The Blue Sun Mod

[R@S]

Originally Posted by kjeltringen

Hello everyone!
I have been playing for a few hours now, and I'm liking it.
But it's not all that fun on my own. I know you can hire mercs from Mercat the bars, but are there other mercs to be found?
Help would be appreciated

Talk to the bartender, ask him to show you what he's got, then select the "Borrow radio and call M.E.R.C." option. You'll get a chance to browse through all the mercs, and if you're short on money, buy a slave instead

And welcome to the board, both you and silentype

[Kyle]

And welcome to the board

Yes indeed. The more the merrier!

You are in for a TREAT playing this mod!

Another option that you could pursue in regards to hiring mercs, is to take on the mission to retrieve the CIA files from the small base for Lond. Once the base is cleared, and one digs around enough, one will find a portable radio that allows for a lot of believable communications options, including those of hiring mercs! Bars no longer needed.

R@S, I'm not asking this to annoy you, although I know from firsthand experience how annoying this question is to receive as a mod developer, but due to some current and future Real Life intrusions into my schedule, my free time is going to get nipped in some major ways. That said, could you give me a ballpark figure as to when the next release of BSM is likely to be? If it's relatively soon, I'll give up playing BSM and focus on something else, and vice versa if it's a ways away.

If you don't know, that's perfectly fine. I just don't want you hating me for asking The Ultimate Annoying Question. Remember, I LOVE your mod! And since this mod's your "baby," that means that we're like family, right?

Yours!

[Headshot]

Hopefully this is a simple question.

How much stuff can the safe / storage at your base ( once captured ) hold and why is it not linked ( after capture ) to your safe / storage area from the bars?

Transferring all the stuff manually is a pain in the butt, so before I start hauling all the loads, can you give me an idea on how much it can hold or should I just be using the bars storage?

An additional question does the playing for yourself option mean I really dont have to do the rebel nor government missions and still be find the fugitive?

Headshot

P.S. how many free mercs like Paquito, Benicia, and Kelly are available to actually stay with you, not like Skyrider etc and where can they be found? I like doing a locals only type of game without hired help so to speak.
I am now at player lvl 9 and cgl 7

[R@S]

@Kyle
The test version will be ready in two weeks, and official release in a month, hopefully.

@Headshot
The safes and storage spaces has no limit, sorry you feel the various handling task frustrating, I do too at times. I could link the bartender storage space to the player safe, but then I would have to put a limit on when you can access it at the bar. There are some things the the player safe that should only be access after you conquer the base.

Yes, the play for yourself campaign will reveal the fugitive's location.

There is one more free merc beside the ones you mentioned.

And I'm keeping myself short and to the point because I haven't had my morning coffee yet, no other reason, honest

[D_F_N]

@Headshot , R@S

There are, at least, two other free mercs. That you can have permanent in your team that is. Its difficult to remember all of them (Vanilla & BSM)

[R@S]

Awe crap! D_F_N is right again, I forgot about the 2 you get by following the vanilla quest line and finding Fakirov. But one of those is only avaiable if you follow the Government quest line, or is it the rebel? I keep forgetting it, been a while since I actually played those two.

[Headshot]

Thank you for the quick reply.
The storage is only a pain because I am a pack rat and as part of the fun I have been collecting at least one of every item and its variation that I come across in the game. I don't go out to buy them when they pop up but only when found from combat etc. That of course and the hundreds of grenades and thousands of boxes and mags of ammo of all types. I could outfit the entire country with medical supplies and supply a small army of soldiers with battle gear. I will never use all this stuff but I hate selling items if I don't need the money. As it stands I am in about 30 days, at player lvl 11 / cgl 7, with about 400k in the bank, and about 100k in cash. The base has around 18-20 soldiers the Mechanic, Stephen Urbi, the logistics weapons supplier, etc.

Oh and if possible can you detail somehow the actual game mechanics of how stat and skill progression is calculated within the game.

I seem to see that weapons skills seem to get better when you miss rather than when you actually hit an enemy. Which seems backwards but when my sniping skill goes up it happens right after I miss a shot, not after one hits.

Strength is gained by being overloaded and moving about and stance does make a difference. The same as agility gained by moving in a crouch or prone and being overloaded also helps gain faster. But I have never seen Dex go up by doing anything nor stealth, nor camouflage, nor Health, nor energy. Yet the manual claims many of these can increase.

So what are the actual formulas if you know?

And what are the set limits, it says in the manual that Strength can be increased 30 points above the base ( your starting point ) but it seems you can only gain 1 point max in a 24 hour period on stats, where as skills can gain more.

Headshot

[Kyle]

Wow! That would be neat if one could learn from making mistakes in a game. I've never heard of that for any role playing system, but it makes sense on a lot of levels. If such is the case for 7.62, then it's an even better simulator than I thought.

I've never paid that much attention in regards to how gains points in skills and stats. I only know of the most basic ones, such as deliberately firing a new weapon 100 times to become familiar with it, overburdening oneself and then go running back and forth a bunch of times, staying crouched and sticking to shadows boosting stealth. I didn't realize that it could be as fine-tuned as what you're asking. It would be nice to know with more specificity of how attributes and skills can be increased with greater certainty.

The flip side of knowing that, though, is the temptation to "game" the system. Having them fire off a hundred rounds with a new weapon doesn't feel like "gaming" the system to me, because it makes sense to target practice and extensively handle a weapon that's new to you. A player could call it "physical conditioning" to load up their squad with maximum weight, and then have them run back and forth till they're exhausted, but, for some reason, that feels "gamey" to me, even though it's a perfectly logical thing to do in the real world.

In some ways, I'd rather just handle my squadmates in a certain tactical fashion, and have them "naturally" evolve from the testing of their bodies/skills/minds to certain situations as they're exposed to/learn from them. If the development team created an engine that does a good job of doing this, then my admiration of them is only going to grow even more.

Thank you for the "heads up" on the prospective timeline of the releases R@S. It'll be helpful in regards to reserving time with my increasingly hectic schedule.

[Headshot]

@Kyle

I consider it training, as you are a Merc, and should know how and what to train in order to get the best from your men. You also have to invest a great deal of actual game time commanding your guys to do whatever training is required.

Example - When your agility is around 80 or so it takes over 1.5 hours ( game time not real time ) to get your soldier to gain 1 point which can only be done once in a 24 hour period. That is about 12 -15 minutes sitting at your keyboard dedicated to training your merc or mercs in one stat ever game day. I dont think that would be considered gaming the system. If you want to gain the max of 15 Agility points you will spend about 4 hours of real time over a period of 15 game days just to raise that single stat. Also with all the game crashes I get I have to save about ever 5 minutes while training so I dont loose more than that when it happens.

I have found that training agility is fastest gained by overloading your guys so your net energy output is at about 150% and going prone and just going back and forth along a long street. Doing it crouched adds about 2 to 5 minutes of game time to this.

After you gain the 15 points in agility you can't train it any further, you must either cheat or use the skill progression by level, if activated in 1.9 at the beginning of the game.

I figure yea I can shoot off 100 rounds to be familiar with a weapon, and wouldn't you as a real Merc or soldier get used to your weapon and train with it BEFORE you went into combat with it?

I see these as great things that are built into the mechanics of the game and where there to be used by those who want to spend the time to do them and get the most out of their team.

But everyone plays differently and that is why the game is so good. I play JA2 and all its incarnations and love that game as well. This is a different animal and factors in alot of things no other game company put the effort into when they created a squad based war game. I just wish it was a lot easier to mod and that the source code could get released as well as a good editor.

Headshot

[Badbru]

Originally Posted by Headshot

I am a pack rat and I could outfit the entire country with battle gear. I will never use all this stuff

Throw any un needed to replenish base load grenades after a battle: see Dex gain response

Originally Posted by Headshot

I seem to see that weapons skills seem to get better when you miss rather than when you actually hit an enemy. Which seems backwards but when my sniping skill goes up it happens right after I miss a shot, not after one hits.

This is one of the bonuses to using shotguns in the early part of the game as even when you hit, with buckshot, some of your round/s miss. Shotguns tend to increase shooting skill very effectively.

Originally Posted by Headshot

But I have never seen Dex go up by doing anything

Throw any grenades you don't need after a battle. The throwing action will increase both your thowing skill and eventually your DEX. I've even heard of some people throwing spent smoke grenades over and over again.