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chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

7.62 High Calibre



There was once a Russian design studio named Apeiron, which (according to Moby Games) was unofficially formed in 1999 by an independent developer named Vladimir Ufnarovskiy. In 2002, Ufnarovskiy and his new companions (Dmitriy Ivashkin and Stanislav Simonov) released a game called E5 online. Likely inspired somewhat by the famous Jagged Alliance series of turn-based mercenary games, it held two distinct differences from its predecessor: it was in full 3D and it used a “Smart Pause Mode” system rather than a turn-based one with action points.

E5 got the attention of everyone’s favorite Russian publisher, 1C Company, and with a little polish (including writing from Shaun Lyng of the Jagged Alliance team) it was re-released in 2005 as Brigade E5: New Jagged Union. The game takes place in the war-torn South American nation of Palinero, with your team of mercenaries picking sides to decide who wins the civil war.

In 2007, a sequel was released. 7.62 High Caliber didn’t actually get a non-fan English translation until 2009 and didn’t make a huge splash. With a bit more polish (though still incredibly buggy), the sequel took the same mercenary team to the neighboring state of Algeira to get involved in its own civil war. It removes the character creator of the prior game in favor of seven pre-made characters, but increases the number of firearms to over 160.

The game languished in obscurity for a while, apart from a 2008 Let’s Play from fellow goon Squint that used a fan translation and became unbeatable due to the bugs. Things started turning around when a group of fans got together and released the Blue Sun mod. Along with fixing many of the bugs and doing some further translation work, it adds even more guns and a third storyline involving the Blue Sun mercenaries and a lot of really juvenile toilet humor. The mod is basically a must-own for anyone who wants to play this game. The steadily increasing popularity of the game resulted in another LP (which actually finished!) by Sperglord Actual in 2012, and in 2014 it was finally given a Steam release along with the Hard Life mod (which, true to its name, makes the game insanely hard and completely rewrites the story).

Sadly, this was not enough to keep Apeiron afloat. They released an expansion pack with post-civil war gameplay that I don’t think ever left the Russian language market and Marauder, a post-apocalyptic game using the same engine and gameplay for a more linear story-based experience, in 2009. Their website is long gone and they’ve gone bankrupt.

What makes this game worth playing?



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL9c22npa38

It's a janky mess, I'll give it that. But especially with Blue Sun, it scratches an itch that not a whole lot of games are able to. It's loaded down with detail from start to finish, from lovingly modeled firearms to individual fragments flying out of grenade explosions. It provides an open world full of quests and lets the player roam free in a way that few modern games are willing to do without a lot of big quest markers pointing the way.

But we're not going to be playing this in a regular fashion, where you passively watch it all go on. This time, you get to play with me!

What makes this LP different from the last ones?

The best way I can describe this is that we’re going to be doing it like a tabletop RPG. Rather than just me playing through everything and the audience watching with occasional commentary, you will take control of the mercenaries!

The squad size in this mod maxes out at 12, and so the first 11 people to volunteer will be given the first available slots as mercs (the first slot remains occupied by myself, as there is a “main mercenary” that gives you a game over upon death and I’ll stay in control of him). We’ll start with a party of 5, thus giving the first 4 volunteer goons playtime at the beginning. Unfortunately, I can’t quite figure out renaming mercs and replacing their profile pictures and I’m a little scared to mess with such an unstable game, so you’ll be taking control of pre-made mercs as your “code names”.

As we encounter new free mercs that are recruited into our party through the storyline, new players will be added to take control of them. At certain intervals I may hire a new merc to add to our party, and mercs who die are replaced by the next player in line. Ordinarily it costs money to hire a merc and they require regular payment, but I'll be doing some work behind the scenes to disguise this.

Reloading saves is only to be done in two instances:

1. The game crashes or otherwise suffers a game-breaking bug (not that unprecedented, as even the Blue Sun version suffers from a terrible memory leak and is guaranteed to crash when played too long)
2. My main merc dies, as this is an immediate game over.

Otherwise, mercs who die will stay dead and expended or destroyed resources will not return. Players who die will return to the back of the line, with any recoverable equipment thrown in the car for either sale or storage (depending on its value).

One other case of GM-controlled party member is slaves. Slaves are very low-skill mercs that can be purchased for a lump sum, and they fill a party slot until they die. I will maintain control of any slaves that get purchased, but if you purchase them you get to tell me the guidelines for what they’re going to be doing.

How are we going to play?

In going with the “tabletop RPG” style of this LP, there are two situations that the party is going to be in:

Combat functions as real time with pausing. Every action takes a certain number of seconds to perform (counted down to the hundredth of a second), and every “round” of combat is going to consist of me progressing the fight for 5 seconds. Before each round, you let me know what your character is going to do. This can be as granular (“Move to the low wall, reload, and perform a fast turn and aimed shot at the closest bandit’s left arm”) or as vague (“Take cover and fire at whoever points a gun my way”) as you desire. I’ll do everything in my power during the combat to protect your mercs, so I’ll make sure to put them in cover if I see an obvious threat or make them run away from incoming grenades. If you don’t provide me with an action for your merc’s turn before I play it out, I’ll take control of them and play them as if they were my own until you return or surrender control to another player. You won’t need to worry about your merc suddenly going AFK and ignoring a bad guy walking up to him with a shotgun just because you didn’t perfectly plan everything five moves ahead.

Outside of combat, the party can travel around the cities and bases of Algeira. There are merchants selling everything from guns to water canteens, doctors, side quests, and bars where you can engage in trade, hire slaves as your personal pack mule or cannon fodder, or learn about job offers around Algeira. The total money in the party is equally split between every party member to spend as they please on equipment or slaves. If you want to visit a black market dealer, I’ll bring up a list of everything for sale and its prices for you to decide how you’re going to spend your personal funds. If there’s a super fancy space gun that you really want and it costs more than you can afford with your allowance, talk to your other party members to see if they’ll be willing to donate to the cause. For major purchases that will cost a large portion of the total funds (like new vehicles), the party needs to take a simple majority vote. Yes, this includes expensive doctor visits; we are cutthroat.

Votes will also be taken on important decisions, including which quest line to follow (broadly, you can choose to support the government or the rebels or follow the independent Blue Sun questline that doesn’t actually go to the endgame) and how certain quests with multiple endings are going to be concluded.

Post-combat loot is likewise first come first served. A full loot list will be posted at the end of a fight, and the first person to call dibs gets it. Anything that isn’t taken gets put in the car trunk to be sold to the nearest merchant, unless you say that any of your loot share gets put in the cab for storage purposes (so let us know if you really want us to stockpile those bandages).

What's the audience and spoiler policy?

If you've played this game before or followed the other LPs of it, please at least try to pretend that you're not metagaming. If you know that a particular path is going to end in an ambush, don't tell the other players "Hey, we're gonna get jumped by like 10 bandits once we get here". This goes for players and observers.

Likewise, this will be a strict no-spoilers game. Just like any good tabletop RPG, the story details and encounters are "in the GM's notes" and not to be revealed even behind spoiler bars.

Other than that, the audience is free to observe and comment as they see fit! Recommend good (or bad) purchase decisions, insult the poop jokes the modders put in, and make fun of people who do stupid stuff and get blown up!

Instructional Guide

1. Stats & HUD

2. Movement & Shooting

3. Inventory

chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Oct 21, 2017

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Crazycryodude
Aug 15, 2015

Lets get our X tons of Duranium back!

....Is that still a valid thing to jingoistically blow out of proportion?


Sign me up!

xthetenth
Dec 30, 2012

Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

Pick me! Give me scissors! Marvel as I do a decent job at ranged combat and pull utterly inexplicable shenanigans in melee!

Quinntan
Sep 11, 2013
Getting in on the ground floor

Davin Valkri
Apr 8, 2011

Maybe you're weighing the moral pros and cons but let me assure you that OH MY GOD
SHOOT ME IN THE GODDAMNED FACE
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!
Sign me up, as well!

This is one of those games that looks cool and sounds neat but is just too janky for me to actually play. Good luck, chitoryu!

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

Davin Valkri posted:

Sign me up, as well!

This is one of those games that looks cool and sounds neat but is just too janky for me to actually play. Good luck, chitoryu!

I'm hoping some of the jank is lessened by the way I'm playing. The big issue with 7.62 is that it has a horrific memory leak problem, where a game session just gets less and less stable until finally it crashes. By doing the game in a turn-based format and only opening the game to screenshot individual actions and decisions, I'm likely to play for short enough periods that it doesn't explode on me.

Also just as a note, I'll be leaving on a business trip tonight and won't be back until next Thursday night. I still have some pre-made posts that I can put up from New Orleans to provide some information on the gameplay and a quick guide to Algeira. This game, befitting a Russian squad tactics sim, has a lot of depth to it and a big manual that I'll try to pare down to what's actually important for the players.

Bacarruda
Mar 30, 2011

Mutiny!?! More like "reinterpreted orders"
I'm in!

Somebody Awful
Nov 27, 2011

BORN TO DIE
HAIG IS A FUCK
Kill Em All 1917
I am trench man
410,757,864,530 SHELLS FIRED


Ooh! Ooh! Can I play too?

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

Sperglord Actual posted:

Ooh! Ooh! Can I play too?

You're extra super duper on watch for metagaming, mister :colbert:

sparkmaster
Apr 1, 2010
Sign me up

CirclMastr
Jul 4, 2010

Sign me up if there's still room.

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

CirclMastr posted:

Sign me up if there's still room.

Oh yeah, there's room. I believe you get 5 or 6 free mercs as you progress through the game, so even if nobody dies we'll still get up to 9 or 10 people playing.

bunnyofdoom
Mar 29, 2008

Jaxxon: Still not the stupidest thing from the expanded universe.



Sign me up to die!


Also, do they accurately model rations in this game, and if so are you going to eat them as you play?

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

bunnyofdoom posted:

Sign me up to die!


Also, do they accurately model rations in this game, and if so are you going to eat them as you play?

I am actually disappointed to say that even Blue Sun does not model rations or any kind of consumables except for what you use in combat. I believe the Hard Life mod does, but that mod is an absolute chore to even understand and makes combat much less balanced.

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

A Primer to 7.62 High Calibre

Because you're going to be choosing actions for your character and making purchases or dividing loot among yourselves, it'll probably benefit you to know how the game actually works. I've made a series of info posts for you to read as we spend a week waiting for the game to begin.

As I explained before, 7.62 High Calibre is a game that takes place in real time with pausing. It controls similarly to games like the Men of War series, only with more specific actions to perform. What makes it unique is that you can pause the game at any point to assess the current situation, giving you effectively unlimited time to consider your next move even as a bullet flies through the air. It also automatically pauses the game for things like spotting an enemy, being damaged or fired upon, or completing an action.

Every action takes time, right down to the hundredth of a second. If you’re ever concerned about how much time might get taken doing something, ask and I can let you know. This means that things like inventory management are key, as certain pockets are more accessible than others and you never want to be digging through your backpack for a grenade to toss around a corner.

Merc Stats

Every merc begins the game with a pre-defined set of Attributes and Skills, which can be trained over time.

Attributes

• Health, obviously, is your HP and is represented on the HUD as a red bar. As a merc takes damage, the bar will either empty or turn dark red. The dark red portion of the bar will slowly deplete over time, indicating potential health loss to bleeding that can only be stopped with first aid. Completely depleted portions of the bar can only be healed with long periods of rest (and I mean long, like multiple days) or a hospital stay. You can also take crippling damage to certain body parts, which require a hospital visit to cure.

• Energy is the blue bar on the HUD. Many actions, including just moving, take energy. If you overload your merc with a heavy weight, their energy depletes faster as they move. Energy can only be restored by resting up or by drinking water from a canteen. Energy is tied to your health, so if you lose 50% of your health you’ll also be restricted to a max 50% energy.

• Strength is important for your inventory management. Every merc has a maximum weight that they can carry without penalty, and viewing their inventory screen shows how close you are to overloading them. If a merc is carrying more than they’re able, they’ll suffer speed and stamina penalties as they move. It also affects your throwing distance, melee damage, and effectiveness with heavy weapons.

• Stamina is a reflection of how fast your energy returns. Mercs with higher stamina will regain their energy quicker.

• Dexterity reflects how quick you are on the draw. High dexterity mercs can raise their weapons and switch targets faster.

• Reaction is how quickly mercs get over shock, which I’ll explain later.

• Agility affects movement speed and the length of time required to perform actions like throwing objects.

• Intellect is how fast your character increases their attributes and skills by performing actions.

• Experience is a general boost to all stats. More experienced mercs will be better than less experienced mercs of equal skill.

• Eyesight is self-explanatory, and is most obvious at night. All mercs have a “shared vision” instead of units only being visible to whoever can directly see them, so one guy seeing an enemy soldier lets everyone know their location.

• Hearing is a very useful stat for avoiding ambushes. Units make noise as they move, and if a merc hears them you’ll see a question mark appear at their location. It updates every second or so as they move, but obviously you won’t know whether the guy coming around the corner has a knife or an M60 until you see him. A higher hearing stat means a greater range for hearing enemies moving.

Skills

• Snapshot influences the accuracy of snapshots and hip shooting.

• Shooting influences the accuracy of aimed shots.

• Sniping influences the accuracy of shooting with magnified optics.

• Heavy Weapons influences the accuracy of using things like machine guns, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers (along with strength).

• Throwing influences the accuracy of thrown knives and grenades, with a higher skill meaning less deviation from the path you order a merc to throw in.

• Melee influences the damage and speed of melee strikes.

• Camouflage influences how easy your character is to spot and how much noise they make as they move.

• Sapper influences how difficult it is for the enemy to see and avoid your planted explosives, like mines.

• Doctor influences how fast you can restore health with first aid, to both yourself and others.


All attributes except Energy, Stamina, Intellect, Eyesight, and Hearing can be increased by a maximum of +1 per day through performing actions that train them, so Strength can be trained through carrying heavy loads, Reaction raises over time as your merc gets used to being shocked, and so on.

All skills except Camouflage can be increased by a maximum of +5 per day, likewise by performing the actions they affect.

HUD



To begin, the gray bar all the way on the left side is your camouflage stat, just like in Metal Gear Solid 3. The lower the bar, the harder you are to see.

The little model of your dude shows all of your body parts. If a body part is red, that means it’s been crippled and you’ll suffer debilitating effects until you visit a doctor for healing. These are the effects:

• A crippled head will make the screen varying shades of red and white (which makes it harder for me to see what’s going on) and heavily decreases hearing and eyesight for that merc. Taking crippling damage to the head also tends to knock a merc out for a while.
• A crippled arm will cause the merc to drop what they’re holding and reduce their accuracy.
• Crippled legs will cause your merc to fall over and make them unable to move except by crawling.
• A crippled torso I believe causes a general decrease to stats and stamina, and will often knock your merc out when it happens. I don’t really know much more.

Below the model of your merc is a list of your combat skills.

The echocardiogram (or “heart monitor” for you plebs) is your adrenaline levels. Like I explained before, being surprised by an enemy or coming under danger from gunfire and explosives will cause your merc’s adrenaline to spike. This increases their speed and makes every action take less time, but they get jittery and can’t hit the broad side of a barn. Adrenaline can be lowered by consuming certain drugs or receiving first aid. Mercs with a high reaction stat are less susceptible to shock and recover faster.

The blue and red bars are your energy and health, respectively.

The images showing different methods of shooting, different numbers of rounds, and different postures are all used for picking how you're going to move or shoot. That'll be covered in its own post.

For inventory, the big space on the top-left is whatever's in your active hands. Your pockets, belt, and top half of your tactical vest are all visible on the HUD for immediate access while every other slot (like backpacks) requires opening the inventory menu.

The map on the right side is obviously just your map. Green dots are squad members, yellow and blue dots are non-combat characters (both civilians and faction members you're not in a fight with), and red dots are enemies. Red dots only appear if one of your mercs can see them.

On the far right side are the total money of our party, the current time of day, and some various menu buttons.

Jobbo_Fett
Mar 7, 2014

Slava Ukrayini

Clapping Larry
Interested on seeing where this goes...

koolkevz666
Aug 22, 2015
Sign me up

want to get my hands on a grenade launcher if they are in the game, if not anything big and load and violent.

Dreamsicle
Oct 16, 2013

poo poo, I'm down with this. Sign me up

Grizzwold
Jan 27, 2012

Posters off the pork bow!
Put me in coach

Asehujiko
Apr 6, 2011
I'll join!

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

koolkevz666 posted:

Sign me up

want to get my hands on a grenade launcher if they are in the game, if not anything big and load and violent.

I'll be covering the basics of weapons in one of my info posts, but you've got:

* Pistols
* Shotguns
* SMGs
* Rifles of every kind, all the way up to anti-materiel rifles
* Grenade launchers
* RPGs
* Hand grenades
* Melee weapons
* Throwing knives

Blue Sun has literally hundreds of weapons, with the smallest being the Makarov pistol. While the Mercapocalypse mod adds more weapons, I'm not using it for two main reasons:

1. The developers flood the merchants with new guns instead of allowing them to provide variety, so even the first merchant would have several dozen pistols alone.

2. The memory leak problem is aggravated by the game loading new models in each session, so going over every single weapon that a merchant has for screenshots actually risks crashing my game.

Shima Honnou
Dec 1, 2010

The Once And Future King Of Dicetroit

College Slice
I don't think I want to be a player since my schedule's always hosed in some way or another but I definitely want to read this and also see it either completed or hitting the point where bugs destroy the save.

Somebody Awful
Nov 27, 2011

BORN TO DIE
HAIG IS A FUCK
Kill Em All 1917
I am trench man
410,757,864,530 SHELLS FIRED


koolkevz666 posted:

want to get my hands on a grenade launcher if they are in the game

Grenade launchers, RPGs, mines and demolition charges. :puckin:

sniper4625
Sep 26, 2009

Loyal to the hEnd
Put me in, coach!

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Put me down as Moji

Noshtane
Nov 22, 2007

The fish itself incites to deeds of hunger
Sign me up!
I'd like some old military surplus bolt action if it's not too much of a bother.

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

Also a note on the mercs:

Because of my hesitance to try and mod the game, there won't be custom names or photos for this LP. I'll be pre-purchasing our starting squad and I'll take first dibs on who wants certain specialties like medic, heavy weapons, or sniper. You'll then be assigned a merc with a particular name, face, and background.

Within this, though, roleplay all you loving want. I'm treating this as close to a traditional tabletop RPG as possible, so feel free to roleplay non-scripted conversations and create additional backstory for your character. Have fun with it!

Noshtane posted:

Sign me up!
I'd like some old military surplus bolt action if it's not too much of a bother.

A lot of it will be up to the black market but I know you've got Kar 98s and Mosins of several varieties.

bunnyofdoom
Mar 29, 2008

Jaxxon: Still not the stupidest thing from the expanded universe.



I'll gladly be the medic. Go max skills medic and camouflage. Maybe save us some dollarydoos on hospital bills

Somebody Awful
Nov 27, 2011

BORN TO DIE
HAIG IS A FUCK
Kill Em All 1917
I am trench man
410,757,864,530 SHELLS FIRED


Dibs on Gunnar.

biosterous
Feb 23, 2013




I would like to be a shootman

mlmp08
Jul 11, 2004

Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration
Nap Ghost
Put me in if there's room ever!

Noshtane
Nov 22, 2007

The fish itself incites to deeds of hunger

chitoryu12 posted:


A lot of it will be up to the black market but I know you've got Kar 98s and Mosins of several varieties.

Oh, yeah, that's the stuff! Nothing but wood and milled steel on my guns.

SpookyLizard
Feb 17, 2009
Oh, I am so in if there's any room left.

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

SpookyLizard posted:

Oh, I am so in if there's any room left.

I'm not leaving any cap on players, but I'm also not making any hard promises that everyone is getting in. We have a cap of 12, so we can have a maximum of 11 players running by the end of the game. If nobody ever dies and our first 4 mercs survive all the way to the endgame, we'll have 11 players total.

That being said, I'm not expecting no deaths.

Gnoman
Feb 12, 2014

Come, all you fair and tender maids
Who flourish in your pri-ime
Beware, take care, keep your garden fair
Let Gnoman steal your thy-y-me
Le-et Gnoman steal your thyme




If possible, I'd like in. I've put hours into this game (thanks to whoever did the first LP), and always wind up surrendering to the deadliest enemy of all - the camera.

xthetenth
Dec 30, 2012

Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

May as well go sniper.

Frogfingers
Oct 10, 2012
I hate this game, I love this game, put me in this game.

Asehujiko
Apr 6, 2011
I have no preference for role.

chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

So our current roster, in order of entry and with first preferences marked:

1. Crazycryodude - Earp
2. xthetenth - Linchpin
3. Quinntan - Verchic
4. Davin Valkri - Dessert

5. Bacarruda
6. Sperglord Actual - Heavy Weapons
7. sparkmaster
8. Circlmaster
9. bunnyofdoom - Medic
10. koolkevz666
11. Dreamsicle
12. Grizwold
13. Asehujiko
14. sniper4625
15. sebmojo
16. Noshtane
17. biosterous
18. mlmp08
19. SpookyLizard
20. Gnoman
21. Frogfingers

The bolded 4 are our starting players!

chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Oct 22, 2017

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chitoryu12
Apr 24, 2014

Movement

There are several different ways that your merc can move, each of which has quite a few differences from the others. Walking is used as the baseline for energy loss, at 1 unit per step.

• Walking is the default movement for everyone. It’s slow but steady, fairly quiet, and doesn’t use a lot of energy. You can keep your weapon shouldered when walking, allowing for a faster reaction time if someone pops around a corner.
• Running is basically a light jog, and is likely going to be your choice for quick movement in most combat situations. It uses up 3 time more energy than walking but nowhere near as much as a sprint. You can also run with your weapon raised.
• Sprinting is going full tilt to your destination. A fast merc without a lot of gear can cross distances like lighting, but it expends a lot of energy (15 times as much as walking, or 5 times as much as running!) and makes a ton of noise. You generally don’t want to sprint unless you’re in an “Oh poo poo” situation like a grenade flying your way or a bandit lining you up for a shotgun blast.
• Fast sneaking is going into a low crouch and hustling, and along with running will probably be one of your most common ways to move. It lets you stay behind cover and keep a low profile, but it uses up 6 times more energy than walking from the strain on your legs (try doing this in real life for a long time and you’ll see what I mean). Someone crouching in this posture gets an accuracy boost.
• Sneaking is a low crouch and slow movement. It uses up 50% more energy than walking, but it’s very quiet and allows the same accuracy benefits as a fast sneak.
• Prone is getting on your belly and crawling. This gets you the lowest profile and highest accuracy and uses 3.8 times as much energy as walking, but it has one major downside: your face is now your center of mass. It may be harder for bullets to hit you, but a bullet that does hit is a lot more likely to go straight to the brainpan. You can’t perform a tactical step or corner turn when prone, but you can roll as long as you don’t have a backpack on.

There are some unique movements that can be performed to increase your tactical viability:

• Fast turns are a bit clunky to do, but at suitable corners you can quickly round them with your gun at the ready. It takes about a quarter of a second to pop around the corner with your gun aimed, but you’re taking a risk that they don’t have a gun aimed at you. Luckily, this can be reversed just as fast if you’re in danger.
• Tactical steps let you shuffle side to side with your weapon raised. This is good for slight sideways adjustments or peeking around corners that you’re too far away from to do a fast turn.
• Rolling is the alternative to a tactical step while prone, and lets you roll side to side to quickly get out of the way of enemy fire or roll out from behind cover to take a shot. Wearing a backpack makes this impossible.
• Facing can also be adjusted easily, as your mercs have a cone of vision instead of 360 degree senses. If you want to maintain overwatch, make sure you’re actually facing the direction you expect a threat to come from.

Shooting

Just like moving, you have some choices of how you want to shoot. Broadly, there’s four different ways to aim and shoot:

• Hip Shooting is just what it says: you hold your gun low and spray and pray. This is obviously the least accurate way to shoot anything, but it’s also incredibly fast and a merc with a pistol in his hand can perform a quick draw in half a second or less. If you get into a bar fight (and this game does have bar fights), this may be your first choice. Hip shooting defaults to center mass.
• Snapshots let you properly shoulder a longarm or raise a pistol with both hands, but you just point and shoot without taking time to aim beyond putting the front sight over them. This is a common method of shooting in urban combat, where you need the speed to beat your opponent but you’re shooting at distances greater than across the room and need some accuracy. Snapshots defaults to center mass.
• Aimed Shots have your merc actually stop to line up their sights properly and aim at specific targets. This is slower but far more accurate than snapshots, making it perfect for taking out targets at long range in a field or hitting non-threatening enemies precisely to take them out of the fight. Aimed shots allow you to aim at specific body parts instead of just at a general target, so you can take the risk of a miss for a bullet to the head if you think you can manage it. I also find it useful for delivering a coup-de-grace on a downed enemy.
• Aimed Shot (Optics) lets you use magnified optics to line up the perfect sniper shot. It takes absolutely forever, but it lets you make the most accurate shot possible given all factors. Keep in mind that this uses the Sniping skill instead of the Shooting skill, so a character who’s really good at making 200-yard shots with iron sights could be absolute crap when given a scope.

There’s also a few different ways to decide how many shots you plan on firing if you’ve got an automatic weapon:

• Single shot fires a single round. Semi-auto and manually operated weapons can only be fired like this.
• Burst mode lets you set the gun to fire in a pre-defined burst only if the gun (like an M16A2) has this function. This is a mechanical burst limiter rather than the merc’s control.
• Automatic lets you choose how many rounds you want to fire in full auto. This can be anywhere from 2 shots to ripping off the entire magazine until you run dry. This is a range (like 3-5 rounds) rather than a specific amount, with the Shooting skill determining how close the merc gets to the desired number of rounds you want to pop off.
• Special lets you activate underbarrel weapons like grenade launchers.
• Melee lets you run up and attack the enemy with your bare hands, pistol whipping/buttstroking, or a melee weapon like a knife or hatchet. This is generally an absolutely terrible idea, but it can be a good way to save ammo by beating unconscious enemies to death.

All guns can be targeted at a specific individual, but there’s also a free aim feature that lets me pick any point in the game world to shoot at. This is helpful if the level geometry is causing some issues with making a hit, or if there’s an enemy on the other side of the wall and you want to shoot through it. With automatic weapons, you can also click and drag to fan out the spread and fire a burst across an area.

Other features include a toggle for merc field of view (letting you see exactly what your merc can see) and a first person camera.

On that note, weapons do have penetration. I don’t think enemies will intentionally fire through cover to hit you, but keep in mind that accidental penetration can be enough to ruin your day. Likewise, take advantage of this for room clearing so you can blast people without ever needing to open a door.

If you’re concerned about not being ready when someone bursts through the door, your merc can hold his weapon at the ready with the click of a button and continue to walk or jog with their gun ready to swing around. This does drain energy, since your arms get tired after a while. You can also direct your merc to aim at a specific point, which allows them to get on target nearly instantly if a target enters that area (so you can maintain overwatch on a particular path or alley).

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