of choice when it comes to early mercs, if you want to be optimal with your start... there is a massive thread about this issue, actually.

[Dorok]

I believed it was more a welcome guide for newbies. So not for MI. Well as dev are butchering the default difficulty, it could be for Commando.

This should mean more margin for good enough set of start mercenaries. But I still haven't tried all possible start mercs, not what allow Commando at start in term of start money, and cost of mercs.

[Cougarific]

Rules and Guidelines For Steam: Discussions, Reviews, and User Generated Content

Commercial content is not permitted

Unless otherwise specified, discussions are not a place for commercial activity.

Examples of commercial content include:
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https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6862-8119-C23E-EA7B

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Cougarific:

Rules and Guidelines For Steam: Discussions, Reviews, and User Generated Content

Commercial content is not permitted

Unless otherwise specified, discussions are not a place for commercial activity.

Examples of commercial content include:
Advertisements
Referral promotions
...
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6862-8119-C23E-EA7B

Seems you didn't read well the rules.

It's forbidden to moderate yourself, report, this is the rule.

Ooops just tansgressing myself. :=)

Tips to OP: Find someone else to quote your video smartly. Or perhaps ask to dev, dunno.

[Edmon]

Originally posted by Dorok:

I believed it was more a welcome guide for newbies. So not for MI. Well as dev are butchering the default difficulty, it could be for Commando.

This should mean more margin for good enough set of start mercenaries. But I still haven't tried all possible start mercs, not what allow Commando at start in term of start money, and cost of mercs.

It works for any difficulty.

Originally posted by Cougarific:

Rules and Guidelines For Steam: Discussions, Reviews, and User Generated Content

Commercial content is not permitted

Unless otherwise specified, discussions are not a place for commercial activity.

Examples of commercial content include:
Advertisements
Referral promotions
...
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6862-8119-C23E-EA7B

On topic guides for games are not advertisements, neither are videos about mods and let's plays, as long as they are for the right game in the right forum. Steam even allows you to DIRECTLY link such videos in the guides section and then use those links in the forums.

People only report people making guides because they don't like youtube(rs), thinking that they are only in it to make money, without ever understanding that anyone who hasn't got literally millions of subs is not making any actual real money from youtube.

Note: One thing that isn't allowed, is backseat moderating, and that actually is against Steams community Guidelines. I know this, because I am a CM and actually moderate a large section of Steams forums myself...

Originally posted by Dorok:

Tips to OP: Find someone else to quote your video smartly. Or perhaps ask to dev, dunno.

I have written permission from the publisher to make guides and content for the game and put in the spaces to help players out :).

There was a time when Steam didn't want people "advertising youtube", but, now videoes are welcome as long as they are on topic and not actual ads for unrelated things. That's why steam added native youtube video intergration to the platform.

People who try to shutdown fans making youtube content of games actually really hurt the future of those games, because many people judge the quality of a game by the metric of "Everyone on youtube/twitch is playing it".

[Cougarific]

Originally posted by Edmon:

Steam even allows you to DIRECTLY link such videos in the guides section .

Originally posted by Edmon:

in the guides section .

There's also a VIDEOS section for y'know...videos.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1084160/videos/

Originally posted by Dorok:

report, this is the rule.

Cool... Reported.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Edmon:

Originally posted by Dorok:

I believed it was more a welcome guide for newbies. So not for MI. Well as dev are butchering the default difficulty, it could be for Commando.

This should mean more margin for good enough set of start mercenaries. But I still haven't tried all possible start mercs, not what allow Commando at start in term of start money, and cost of mercs.

It works for any difficulty.

Originally posted by Cougarific:

Rules and Guidelines For Steam: Discussions, Reviews, and User Generated Content

Commercial content is not permitted

Unless otherwise specified, discussions are not a place for commercial activity.

Examples of commercial content include:
Advertisements
Referral promotions
...
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6862-8119-C23E-EA7B

On topic guides for games are not advertisements, neither are videos about mods and let's plays, as long as they are for the right game in the right forum. Steam even allows you to DIRECTLY link such videos in the guides section and then use those links in the forums.

People only report people making guides because they don't like youtube(rs), thinking that they are only in it to make money, without ever understanding that anyone who hasn't got literally millions of subs is not making any actual real money from youtube.

Note: One thing that isn't allowed, is backseat moderating, and that actually is against Steams community Guidelines. I know this, because I am a CM and actually moderate a large section of Steams forums myself...

Good to know but it changed, few years ago, for an indie game with strictly zero let's play, I was enjoying a lot the game, Utlimate Space Commando, and did let play and posted video link in the forum.

It got deleted for publicity, a channel with 10 views max, sure publicity, it was taking me for an idiot.

EDIT:
Well not Utlimate Space Commando, perhaps Storm Guard Darkness is Coming, I forgot lol.

[Edmon]

Originally posted by Cougarific:

Originally posted by Edmon:

Steam even allows you to DIRECTLY link such videos in the guides section .

Originally posted by Edmon:

in the guides section .

Yes, you can make a guide and link the videos directly in the guide and you can also link that guide and therefore the videos in the forum. The point is that youtube guides are now welcome in both the forums and the guides section and both places allow the links, where as before they didn't.

Stop driving this thread off topic with this spam now please?

Ruining any hope of good feedback that might actually be used to improve the guide.

[Cougarific]

Your video isn't in the Guides section. That's a link to your YT channel. That's self-promotion and it's against Steam's Rules.

Reported.

[lumrod]

IMO, an optimal start is the one that gets your IMP to lvl 4, or close, at the end of Ernie island. You can get to 3 with minimal fighting and to 4 at the fort. Means doing most of the island solo, but is only sort of easy if you go melee. Mind you, xp rewards from quest are divided among the team, so the fewer, the better, for that end.

The idea is that it may be more efficient to get at first, say, a 3- 4 men squad of lvl 4 mercs than a team of five or six lower levels, draining experience. It's maybe a risk reward thing, but i think it can work financially if you are aggressive enough to go for one of the richer mines, at first.

[FatalException]

You put me in somewhat of a rough spot making a "beginner" guide and starting on MI.

On First Blood you get higher starting funds, so adding Kalina isn't as much of a waste as it still allows you to recruit Fox.

While on MI Kalina is certainly not optimal. IF you are ready play on MI, getting to the Rust and picking those guaranteed rifles is trivial.

You can even do so without any penalty while not using psycho if you send Livewire in alone. Which is another reason while livewire is the "optimal" starting mechanic.

For the IMP I prefer night ops and teacher for easy night sniping and almost double the effective training. This allows you to bumb up livewire, Barry and fox to 80+ shooting in 4 days of training right on square 1. Though arguably you get more out of traits other then teacher later in the game.

I would certainly not pick heavy weapons, by the time it matters meltdown is there for you.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Cougarific:

Your video isn't in the Guides section. That's a link to your YT channel. That's self-promotion and it's against Steam's Rules.

Reported.

I don't know who is right or wrong, you'll see from your report.

But I really don't understand such behavior. It's pure hypocrisie as OP can make a basic Steam guide juste quoting the video and then quot the guide.

That said if you wanted dynamite the thread you achieved it and again you aren NOT authorized to moderate in the forum, next time I'll report you.

[Cougarific]

Originally posted by Dorok:

I don't know who is right or wrong

There's a Videos tab for videos and a Guides tab for guides. Is it really that hard to figure out?

[Dorok]

Calm down, I don't know what you eat this day but you should avoid.