Let's scavange even from the scavangers, Soldiers of Anarchy

Gordon Shumway · Mar 12, 2017

Table of Contents:

Reading that To-Do-list the whole project seems to be a long road. Well I played that game several times and finished it at least once, so I know, what I do. (edit) Writing the first update I realize that this list might become significantly longer...

The game has been published in 2002 and have been develloped by the german Silver Style Entertainment. SSE had not earned much success with their games due to lots af flares and unfinished issues. The game The Fall: Last Days of Gaya (longplay on Codex: Let`s play! The Fall: Last Days of Gaia) can be seen as a successor.

There exists at least one non codexian longplay (https://lparchive.org/Soldiers-of-Anarchy/).

Q: If there allready is a longplay, why creating another one? What's wrong with it?

I tell you, what's wrong with it, it's not written in latin, and the German Reich is not ruling the world afterwards... Just kidding! You might play that game as you like and the way proposed by other players will most probable lead to the end of the game. But I like to play games in a way the devs did not even think about. Good games can be stressed in many ways, bad games fuck up, even if you change the order you complete some quests. So that's what this particular longplay is about:

Complete the game in the most minimalistic way with maximum effiency and maximum profit!

I remember buying that game 15 years ago on discount (10 Deutschmark, appr. 5 Eur). Unfortunately GOG does not host it. A playable demo can be downloaded somewhere for free. So if you are lucky, you might get it somewhere else (Amazon, ebay, heritage, loot from dead corpses...) and you have something, that looks mainly like this:

A cool Mi 24 Hind on the boxtop....

The whole game issues squad based tactical warfare. Nine Missions have to be completed, the plot branches in mission 4 and 7 (after merging at the end of mission 6), which leads to different endings. Every mission can be accessed once, so it is not an open world concept like The Fall. The task force can go almost everywhere on the map during the current mission even though there are areas, which are simply set inaccessible or enclosed by obstacles. Between missions, the squad can be organized, supplied and loot can be traded.

Some technical hints:

The game is programmed for DX8, so it will be running on Win2000, WinXP, Vista and might run on Win7 and higher, but there could be compatibility problems with DX10 or DX11 (edited).
I have no idea if the game will run on 64 bit systems or LINUX/ WINE, sorry.
The game will run on Win98, some graphiccards (or the game) will mess up the memory (system cache vs. graphic cache), especially if the systems is equipped with more than 1 GB phys memory (which Win98 will ignore, if configured that way). The game will run and render huge polygons right into the landscape. It's really amazing but annoying. Limiting the systemcache might be a way to work around it.
Installing a patch can be a wise decission IMHO. The latest patches are 1.1.1.178 (german) and 1.1.1.177 (english).
Network games are done over port 21237 TCP/IP.
Minimizing the game and some other situations might cause a crash, so save as often as possible.
There are still some other minor (not gamebreaking) but annoying bugs, which will be mentioned later.

This longplay is performed with the german version (it's not multilingual). The most important phrases will be translated. Anyway you will all have to learn german when the German Reich will rule the world.... just kidding! So starting the game for the first time the intro movie is played. On the main menu the player can listen to some tasty death metal, change the game options, start the editor or start a game. I changed the game options first:

I recommend to redefine the keyset. Three functions are very important, because they cannot be accessed via menu (at least not easyly):

highlighting items on the ground
throwing grenades
switching between free camera and following camera (enabels to find the active unit at once, maps are HUGE!)

The Print/Screen-key cannot be bound (anyway I needed it, because the screenshot function of the game failed several times). The graphic options are not that important. There is an external configuration tool, which enabels more advanced options. The screen ratio can be tuned with it. The pathfinding option should improve the movement of the units, actually I could not notice any effect. It's also possible to switch the intro movie off, that saves time, when you have to restart the game.

Starting a game (from the main menu) will lead to the identity screen. The player has to create an identity and can choose an avatar. It is possible to use own avatars (placed in the ..Multiplayer\Pictures folder). Afterwards the game type is chosen:

The buttons are easyly to understand. It is not nescessary to play the tutorial. The lowest button (zurück) will lead to the hardest game ever since: REAL LIFE! For the longplay we will start a new campaign. So we have to choose the difficulty:

The difficulty affects the ammount of damage, the foes can take, maybe the probability of missing a target and the possible objects, which can be bought between missions. The plot and the appearance of units or objects are unaffected. We will choose apocalyptic.

For better understanding the plot, the frame story is briefly retold:

In 2004 a new almost totally lethal pandemie, called SDGS, spread out over the whole world. Soon the virus is identified as artificial produced. All governments collapse, the society itself sink into anarchy. Seven persons seal themselves in a bunker in russia and stay there until 2015. Now, after 10 years they decide to explore the surface.

This leads directly to the first mission, the next update.

lili · Mar 12, 2017

sup drog

Gordon Shumway · Mar 13, 2017

sup drog

No, I don't take drog, at least not at the moment....

O.K. the first Update

Mission 1: A Leap in the Dark (Part1)

This mission contains some basic operations like ambushes, luring and sneaking. The opponents are not exactly elite forces. I will explain some basic game mechanics occasionally, but I will not comment every kill or every loot.

We start with a squad of 4, with nothing but a Beretta for every squadmember, a few bullets, an explosive charge and a medkit.

As you can see, Berettas are magic in this game, holding 20 rounds of ammo instead of 15. There will be other "magic" weapons in this game. All characters reload thier guns automaticly, if they hold ammo for their shooter.

Otherwise they exchange the empty gun with a full one they might find in their inventory, normally the gun with greatest range is choosen. You can't turn that off, so limiting the ammo is the only way to control that behaviour. There is NO WAY of unloading a (hand) weapon! Only cannons can be unloaded. This will come to much importance during that playthrough.

You might have noticed the little revolver symbol in the character bar of our leader David Reaves. This indicates a special skill. His teammates Sorana Sorgova and Boris Kerkowitch have different special skills. The current skills are so far:

, light weapons, results in more damage by light weapons
, medic, can use medkits more efficiently
, explosives, easy to guess but exclusive - noone else can use mines or bombs without high risk of beeing killed, carrying is OK

As you will see later, characters can gain additional skills as they gain experience. The only way for that is by killing enemy characters, enemy animals count half. Though Boris is our only boom-man, we have to keep him alive, as it is pointed out in the missiongoals. You can review those anytime.

Active goals are written in white, fulfilled goals are green and impossible goals are red, the latter will most commonly lead to losing the game. The devs, even left some typos in the text, that shows the haste of devellopement they had. Another usefull function is demonstrated here. Items on the ground are shown by a "decent" semitransparent "V" but can be highlighted if a character is close to them.

Lets get into action. The squad moves to the northwest towards the yellow "blib" on the map. This place turns out to be a sandbag barrier, maybe a guardpost. Something is waiting there, marked by an orange triangle. This indicates that "something" as an enemy, remaining in neutral state. That will change as soon as the enemy has detected one of our squadmembers and the enemy will charge. We can give some orders to our units via context menu (right click ON the unit).

Clockwise: Stand, Attack (shoot), Stop, Plant Bomb, Take up Everything, Prone, Lie, Patrol, Attak Mode. The last will open up a submenu. It is wise to change that to "do not attack". The autoattack will mostly happen at the wrong time. Before we go further the inevetable happens.

At least not a bluescreen.... After restarting the game and coming closer, that "something" turns out to be a bear, which will be reported to HQ.

That kind of communication will occur sometimes. It is not allways included into a cutscene. The game will pick the characters as they are present. OK lets finally kill the bear, who is allready charging, the marker turns red. But we are out of range yet, as you can see on this cursor.

However our soldier runs, just lures the bear to the rest of the squad and we can test those magic Berettas.

Unfortunately I could not get a proper "killing screenshot". The more close weapons are, the more damage they inflict. Unfortunately soldiers cannot attack in melee mode, but animals can. There are three crates in the guardpost, which have to be picked up like items.

Crates don't have an own inventory but work as "switch". The game despawns the crate of the inventory and spawns the chest in the inventory of the character. If the inventory is full, the items will be dropped.

In that case the items on the ground will be "blacklighted". All soldiers have 6 inventory boxes, which can hold any weapon or general item or three nades or ammopacks up to 30 rounds. There are also 4 special boxes for an active weapon, a vest, a sight and an active nade. Fortunately there are (or are not) two UZI smg in the crates. They use the same 9x19 para ammo like the Beretta, but have more range and damage. The yellow "blib" has vanished from the map. Advancing further towards the green "blib" we soon notice other enemys. Those are mostly wolfes and some deers. The latter will flee but the wolves will charge and they come in packs.

If one of those wolves notices an enemy the whole pack will charge. We can handle those three wolves so far, but we will need a better solution very soon, as we notice another two even greater wolfpacks luring around the command post, we need to reach. Fortunately there is an empty Humvee right on the field. One soldier has to run to that car (coming from east) and enter, before the wolves can reach him.

Getting our first freebee we will notice the wolves flee from the car.

The marker turns yellow. Wolfes and other animals will flee from cars, only bears are much tougher, so a tank is needed to scare them off. Now we can move without danger, we will take care of the animals afterwards. The Humvee is armed with a M60, we need ammo for it. Exploring the east we find a carwreck and a crate beside.

This crates holds the 7,62 ammo for the M60, what a coincidence... We could load it into the Humvee as shown below.

One ammopack will be loaded directly into the M60 the other will be stored. The green dot will turn off the autoreload (why is it not possible for soldiers?). BTW my soldier kept the whole ammo in his inventor saving it for a rainy day. The Humvee has three inventory boxes, which can roughly hold as much as 5 boxes of a soldier. The M60 cannot be dismounted in the field and there is no way to use it as hand weapon.

The passengers of the car are displayed as heads, a click on the head will focus the inventory of this soldier. Exchanging items between passengers can be done by drag and drop. The car symbol (marked "X") stands for the car inventory. Double clicking a head (or one click if the head is green) will make that soldier step out of the car. So we have come to our main objective. The Mountains around are just set to be inacessable. We drive to the barrier, scaring the wolfes away, Boris steps out and plants the bomb with a comfortable delay.

BOOM!

As the green "blib" of the map vanishes most of the reader will allready got the system behind those mappoints. BTW, even after having blown up the barrier, Boris MUST NOT die!

Though we got new objectives we will split the first mission into two parts.

Baron Dupek · Mar 13, 2017

Thanks for the LP, I only know this game from screenshots, know that they have inventory management like in Soldiers - Heroes of WWII.
Still plan to make Last Days of Gaia LP with 1.10 patch (Reloaded edition) with english translation from NMA.

Gordon Shumway · Mar 14, 2017

MotherMachinae said:
Thanks for the LP, I only know this game from screenshots, know that they have inventory management like in Soldiers - Heroes of WWII.
Still plan to make Last Days of Gaia LP with 1.10 patch (Reloaded edition) with english translation from NMA.

The inventory management in Soldiers HoWWII and its successors (Faces of War, Men of War) is definitely better than that in SoA. I disliked the almost not existing squad management and the crappy level design. BTW, there is a SoA mod based on MoW under devellopement, dunno if they are still working on it.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/soldiers-of-anarchy

I played through LDoG. I like this game. The devs put a lot of hidden clues in it, e.g. the president wears a uniform of the east german army and there are some boards advertizing SoA. In general LDoG is partially an RPG/ adventure. The open world concept and numerous sidequests makes it really interesting, especially if the arenagame is taken into account. They established a kind of world simulation with some really funny characters like some poker players, who let a third one cheat but cheat with his wife afterwards and a very, very "typical" hairdresser (he even looks like Siegfried). They failed a bit with the economy. They put a few vehicles in it, but they are almost useless except for storing stuff, even though the steering is realistic. They forgot the guns and cannons on the cars (the small tank and the pickup have guns but cannot shoot) and by this one of the most interesting features of SoA. It is easy to take away some of the flaws by scriptedits (I learned a lot about Python programming, working with it) and even possible to introduce more vehicles, but vehicle combat is another problem. If they had not implemented it in the engine and just burried somewhere....

I'm looking forward to a resurrection of the LDoG longplay.

Baron Dupek · Mar 14, 2017

They barely made anything in these MoW2 mods, I see folks who are working on Vietnam mod for MoW2 jumped into Call to Arms ship (still in Early Access?) so...

Gordon Shumway · Mar 14, 2017

MotherMachinae said:
They barely made anything in these MoW2 mods, I see folks who are working on Vietnam mod for MoW2 jumped into Call to Arms ship (still in Early Access?) so...

Maybee they all got straight jobs or got married...

Gordon Shumway · Mar 14, 2017

Time for the next update.

Mission 1: A Leap in the Dark (Part 2)

HQ tells us to explore the vicinity bejond that ex- barrier. Well there must have been something before they sealed the valley, didn't they know anything about it?

There is a new yellow "blib" on the map, guiding us to a wood storage.

Another bear, but this time not a rookie. There is a crate here and the presence of lumber indicates the presence of human. Let's take a look to the factory to the east. Coming closer we hear gunshots and a cutscene tells us, that something remarkable happens. One guy defends himself against several wolves. There is no real danger though he is set immortal. The wolves can be killed anyway. Afterwards the stranger can be adressed, indicated by the white marker over him. The cursor changes into a balloon, if it hovers over that guy.

This stranger introduces himself as Vladimir. Vladi turns out to be a "Seeker", a kind of trader for everything. He invites us into his village. Vladi also has a car.

Try to take it, if you like...

Vladi will drive to his village and we have to follow.

Vehicles leave trackmarks as they move. Those vanish after some time. Judging these tracks, Vladi shares a common russian tradition and could be glad to have a car, he surely cannot walk anymore. In fact all vehicles move like this due to the crappy pathfinding. Vehicles prevent from colliding with anything, even enemy soldiers (too bad, if you remember Dune2000 or C&C), so every stone or small bush will affect the course. Vladi parks his car away from the village. Adressing him a second time he tells us about the reason. Anyway, those orange markers give us a hint.

Problem #1

Problem #2

Problem #3

Problem #4

Those guys are called "Slingers", a gang holding this area for ransom. Vladi mentioned some crates, let's get them first. We wait until problem #3 has moved to the other side of the village and prof Petrov climbs over the fence to get the chest sneakily.

Two MP5 smg, so we have some decent shooters. Other interesting founds are the two molotov cocktails, those will be handy for problem #1. Throwing a molly on the humvee and destroying it is a peace of cake. Alternatively we can sneak in its back and simply use all shooters we have especially the shotguns, we will get later. Bringing our own humvee is a bad idea, because we cannot really surprize him (cars are detected early!) and one M60 will not take him down fast enough. My plan is to capture the car by killing only the passengers. As seen above there are two soldiers in it. Unfortunately they are both set to stay in the car, so we have to kill them both. The throwing mechanism requires a nade or similar item in the special field of the soldier. Holding the predefined key the curser turns into a grenade- symbol, if the target is in range. Don't be confused by the cursor, mollys or the throwing knife are also thrown that way. The throw always targets a tile on the ground. If the object on this tile moves away while the nade is in flight, you are out of luck. Damage mechanism works a bit odd. Throwing weapons damage upon impact (even nades do, no cooking is possible), the effect is predefined, though greater throwing distances might slightly modify to greater damage (weird!).

Our molly does a lot of heat damage, which affects soldiers more than vehicles, good for our purpose. The basic plan results in killing the gunner, as soon as he climbs out of the roof and BEFORE he can turn the gun and shoot on the thrower. The distance has to be short, giving the gunner not much time and alerting the enemy, otherwise the gunner would remain inside the car.

The humvee is alerted (marker turns red), the gunner starts to climb through the top. As soon as he grabs the mounted gun, he will be hit by the incoming molly. Without the deceased gunner this car is helpless and flees. After some nervous driving around the surviving driver calms and David has the oppurtunity for a second throw. This one will be targeted to the floor beside the car to do as little damage as possible. Heat damage is calculated by the distance to the source of heat. Drivers sit on the left side, so this side is also preferable.

Most likely you will need several tries to find the right place to aim but finally we get our first captured vehicle.

It is still in good condition, compared to his fate, and holds a M60 with 50 rounds. We will take care of problem #3 now, those guys are almost deaf and blind, but beeing shot with an M60 cannot be ignorded.

Killed soldiers just vanish after a few seconds, leaving their inventory on the ground, so they don't have to be looted. This way we got our first shotgun, a magical Remington 870, holding 10 rounds instead of 7. One Slinger is history, the other charges the humvee. We could easiely kill him, but I decided to let him calm down first and drove out of his sight. Charging an enemy the attacking unit moves to that point, where the enemy has been detected. If the enemy or another one is still in sight (and a charging unit always has a high detection radius!), the unit continues charging, else the unit calms down and continues its normal job. Understanding that basic behaviour will be part of many tactics we will perform. The squad finishes the second patroling Slinger later by a surprize attack (running in his back and shooting).

Behind the hill of ex-problem #1, a small pathway leads away from the village. Pathways have ends and we will see, what this end is about. It is a hut over there. We will explore it.

I said EXPLORE, not EXPLODE!

A guy is running from the remains of the hut and two Slingers follow him.

Lets do some shots.

First one with the M60...

The second one is so fixed on the humvee, which switched off his companion, that he ignores David who tries his new shotty. The now homeless civilist can be adressed and joins our team.

Akim our new recruit shows a new special skill:

, sharpshooter, can handle precission weapons effective

Other soldiers could use precission weapons as well, but only sharpshooters can perform one-shot-kills. This skill does not affect the handling of other weapons. Akim is a little wounded by default. It's just a scratch. After not forgetting the crates we return to the village, killing this nasty wolfpack on our way and getting more used with the shottys. Now we will take care of problem #4.

Another example of luring an enemy into an ambush. It works if the enemy has not reached a position to detect if the enemy he is charging still holds his position. In this case it worked out, unfortunately I deleted the killing screenshot by accident. David could have done this kill allone, with his shotty. So it's time for problem #2. Four soldiers climb over the fence and crouch over to those two Slingers.

Soldiers and vehicles are almost blind in their backs until they are alerted by detecting an enemy or beeng called for help by allied units. Otherwise it's possible to sneak up to them on secure killing range. In front of the two slingers you can see the inhabitants of the village: The Village People... One volley of all four shooters kill all two Slingers instantly. What would happen, if we had not eleminated problem #1 first? That humvee had taken the position of the three Slingers inside the village.

Afterwards a villager and Vladi can be adressed.

Those two guys will join our team. The talk with Vladi has another effect.

Freebee...

Having worked so hard we now get the reward.

After the missionwin, we can choose to leave at once or to stay. Of course we will stay, there is still unfinished bussines. The game will continue normally, which means it is possible to loose. In our case attacking the villagers or having Boris killed will trigger the defeat. In the villige one crate might be left, delivering two light vests.

If you look north of the village, there is a small graveyard with a visitor.

This man can be adressed delivering some clues for the story. Obviously his family has been killed by some "demons". Those poeple know gangs, so there is no reason to mystify the gang problem. Maybe there are other forces, much more powerfull in the background.

Our squad still has some animals to kill. Those are not relevant for the victory but we will not waste the experience. On our way back to the valley we pass a guardpost near the factory, which seems to be the territorry of three bears.

In the valley there are still 5 wolfpacks (one has been eliminated earlier). Four of them can be found if the squad follows the path from the ex- barrier to the wrecked humvee of the "Postman". The last one waits on a hill near a mine entry. Behind that hill the squad can catch another "bearpack". The deers must be catched a bit south of the command post.

So we are ready to leave.

The magnificant seven...

Some informations propose to heal all characters before ending the missions in order to spare time during the intermission phase. Those infos are totally wrong, healing Akim now would be a waste of ressources, which will be shown in the next update. BTW, healing does not earn any experience.

The mission is ended via gamemenu. After the missionwin the gamemenu holds an additional button for ending. The conclusion- menu shows any looted heavy ammo and vehicles and can be used to leave vehicles behind, but we won't do that, don't we?

Gordon Shumway · Mar 15, 2017

The recreation will continue, with the next update.

between Missions

Ending mission 1 we pop directly back to our Homebase.

Nice surprise: "Il professore" has gained enough experience to be avarded with a special skill (his first from possibly two). Actually Prof. Petrov only gained one level. He chooses the athletic skill.

, athletics, this character can run fast as hell, even a humvee cannot match his agility.

In fact, soldiers with that skill run a bit like in those old movies from the 1920th. The main homebase scene is based on a real mission, but works more like a menu.

The lower navigation bar can be accessed anytime. Exercise ground restores the view shown above. We will cycle through the different facilities. Choosing one of them makes the camera turn to a total view of the corresponding building, really nice.

In hospital our soldiers can be healed and upgraded. Both actions take time consuming the preperation time of 18h (per facility!). Any time, which is not used is lost. The upgrade leads to more health, takes 12h and can be done once per soldier, if the soldier is fully healed. The soldiers have to be moved by doubleclick or drag-n-drop to the right and the treatment has to be started. Every similar menu in the homebase will work that way. David gets an upgrade, so 6h are left. This is enough time to give Akim a full healing. So healing in the field is mostly a waste of medkits, unless the whole squad is literally "walking on their gums" (to use a common german phrase). Only the last mission will leave an integer multiple of 12h preperation time. The production submenu offers labour capacity to create medkits or fly- drugs. (So every reader might understand [URL="http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/lets-scavange-even-from-the-scavangers-soldiers-of-anarchy.114146/#post-5012410"]the first phrase of the first update[/URL].) Those drugs boost health, running speed and sight for a short time and inflicts a little damage afterwards. Production runs parallel, so no time is wasted if they produce 3 fly doses (6F + 5M = 18; F, M natural numbers; if you want to do the math). Every facility can be used automaticly, I never use that function.

There is no use of the hangar now, we will come to that in later missions.

The workshop offers repair capacity and all vehicles can be equipped. We empty both our humvees and dismount even the two empty M60. The weapon slots of our humvees can only hold the appropiate type of weapon. There is absolutely NO way here in the homebase to find out, if a vehicle weapon is loaded or not, really annoying. The second left upper button will empty every inventory (except weapon slots) of all vehicles, this can be helpfull.

We repair the captured humvee. Fortunately that can be done in time. Partially repairs are not possible. The repair time is only calculated by ratio of current health to normal health with a standard of 20h. So repairing a semi damaged humvee will take the same time as repairing a semi damaged tank, which might be 5 times of worth. The vehicles can also be fitted with additional armour, which takes 12h in general but is not done parallel to repairs.

The storeroom shows a nice background.

Unfortunately the MG3 (i.e. MG42 changed on 7,62x 51) is not included in the game. Our soldiers can be equipped here, the inventories can be emptied automaticly (as those of the vehicles) or individually. At least the number of rounds in a weapon is displayed, as this weapon is in the inventory slot of a soldier. Even here in the homebase there is no way to unload a handgun. One of the most usefull functions is the trade with vladi, the seeker we rescued from wolfes. We will not perform the following deals as I only want to show the mechanism.

We put our offer in the right column and we drag our demand from the traders inventory into the left column. Vladi will tell, if he is likely to trade or not. There are no designated tradevalues but of course scripted ones. There are no price floatations only the likelyness of Vladi will change depending from his trade success. For better understanding I will mention some trade values expressed in "nines", which are the 9x19 para bullets. So a blue box of 9x19 is worth 20 nines. One buckshot shell counts 3 nines, a red set of 10 buckshots 30 nines. One "seven" counts 6 nines, a green ammopack 300 nines. In the upper pic we offer an equal tradevalue, which Vladi will not accept. If we raise our offer about 60 nines, Vladi will trade considdering it as a bad deal.

If we raise about 60 more nines (a Beretta counts 100 nines), Vladi counts the deal as neutral, even though his speech means good. In the last picture we offered a M60 (1000 nines) against a shotty (200 nines), wich will be counted as a positive deal. The default settings are

>1.2 x tradevalue for a bad deal
>1.5 x tradevalue for a neutral deal
>1.8 x tradevalue for a good deal

Any good deal will decrease those limits, any bad deal vice versa. After two good deals we can trade equal values as a bad deal, this is the best we get. The turnover has no influence. Another two important hints: The trade values of weapons do not change, if the shooters are empty or not. The trade value of vehicles do not take into account their inventory. Only the health condition of vehicles and vests is put into ratio with the value.

We only buy the bolts (60 nines the bunch of 6) for the crossbow. This time is the only chance to buy those bolts, we will find a crossbow in the next mission.

Usefull informations obout the items can be displayed by the information button.

The first precission weapon, we get, very usefull.

The mounting increases the accuracy of this weapon significantly. Though it is a normal M60 soldiers normally can dismount it and use as a handgun, but thes is NOT POSSIBLE in this game.

This shooter is a real killer, but only on close range. The caliber 20mm or 20 gauge do not exist. The most common 12 gauge is 18,5 mm or .72'.

This APC will come into use in the next mission.

See my vest, see my vest, it's made of real gorilla chest... The light body armor will take hits until it is destroyed. Heat an penetrating damage will partly cut through.

Our last facility works as a board of informations.

The briefing offers informations about the next mission and their objective. The map is also displayed here. This information can be taken into account to equip the task force.

This panel rounds up the plot of the game with some background notes. Not really usefull but nice...

Back on exercise grounds the task force for the next mission can be put together. We simply take all soldiers but only two or three guns, at least one shotty. We expect to find some things on the supply depot we are going to visit. Akim takes the bolts.

As you can see, David carrys the "wrong" ammo to control the autoreload of his shooter. To use a vehicle at least one soldier has to be chosen

We remounted the M60 on one humvee but left the ammo out of the car. Now pressing the upper left button will start the next mission.

More to come... on the next update

Gordon Shumway · Mar 19, 2017

So let's get back to work...

Mission 2: The Raid (Part 1)

Our squad will drop by the nearest army supply depot to improve our gear. The radar station next to that depot should be put back in use so we can keep track of our vicinity. Most obviously other people allready had the same idea and even more obviously those "other people" are identical with our first enemy the slingers. There are four important locations in this mission, which can be visited in any order. We will keep an order, which will fit into an imaginary plotline, unless indicated otherwise. In fact the devs mostly branched the "microplot" to fit to the players decissions. This concerns mostly dialogs and very rarely sidequests.

The supply depot, more precisely the ruins of it, can be found close to the starting point in the north. There are some violent cows halfway to it. We spare their lives for now and follow the tracks.

Right behind the waggon in the fenced area stands a crate with the crossbow. Akim brougt the bolts with him, did he? It's better not to be seen by those patrols, at least not now. Having a sniper weapon Akim can use his special talent, which will ease some situations significantly. Entering this particular area sets off a 5 min timer. Then, the driver of the GAZ promotes his will to return to a place called "Loesnice" (maybe a credit to the town Lößnitz in eastern Germany?).

If this driver is allready killed, his car can be looted, otherwise he will vanish, but his empty car (or more technical an identical copy) appears later. There are three pairs of soldiers walking around. They are not heaviely armed, so a frontal assault would be possible. We will use the oppurtunity to practise some more basic tactics. Separating the two soldiers of one patrol from each other makes it a lot easier to deal with them. So we just lure them, if we are lucky, one of them will follow the lure faster or longer. Our Humvee makes the perfect attraction.

One of these soldiers ran almost half a mile. On his way back Feodor uses his shotty. The other member of this patrol met the same fate just a bit later. Another patrol marched tight at the beginning.

This cat seems to be dressed to kill... For unknown reasons they got into greater distance and even switched positions.

So Feodor and David could rush in for a quick kill from behind and quick retreat from that charging Slinger. There are even more of those cats patroling around the depot, which are all eleminated one by one.

The northern perimeter is guarded by two posts of two slingers each. Those can be eliminated by sneaking, crouching and simultanious shooting.

There is still some lone guard and a driver next to the entrance of the depot. We will get the driver, when the guard is most distant from him on his patrolway.

Getting next to him the driver tries to flee. It's not possible to sneak up undetected, but possible to prevent the (unarmed) driver from escaping. If the driver gets away, he will drive to a village in the northwest and vanishes with his car.

David and Feodor help the driver to a stylish end like Sgt Elias and also deal with the guard, so the depot is save.

Freebee... There cannot be mounted any weapons on it, but that car has 4 inventory slots and - it is a Mercedes!

The slingers have taken most of the stocks away. The loading area holds several crates with some usefull stuff. Next to the tents a small crate holds a special bunch of 12 bolts for Akims crossbow. This bended barrier at the entry of the loading area cannot be climbed over but the 2m gates can...

Our soldiers might want to jump into their cars and head for the next location, but hold it! On the northern edge of the depot we notice some mines. Boris will clear them and use them later. Nice, if someone also installed some warning signs.

So the squad can advance to the radar station. Following the road to the west, the viscious horses can be ignored for now. Only two slingers have occupied the radar.

David and Prof. Petrov start a sneaky advance to kill the western guard, then Boris sets up a few mines and our Humvee will cause an alert for the eastern guard.

If the guard on the east spots an enemy, he will call for assistance. This will alert an armed humvee, which must be eliminated. Without a call for help. This car can be left alone.

With or without reinforcement the radar device MUST not be destroyed! The reinforcement is located in the open field west of the radar station. There are four soldiers in that Humvee, so capturing is practically impossible. The mines can also be planted around the car on its default location. So the slingers might drive over one if the car changes position, as it does randomly. This procedure needs a lot of crouching around and a lot of patience. Alternativly all of our squadmembers could sneak up from behind and fire simultaniously on the car. That method works but bears two risks. The Humvee could survive long enough to fire back and the explosion of the Humvee could hurt our soldiers. The killing of the eastern guard should be almost routine.

This carwreck shows another credit of the east german orign of the devs, a Barkas B 1000 delivery van painted in that typical "sky blue" colour.

Some maps are found which show a village north of the radar. The driver of that GAZ in the depot allready gave that clue and mentioned some people to be herded. So the squad will investigate that location. On the way they pass the camping site of a drunken hillbilly, who can be adressed.

He mentiones demons like the man on the graveyard in the first mission. This hillbilly surely drank "Jägermeister", because there are two enemy deers around.

This mission will be finished with the next update.

Azira · Mar 19, 2017

Jägermeister... Damn, drank a lot of that back when I was a university student.

If it is chilled to almost freezing, then the taste is bearable.

Gordon Shumway · Mar 19, 2017

Azira said:
Jägermeister... Damn, drank a lot of that back when I was a university student.

If it is chilled to almost freezing, then the taste is bearable.

After five or six of them, you won't notice the taste any more....

If you killed the deer it was "Meisterjäger", if the deer killed you it was "Jägermeister" (for explanation: "Jäger" means hunter in German).

Gordon Shumway · Mar 19, 2017

So we camped with a hobo drinking Jägermeister and telling demons-taking-our-souls-storys on the campfire on saturday night, but now the party is over, time for the next update (if we can cope with the headache)...

Mission 2: The Raid (Part 2)

Someone had this idea to visit a nearby village, though we allready know that "visiting villages" obviously results into concentrating high ammounts of metal in the atmosphere.

Seven slingers have imprisoned the inhabitants. One of them is patroling the vicinity. As soon as one of the slingers is attacked, the other gangsters start to shoot a few rounds on the inhabitants. Those ran away and return later (why, to be imprisoned and shot again?), anyway they are set immortal. It's easy to lure the slingers away and deal with them one by one. One of the villagers can be adressed, which results in two more squadmembers.

Another freebee... This truck is extremely important. The Ural can carry 10 soldiers and holds 6 inventory slots. Watching the passengers climbing on the truck and sitting inside is another nice detail.

The villagers told something about beeing enslaved by the slingers. It seems the gang has come to a difficult situation forcing them to enslave a whole village at once instead of taking just a few prisoners and keeping pressure on the remaining. Let's just go and ask the slingers. They took their base in the former military installation nearby.

Before we can enjoy the great view our squad has to take care of the wolfpack right on this hill. This military base lies less than a mile away from the supply depot, so why the hell didn't they lay some tracks to the base? The front does not look inviting.

Nor does the backside, even the closed gate is guarded.

This little metal gate can be climbed over, there is another one on the opposite wall of the base. One Humvee patrols around the base, three more are stationed. They are set to assist any assaulted slinger on the base. Everyone should get the impression "Go away and mind your own bussiness!" If we had captured the GAZ in the depot area, there would be one Humvee less, an empty one would stand in the base and the backdoor would not be garded. That means 3 enemies less to kill and to loot in exchange for an undamaged Humvee with M60. Maybe the devs created that variant to leave an easy way for the player, but that easy way has to be earned by a very quick and risky assault on the depot area. So, where is the benefit of the easy way, if the squad looses 3 kills and thus 3 steps to the next levelup? We will find out, that the harder way offers additional benefits. First of all, Boris will take care of the car patrol and by consequence creating access to the base area. Every vehicle leaves tracks, so it's easy to predict its way, if the vehicle patrols in a loop.

Getting that humvee blown off next to the wall blast a nice hole into it. We can enter to the base and the slinger can leave it, which is also important. Dealing with that lone patrol is a peace of cake. The two guards on the backdoor can be lured away with a vehicle. Dealing with them one by one makes it a lot easier, because both of them wear vests. Our squad inherit 6 molotov cocktails by them, which enables us to capture those three Humvees.

The first one to get is the lone car in the backyard. We will practise our running, alerting and throwing-on-the-gunner exercise as we did in the first mission. Taking out the gunner works fine, but the drivers of all three cars won't step out volunteerly. So they cause the problem of finishing the driver without finishing the car. In our case Akim had to help out with a few bolts. It is possible to snipe a soldier out of a car, especially if the car is allready damaged. For that purpose the crossbow is not exactly the ideal choice but this time it worked.

Normally, enemys on foot should be eleminated before the vehicles are emptied. So they cannot get into the vehicles and replace the gunners or driver we managed to kill. Fortunately the slingers are cooperative, so we can at least kill all the gunners first, so the cars show no more danger. The second Humvee was lured outside the base and stayed outside after loosing the gunner, so the second throw could be well placed just beside the car. The third one stayed near the wall, so Feodor could throw undetected from the outside, while our own Humvee alerts the enemy in the right moment by driving next to the wall (in order to make the gunner take his exposed position). Our other soldiers deal with the slinger guards as they are lured out by our throwing attacks. The guard next to the cage, marked with the green "blib" patrols alterning on a very short way, so getting next to him undetected is hardly possible. Our squad chosed the ambush tactic, provoking the guard to charge and beeing shot by two soldiers waiting behind a pile of boxes. That slinger must have been the smartes of them, he ran in the other direction, away from the boxpile to the front gate. Fortunately the M60 of our captured Humvee could outgun his UZI. Grabbing the empty Humvees we experienced a nice surprice.

The M60 mounted on that car holds 1000 (in words: one thounsand!) rounds of ammo. Maybe they clipped 20 (!) belts together. This Ammo is attached to the gun, so dismounting in the workshop will keep it. As allready said, why did the devs forgot the unloading feature? The third humvee has the same magic M60.

The black mark behind the car shows the spot, the second molly has been thrown to kill the driver. Haven't I said, that the harder way has more benefits? There are still other things to grab here.

Freebee, of course, the GAZ of the depot area, or an identical copy. If this GAZ is allready captured, this place is consequently empty.

Another freebee... One could grab the BTR 80 earlier using it to clean off the base from the slingers, which I considder as a waste. The animation of entering the APC is another nice detail.

There are several crates. One of those delivers a binocular. This wrecked Mi 8 was mentioned in a dialog. Watching closely there is a car in it.

To get this car, someone has to damage the Mi 8 until the freight door opens and the car rolls out. We will reveal more of that impressing effect in the "Inside the Game" update, promised.

Freebee... This GAZ A holds one single nade. This must be the "holy hand grenade of antioch"! So what is this cage thingy about? One of those grids have to be removed to make this poor man adressable.

This ex-slave reveals the full story. The slingers have brought many people to a place called "New Boston", where their slave market takes place. Most of the slaves are sold to whealthy people or farmers but now some organisation has placed an order for many slaves which are rumored to be used as probands in experiments.

This allows an interesting view of the social, political and economical structure. There is no governmental power, not even in theorie. The gangs established martial law on a local level. Those gangs seem to leave one another allone. So everybody minds his own business, even the more powerful organisations do not try to establish a central government. Right now they all pursuit their own goals and follow their own rules. On a local level cooperation must be high, otherwise noone could survive. The Seekers can be considdered as the only force, which keeps some kind of order, mainly because most of the other groups depend from them. We will recall that thought later.

So after taking care of those viscious gangs of old cows (which are attacking defenceless young men), the ruthless horses and the two killer deers, the squad is ready to return.

Gordon Shumway · Mar 21, 2017

Next quick update....

between Missions

As usual the squad returns to homebase bringing in the loot, well this time no squadmember has to walk.

David and Feodor leveled enough to be rewarded with a talent. They both trained the athletic skill. Normally talent picks are earned at the 4th and 8th levelup (13 Levelups are possible if the char started as recruit.). David reached level 7 and it's the 3rd levelup since the beginning, so the math seems to be wrong or they calculated 42 by multiplying 6 by 9. In the workshop we can unload our vehivles. It's important NOT to dismount the M60s from the Humvees that fast, because we have to keep track of the "Wunderwaffen" with those 1000 rounds. Though we cannot mark the weapons, we can mark the cars by simply renaming them (doubleclick into the namefield). To identify the right cars we can take their damage into account. Unloading the BTR 80 we notice, that the weapons are fixed and the inventory slots can only be filled with the appropiate ammo (14,5 x 114mm or fog), which is indicated by the red background. This fogthrower does really work even if it is difficult to handle.

There is no big choice how to use our timeframe best for repairs. We will use that Humvee-1000 in the next mission. The medical department works almost routine.

Akim gets his upgrade treatment and 2 medkits and 2 doses of fly are produced. Vladi offers not much interesting stuff, we only buy as many molotov cocktails we can get.

Informations about some new items are available.

This assault rifle can outreach many other weapons, the damage is slightly better than the MP 5.

This auto grenadelauncher is mounted on the Humvee. Of course not the AGS 17 "Plamja" (russian for "Flame") is meant but the MK 19. The real thing fires 300 nades/ minute this one only single shots. The range is slightly better than throwing weapons and a direct line of fire is needed (though some minor obstacles are tolerated). Unfortunately there are only two types of 40 mm nades. Using that weapon effiencently is not easy.

The german word "Panzerfaust" has become a synonym for rocket propelled anti tank guns. The grenade is unguided, so misfire is possible and firing on air targets is risky. The range allows a shoot on most armoured vehicles with a realistic chance to get away. The nades inflict more damage than a mine. Due to its size only 4 of them can be stacked into a vehicle inventory slot.

This medium tank was develloped from the T 34 models and also from the KV/ JS models. The real tank is equipped with a 100 mm rifled gun, which can be equipped to fire an AT 6 through the barrel. Here they put a 125 mm smothbore cannon D 81 in it, which normally does not fit into the turret. In fact that lead to the devellopement of the T 64 and later to the T 74. The range of the cannon is decent but far from reality. Three kinds of ammo are available, which will be presented in detail later. There are 2 MGs, one coaxial to the cannon and one outside on the turret, both fed with our universial 7,62 MG ammo. The real tank needs 7,62 x 54 R for the coaxial PKT and 12,7 x 108 for the outside NSWT (or a successor) MG. I can't see a reason, why they did not include the T 74 instead.

As allready pointed out: this truck is essentiel. There will be NO other opportunity to get one NEVER EVER (maybe you can buy one, if you play on "Beginner" difficulty, but that does not count)!

Our next missiongoals are revealed in the briefing. There are prisoners to be liberated and the slingers should be defeated, so the gang might not recover from that impact. There are other gangs in that area, competing for supremacy and control of the inhabitants. The three gangs seem to be in a "Mexican Standoff" situation. So hostilities will surely break out, if the slingers are annihilated and the other gangs try to grab their territory. The briefing points out, that the HQ does not want a gangwar to break out and our units to be right in the middle of it. Our squad will take that literally: There will be NO war between those three gangs and therefore NO right-in-the-middle-position for our units. We expect a more sneaky in and out mission, so we leave the BTR 80 at home and take the Ural and the Humvee-1000 to the field.

Gordon Shumway · Mar 26, 2017

New Boston, it's time for a tea party...

Mission 3: Market Day (Part 1)

It's raining. Following the road to the west, we encounter a road blockade.

The flanks of the barricade are mined and and the slinger in the middle holds an M60, so we can't just outreach him. But there are other possible solutions. Our Humvee can drive around the barricades and lure away the soldiers from behind. Most probably all 4 slingers will follow the car and can be eleminated one by one as they walk back. Alternatively Akim simply snipes the MG-gunner away. Firing an M60 the gunner always have to kneel down, which takes time. This can be used, if we can shoot first. If there are only one ore two slingers left, they can be shot after sneaking in.

One of those guys leaves a molotov cocktail and Boris picks up the 10 mines. Let's just sidetrack for a moment and follow the railroad to the southwest. We will come to a fortified mansion, guarded by 4 BTR 80, which is slight a bit more than we can handle that time (so the devs might think). So we report to HQ.

There must have been an athmospheric disturbance, I haven't understood... Boris plants a few mines and Prof Petrov (the fast runner) peeks around the corner just long enough to be spotted by the BTR 80. The Professor will run away before the BTR can turn its turret forceing it to follow and drive over the mines.

It works, even though I messed up the order of the pics :oops:

and even though Prof Petrov had to fire some rounds with his M60 on the BTR positioned away from the corner to get attention. Why do we do this? Those 4 BTR 80 will vanish after we have freed the slaves but the game does not despawn but disactivate them. The game can simply disactivate every item (even characters) making them vanish. Those disactivated items are unaffected and invisible but still present and TAKE MAPSPACE. So those 4 BTR 80 would be most probable eclipse my line of fire, when the squad comes back for an official visit. Of course, we would not miss out the 8 additional kills for Boris. Don't take the crates near the mansion, apparently this might cause a bug rendering this mission impossible.

The slaves are held prison on the old container terminal in the center of New Boston. The small hill next to the intersection of the road is occupied by a guardpost. We will take care of them later. The eastern part of the terminal is guarded by a single post and a car patrol surrounds the whole area.

O.K. we have done this before, Boris plants a mine.

This lone guard can be sneaked up from behind. Exploring the area we notice another car patrol on the western edge of the terminal, which can be treated similar to the first.

There are some bears on the northern hill. The slave marked is located in the western part of the container terminal.

They built even up a stage to hold auctions... Here in the backyard the slingers deployed their additional vehicles.

We could fairly easy get rid of those using mines or simply firepower, but we can get a lot more. First we need some heavy guns. Let's explore the west by following the northern road. Oups.. what's this?

This must be one of the other gangs, the TFR. They use more sophisticated gear. Taking the curve to the south we stumble upon the next gang, the claws.

They seem to be weaker than the TFR but an BTR 80 can shred a BMP into peaces before the opponent is able to fire three rounds, so the competition is definitely not equal but almost balanced. The claws have, what we need, we will get that BMP 1. A BMP can stand significantly more than a BTR, so a mine will only cripple it. So Boris plants a mine and Feodor lures the BMP on it. This tactic is impossible in an open area but can be performed using the cover of the buildings. Unfortunately there are no pics of it. Having eaten the mine the BMP is fried up with a molly. An indirect hit kills only the gunner and the driver gets out.

So how to get the BMP, as the two BTR still guarding it? Feodor lures them far away with some MG rounds on the ground and Prof Petrov has a quick run, picking up the ACP. The unarmed driver is killed occasionally. The luring action had to be repeated to keep the claws off the ground until the BMP is save.

So this is our first cannon armed vehicle. This 73 mm cannon turns out to be very usefull for the subtle works. The HEAT shells can weaken up most APC and cause remarkable organic damage, so 3 or 4 hits will kill two soldiers in the target vehicle without destroying it. Fortunately we got 20 of those HEAT shells. Another important hint for vehicle combat: There is NO individual control over the different weapons (except fogthrower), cannons can only be disabled by disabling the ammo (red/green dot in the inventory). Disabling UNLOADS the cannon (but NOT the MG!), but only if there is at least one round of the same type of ammo left in the inventory (otherwise there is no red/green dot) AND at least one place to store left. In general vehicles will fire with every weapon they have ON THE SAME target, as long as they are in range, they are loaded and a gunner is present. The BMP needs only one gunner for all three weapons, though he does not fire simultaniously. BTW the PKT MG of the BTR is loaded with the same 7,62 rounds as the M60. One could argue that they rechambered the 7,62 x 51 weapons for the 7,62 x 57R or vice versa, which is impossible because of the rim of the 7,62 x 57R, or they just replaced the PKT by an M60 or other 7,62 x 51 MG, which seems questionable because they could not have ordered them by amazon. Well it's a kind of magic... So back to work, two BTR wait for their capture. So we need a good position to shoot a HEAT shell in the back of an BTR and get away fast enough (Our BMP could not stand more than a few of those 14,5 mm rounds.).

This position seems optimal, the target is in range, the other BTR is obscured by the building and we could get away after shooting before the BTR turns his turret (BTW, the black spot on the road marks the position, where the BMP eat the mine.). But to do so, the BMP has to be faced into the escape direction. Those turning operations are really annoying because the tracked vehicles cannot be steered to turn on position (they do so, but only, if THEY want, not if I want :mad:

). So we fire our round and get the hell out of it. The BTR investigates our former position and returns after having found nothing. So we will repeat that game, get into position, aim and....

... NOTHING HAPPENS! this is one of the most annoying bugs of this game. Cannons simply refuse to fire on a target, even though having done the SAME shot before (You can see the trackmarks of the two BTR as they investigated the position on the first hit) :argh:

! This blockade resolves, when the target changes his position (as vehicles do randomly). There is another bug visible. We had 20 rounds of ammo and shot once. One round is loaded, so there must be 18 left, but there are 19 in our inventory. This game betrayes, sometimes itself, sometimes the player, so mainly we are even on the bottomline. But it could be a problem, if you think of still owning some rounds and running out of ammo after a single shot. So the squad remained patient, waited for another oppurtunity, took position just beside a building (which was used to take cover after shooting and placed another hit.

That action went a bit chaotic because our BMP did not steer the way it should and was detected another time by its target, so we had to move further. This lures our target into an isolated position and our third hit might allready kill at least one of the claws inside, especially if placed on close range.

To relief the tension, it worked out. This fire animation is only a visual effect indicating the damage level (> 70%), there is no secondary damage. The other BTR is taken down the same way. So the claws are eliminated. We kept our promise: There will be NO gangwar, at least no war including the claws :D. You can allready imagine how we continue our peace keeping mission, but that will happen in the next update, to keep the post on a decent lenght.

Gordon Shumway · Mar 28, 2017

Let's take the next step, this day is short..

Mission 3: Market Day (Part 2)

We ended up taking all vehicles from the claws, now we will do the same with the TFR. Come on guys, we allready eliminated the claws, so you don't need those two APC anymore. Why not giving them to us?

This is a nice shooting position. Our BMP can retreat into a depression in the ground. The rolling terrain makes it easier to escape. The first two shots were placed successfully, but the no-shooting-bug prevented a third hit. So Feodor helped with a little burnout. In the meantime we catch the other fly from the east. The terrain is even more rolling and covered with some trees, so we can place serial hits on the other BMP. That means we shoot, drive away and aim on our former shooting position. The enemy will surely explore that position giving us the opportunity to score another hit, when the target turns around to redeploy on its normal position. Then the target is allready moving and needs to stop first before turning the turret and fire, thus giving us a bit more time to escape. We need this extra time. After three hits the surviving driver left the BMP. Obviously that TFR- member felt allone, so Feodor took care of him and grabbed the BMP.

Our new aquisition delivers 10 more rounds of HEAT shells and an AT2 missile. That cannot be unloaded now (we would need another one in the inventory). It will be unloaded automatically in our homebase. Players, which have abused the "reload" button a bit might have allready seen this rocket in action. Later I found out, that both BMP are manned with three soldiers, rendering them even harder to capture. (edit)The heavy ammo of the cannons cannot be unloaded in the field, because of its weight (so the game man states). How do the gunners reload the cannons? We can exchange heavy ammo between ground vehicles, if the vehicles stand side by side and if the vehicle can be equipped with the appropiate weapon.(editend) Back to the first BMP. Our BMP drove around the area and placed a killing shot from the south.

Surprisingly that third hit turned out to be the killer for the soldiers inside. It would not have stand anotherone. Our BMP was allready on escape mode after shooting. You can also see another minor bug of the game: The ammo of our BMP is miscounted to 0/0, actually there are rounds left. Most obviously this bug is related with the miscounting-of-ammo-bug described in the last update. Unfortunately there is no chance to grab this empty BMP, until the two angry Humvees behind the building on the right are out. Those cars are equipped with MK 19 nade-launchers. We will capture just one of them.

Our plan is to alert the humvee in front, flame off the gunner and hide behind the building on the left. The other Humvee will respond a second later and needs another (livesaving) two seconds to get the MK 19 ready. It turned out to be a bit more complicated. Every object in the game can obscure a line of fire. The size of this blockade is not nescessarily identical to the visual size of the obstacle. In our case the corners of the buildings and the lightrays of the streetlamps covered Feodor, but forced our target to move a bit to aim and so dodged out of the throwing attack. So Foedor had to retreat in an arc just to allow the target ta continue aiming until the gunner deceased... It took 4 tries to get the desired result. BTW, our enemies do not care about thier own units, when they fire on ours. We blow off the other Humvee with a captured BTR (this KPV has a nice sound), rendering any further gangwar merely impossible.

After grabing the vehicles and the 4 molotov cocktails from the crate near the tents we return to the slave market. This Humvee on the the backyard can be another nice target for our BTR, though it could be very difficult to escape the enemy BTR. So it might be the better choice to eleminate that first.

Another magic moment, the KPV holds 1000 rounds of ammo :cool:

(beside the 750 shots spare ammo), but the fogthrower is missing. Before advancing further, Anatoli and Akim sneak to the field between the slave market and the former base of the claws. Four slingers waiting and maybe playing "Durak". These men serve as reinforcement, if the guards on the slave market detect an enemy. Time for the "Holy Handgrenade of Antioch". Anatoli simply throws it ("towards thy foe") in the middle of the four slingers (It's a bit pixel hunting.). Those nades explode on impact but can be thrown over obstacles. Sometimes they impact on the obstacle...

"DURAK! You all have lost!" Those guys carry fly pills, you can see how they really DID fly! Now let's deal with the guards.

Those can be lured out and laid to rest one by one just by placing a vehicle next to the wall. That guy on the back entrance weilds a M60 so we will eleminate him first.

The rest will be dealt like in the village in our first mission. Using the terminal next to the prison containment opens the gate (the cursor changes to the gear icon).

Alternatively the gate can be destroyed. I would not recommend to destroy the walls, because this might be considdered as an attack by the slaves, which renders the mission impossible. This guy waits for your adress. If the crates near the mansion in the south (see Part 1) are allready looted, there could be a bug, which prevents the slaves from beeing adressable.

Victor and his wife join our team. A bug prevents Victor from achieving special abilities. Renaming that char from Romanova to Romanov might fix it, actually I have not tryed it (edited). This container crane in the backyard looks interesting. The hooked on container can be destroyed indirectly by shooting the flatcar beside. The flying shrapnells should cut the rope.

Don't stand too close to the target. The broken container reveals...

Freebee... Those 4 inventory slots are valuable to store all the loot so far. There are some crates around, one holds a bundle of explosives. Connecting this with the suspicious looking gas tanks lead to another nice effect, the devs built in.

The explosion of the tanks lures the (allready deceased) guards to that area (scripted event!), but the demolition of the crane will surely destroy the Wolf in the hooked container. So if you want to take use of that tactic, make sure to take the Wolf before. Now we can take care of the guardpost on the hill. This cat with the RPG causes our main problem. This launcher will outreach almost all of our weapons and this cat wears a vest, so sniping is not an option. The three slingers stand not close enough for a single kill with a nade, so Victor, our new member, throws a nade and Ivan and Feodor do the finish.

Nearby shooting on a gas pipes revealsl another nice effect.

After freeing the slaves, a new "blib" appear on the map near the old base of the TFR and the objective is changed into totally eliminating the slingers. There is no plot reference to the marked mapspot, so let's take a look.

This court have been empty before. This guy in white coat seems to be guarded by the slingers. To get rid of the guards we could use the back entrance, which can be passed by soldiers but is too narrow for vehicles. This nice tactical option did not work out this time. We served the BTR a HEAT shell and catched the soldiers as they ran after the BTR to look for the attacker. BTW, the prisoner is set immortal.

Two HEAT shells later the BTR was empty and Feodor had a talk with that white coated guy.

He reveales two important facts. The location of Vigo the boss of the slingers and the existance of NOAH a scientific organisation, which researches the SGDS pandemia. Unfortunately this scientist does not know the position of the HQ of NOAH due to his low privileges. We will think about that later. It would be possible to lure the slinger guards to the TFR base (if we had not eleminated them...) and let them do the dirty work instead, what a waste...

Vigo resides in that mansion in the south, which does not really surprizes anyone. The area behind the hill directly westward of the mansion can be used as a secure area (this little wolfpack is not really worth mentioning), especially if the claws and the TFR is not eleminated so far. This mansion has changed a bit since our last visit.

Vigo is the guy with the black coat. If he spots any of our troops, he will declares his will to fight and steps into his BMP, we will avoid that. Vigos speech has a very special tone which strongly reminds of a famous historical political "leader". Obviously the slingers use this mansion as training ground and Vigo has a hang up to that "Matrix" movies. The 4 BTR have vanished (even if we had not blown them up) and the two gates are guarded.

The lonely guard outside the backdoor will cause no problem. The guards and the Humvee on the eastern part of the area can be lured away by driving a car to the eastern wall. The Humvee cannot shoot over the wall nor can the guards. From the hills in the west and in the south of the mansion the BMP can be shot with our BMP. Vigo will not notice the attack, if his BMP has redeployed behind the wall. We will use this oppurtunity to test an AT2 rocket.

The range surpasses that of a 73 mm cannon and those rockets are guided, i.e. they fly around edges. The damage is decent, comparable to a RPG and more than a 73 mm HEAT shell. What follows now is some luring, killing action, maybe a HEAT shell for the BMP, maybe a molly over the wall and maybe some sniping of the guys on the training ground. At the end the BMP is empty, the Humvee is destroyed, every slinger rests in peace and Vigo has been convinced to take a retirement, forever.

Seeing Vigos corps diappearing even more reminds me on Matrix. Right after the death of all slingers (except the soldiers in the BMP) the gangwar starts, or would start if we had not eliminated the rivals. Both gangs would come to Vigos mansion and shoot the hell out of each other. The TFR passes the court with that rescued scientist on that way and would have killed him, if he was not immortal. So they would waste their ammo on that guy. This as another good reason to eleminate the TFR before. If you had chosen the easy way and leave the claws and TFR to kill each other you MAYBE (if you are really lucky) can grab a few vehicles from the battlefield. Those will most likely show a condition worse than that vehicles we are forced to leave behind because of our personal limits. There is a crate on the training ground holding a Strela AA launcher. The carport on the eastern wall shows another nice detail.

The Wartburg 311/312 on the left was produced until 1967 and can be seen as a luxury car in the "real existing socialism", the Trabant P 601 S was the standard car (delivery time: 12 YEARS! NO JOKE!) and the Barkas B 1000 was allready introduced. Beside the carport another crate can be found.

Following the railroad tracks to the south the squad will encounter two children, which apparently live in the hopper waggons.

Those kids can be adressed and reveal the position of an empty car, right in the middle of nowhere.

Another freebee... So our last task is to "leave the area", which means return to the street near to our starting position. Eleminating the claws and the TFR is fully optional, even though they are "legal targets". We have to leave two vehicles behind. Of course we leave the most damaged ones.

The rest builds an impressive formation.

To conclude the mission the NOAH feature must be recalled. That low privileged scientist does not know the NOAH HQ, but he must at least be able to establish a communication with them (even through third parties). Our squad might help them, our HQ holds two academics and last but not least we have rescued one of their members. Under normal circumstances we CANNOT be ignored. So (to save the plot of the whole game) we can assume, that circumstances are not "normal" and we have to find a plan B, if NOAH just refuses to our contact.

Gordon Shumway · Mar 28, 2017

Time to rest (nice weather for it...) and gear up.

between Missions

Anatoli and Ivan leveled high enough to get their first special talent. They choose the athletic skill.

Our two new Members Victor and Natasha are married and both have combat experience, which proofs once more that marriage means war. We have 26h to prepare for the next mission, so 2 Soldiers (Ivan and Boris) receive hormon treatments.

The laboratories produce 4 medpacks and one dose of fly. Taking care of the vehicles, we brougt in, the BTR 80 with the "magic" 1000 round KPV is marked and our Humvee is updated to its current ammo content.

All those more or less damaged vehicles could occupy our workshop for almost 100h. There is no possible combination of repair times minor to 26h so we repair the most damaged BMP 1, wasting 8h of our pressious time

. We need this APC in the next mission.

Vladi offers some usefull stuff, especially 73 mm shells and some AT 2 rockets. We buy all 73 mm HESH shells, which cost 1000 nines each and all AT 2 for 700 nines each. The whole trade amounts to 9000 nines, so we lower the prices by selling 40 nines for 20 before that deal happens.

There are some new item informations available.

We allready used that APC and it will remain usefull until the end of the game. The 73 mm 2 A 28 cannon and additional AT 2 rockets allows some very precise operations against armoured an unarmoured vehicles. Shells for the cannon come in two kinds: HEAT (High Explosive Anti Tank) and HESH (High Explosive Squish Head). The first one damages armour, structure and soldiers inside a vehicle almost equally. The second one lacks the armour penetration capability and damage is focused on soldiers inside the target. The real thing forms a flat pancake on the target and explodes. On an armour plate the pressure wave breaks shrapnells out of the opposite surface (which is normally inside the target), which do the killing job. Modern laminated armours are almost unaffected by HESH shells. To put these (expensive) ammo into use they can be fired on targets, which have been softened by a mine, RPG or HEAT shell before or "soft" targets like cars and trucks. Even more beneficial for a fast retreat are the flat silouette and its speed. Of course they messed up some parameters from the real thing (e.g. ranges of the 2 A 28 and AT 2, thansport capacity)

The handheld version cannot be mounted on a vehicle. I've no idea why. The stated range is ridicolous. I would not recommend to walk in front of a firing M 60 in a distance of 100 m nor 1000 m. For game purposes range and damage will be enough.

The german term "Fliegerfaust" stands for AA rocket and was clearly derived from "Panzerfaust". This SA 7 "Strela" (also reffered as "Grail") will never miss the target. The warhead seems to be a bit overpowered as it even damages armoured vehicles. The range will be fine for the game, even though it is far from reality (take it 10 times and you are close). The launcher is really expensive.

This nade seems to be a good idea, but turns out to be useless. A stunned enemy cannot be imprisoned nor disarmed. Stunning counts as attack, so the nade cannot be used to bypass a no-attack-restriction. The level design must force the use of this item.

So let's take a look on our next mission.

The seekers will provide us with the location of a major NOAH facility for a favour. This "favour" means finishing a gangwar in this urban-type settlement (посёлок городского типа). Our squad seems to be qualified for finishing gangwars. We will get a T 55 as bonus (they seem to be desperate). The presence of two gangs allows the estimation of several vehicles to capture and additional loot. So we keep our task force slim. We deploy our Ural, the Humvee-950 and the repaired BMP 1.

In this mission we reach the limit of 10 soldiers to be initially deployed for the first time. The Squad can hold a max of 12 members. Natasha stays at the base.

zwanzig_zwoelf · Apr 21, 2017

Nice LP!
Are you running the game on Win7, by chance?

Gordon Shumway · Aug 16, 2017

So I am back online...

The keybord of my online computer caused a short cirquit on the mainboard, which crushed the whole thing the slow and sneaky way. In the final state several keys just did not work one day later the whole computer failed. Checking up, I found that almost every capacitator of the board was close to blow and the battery has swollen so much, it popped out of its socket...

Additionally this other dimension called "real life" took its toll by those time consuming issues like work and family. When I had to pay my electricity bill, I thought about just reload an earlier safegame, but found out that I forgot to save....

BTW. some political misconstructions of our government disturbed the market situation of the bussiness, I work in, so we had to cope with a boom market until june and a great drop afterwards, the number of daily working hours behaved roughly proportional.

zwanzig_zwoelf said:
Nice LP!
Are you running the game on Win7, by chance?

No, I still use WinXP. I am not sure, if the game runs on Win7. There is no obvious reason, why it schould not do so. Using DX10 and above might cause troubles (because of the lack of backward compatibility). Another interesting observance could be a tryout with a 64 bit system. If there are any experiences/ incompatibilities, I would appreciate any feedback. For any tryout it could be helpful to start the first mission and score some kills, because for some reason, the unspawning of chars produces some stress to the program, which often lead to a CTD until the patch was installed. So that still could be a good stress test.

zwanzig_zwoelf · Aug 16, 2017

Gordon Shumway said:
No, I still use WinXP. I am not sure, if the game runs on Win7. There is no obvious reason, why it schould not do so. Using DX10 and above might cause troubles (because of the lack of backward compatibility). Another interesting observance could be a tryout with a 64 bit system. If there are any experiences/ incompatibilities, I would appreciate any feedback. For any tryout it could be helpful to start the first mission and score some kills, because for some reason, the unspawning of chars produces some stress to the program, which often lead to a CTD until the patch was installed. So that still could be a good stress test.

I've tried to get it to work on Win7 (32 bits) and it always crashes when you try to start a new game. Guess I'll have to try running it via VMware + WinXP.

Gordon Shumway · Aug 16, 2017

So back to work...

Mission 4: Two Roads, One Way (Part 1)

This mission contains a lot of dos and don'ts . Several situations lead to a game over, not only those which are obvious. In addition to that there is a real plot, which limits the room for any side tracking. If the Seekers, our most important allies, are pissed off or directly attacked, they turn hostile, which leads to a game over.

There won't be any new recruits in this mission but an awfull lot of stuff to loot. We allready brought 3 vehicles and the briefing mentioned a T 55 to trade in for a favour, so there are 6 more possible vehicles to grab.

The startpoint lies in the middle of that huge map on the parking lot of a supermarket. The team meets with Vladow, the boss of the local Seekers. A cutscene explains the deal.

The name of the town is not translated in the english version, it means "Town in the mountains". To earn our tank and information about NOAH, we have to end the war between Claws and TFR. We had done that before, didn't we? This time the plan is to side with one gang, defeat the other, which will leave the area. This time, we have to stay into the plotline, our own way of "deescalation policy" (both competitors loose, we win) cannot be performed. One of the gangs HAS to survive. Only the third part of the plan (the defeated gang leaves) can be modified towards: "The defeated gang would leave, if there was someone left to leave." Our heroes receive some additional gear up from the crates directly in front of the supermarket and another free gift from Vladow...

This Humvee is equipped with a TOW- launcher. Those cause a decent ammount of damage even on armoured targets and very rarely misses even moving targets. The range has been limited to 100m, less than the range of almost every cannon in the game, rendering that weapon almost useless. Taking any of their cars will piss the seekers off and lead directly to a game over. Damaging their supermarket (or not preventing anybody else from doing it) will also piss them off. One spot in the corner seems to be blocked by something.

This mistery will be resolved (even though it is relatively easy to guess...). First we will explore the vicinity. Most of the main battle between the gangs will take place on the block directly north of the supermarket. Even though the gangs engage their bases on the western and eastern edge of town, we will try to concentrade all hostilities in the center of town. The crate between the houses can be emtied right away. The older buildings here do not really look typical "russian" but more "east german"...

Well those white appartment blocks in the background can be considdered authentic. The cows on the soccerfield directly east of that position have chosen to keep their neutrality. They can be eliminated, but do not provide experience. There are some hostile wild animals on the hills around town. The secret passwords for the two gangs are available from Mad Mick just by visiting the warehouse in the south and talking to him.

If he has some employees he could name his company "Mick and the Mechanics". Before getting the passwords it is not possible to visit the gangs without turning that them hostile. If one gang turns hostile before the team has sided up with the other, the player has lost. Up in the north, outside of town the road leads to a woodcutter camp. Those lumberjacks are quite OK, they sleep all night and work all day and they left their Humvee with a grenade launcher.

We might need the flame grenades later to kill some vehicle crewmen. Right eastern of the supermarket lies a churchyard. Entering the yard triggers a side plot.

The community leaves the yard when our men come close. This preacherman has something to tell, but words of violence break the silence and someone (or something) convinces him to remain silent, forever.

This "thingy" just ignores our team, even if we attack it. This nice minigun, integrated into the right arm, can really annoying, especially if the capability of firing 2000 rounds without reloading is taken into account. These cyborgs become more common later in the game, for now the visitor will dissapear after a few seconds. Supposed we had been prepared or blessed with a sixth sense and a zero time reaction and our heroes attack that "thingy". Shooting, even close shots with a shotgun would take more time than the few seconds we have. Those cyborgs are REALLY hard to kill. A nade will do the job:

The trees and half of the church are gone, because the cyborg really explodes like a bomb. The leftovers are interesting.

Some people say, they would give an arm and a leg for personal freedom, but noone should take that literally. That kill also does not provide experience, so lets turn back time and spare the nade. The hills right in the south of the churchyard can be considdered as save, so we park our cars here.

Before choosing our side we will choose our site...

The claws reside in the industrial area on the eastern edge of town. The northern road to that area is mined, so Boris will help out.

Some looks over that base gives an impression about the strength of our possible ally or opponent.

Several Humvees and BTR can be seen. Some details have to be mentioned:

This steam locomotive T20 or later designated 95 by the "Reichsbahn" has been invented in 1922 especially for curvy and steep railroads. Several engines have been used in East Germany till the 1980s and cared well, so there are still several full working machines today. The coupling rods are really modeled (not only textured). This machine runs on tracks with 1435mm. In russia all tracks have a width of 1520mm. None of those engines have been ever captured or taken as reparation by the soviets (and consequently converted to 1520mm), so the appearance seems to be a mistery. Unfortunately the locomotives are simply decoration.

This ZSU-23-4 Shilka, another interesting part of the equipment, serves as "ultimate weapon".

The diesel engine below can be identified as the type 060 DA from rumanian railways (CFR), which has been produced in different variants also for 1520mm tracks (but not in that particular outer appearance).

The TFR has deployed their forces in an old military base on the opposite edge of town. Of course there is also a minefield over the southern road near the base for Boris to clear.

For an easy victory all cleared mines can be placed near the chosen enemy base or along the most probable passways to the ally base. This tactic has three great disadvantages:

1. Mines kill enemys AND allies. If the allies loose too many units by our fault the player has lost.
2. Right before the battle and after it the seekers patrol in town. If any seeker is hurt, the player has lost.
3. We don't want to destroy all those enemy vehicles, don't we?

The TFR- base seems to be a bit larger than the Claw- base. There are also some Humvees and BTR visible inside.

This Huges OH-6/ MD 500 Cayuse helicopter works as the counterpart for the Shilka of the Claws. The number of military units may increase significantly by hidden (allready spawned but disactivated) units which will activate triggered by the plot and depending from the role, that particular gang will play.

We will side with the Claws against the TFR because they have better equipment to capture and loot and I want to get this chopper. But first there are some preperations to be done. Boris lays only three mines over the northern road to the TFR- Base. The use of mines is too comfortable to be ignored. Supposed the TFR will launch an attack, the faster units especially the Humvees will take the lead and so more likely catch the mines. We can't take over captured Humvee anyway. T 55 or BMP 1 will survive a single mine and can be captured easier. Any BTR will be lost, that is the risk. Boris stays in that area to place more mines or clear them.

Our BMP 1 is deployed in an excellent shooting position. Every enemy unit on its way to the claw base can be shot from here. If the TFR sends their whole force at once, we are in trouble. Well in that case we would have to curse the devs, start that mission all over or reload an earlier safegame and lay all of our mines. Fortunately the TFR will not do so and the devs are not to be cursed (at least not for that reason). Akim has to stay here to spot any enemy in time. Our Humvee stays in reserve to chase lone enemy soldiers. Helena stays near the Claw base with her RPG 7. As we have allready noticed that heli, the TFR might send it over. Shooting it down with the RPG is possible especially if it stops to aim another target. Missing is no option.

Professor Petrow will establish contact with the Claws. Feodor stays in reserve because we have noticed only one empty vehicle on that base, a T 55. Maybe we can grab it in exchange for our assistance. As a counterpart an empty BMP 1 waits in the TFR- Base (for anyone who still wants to check the alternatives). Unfortunately that counterpart will dissapear as soon as the player sides with the other gang.

The whole battle will be shown in the next part.

Gordon Shumway · Aug 16, 2017

zwanzig_zwoelf said:
I've tried to get it to work on Win7 (32 bits) and it always crashes when you try to start a new game. Guess I'll have to try running it via VMware + WinXP.

Did you install the patch to 1.1.1.178? Without patch the whole program crashes for any possible reason (rainy weather, lack of attention, pressing any button, not pressing any button,...).

Azira · Aug 16, 2017

zwanzig_zwoelf · Aug 16, 2017

Gordon Shumway said:
zwanzig_zwoelf said:

I've tried to get it to work on Win7 (32 bits) and it always crashes when you try to start a new game. Guess I'll have to try running it via VMware + WinXP.

Click to expand...

Did you install the patch to 1.1.1.178? Without patch the whole program crashes for any possible reason (rainy weather, lack of attention, pressing any button, not pressing any button,...).

Yes, and also tried various fixes (running in software rendering mode, compatibility modes, certain other solutions).

Gordon Shumway · Aug 16, 2017

zwanzig_zwoelf said:
I've tried to get it to work on Win7 (32 bits) and it always crashes when you try to start a new game.

Did the Intro movie play before the crash and did you see the loading screen for the 1st mission (with some introductional text)? If so, the problem most likely seems to be related with the 3D-engine (You might allready got the same idea.). As a quick guess there might be a storage allocation problem, because WinXP can only adress 4 GB. Normally the compatibility mode should cover that. As another guess the DX-version does not provide real backward compatibility. DX 10 is definitely NOT backward compatible to DX 9c. I am not sure if MS included a compatibility mode for DX 10.

A seperate XP- installation (Multiboot or VM) might be the optimal solution. Actually I haven't tryed VM yet, though I prefer to build a multiboot computer.

Let's scavange even from the scavangers, Soldiers of Anarchy

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Unwanted

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Graverobber Foundation

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