A few questions

[Ninja2dan]

A few questions that I have that aren't discussed in the manual and don't seem to be answered on the forums here yet. I am using the 1.11 patch.


I am on around Day 71, have a full squad of well-equipped mercs, and have been able to complete a variety of missions. So far I have been given the Army Base next to Campecino, and was just promoted to the rebels as a Junior Attack Leader after successfully taking over CdO.

1) What is the point of the Army Base under my control? I see that I do have some guards that I can order to different sectors, but what is the point in holding the base? There appears to be nothing there, nothing of value. The enemy keeps attacking it, and I'm tired of rushing in to defend it for no reason. If it has no real purpose, then I'm just going to let it fall. My personal doctor was already killed when some of Sosa's men attacked it the first time.

2) I have found several field manuals on bodies or in shops. Weapons manuals for the M203, SVD, MP5, etc. What are these for? I have tried activating them or seeing if they had another use, but all I can do is look at their Info page or drop them. They don't go into my quest inventory either. Are these used for anything, such as being able to read them to increase skills?

3) What's wrong with tripwire mines? I set them up and the enemy just walks or runs right through them and they don't even explode. At first I was just right-clicking to set them, but after not working I tried messing around a bit and found that I needed to drag the icon to make a red line representing the wire spread. At least now I can see the two stakes spread out with the 'M' marker over where the wire should be. But I don't see an actual wire, is there something missing? Why aren't they working when enemy units pass the trip line?

4) Maybe I haven't played long enough, but I'm wondering what the purpose is of all the TNT charges I'm finding. Their blast is pretty small, no shrapnel, and can't be detonated by remote. So what is their purpose? I can toss them like a grenade, but their timer is far too long to be useful in that role. Should I be saving these up for something later?

5) I got a truck from a quest. I have noticed that on the inventory screen there are two colored lines next to the truck icon, red and blue. I know that blue appears to be the cargo load. The higher up the blue bar goes, the fuller your cargo is. But what is the red bar, damage or fuel? I did notice that the bar appeared to go down when some government forces attacked my base and some nades went off right next to my truck. I might have seen this wrong, but I think the red bar is a damage meter? If not, what is the red bar for? And if the red meter is damage, how do I repair the truck?

6) I found the guy to order different vehicles from. Apart from the model appearance, is there any benefit between the various vehicles? Do some travel faster, hold less cargo, provide better travel concealment, or have any useful benefits that would make it worth getting something different than the default truck?


I have only been playing a couple of days now, so I will probably have more questions later. I would appreciate any advice or comments on these questions. Thanks.

[R@S]

1) What is the point of the Army Base under my control? I see that I do have some guards that I can order to different sectors, but what is the point in holding the base? There appears to be nothing there, nothing of value. The enemy keeps attacking it, and I'm tired of rushing in to defend it for no reason. If it has no real purpose, then I'm just going to let it fall. My personal doctor was already killed when some of Sosa's men attacked it the first time.At the army base you can gather 3 NPC's that help you with different things. The Medic that heals you for free, the mechanic that repairs your weapons(need to hold weapon in hand for it to work) and you can get a trader that has the most impressive arsenal in the game. Those NPC's are available through side missions, I'm not going to tell you which;)

2) I have found several field manuals on bodies or in shops. Weapons manuals for the M203, SVD, MP5, etc. What are these for? I have tried activating them or seeing if they had another use, but all I can do is look at their Info page or drop them. They don't go into my quest inventory either. Are these used for anything, such as being able to read them to increase skills?They are supposed to increase the skill of the respective weapon if you carry them in your inventory, but I have never noticed any difference and they take too much inventory space to carry around with you.

3) What's wrong with tripwire mines? I set them up and the enemy just walks or runs right through them and they don't even explode. At first I was just right-clicking to set them, but after not working I tried messing around a bit and found that I needed to drag the icon to make a red line representing the wire spread. At least now I can see the two stakes spread out with the 'M' marker over where the wire should be. But I don't see an actual wire, is there something missing? Why aren't they working when enemy units pass the trip line?The Trip-Wires and mines are weak, and if one of the enemies sees them, it means all his mates also knows they're there. I've found that they are most effective against Bandits, the Algeiran and Rebels have too high skills and notice them very fast.

4) Maybe I haven't played long enough, but I'm wondering what the purpose is of all the TNT charges I'm finding. Their blast is pretty small, no shrapnel, and can't be detonated by remote. So what is their purpose? I can toss them like a grenade, but their timer is far too long to be useful in that role. Should I be saving these up for something later?They are meant to be placed close to other explosives to increase the blast, but grenades works just as well and have shrapnels. You can turnt the TNT on, but the fuse is something like 30 seconds and it's hard to get the enemy where you want in that short time;)

5) I got a truck from a quest. I have noticed that on the inventory screen there are two colored lines next to the truck icon, red and blue. I know that blue appears to be the cargo load. The higher up the blue bar goes, the fuller your cargo is. But what is the red bar, damage or fuel? I did notice that the bar appeared to go down when some government forces attacked my base and some nades went off right next to my truck. I might have seen this wrong, but I think the red bar is a damage meter? If not, what is the red bar for? And if the red meter is damage, how do I repair the truck?The red bar shows damage, and the only way to repair the car is by using an exploit in the game. Give the car keys to a bartender, blow up the car, then ask for the car back and you'll get a brand new one. Remember to empty the trunk before you do this.

6) I found the guy to order different vehicles from. Apart from the model appearance, is there any benefit between the various vehicles? Do some travel faster, hold less cargo, provide better travel concealment, or have any useful benefits that would make it worth getting something different than the default truck?Speed and cargo space are the most important factors, but there is also the matter of how much sound they make. All this is calculated in how often you'll get ambushed by bandits. Personally I go for the biggest trunk(URAL then APC when I got the cash for it) but early in the game a fast car is very useful.

Remember to use the unofficial patch and set all the TGA files in your BMP\HUD\ sub-folders to read-only. It'll save you some frustration later from unexplainable CTD's.

Have fun

R@S

[Ninja2dan]

Thanks for the reply R@S.

About the Army Base, the doctor that was there from finishing a quest is no longer available. He was killed during a surprise attack on my base for the first time, and when he died he just dropped another large medic bag. I was unable to get to him in time to heal him or anything, and he never came back. I didn't really need him though, as I have a doctor available in the Jungle Camp as well as my own team. I did find one "exploit" out, if you sell a used medical bag or first aid kit to a bartender/con artist/etc you can then buy it back at full charge. I have since found several medic bags on a different quest.

I guess I need to wait longer to find the quests to get the trader and mechanic. I noticed that my base had up to 9 militia at one point, but I have since lost the base. I guess I can always go take it back when I have need for it, but right now it seems pointless because it's so close to the "enemy". If I leave for any amount of time to do a quest or sell off supplies, they send in a bunch of forces from Campecino and take the base over again. No idea how to stop that from happening, and I can't waste my time babysitting that base when I have other quests to do.

Honestly, I don't see the point in manuals then if you have to carry them on you. There instead should be a way to make your units read them to learn them, giving a small but permanent boost in the skill associated with that manual. After the manual is read, the condition can be reduced or what ever. As of now I see no point in them other than just another item taking up crate space.

So what's the point in using tripwires then? If the regular soldiers see them too soon and too easily, why even have them? On maps against bandits, you usually don't have time to even set them up before the bandits are all dead. I have some other AP mines including those sweet spec ops mines, but haven't tried them yet.

I'm guessing that the TNT charges might have some use later on, such as opening a gate or wall or destroying an object. Their blast radius is too small to be effective against troops, and without shrapnel they are really pointless in that role anyway. I was hoping they could be used for remote detonation, but that option isn't there.

So does anyone have a list of all available vehicles, along with their bonuses? I still am using the default awarded URAL, but the highest I've ever had the cargo hold was 1/3 up on the blue bar. And that was after picking up about 200k worth of items from the CdO assault. I doubt I need anything that large, and have ordered a HMMWV instead. I'd love to see a list of vehicles that includes their cargo capacity, health limits, speed, and noise levels.


About the unofficial patch, I saw that there is one but it was numbered 0.86 or something like that. Wouldn't that actually have a negative effect on my game since I'm using the 1.11 official patch?

I did notice that enemy units attacking me with M4's were bugged. The weapons lacked buttstocks, and they were firing the weapons by holding them over their heads. I sold the M4's to the shop, and when I came back they magically had buttstocks in place. I have also noticed that under-barrel launchers and MK's don't seem to work, they won't accept ammo.


Another question I forgot to ask, is there any point in using the various costumes? I found a nice ghillie suit that my sniper is using, it says it provides a concealment bonus. I have since found a lot of various rebel, soldier, and police uniforms. They add weight to my load, so is there any point in wearing them or are they just for looks?


I'm really enjoying this game so far. Few negatives and bugs, but most of it is good. I think the game could use another patch to clean up some typing errors and other issues, but other than that I think they have one hell of a game here.

[R@S]

If you've ordered the HMMWV from Rico Reyes in Cali Cantinos, prepare for a long wait. It's never gonna get there and you've lost the money you've put down. In vanilla you can only have 4 types of cars, the GAZ69, the Willies Jeep, the URAL and the APC. There are 2 other cars in the code, (Hummer and FMV A1) but they are not available anywhere(unless you play with the BFX mod, if I may be bold and mention my own work:))

The unofficial patch actually fixes a lot of those translation errors, along with the M4 butt bug, the other things you mentioned and various other issues. The naming thing is my mistake, mebbe I should've named it something above 1.11. I think it's up to 0.98 and I still contantly find things to fix. When I'm finished with it I'm sure it'll be up to 1.12 or something.

The uniforms can be used to gain access to towns that are hostile to you. If you play for the Rebels and are at war with the government, put one one and you can enter those government controled towns without triggering combat. But if you get too close to the police or soldiers, they will turn hostile.

[Ninja2dan]

Thanks for the information again. Looks like I'm going to try installing that patch and see how things go.

It's also good to see that the uniforms actually have a purpose. I think I need to stock up on some government uniforms next time. I still want to keep the ghillie suit, it looks nice on my sniper.

I'm a little annoyed at hearing about the vehicles problem. I was under the impression that they would be available, but only paid 1k as down payment. When I'm bringing in 20-200k per truckload of supplies to sell, that's really nothing.


I did come across an odd bug that has me a bit upset and annoyed. I just finished the mission escorting the guy from the Coca plantation to the Calderon house, and am supposed to head back to Tanya to inform her the mission went well. But for some reason when I enter the Jungle Camp, Vittori de Castigo keeps attacking me. I haven't done anything to insult him or attack him, so I have no idea why he attacks me. I can't talk to anyone else in the camp as long as he's there, and if I kill him in self defense the entire rebel camp goes after me.

I did notice that the government took back CdO, so I tried taking that back again to see if it fixed things. Nope. I'm thinking of just deleting all saved game data and starting over again from the beginning. Many missions were a serious pain the butt, but I'd rather keep playing than be stuck on this mission where I can't turn it in because I'm attacked from entering the rebel camp. I'm not wearing any uniforms other than the one Tanya gave me and the sniper ghillie, so it can't be from anything else. Any ideas before I wipe the data and start over again?

And I'd really not like to start over again anyways. I have a good team of people with excellent skills, fully tricked out weapons and armor, and a nice stash of weapons and ammo in a crate back at the rebel camp. I've also got about 250k in cash, and not yet finding anything better to buy on any of the vendors.


EDIT: I have tried reloading the game before I did the escort mission at the plantation, and everything seems fine there. I can leave the jungle camp and return without Castigo attacking me. It must be something wrong with the plantation mission that Tanya gives me, because he only seems to attack once I return from that quest. The town he was in, CdO, is still occupied by the enemy and even when I retake it he still attacks me when returning from that escort quest.

[R@S]

I did come across an odd bug that has me a bit upset and annoyed. I just finished the mission escorting the guy from the Coca plantation to the Calderon house, and am supposed to head back to Tanya to inform her the mission went well. But for some reason when I enter the Jungle Camp, Vittori de Castigo keeps attacking me. I haven't done anything to insult him or attack him, so I have no idea why he attacks me. I can't talk to anyone else in the camp as long as he's there, and if I kill him in self defense the entire rebel camp goes after me.This bug has been present since day one and there is no easy fix for it, I've heard that even the developers gave up on trying to fix it. The bug starts when you defend/attack CdO and one of your allies accidentally injures an NPC. Since you're playing for the rebels, it means the Indians are in conflict with the NPC's in that town, and when you then hire a new merc after that mission(or escort Pereira) you inherit that conflict and turn hostile towards the indian rebels. The trick is to go to the Rebel camp, park your mercs at the exit point, sneak up with one of your mercs and shoot a quick shot at the rebels. They will then turn hostile and you need to exit the sector as quickly as possible, without killing anyone. Then go to Fuerte Calderon and talk to Calderon, you'll get an option to buy neutrality from him for a cost of 50000 eldos. If you do the problem will be solved.

Good luck and don't forget to save often:)

R@S

[Ninja2dan]

This bug has been present since day one and there is no easy fix for it, I've heard that even the developers gave up on trying to fix it. The bug starts when you defend/attack CdO and one of your allies accidentally injures an NPC. Since you're playing for the rebels, it means the Indians are in conflict with the NPC's in that town, and when you then hire a new merc after that mission(or escort Pereira) you inherit that conflict and turn hostile towards the indian rebels. The trick is to go to the Rebel camp, park your mercs at the exit point, sneak up with one of your mercs and shoot a quick shot at the rebels. They will then turn hostile and you need to exit the sector as quickly as possible, without killing anyone. Then go to Fuerte Calderon and talk to Calderon, you'll get an option to buy neutrality from him for a cost of 50000 eldos. If you do the problem will be solved.

Good luck and don't forget to save often:)

R@S

I don't recall any of my team having injured a civvie or NPC when we took CdO, but I did forget to pick up some mines that I placed. I'm guessing that what you're saying is, when I let one of my mercs stay at the plantation while I make room to escort the guy, when I bring him back on it's causing this issue?

The part that I'm not clear on, is should I do your suggestion before I even try taking her next quest? As it is right now, nobody will attack me yet. So you're suggesting that in my present state, I go park all but one at the exit point, use that other person to take a single shot at the rebels to piss em off, then exit ASAP and head to Calderon to buy amnesty? So what happens with my relationship to the rebels after that? Will I lose my position as junior leader and be incapable of doing their missions?

And once I've done all this, there won't be any more problems if I need to change mercs in the future? What about the tripmines still sitting in the town? I will need to find a way to go in and pick up those mines (which are all near entry points) without alerting the local security. If they aren't a problem, I'll just leave them until I need to retake the town again later.

[R@S]

First take the "Escort Pereira" quest, then when you go back to the Rebel camp and Vittory turns hostile, just do what I suggested above.

When I said Allies I meant the Indians(Vittory and co) fighting with you against the government. Those you have no control over and they've prolly thown a nade close to a civie or something. This issue is also present when you play for the government, and the same "Fix" applies.

[Ninja2dan]

First take the "Escort Pereira" quest, then when you go back to the Rebel camp and Vittory turns hostile, just do what I suggested above.

Ok, I'll make sure to save before I do it. So I am to understand that once I come back and he goes postal after my team, I have one person sneak past him and fire a low-caliber shot at one of the other rebels to piss off everyone in the camp. Then, before they can catch me, I bust a move out of the camp and head back to Calderon to buy my forgiveness.

I'll give that method a try now, and will let you know how it turns out. Am I going to need to do this every time one of my allied NPC's injures a friendly?

[R@S]

Am I going to need to do this every time one of my allied NPC's injures a friendly?Nah, I don't think so. The indians are a special problem since they are a sub-division of the rebel side, not their own faction. The Olvidad rebels are also a sub-division but there isn't any problems with them.

The important thing is to know of the possibility to buy neutrality, it'll save you some frustration in case you accidentally injure someone and don't have an old save to revert back to.

And you can prolly kill Vittory if you like, he has served his purpose as a quest giver at that point and it won't impact the game that much.

[Ninja2dan]

The important thing is to know of the possibility to buy neutrality, it'll save you some frustration in case you accidentally injure someone and don't have an old save to revert back to.

And you can prolly kill Vittory if you like, he has served his purpose as a quest giver at that point and it won't impact the game that much.

I'm firing rounds into the rebel guards, all they say is watch my fire. When will I know I've fired at them enough time to make a run for it? Should I keep shooting until they all become aggressive?

If making them aggressive is the point, then all I'd really need to do is kill Vittori since he's running after me at this point. If he's not needed anymore and it won't have a negative effect on the game, that seems my best choice right?

[Ninja2dan]

Well, it looks like it worked just fine. I tried it the first time, placing everyone but one merc inside the exit point. They were all crouched, too close together to prone. But even then, when I upset the whole camp they were able to see and fire at my team and they beat them up pretty good while I waited for the timer to count down. So I tried it again, the second time around I popped a white smoke to screen my team at the exit point while the one guy went forward and killed Vittori.

After that I went back to Calderon and paid the 50k to make peace with the rebels again. He also had the option to pay 100k to make peace with the government, even after I made peace with the rebels. I haven't been back up there since I turned the quest in, not sure if that option is still there now. If so, what will that do? Does that mean I can be friendly with both sides again even though I'm technically a rebel member?


I'm finding a few new interesting items. The first one is some SWAT tactical vest, but I'm not sure if it's better than the M500 assault vest with a level IV ceramic plate insert. I can't believe my mercs can carry so little, as an infantryman I was humping about 200lbs of gear and still able to run when needed. Do mercs gain storage ability over time, or is there something in particular that I should work on to get their carry capacity up faster?

I'm also finding a couple grenade launchers available, one for the AK variants and one for the M16/M4 and HK models. I just found one of each, and one round of ammo for each, so I'm hoping more will pop up as I do more missions. I'm already on my 90th day and already my people are loaded up pretty well. I still see a lot of misc magazines for weapons I haven't spotted yet, like the L96 sniper rifle is only showing the rare magazine but no weapon yet. I'm also finding it impossible to find more magazines for my SR25 rifle.


I'll be off to work on more quests from Tanya. Since I can't easily enter towns she is pretty much the only one giving quests at the moment. I have everyone wearing police uniforms, so that might make it easier to enter towns as you suggested. Will find out later.

[Ninja2dan]

The game feels like it's going faster than I expected. I have already caught and turned in Bashirov, and still working for the rebels. But I've noticed a problem that hasn't seemed to go away.

For my rebel missions, as part of the rebellion plan, I'm being ordered to slowly take over all of the government-run cities. I go in, kill all the government forces, talk to the mayor who then hires a local rebel unit to guard the city. Mission complete, city is now rebel, and I am told to head back to Tanya.


Well, for some reason any time I take over a city it turns back into government control as soon as I leave. The only city that stayed under rebel control was SM. Cdo, PV, Campecino, Sagrada, they all turned green not long after I left them to head back and turn in the quests. It's similar to the Army Base getting taken over any time I left it.

Any ideas what's going on? Why are those cities moving back to government control as soon as I leave?


I also have a question about some armor I am finding now. It's some type of assault armor, and it weighs in at 21 without a plate insert. Is that a bug? The next armor below it only weighs 13. It's impossible for anyone to even wear a vest that weighs 21 when that's nearly the entire load limit of some of my mercs.

[Jules]

Have you check out the tips and tricks on the strategyfirst forums?

http://www.strategyfirst.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35010

I personally never play the rebels.

But as for the weight carrying capacities. After each battle I load up my mercs so they are atleast a few percent over 100 %. Then I have them lie in prone position and use the Record button and have each one of them run back and forth until the record total is about 1000 for each merc. If you do this training, eventually their strength and agility goes up. I wrote in the tips and tricks that you can do this for raising heavey weapons skills and throwing skills as well. By the time I'm near the end of the game my main character can throw almost as far as a Vog launcher.

[Colonel]

How exactly do you use the record button again ? I can't seem to figure it out.

[Jules]

Lets say for example you get a new weapon; the G36KE...

After purchasing it from a weapons dealer, I take the merc who will use it to an isolated part of town facing the black and white border area.

Then I give him unimportant ammunition that I never use(like the purple boxes of ammunition).

I then press "Record" button on the far right of the screen.

1.)Then I have him fire using 'Shoot from the hip' type of aim, left click, then right click, then left click then right ckick.... for a total of 15 shots.

2.)Then clean weapon with black box weapon cleaner.

Then stand up and repeat 1 then 2 until a total of 101 shots have been fired. After 100 shots the aiming time for that weapon is reduced(its called familiarity).

When you have finished 101 shots for example; Press Space bar to finish Recording.

So basically; Its
1.)"Record"
2.) Assign actions
3.) Space bar to finish recording and start.

[Colonel]

Thanx. I'll try it that way and see.

[Ninja2dan]

An odd thing happened. I completed the army base mission before I had a truck, and it's been a while now but I still haven't had the convoy mission. Is there a certain area that I should try visiting or loitering to get this quest? I'd really like to have the trader for my base.

[R@S]

An odd thing happened. I completed the army base mission before I had a truck, and it's been a while now but I still haven't had the convoy mission. Is there a certain area that I should try visiting or loitering to get this quest? I'd really like to have the trader for my base.Once you have the base it's a matter of chance, I think the value is 25%. What I do is travel around outside the safe zone until the mission is triggered. It might be a day or it might be 2 weeks, but it happens eventually.