Oh, yuge post bout JA1 itself out of sudden, good and inspiring. Extremely helpful description of The Book contents from One Of Ye Sacred Keepers Of It, ill comment about some stuff that could been misleading tho.
blueskirt42: It has a complete list of quests and the potential locations where the quest items/Brenda can be hidden, most of which have been covered by most websites already, about the only one that's rarely covered is retrieving the sapling from Santino's office as the place's blowing up and the guide just tell you it's possible to retrieve it (not the step by step guide how to get it.)
Maybe thats just me, but i definitely cant locate "most websites" in question. You wrote really detailed and good articles about Brenda's mission on JaWiki, thats all. But that JaWiki not even have a "complete list of quests" still, nor any other site i know does. For example they all miss the "Counterattack on fourth processing plant" (or how it officially called) quest entirely (ofc its indeed rare quest, unlike the mentioned sapling one, how come its "rarely covered"?). Maybe you could share some links you had in mind there?
blueskirt42: But the inner mechanics, none of it is answered. The guide lists the stats of all mercs at the start of the game, but as soon your mercs level up a tiny bits, and improve/decrease in stats, you've got no way to re-adjust the values to take into account the new stats. The guns chart lists some damage, range and noise values but doesn't explain anything about how accuracy or effective range works, or how scopes affect those mechanics.
Don't get me wrong, the guide is good, but the real deal is still hidden under the hood, with or without the guide. The real holy grail would be reverse engineering the game, or peeking at the source code to discover and tinker with the formulas present in the game and open the door to modding JA1/DG.
You can take a look on a thread on
http://thepit.ja-galaxy-forum.com/index.php?t=msg&th=23366&goto=349365&#msg_349365 some website. Its immense popularity (within you included) cast some doubt on your words. Looks like its not any deal even for you, contrary. In case you didnt noticed it by some coincidence (assuming tho you checking some websites contents as i got from this post) - ok, you have that link, you can work with "real holy grail" now too. Its a yuge "hooray" for you as far i got, right? Holy grail and stuff, game mechanics, modding etc and stuff. You wrote it just in time.
blueskirt42: Everyone picks Ice at the start of the game thinking "he'll be my field mechanic" when in reality the guy is more effective with a crowbar than a lockpick (has high health and very poor lockpicking skills.)
Im definitely recall i did read this phrase about verbatim (likely on JaWiki). Shocked me deeply that time, shocking me now. I would really appreciate if you will share the way it got build. From what it comes what "everyone picks him thinking "he'll be my field mechanic""? I hardly can imagine somebody doing it, and author just share info about everyone else. Just because author seen his mechanic skills of 35 and thought "oh, he is so amazing mechanic at 35, ill always will pick him as a filed mechanic, despite i have no idea what those numbers are about, but im sure everyone else will do exactly the same, im really sure it"? Just trying to make a possible reconstruction. And he should had a real force of will in action to ignore the fact some other mercs available at the moment having mech skill say of >90 (and authour DO looking at stats, as he wrote entire thing, so he should intentionally ignore a high mech skill mercs existence to not claim what "everyone picks merc X with mech stat >90 as field mechanic" (that would be still likely wrong, but not so outrageous (as original one means roughly like "everyone who play JA1 is dumb))).
Ill try to edit original phrase to make it closer to reality:
Everyone, who know the game's basics, and want to play effectively (not intentionally making game harder) picks Ice at the start of the game thinking "he is really cheap at price merc with highest possible AP at the moment, the most important stat, and really useful marksmanship, will use him to move and shoot gun and throw stuff at enemy, the fact he cant do anything else is not matter", what match the reality the guy is more effective with a crowbar than a lockpick (has high health and very poor lockpicking skills.) (while its of not any important).
blueskirt42: It also means don't throw grenade with guys with only one pixel of health unless you want them to frag themselves and their teammates.
It should been covered in The Book too, but it covered in manual. Game is flashing with aim cursor then it out of reliable range, for throwing too.
blueskirt42: Basically, every time a merc gains a level, he can see one tile further away. Sun goggles allows you to see 3 tiles further away. I forgot how camouflage worked however. But with sun goggles and camouflage,
As far i got its about test in JADG, i have no info at all about it, but as it posted in topic of JA1 it could be misleading (assuming they indeed work the described way there it sound slightly weird to drag it there, suppose some game called Somegame have items called Sun Goggles and also characters that could get a level, do info about them will be useful here (say Goggles add +2 visibility range and +33 damage there in Somegame, how could it help us talking about JA1?)). In JA1 Goggles add +1 visibility range, having a level
above 2 (not "every time"), also add +1 (level 3 and level 10 have equal bonus). Camouflage on some terrains increase visibility range needed to detect by 1/3 and add small evade shot bonus (actually its the most important game item\feature in JA1 - if you want a hard game - dont use Camo, its ant-ai gamebreaker there, as the game is about merc-to-merc detection).
blueskirt42: Similarly, I recall a minefield crash course with mines that were progressively harder to find and had mercs walk on the path until they walked on a mine they couldn't spot, to test their ability to detect mines. I also built a similar course to test the redshirts' ability to spot mines. And afterward, I built another course, to test each mercs' ability to hide mines.
This one definitely a JADG feature, mines cannot be detected in JA1 beside metal detector (dont mix them with various detonation traps, that could be, reversed, detected with skills only, but marked with same blue flag).
blueskirt42: The list goes on.
I can comment about it if it of some help too, i guess.
