Jagged Alliance Galaxy: JA2 Night Combat JA2 Night Combat ================================================================================ Various Authors on 27/03/2010 06:20:00 JAGGED ALLIANCE 2 NIGHT COMBAT What tactics works best at night? What guns work best at night? How should I use chemical break lights? What about large groups of enemies? What is the best way to take SAM sites? How about using smoke at night? WHAT TACTICS WORKS BEST AT NIGHT? When entering a sector occupied by enemies at night switch your soldiers to stealth mode to avoid enemies noticing them. Start by engaging solitary enemies with sound suppressed weapons; pistols with silencers and submachine guns with built-in silencers work best. If the enemies start noticing you, disengage from combat by running toward the sector edge. It is ok to disable stealth mode to cover more distance as the enemies are already aware of your presence. If you can’t lose the enemies try exiting the sector and reentering it from somewhere else. Mercenaries with the night ops skill and/or night vision gear should be used as spotters as they can see enemies before the enemy see them. Move spotters ahead of your team and have the rest of your team shoot enemies the spotter detects. Save the APs of your spotters to dispatch enemies who run toward your main team. It is best to keep your spotters hidden from the enemies, so have them use sound suppressed weapons even when the rest of your team already switched to assault or sniper rifles. Use hit and run tactics by frequently disengaging from combat to get out of turn based mode back into real time mode. The advantage is that your team will start turn based mode with full APs. WHAT GUNS WORK BEST AT NIGHT? Due to the reduced vision at night, guns with a shorter range like pistols and shotguns are less likely to be out of effective range as your team generally spots enemies at half the distance compared to day combat. Mercenaries with the ambidextrous skill wielding two weapons benefit during night combat simply because two guns make double the damage for the same AP cost. Also most pistols and submachine guns allow sound suppressors as attachments, which reduce the likelihood of being noticed. Due to shorter engagement ranges assault rifles are more likely to hit on burst or auto fire, which in turn costs you less APs compared to aimed single shots during the day. Assault rifles with a low ready cost, shooting more bullets for less APs work generally better at night compared to bold action sniper rifles. HOW SHOULD I USE CHEMICAL BREAK LIGHTS? Chemical break lights are essential for night combat. They allow you to see and shoot enemies beyond your (night) vision and enemies will also actively try to avoid the light. The later can be used to stop enemies from closing in on your position like protecting your flanks or dispersing a larger group of them. After positioning a break light you can retreat to a saver position where you can shoot enemies with assault or sniper rifles, just make sure you are far enough so that the enemies won’t be able to spot your muzzle flashes. You can use multiple break lights to “build” larger lit areas at night, which enemies have to cross and you can pick them off easily. Whenever you can see an enemy but they cannot see you, you have a much larger chance to interrupt them. If you don’t have many break lights you can use mercenaries with the night ops skill and/or night vision gear as spotters on your flanks around the lit areas. WHAT ABOUT LARGE GROUPS OF ENEMIES? The key is to ensure enemies don’t see you long enough to act as spotters. If you can maintain an enemy free perimeter around your team until your next turn, none of them can shoot you. Position your team members so that approaching enemies give them multiple chances to interrupt. You can do that by overlapping their view arcs (1.13) or stacking their vision ranges (Vanilla). Keep in mind that muzzle flashes give away your position and allow enemies to interrupt you. Especially in Vanilla enemies will try to throw break lights or grenades at the tile from where the muzzle flash originated. Use flash hiders (1.13) or suppressors (the silencer in Vanilla), or just move the shooter a few tiles back. WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO TAKE SAM SITES? Usually these installations have fences which keep enemies trapped on the inside. Use stealth to position your team in front of the main entrance and fire away. Make sure you are far enough where enemies won’t reach you with their break lights or grenades. Keep an enemy free zone between your team and the entrance to avoid enemies acting as spotters. If you feel like speeding things up a little (and don’t mind holes in those beautiful fences), get another team with a wire cutter to enter the fenced in area from another side and attack the enemy from two sides. HOW ABOUT USING SMOKE AT NIGHT? Smoke grenades work just the same at night as they do during the day, the only difference is that the distance to the enemies is much shorter due to the reduced vision at night. A tactic described by Erhan Ozaydin is to position your mercs in a tight group, surround them with smoke, fire a few shots to lure the enemies to approach your team, and rely on your mercs being able to interrupt the enemy. At night your team should be able to interrupt the enemy just a few tiles away where you can punch them and steal their gear. Higher level mercs have better chances of interrupting.