Gorth

...but why does he hate our freedom? Sorry, couldn't resist Some mechanics are bound to please some and displease others. Having a choice of mechanisms would be nice, but the ROI might not be worth the effort.

You sound almost like an old friend of mine, who bought an old Vespa (late seventies model) and put it back in working order

Aristes the Gadgetmancer I know very little of this game. Will just take a seat and observe. It (usually) never hurts to expand ones horizon.

Not at hand (I'm at work) I'll check when I get home tonight. I think I just shortcircuited a pair of pins for a few seconds then let it boot up from a usb stick with the most recent bios version on it (which it was able to do after the "hard reset"). Edit: And switching off power completely while short circuiting it, as in disconnection the mains

Maybe he "reset" his bios somehow? From personal experience with ASUS motherboards (something I have suddenly become very apprehensive of ever buying again), the bios doesn't recognise "newer" cpus out of the box and deadlocks after the first boot up. It simply fails to detect a valid cpu. My own fix was to hard reset the bios and boot up from a usb stick with a newer bios. (it would boot up fine the first time, update it's hardware table, marking the cpu as unknown and die at the cpu detection on the second boot) Don't know if it is the issue, but the symptoms sounds familiar

You must be really old, if you predate Prehistorik. It is still true though. I remember when the first games came out with a "save" feature. They were crpgs (well, dungeon crawls actually) and strategy games

We might want somebody (Ira?) to do a bit of quick scouting on C:12 and D:12, just to see what hostile activity there is around the Drassen mine. South Chitzena always seems harder than north Chitzena for some reason Edit: Never mind ths scouting, I just realised that our path of retreat is bocked by hostiles in central Drassen

*taking notes... need bigger clues* Nightshape, we need to talk about those worm cans... and this has gone places far removed from Germany and videogames

I feel the exact opposite way. It becomes all about metagaming. Planning trips between save points, creating an overall disjointed feel to a game, talk about "immersion" killers

You could always send Ira out looking for Skyrider. If she runs into enemy patrols... no big loss But agreed, preferably we'll be able to look at all the surrounding squares. We could use a lot a milita in this game. Even on Novice, you need to replenish the militia regularly just to keep status quo. I sometimes use the M.E.R.C. mercs for that kind of rear guard action (and loot hauling). @Majek: What was that about destroying the SAM? Can you actually do that? Is it a 1.13 feature? Edit: Aww... poor Grizzly. The (or rather my) problem with Buzz is her nice round zero medic skills, which means she can't even unwrap a band aid and put it on her knee to save her life.

We already have a L4D thread discussing the subject. But then, this didn't really have anything to do with L4D at all, did it?

It's a bloody massacre! How can you not love this game?

Well, if the counter attack could possibly be that devastating (I haven't tried 1.13 on expert), maybe Cambria isn't such a bad idea. What about Chitzena? Our expensive mercs probably aren't insured, so we better make them last all two weeks if possible

The tiny symbols at B:13 and N:3 are airports. That means you can get supplies from online stores flown in and distribute to your mercs. Also, there is a freelance helicopter pilot in the game that can operate out of the airport and airlift your squads, either to or from where they want to go. Saves a lot of walking time. Not to mention if one of your squads have been beaten up badly, you might to evacuate them to a safe spot as fast as possible. The San Mona mine is a bit special, because it doesn't really have any gold, but is used by a mafia boss (Kingpin) to hide his cash in. You can grab it, but an otherwise useful, neutral town might end up being hostile. I do take a childish delight in, late in the game, to fill his house with C4, both inside and outside against the walls, then start pushing remote control buttons to see him and his goons turn into something akin to spaghetti bolognese that escapes a blender. But that is late in the game Drassen and Chitzena have the two easiest mines to take. Chitzena also has a couple of small quests, save the tourists and reposess the chalice (I've never tried the option of giving it to Kingpin). I seem to remember that one of your headhunting (literally) marks sometimes hides out there too. The only thing I remember in Drassen is to establish the food supply to Miguels rebels in Omerta with the help of the drunk priest. Edit: Red = health (hitpoints). If you take enough damage, you start bleeding and lose health automatically until bandaged. Blue = Energy. Activity requires energy and there is only so much to go around. If gets low enough, your merc will collapse on the ground after uttering sometimes rather funny comments. If they spend a lot of time running, they need short breaks to catch their breath again Green = Morale. Various things affect morale, the presence of old enemies in the team, deaths of team members and some mercs are just abject cowards. If the going gets too tough, some of them might pack up and run away.

Wow, I've never had more than 5 mercs in total in the initial drop Yeah, Airport (to give us access to Bobby Rays Guns-n-Things), the mine, Skyrider, North East SAM sort of. It's almost a ritual

Maybe they aren't literally hotels, but symbolises something? Like places where you stay, but don't really belong to?

I've been busy reading maps. My "Atlas of True Names" arrived in the mail today. Maybe there was a kender amongst my ancestors.

Medic Candidates... I only consider 70+ "proper" medics Depending on how you are going to deploy and use them. When playing myself, I usually don't expect my medics in assault roles, more like hanging back taking care of the wounded and in a pinch provide short range cover fire for the wounded and dying. Which agan means, as a preference, medics that can hit the side of a barn, but not necessarily the stamina and speed of frontline soldier. Numbers in brackets are their marksman skills, not medic skills. All are good medics. Dr.Q (60) - Night Ops Spider (90) - Night Ops Thor (74) - Stealth MD (66) - Teaching Fox (70) - Teaching Danny (61) - ? Cliff (84) - ?

You've only missed out on the greatest squad based, tactical combat game ever (and thats coming from an x-com lover) Short background: The president of a small island nation has been ousted by the self proclaimed "Queen" (the villain). The now ex-president has gone overseas and spent his savings on hiring mercenaries to liberate his country from the unelected, dictatorial queen. The goal of the game is to kill the queen. To do this, you start by creating the protagonist and hire mercenaries to help you do the fighting. Since the country is full of hostile troops, patrols and garrisons, you need to fight your way from your starting point to the queens palace. No idea what the speed record is, but I think most players do it by occupying territory, capturing mines (generates daily income to pay your mercs) and by solving mini quests (bounty hunting), selling trophies from endangered species and sometimes by just selling loot to merchants. Your protagonist and mercs level up and become better along the way. Unlike Oblivion, this game has a working "increase skill by using" system. Crack the whip over your mercs and make them sweat for their pay. Running around with heavy load increases strength, practising knife throwing increases dexterity, training local militia gives better leadership etc. In many ways, it plays like a crpg with a very large party (up to 3 squads with 6 members each + 20 militias against hordes of regular army troppers in some situations). It features destructible landscape, mustard gas grenades, heavy weapons, rocks, crafting system that makes a mockery of anything I've seen since, best tactical combat anywhere etc. In short, one awesome, regrettably way overlooked and underrated game Edit: Not to mention some of the most fun, hilarious, morbid, curious and facepalming npcs you can imagine (and more than 60 of them). Some of them get along, some don't. You need to manage your parties.

I think you are up against stiff competition from Scope (in case you hadn't noticed Crashgirls avatar) for the sniper role A few agreements and lots of diversity in the suggestions. Since we can't hire everybody, how do we go about it? Sort them in categories and vote (similar to what Hurlshot suggested), or just start out with the consensus ones first and see if we can hammer out the details? Or do we leave it to the gamemaster to do fair arbitration?

Wouldn't our main protagonist be responsible for the leadership part? I think he/she should stay put in a safe place and train militias if we auto-lose the game by said persons death Ira is free and a decent teacher (can teach the grunts some basic medics). Dimitri is also free and a fair mechanic. A couple of personal favourites for positions are Vicki, Wolf & Trevor for mechanic, Barry & Red & Fidel for explosives and Cliff, MD & Spider for medics. Generally, Wolf seems to offer the best jack of all trades for the money (imho).

Just for convenience, the starting numbers hiding behind the pretty faces: If anybody wants it sorted or colour coded in a particular way, just tell me.

Ok, so it gets zero points for realism, but it sure looks like fun in a comic book action kind of way

Waiting for the budget

How long do you usually hire mercs for? Just thinking about the budget. I never leave home without Grunty. ... On a side note - If budget allows, I try to fit in Igor too as a second gun besides a medic and a mechanic (Steroid be damned). Some day, Igor and Ivan shall fight together and together immortalise the Dolvich name