Post your JA2 1.13 IMP designs - show us your Mercs

[Doug]

I put together my 'dream team' of 6 IMPs on JA2:Gold 1.13. Gonna post'em here. Hit me with your comments and suggestions or post your own and we'll look at them.

Obviously, no merc stands alone, so mine is a team with supporting players to cover what I think are all the roles required. Equally obviously, there are more than 6 roles, so some mercs need to cover more than 1, and some roles may need to have more than 1 merc cover them.

[Mormacil]

I tend to do to many theme runs to really hire 6 IMPs but generally use 1-2 to fill the niche roles I can't fill with themed mercs. I find two guys with Auto weapons and one Sniper to be godly in most situations. Nothing survives a 5.56 MG at close range or a heavier caliber at long range. Add in a medic with a medium range gun so he or she is always close to the rest of your team and you can go to town.

[Doug]

So your objection to IMPs is that they don't come with appropriate gear?

Cause clearly if you want a 'themed merc' nothing beats custom-design.

[Mormacil]

No no I mean IMPs have little personality, no real relationship interaction. No flavor so to speak. Currently I'm playing with mostly rednecks for fun. So that's lots of lower tier MERCs. When I get on my feet I will then mostly invest in hunting gear and US made forearms. That's a themed run IMO.

The gear was more about what do you use and why. So rednecks lack medics, hence my IMP is a medic.

[Doug]

Ah.. Makes sense. Certainly the IMP's lack the entertaining dialog. :)

[lolz.guru/cryyxu]

Hi!

What would be your ultimate powergaming squad of 6 IMPs?

Considering how years past since your last post you might have some newer ideas on top squads...

[Doug]

Първоначално публикувано от Sloty1984:

Hi!

What would be your ultimate powergaming squad of 6 IMPs?

Considering how years past since your last post you might have some newer ideas on top squads...

Regrettably, I haven't played much in the last year. I moved to South America and have been busy finding a property to buy, building a house, etc. This thread never really attracted the kind of build ideas I had hoped it would, so I let it die.

[lolz.guru/cryyxu]

So, would you keep the squad as you mentioned?
Or would you change something significantly?

[Doug]

Първоначално публикувано от Sloty1984:

So, would you keep the squad as you mentioned?
Or would you change something significantly?

Each IMP has my post-play commentary at the bottom as to what I might do differently for that particular merc. I have nothing more recent to add.

[lolz.guru/cryyxu]

So do you think I can use your guided team(with using the changes you posted in the bottom) to have a succesful playthrough?

[Doug]

Първоначално публикувано от Sloty1984:

So do you think I can use your guided team(with using the changes you posted in the bottom) to have a succesful playthrough?

Absolutely. I have.

[Doug]

Първоначално публикувано от Sloty1984:

So do you think I can use your guided team(with using the changes you posted in the bottom) to have a succesful playthrough?

If you feel my team is designed for approaches that don't suit you, make changes as you see fit to get a team you like better.

[Doug]

Update: The latest Build for JA2:Gold v1.13 Mod is 7609. Everything preceding this post refers to the previous build (4870).

Changes that matter to this thread:
Now can have up to 10 IMP mercs
The bug that I exploited to get an additional trait in 4870 has been fixed in 7609
Possible starting gear for trait changes

I think that's the list. However, with 10 IMPs the tradeoffs change and the "dream team" of 6 IMPs may experience some changes with 10. For one thing, I made a Squadleader... and a Spy. Haven't actually played yet, though. We'll see how it goes.

[DoubleBizzy]

I like to make "characters". Note I made 20 my min / 90 max via 1.13 ini file.

Bruce "Dragon" Lee
Loner
Martial Arts
Athletics
Thief or something that helps agi / AP
Dex & Agi 90, Str ~80-85, Wis ~75-80, Health ~65-70, Mec & Exp 0, Med 20. Whatever points are left you could do 20 Ldr if you want to be able train militia, or increase XP level, MRK as low as 55 or as high as ~75.

This guy hides around a corner or behind a window, I draw baddies out with some noisy gunfire, then he comes sprinting out karate kicking fools in the legs. Usually two hits takes them to the ground and they don't get back up. Then next turn I steal their gear and finish them off while they're still face down in the muck (which usually yields an extra ammo mag). Excellent way to accumulate gear, especially if you're going to play where you have to equip your own militia.



Jon "Duke" Nukem
Malicious
Gunfighter
Ambidextrous
Competitive Shooter
75,85,85,85,60,20,90,0,20,0,L2 (in order from top to bottom in stats assign screen)

Mows people down with dual wield pistols. Early game go with glock 17s (easy to get from baddies) or Beretta 92Fs - overall good pistols and easy to find ammo. You're unloading so much lead thanks to low AP costs and can hit consistently outside of weapon range. Hit rate is like 40% and I'm shooting from far, FAR away. Don't try to use machine pistols like glock 18 or Calico M950, you won't get all the AP firing and aiming bonuses. This guy hits stuff with pistols from farther away than my own character with an MP5A4 and 80 MRK.



Angus "McGruber" MacGyver
Phlegmatic
Fear of Insects (+25 pts, needed because Engineer forces Exp high too)
Engineer
Radio Operator?
Tech Wiz
60,70,75,65,90,0,55,60,20,70,L1

Repairs fast and can lock pick SAM sites / crates. Radio Operator allows me to do an artillery strike toward the end of the Drassen counter-attack, taking out 10-20 baddies depending on how they bunch up coming up the road to the Drassen Mine bar. Then reinforce. But, recently I've realized I can make my personal LDR / militia trainer the Radio Operator (at the expense of "Teacher"; militia still training fast without it), so I might switch to something else. Perhaps demolitions so he can throw grenades to make up for the weak MRK or athletics to run far and flank / close quickly.



"Horse" (myself)
Assertive
Squadleader
Teaching (Radio Operator? needs ~60-65 STR)
Instructor
60,70,75,55,85,75,80,0,20,0,L2
Good MRK, decent enough AGI, REALLY good at training fast / quality militia, recruiting, giving team members interrupts, and talking to NPCs.



Someday I'll make either a "Terminator" (like Duke but auto weapons), or "Rambo" (stealthy / knives), or other famous / infamous characters.

[Myll]

Responding to the original post here, albeit 3 years late, but a noticable inaccuracy I see trending is toward the required Leadership and militia. Vanilla game, to my knowledge, had no minimum and I could use Ira at 14 leadership to help crank out militia from the start to help counter the initial counter-attack early in the game at the airfield town Drassen. Also, the 1.13 mod raises the MINIMUM_LEADERSHIP_TO_TRAIN_MILITIA to an excessively high amount of 40 as the default in the current download. Change This manually to as low as 1! This enables your team to split up into small squads early on to split across Drassen and train 3 x efforts at once, along with other techniques for militia training that are otherwise incapable. You should only be penalized for the time it takes (increased with low skill). Let's think about this realistically, let's say an NPC has Marksmanship around 90 but Leadership at 4. Do you think this person could not train Militia to shoot? Sure he can, but his low leadership slows it down (i.e. communication skills and/or motivation methods would be amateur in contrast to skills to shoot).
You can skimp on Leadership at IMP creation, but I tend to use 40 as my typical starting number.

[Doug]

Първоначално публикувано от bscoms:

Responding to the original post here, albeit 3 years late, but a noticable inaccuracy I see trending is toward the required Leadership and militia. Vanilla game, to my knowledge, had no minimum and I could use Ira at 14 leadership to help crank out militia from the start to help counter the initial counter-attack early in the game at the airfield town Drassen. Also, the 1.13 mod raises the MINIMUM_LEADERSHIP_TO_TRAIN_MILITIA to an excessively high amount of 40 as the default in the current download. Change This manually to as low as 1! This enables your team to split up into small squads early on to split across Drassen and train 3 x efforts at once, along with other techniques for militia training that are otherwise incapable. You should only be penalized for the time it takes (increased with low skill). Let's think about this realistically, let's say an NPC has Marksmanship around 90 but Leadership at 4. Do you think this person could not train Militia to shoot? Sure he can, but his low leadership slows it down (i.e. communication skills and/or motivation methods would be amateur in contrast to skills to shoot).
You can skimp on Leadership at IMP creation, but I tend to use 40 as my typical starting number.

Any inaccuracies re. the Vanilla 1.12 version would be rather irrelevant to a post specific to the 1.13 mod. Other than that, the mod itself has undergone at least one major release since this post was started (Among other changes, you can now have up to 10 IMPs and they fixed the bug I exploited to give each IMP an additional trait.), so I apologize for any advice I gave that is no longer relevant or accurate. Use at your own risk. :)

Seems to me that the idea behind the minimum leadership to train is that some people, regardless of how skilled they are, are "naturals". That is, they lack the ability to analyze and/or generalize their skills in order to pass them on to others or they simply lack an appropriate persona to be heard (e.g. gain and maintain the attention of a pupil).