How to deal with enemy rocket launchers? (playing 1.13 mod)

[Rampage]

So Im in this battle and suddenly the enemy fires a rocket at my second IMP created merc, instakill.... Feels kind of cheap to lose one of my favorite soldiers this way, how do I deal with it / prevent this from happening?

[Kmordain]

Snipe. Stealth. Your own rocket launchers. Grenades. Save before every battle and try different tactics. I'm really glad to see people are still actively developing and playing the 1.13 mod.

I have a day-time ops team and a night-ops team. I prefer night-ops and stealth. Hit, fall back, hide, flank, repeat.

[HolyCrab]

"Save before every battle" + Save before every *turn*. IMPs are important and you can't resurrect dead Merc or create new one, so play wisely and use every opportunity to your adventage.

[DedZedNub]

Well, haven't played far enough to ever get too many enemies with RPGs. I have this disease to start over.

But, I'd suggest these possibilities, in case you haven't thought of them.

-- Mortars
-- Using a Camouflaged Spotter to assist a sniper to take them down
-- Smoke -- not sure if that effects all vision, but it is an idea.
-- Using Night and Weather with reduced visibility to your advantage.
-- Suppression -- shooting into and around that hex should increase his chance to panic, cower, or take cover.
-- Grenades that effect over time or have a large AoE can be good too.
-- Try using the Robot.

Mortars are supposedly able to fire in an arc over things, so you might be able to hit them without them hitting you directly.

Spotters can locate them, and if masterful, might not be seen if camouflaged and stealthy. Meanwhile snipers with good marksmanship, and you'll have to read a bit more about the sniper/spotter mechanic in V1.13 as I've forgotten it -- used it only 2-3 times but it worked -- these snipers can hit greyed enemies that your team knows about. It will be a bit harder, but possible.

So what you might do is set up a sniper fully looking down the scope (L key to look in a certain direction, L key again to use the attachments such as the scope to lock down the view -- read more about that again at the website or in the docs in the game's folder).

Then spot him with someone else's view. Chance to hit will be lower than standard shooting at what sniper sees himself, but should be possible.

Don't forget that Night and Weather do not allow the same visibility range, they reduce it. So this can make you get the jump on them. RPGs are not likely to have a good interrupt chance, not compared to veteran friendlies with fast weapons.

Also, don't forget that you can suppress enemies by firing either into their hex or a nearby hex. Point is, you can reduce the enemy morale this way, if that RPG guy cowers or panics and can't shoot -- he's not a problem. Read more about the mechanic in v1.13 website or docs -- tons of cool stuff in this game.

Grenades with a DOT (damage over time) may do the trick. Smoke might allow you to get close and pre-empt the enemy.

Robot might be able to take the blows and I think it can be repaired if damaged.

Also don't forget that if you "prep" and enemy, he tends to be unable to interrupt. By "Prep" I mean get a single shot into him. I often used in the early game hollow point ammo in quick firing pistols like Makarov to get many shots off and prep and enemy. Basically his aim is thrown off, his focus lost, or he flinches as he loses stamina. You don't have to kill or damage hit points to achieve this. The idea is he is interrupted from his potential to interrupt. Now this works on EASY difficulty, but remember EASY in v1.13 is like EXPERT in JA2 original game.

So anyway, that's off the top of my head. You might want to check the stats info on what an RPG in the game is like -- that info might give you a plan as well.

[HolyCrab]

Thanks for great tips. If you allow me, I want to share my point of view too.

Mortars are good but you have to select your targets wisely because of scarce and expensive ammo. Grenage launchers are more suited for few enemy soldiers. Tear/Mustard gas grenades become obsolate mid to late game though, nearly all elite troops have gas masks.

Suppression fire is not a good idea unless it is absolutely necessary imho, because soldiers have very limited action points(AP), so I think we have to save APs to interrupt enemy or shoot to kill.

[DedZedNub]

@ tako_muro

Fair comments, you may be right saying so.

I found that the latest Stable of v1.13 had a decent amount of starting mortar ammo. Available on IMPs and certain characters you could get. But mainly you could get them off the Explosives guy Devin when he was in Drassen -- I think it just took progression to 25 % or so when the first better weapons appeared in stock at Bobby Rays -- same time period. But that was on EASY Difficulty which I just customize for more pool for Deidranna and more aggressive to make up for that choice. Again, I think Easy on Slow progression is hard enough, but progression might be the same in other Difficulties or better.

Would taking Alma help at all with its army base, or can any of the facilities help with such ammo??

Now, I don't know how bad it gets and how many shells you need to stock up. But Devin does sell some at least at that point.

Your saying that Tear/Mustard gas grenades become obsolete -- now that's scary. It also suggests you have a major issue with Elites -- another reason I play on EASY, customized but still it's not probably as bad as Expert, more of lesser quality enemies isn't quite as bad, as less of better quality enemies in JA2, especially if you are using the New Trait system (which really seems important in the new Dev Builds for v1.13 after Stable -- seems haven't played enough though -- but for example, enemies can be set to have and use traits also, ouch).

On suppression fire, might have to do a bit with our teams having a different average quality make-up. Also on difficulty level probably. My team almost always has people who can't hit the broad side of a barn. So those guys suppress whether I like it or not. The only other potential use, if trying to attack, is to flank and then either prep with no penetration weapons, or beat up those hit once with unarmed, a grenade throw, melee, or thrown weapons. Again, though, I sort of like so far the suppression mechanic, but I play on EASY difficulty which may skew things. I expect that on higher difficulties there are more of the better enemies, more elites, and most of them are even more immune to suppression while dishing out more on your own people. This can make suppression a net negative. So, you may be quite right about that.

Also, to be fair, you probably go farther into the game with more high quality weaponry available to all. Under such conditions, you need good mercs and good equipment. You probably don't want to waste much on suppression then. But it might also, possibly, mean that you undervalue autoweapons over heavy weapons like mortars though. Not saying it is so, just saying it might be worth a review in your mind, to be sure you aren't just precluding an approach.

Keep in mind, though, that suppression otherwise is about number of rounds nearby -- either in or thru that hex or square (exact mechanics I don't recall). So you need a weapon that fires often and has lots of easy to find ammo. So you don't need the best weapons to suppress. You just need perhaps a psycho with a lower tier weapon with highly available ammo.

But, if what you are saying is an accurate feel of the situation, well, that would be a bit depressing. I guess this is why I stick with EASY so far as my basic difficulty level, and just customize aggression and bump up numbers for Deidranna's Pool, Garrisons, and Patrols. EASY on V1.13 is supposed to already be more than Expert on JA2 classic. That's pretty bad already. I don't up Bobby Ray availability. The reason is I don't want this to be a game mostly about equipment and its availability because I know what that means. Deidranna will have more or I will become dependent on gear. If I tend to have good gear, I want good Mercs only. That creates a vicious spiral where then I don't know what sucks, so I don't know what is good in comparison. It means I have habits based on quality gear and quality Mercs -- which means I may up the difficulty level which then makes it a high risk game across the board.

I guess I play on EASY mostly because otherwise there is way too much risk of a one shot and you are dead. That might be realistic but it isn't that much fun. Even if you think it might be, it causes this need to optimize everything and use one single approach. Truth is, there is always another way. If a difficulty level creates this single-mindedness and need to maxi-min, when the game is already super-detailed, has lots of micro-management, and risky enough to lead to a two or three shot death from a single enemy even on EASY (who can fire off at least 3-5 shots anyway each turn), then it gets ridiculous. I mean, I want to have a good chance to know my Mercs, else why choose them. I don't mind making a dumb mistake and losing the occasional Merc. But if I'm going to be pretty sure that I'm going to lose 3 each gaming session of a few hours, and that maybe even if I do save-scum, that is out of control. (Well, at least on the first few tries to complete it. I've never played a game past the halfway mark, even when I had that easily achieved one time. I just stop when I take too long a break and start over to re-familiarize myself with the game -- a terrible disease I have with most games)

It's a game. I don't like save scumming unless I do something stupid out of ignorance, unfamiliarity with the game, or over-confidence. I give my self at least one do-over each session otherwise anyway, since JA2 has it's issues in design. Similarly, I gave up on having inventory management AP costs because it is too complicated to be sure everything works as you expect with all the LBE gear and I am not going to waste my life on memorizing everything in the game. I can balance that, in my mind, by adding more troops and customizing the enemy .ini so on.

Sorry, I went on too long. But, it could be then, from the look of things, that when they change things about the mortars, like they once did with the sniper rifles, they made the enemies more common mortar availability a real problem. Or when they worked on the enemy A.I. or its progression steps, what they get as the progression moves up.

At some point, you can't know that was all going to happen. If so, then you may ... may ... want to consider improving your odds -- maybe with more of the stuff you think might help being available at Bobby Ray's or with Devin, etc.

If the A.I. is taking advantage of something the Designer changed, all is fair when you decide to balance it for the sake of fair play and entertainment.

Otherwise, I can't think of much else you could try. Except maybe using Militia more to soften them up. Seems like it gets tough at least in your game. But I can't think of much else that is possible. Unless there is a way to fight in sectors that are pretty easy to handle enemy mortars in, or some way to avoid their triggering, seems there may be not many ideas left to try. Maybe someone else will have some way, damn.

Normally, I'd think that stealth combined with a Sniper, or a nite-ops patrol would do it. But Nite-Ops doesn't seem as effective so far, for me in v1.13 against veteran or elites. Good otherwise, but I tend to have to take it mostly from Admins and some Soldiers, then I wait for counter-attacks to make it easier and level up. Plus I use rooftops. Mortars would probably take the rooftops away. Elites would probably make any nite-ops a chore unless they are full Nite-Ops with Stealth, and still -- who knows. This might even be a core weakness with the game of JA2, which is partly why I never complete the games.

The trump cards you can use, in general, are those that once progression of the story hits a high enough level, will be used by Deidranna better and with more of it.

Maybe it is just v1.13 that did this, but with more Elites available as you progress the story -- gaining cities, levels, territory -- and more gear to use, well eventually the numbers game is going to wreck your plans. You certainly can't hold onto everything unless your militia can sort of go toe to toe with most of the enemies. So militia rules are going to matter a great deal. You cannot possibly have the same amount of gear, because eventually scavenging against Elites is just not very workable. If well-equipped Elites can go toe to toe with you using the v1.13 A.I., the numbers are against you and progression is against you.

That's the one thing about this scenario that I think is a problem with JA2. People used to talk about single man defeating classic JA2. Well that was a design flaw. One man working fast with Nite-Ops mostly against non-Elites, bypassing the chance for the delay on progression to be fully manned in the Deidranna's army, well yeah it bypasses the whole progression mechanic.

But otherwise, I think normally speaking, the progression should win the day. Unless you have some way to just out-play or out-man it, either with gear, numbers in a sector, militia, or average quality of Merc against Elite -- I think as you expand and as Deidranna's frontline contract into her strongholds, well -- the player is going to start losing badly. There is an attrition mechanic -- if the pool is limited -- you can either make it go dry and so depend only for a time on the reserve and minor replenishments, or you can take advantage of any delays to maneuver the replenishments into Garrison and patrol positions. But that will not happen if the difficulty level has an unlimited pool, such as Insane's default has, or if you just can't do enough clearing quickly enough. I do set Deidranna on Aggressive, this makes her constantly throw waves of enemies onto my cities, wasting units on my garrisons of militia and a few garrison Mercs. If those battles go well, I benefit from the scavenging and experience, and the attrition from Militia losses mostly.

But if you have her not set on Aggressive, then maybe it is harder because you are going into her defenses and her defensive patrols. That is going to be really hard. I get to just assault mostly un-augmented garrisons and a few patrols. You have to take on lots of patrols and garrison, at maximum augmented strength. If so, wow, that's going to be hard. Real hard.

[HolyCrab]

Thanks for tips again.

As you know, with 1.13 unoffical patch you can change many aspects of the game. I like scavengign and love to use "Enemies Drop Everything" with "poor BobbyRyan" options.

I try to think and play like a Commando, so I use suprise attacks and stealth. I never use rookies on battles without militia support, they are just pack mules and trainers for me, probably a decision I made after many disappointments. As you might guess, I prefer 3 Commandos instead of 10 idiots. Because of low number of troops, I have to finish combats without 'a' mistake. So I save every turn and am not ashamed of doing. :)

Plus to that I'm sure everyone have major issues with Elit troops, they are pain in the butt; well trained and equiped. They use camo and lay ambushes often, which is painful to experience. I can't give you spoiler but, based on one of difficlty options (Sci-Fi), they might bring crazy weapons to battle. I even wrote a rhyme for them "difficulty doesn't matter, one way or another, we have to meet with Elite" :D

And I need to explaing sometihg, I stopped using mortars a long time ago (because of scarse/expensive ammo and my play style) and I don't have any knowledge about latest status of mortars. I bring mortar to Capital city only and use it against tanks, I prefer anti tank rockes except Capital City.

[DedZedNub]

Interesting. I'm not so brave to use as often a small group. However, I will admit that sometimes too many guys is just a problem waiting to happen. It does seem that if you have too many people, you run into issues where one of them gets caught in a bad situation and is flanked and just food for the fishes.

Currently, I think I can handle normally 8 member squads okay, and if I get to set up upon invading a sector, then sometimes I can do okay with up to 12. But when I'm defending a sector, if I do not have Militia, then when in a City you can get those reinforcements of enemies from adjacent sectors that trail in as you are in the tactical map. That can be really a bit to manage to get them all to turn towards the most dangerous direction near each, crouch, and so on. Luckily, you can do most of the organizing when using the Sector Inventory screen. But the click management otherwise can just make larger squads an issue.

So I'd truly understand where a 3-5 man squad can be a sweet spot, especially if they are of high quality. I used to like a 6 man squad, but I just get a real kick out of using the Misfits.

[HolyCrab]

Originally posted by DedZedNub:

Interesting. I'm not so brave to use as often a small group...

Actually, you are the brave imho, not me. Because, for me at least, it is easier to play with few experienced troops. With right weapons, equipmet and timing, enemy never know your location. You can easily take them out one by one. Plus to that I have a strange feeling about enemy behaviour, I think enemy can guess your general location if you have large number of troops (Note: it is just a feeling, I don't have any phtsical proof).

I have simple recruit policy for my combat squad "Do you wanna join battles? Then come to me with high marksmanship, high experience and Night Ops".