JA Galaxy - The five questions posted most recently:

Short stories by members of Bear's Pit JA2 Forum

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 16:59:00 GMT

Do you like to read stories based on the jagged alliance world . They're here ! Do you want to write stories based on game experiences and share with others ? Do it here !
More information: http://http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/board/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=14&page=1

Has anyone considered an x-com mod for ja2? Its something ive been thinking about trying my hand at but not realy sure where to start. Would the UC mod tools be the best to start playing around with?

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:36:00 GMT

There is a huge modding library at our forum, Bear's Pit (http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com). You can start there. A short answer would be no, there hasn't been a X-com mod yet, because the work on modding merc sprites is still in progress (X-com pilots dressed in T-shirts don't look too realistic). UC tools are good, but your ideea needs more advanced utilities.

Ignoring backpack penalty

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:40:00 GMT

When you wearing backpack you take huge movement penalty, and can't climb on the roofs. In case to avoid it just put backpack in your right hand when your gun goes in left hand. While your backpack in hands it doesn't costs extra AP for moving or geting up. When you finish move just return backpack in previous slot.
And yeah, when you put backpack in hand you lose your aimed stationary, but since you are going to move you would lose it anyway

JAG talks with JA2 v1.13 Team about JA, modding and Afterlife (1)...

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:29:00 GMT

Thanks to the loving work of its fans, "Jagged Alliance 2" has been kept alive over the years, taking its place as one of the most loved strategy games of all times. In absence of the much awaited sequel, JA3, the community gathered their efforts around usermade mods. Some of these projects have been so large and have brought so much to the game that the term 'mod' almost makes them injustice. These true fan-made sequels have now continued with the first stable release of "JA2 v1.13", the first after three, yes, three years of development and labour.

JA2 v1.13 is not a mod in the strict sense of the phrase. It is much more than that. The team set out to create a generous modding platform for the community, externalising every major setting in the game in XML files, while adding hundreds of new features and items to the game. There is still a lot of work ahead, of course, but as a project born in the community and for the community, JA2 v1.13 is a tremendous succes.

We tried to get in touch with as many of the initiators of this bold enterprise and managed to get some of the core team members to spare some the precious free time and answer our questions regarding Jagged Alliance, modding and their plans for Afterlife...

Q1: Please tell introduce yourself to the world and tell us how you became involved with the v1.13 project?

Mad Mugsy: Well... I kinda started it� Here's some history:
Back in the summer of 2005, I started messing around with the source code just so I could add the weapons from Unfinished Business (and eventually the UB mercs) into JA2. I posted the first release on the Bear's Pit forums so other people could download it and enjoy it as well. Very soon afterwards, I started getting requests for new features, externalized settings, a harder difficulty level, better AI, etc. Before I knew it, a second coder (Kaiden) and several testers joined in. A few months later, Roman, Lalien, Lesh and Starwalker got on board, and things started to grow very quickly from there.
We decided early on to make sure the source code would be available for other modders, and to let any other community members who wanted to contribute know that their work would be welcome. A communal mod is still the goal, but we had to restrict things a bit due to having "too many chefs in the kitchen" and some quality control issues. I think overall though, it's been highly successful. Because it's a community mod, individual contributors don't need to work full-time on it, and if they need to drop out for a while due to real life (like I often do), then other team members are still on hand to pick up the slack. Our biggest challenges are the same as any other modding projects: communication, quality control, and having enough free time
One of the neat things we do is we offer the latest version to players through our SVN source control. Anybody can install the current release, grab the latest updates (usually every week or so, when most of us are active), and have access to download the source code. I think this really helps with the communal mod goal; because of this setup, we get a lot of people making smaller sized contributions rather than just a few people doing everything like in many other modding projects I've seen for other games.
Some personal details:
- I've been programming for about 25 years now, 11 professionally, but none of that time with C/C++ except for my work on 1.13
- I've been a gamer for 26 years, and I've been writing/modding games for at least 16 years
- I spend too much time these days with my wife and family and working at my job (especially the latter), and not enough time working on 1.13 :p
ChrisL: My name is Chris and I live on the west coast of the US. I've always had a fascination with programming even though I�ve rarely had the opportunity to program for anything other then personal interest. I stumbled onto the 1.13 project a little over a year ago when I was searching for mods to reinvigorate my interest in JA2.
RoWa21: My name is Roman and I live in Austria (Europe). My first experience with "programming" was in Klick & Play. Maybe you know that little tool. It impressed me much. As I grew older I started to program in C/C++ and later in C#. I joined the 1.13 project at the end of 2005. My intention was to bring the higher screen resolution to the game. I also played Wildfire 6 this time and I was impressed by the new screen resoultion.
0verhaul: 0verhaul here. I've been programming since my first IBM PC (that's right, the original IBM PC, not even XT!), starting at around age 12. It helps that my dad already knew computer programming. Anyway, I got a degree in CS and work at a national laboratory. I got involved in 1.13 when I found out that the JA2 source was released and went searching for it, since I liked the game but hated its bugs. After submitting a few bug patches to the team, I was invited to become a member.
Starwalker: Hi, I'm Starwalker, a German. I became involved with 1.13 when I sent an email to Madd Mugsy and Kaiden, asking them to correct a few errors on some of the guns that were implemented back at that time (late 2005). The answer I got was along the line of "As you seem to be more knowledgeable about guns than we are, how about /you/ taking the job of doing the guns? That way we would have more time for coding". And I accepted the offer :-)
Hayden: Hi, my name is Hayden Thring, I'm from South Australia, and have become a part of the v1.13 project through the past-time development of a multiplayer modification which recently was merged with the current v1.13 / NIV code. Im also a big advocate of Open Source, and Linux
operating systems.
Space Viking: I'm Bill, aka, Space Viking. By day I'm a programmer (oh, sorry Software Engineer) at IBM. By night I'm a gamer (and dad and gardener and ...). I got involved with the 1.13 project after I picked up a copy of WildFire from Ebay. It turned out the CD I got was bootleg (grrr) and didn't actually have the source on it so I turned to the Bear's Pit to see what was up.
Marlboro Man:Hello, my name is Eric, aka Marlboro Man and yes, I smoke too dam much. I am from the USA. I have worked at the same job now for 22 years with the U.S. Government. (Yes, I am a glutton for punishment). I became involved with the 1.13 project after seeing all the cool gun graphics and other cool things the graphics guys were making and thought it would be really fun to be able to contribute something of my own. So I picked a few brains and learned a few programs and have been enjoying it ever since.
Kaiden: My name is Acy Forsythe (AKA Kaiden), I had been breifly involved in the Whitehat project which off and on was going nowhere, and gave it a rest after a while. I checked back at the Pit around the end of July 2005, and Mugsy had done so much! I was surprised none of the Whitehat team had come back to join up, I fixed a handful of bugs on the side and then officially joined the team in August 2005.
Sergeant Kolja: Introducing? No. First, I want to thank the community for supporting us in any way. Without you guys, we wouldn't be where we are and the game wouldn't be what it is. And also, thank you for your patience while waiting for a bugfix, waiting for a SlayForever feature and so on.
Introducing now? Yes. I was born in 1968. Like most of us, in my early age I played with
plastic and wooden guns "robber and policeman" or "WW II". Later I was interested in military aircrafts, but I've never been the Tom Cruise guy who /really/ tried to fly one. I subscribed for an military career as an officer for military computer networks, but retracted just before my 18th birthday.
So I choosed the same education in the non-military branch. In 1993, I got an university degree (Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering). My first computer was a self-made project (yes! soldering iron, self-drilled PCB and that stuff) and one of the first programs I used on that has been "STARTREK" as a text-based strategical and tactical adventure.
It was looking terrible, with its pseudo graphical interface. But it already had some elements, we still find in JA2 today. NO! I don't talking about the graphics!
Later I used my 286 and 386 Personal Computer very often to play "LHX Attac Chopper", "Gunship 2000", "Railroad Tycoon" and a MicroProse Game which name I lost, but it was a little bit similiar to JA1. I tried almost all games I got, but nothing that was of the kind "Role Playing Game". Sometimes I heard people talking bad things obout "crazy people which wearing pink pants and playing such crap". I've been completely wrong, but I don't know.
1993 was also the year of my 1st occupation and my marriage, so I had not that amount of time to play. But time enough to play the demo programs of the German "PC Games, Magazine + Disk (3.5")" One rainy day, I tried "Jagged Alliance Demo" (the demo of "JA1 Battle for Metavira". I loved it! While waiting for the release, I also played a demo from my favorite MicroProse company, named "UFO - enemy unknown" (later renamed to "X-COM"). I again loved that game!
What to say, all of them have the 1st place at my bookshelf, as well as official and inofficial their sequels. And I'm still maintaining an DOS PC with an old Matrox 220 board which is capable of hosting this old golds...

NEXT: Team v1.13 Interview (2): What particular area have you worked on uring the development of JA2 v1.13?

SUMMARY:

Team v1.13 Interview (11): What features would you like to see added to 1.13 in the future?

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:27:00 GMT

Q11: What features would you like to see added to 1.13 in the future, and do you have any plans to personally develop those features?

Mad Mugsy: My top three:
- Externalizing prof.dat (finally!)
- New mercs
- New traits/skills
And I'll try to get to them eventually... :p
ChrisL: 100AP and NGAP (New Gun Attachment Project) are definitely high on my interested list. And they should be since I'm working on the teams to bring those projects into the game. I'd also really love to see a new graphic system. One that allowed 32bit graphics and possibly jpeg based graphics instead of the existing sti graphics. Unfortunately, I'm not very good when it comes to working with graphics so I'll just have to wait for someone else to add these features.
RoWa21: I would like to see a "real" campaign in multiplayer. Also the new 3D modells currently developed seems to be impressive. It would also be fine to see an improved AI for enemies and militia.
0verhaul:�Well mostly technical in nature. I'd like to finish the scripting to make it usable, make the animations more modular so that new ones can be added easily (we already have a kluge to implement crouched grenade tossing), and make the buttons and windows use the underlying windowing system, whichever one the platform of choice is using so that they are more reliable.
Starwalker: A system that gives us a higher resolution for Action Point(AP)-usage, as the current system is quite rough. And some people are doing right that, together with me. At first it was planned as a 100-AP system (as opposed to the old 25-AP system), but at the moment we are aiming at a flexible system that can be based on different AP-maxima. Basic version for release should be 100-AP, though.
Hayden: A further development of the 1.13 project including multiplayer features, and a possible widening of MP game play style to incorporate the ability to join and leave a server running a persistent game at strategic level, while also handling multiple tactical game progress, featuring map transition, item synchronization and character history/development. I personally don't have the time in the near future to work towards this, but it is a direction i see possible with this networking engine and could be done in a way that the MMO like game sub-system developed, could be transitioned into future projects.
Space Viking: I think one of the biggest improvements will be better scripting to allow modders to really change the game flow. The Urban Chaos guys did amazing work for instance, and that was before we had the source.
Marlboro Man: There are a couple of projects in the works that I am looking forward too that I know about. But I won�t spoil it for the rest of you here.
Kaiden: I'd definitely like to see a full featured scripting system integrated, and I would love to work on it if no one else gets around to it, I will eventually. I'd also like to see a Deadly Games style option for play, but the Map Editor would require some very serious overhaul, along with the MAP format in order to make that happen.
Sergeant Kolja:
- Soldier properties like 'deafed', 'blinded', 'poisoned' and the same for the damage modell and weapons. I will work on this for Smokeless.
- Weapon Class "AXE" (Animation from Crowbar, Damage Model from Knife).
I am working on it.
- Non lethal weapons: Teaser Gun, Pepper Spray, .38 CS Gas, .12 Slug (sandbag), .45 Pepper - Some new animations. (Crossbow, Bow, Blowpipe, Slingshot, Garotting).
- Simple Support of non 4:3 display resolutions like 1440x960. Yes I
could image to work on this. configurable: Tactical screen in native resolution or 1/4 native resolution, while all others in 800x600 (or something like this)
- insert Bonus into Tooltips, like "Range: 28 (+10)"
- VFS Virtual File System
- "Give" Action for Militia (Give this Gun to Militia)
- language internationalisation by XML, fonts completely in the game, so we can mix russian, english and German subtitles
- Dolvich Talking and SubTitles in Russian (selectable by configuration), Grunty & Thor in German. Like the good old JA1, where I had always some dictionaries on the desk. Ja wishu protivnik. Menja on ne widit. ;-)
- "Light the Ground": no longer as a Circle but as a Sector of Viewing Angle
- Question Mark Markers (See Silent Storm) for all NPCs, currently out of sight, until some seconds gone, the completely out...
- "Sniper Alarm" causes the enemy AI to concentrate supression and heavy fire to the estimated sniper position.
- "Artillery Alarm" same on the Bazooka, Launcher, Mortar guys.
- AI selects body section by best CTH, selects enemy by threat (first
try to kill Grizzly with the M249, then Flo with .38)
- 40mm Battlefield enlightment
- light circle of breaklight decreasing per turn
- make stealing harder again (sneaking, only one item per turn, lower probalbility, dont unwear pants)
- shopkeeper sorting buttons (by range, by damage, by ammo type, ...)
- non-linear weapon repair costs
- again further improved drop system, based on how the enemy died (heavy damaged items, when died by explosion or burst, a.s.o.)
- offer/request based pricing for local sale. If you, say, already sold a lot of 9mm ammo, the price drops dramatically, affecting also neighbor sectors. If you sell shotguns, the price for .12 shells raising.
- pricing for local sale by loyality
- 100% based system
- Trenches in the MAP Editor and digging trenches in the Game, foxholes (made by bombshells). AFAIK, it is already in progress.
- NGA (Next Generation Attachments)
- Startscreen with Campaign Selection
- 2 handed FULL auto fire (with penalty, but it's fun, yeah?)
- National Proud: Each Merc and Each Weapon has a Nationality Each Weapon has a Manufacturer, Each Merc has a favourite Mfg. -> some bonus points, depending on skills. Think of: a undextrous french merc can better handle 2 pistols, if they are also from french or if they are from AutoMag, his fav. company.
- Weapon Familiarization & named guns: Every Merc starts with an amount of shots he already shot with its equipped gun and with 2 or three others (random). After spending an amount of shots he gots familiar with this gun. Now it gets his name ingraved. This drops the selling price, but raises his morale. Selling drops his morale. Using / carrying improves its reliability.
- "Beyond Visible Range" (BVR) Shots: disable or at least only body shots. If a Merc can not aim, he should throw the "is okay to miss?" speaking. If you fire anyway, you should get a hughe penalty and no headshots.

CONCLUSION:
JAG & BP Forum wish to thank our interlocutors and equally to all those who contributed over time to modding and keeping the Jagged Alliance community alive. We will continue to bring them into the spotlight and encourage their efforts, as we did over the years with all those dedicated to supporting quality in turn based strategy gaming in general and Jagged Alliance in particular.�

SUMMARY: