Merc Tactics Manual 1.9.1

(work in progress!)

The Battlefield guide

Deployment

Before the battle starts you can deploy your mercs any where within the deployment area, which is marked in yellow. Shown below are 3 of your mercs in the deployment area.

You have the opportunity to equip your mercs during the deployment stage. Clicking on the Extend button to extend the HUD.

Then you can equip each merc by drag and dropping weapons and armour from the "spare equipment" panel to the merc's equipment slots. Note: armour, scopes and under-barrel grenade launchers can only be equipped in deployment mode.

Silencer and scopes can be equipped, if the weapon supports it.

Note: Silencers can be equipped at deployment and during the battle, however scopes and under-barrel grenade launchers can only be equipped during deployment stage.

When finished deployment press the Finish button to start the battle.

Movement

You move your mercs by clicking on them and dragging out a move path. You can also just left click anywhere in the scene and a move path will be created to that laoction. Your merc has a set number of "action points" at the beginning of each turn. Moving one square costs 2 actions points, so in the image below, Nico initially has 23 action points. The move path shown will move Nico 4 squares and he will have 15 APs left after moving. Click on the move path to confirm the movement.

If the path passes through a closed door, a open door icon will appear in the path. Opening a door costs 3 AP.

Notice, the lighter green squares mean the merc does not have enough APs for a shot. Red squares mean the merc cannot move that far.

Clicking on one of the move path tiles will then make your merc move to that position.

Camera movement

Clicking the left mouse button and dragging moves the camera (i.e pans). Also, you can pan with the left/right/up/down keys. The mouse scroll wheel to zooms the camera in and out. Clicking the right mouse button and dragging rotates the camera. Also the camera can be rotated from the camera buttons on the HUD.

The fog of war

Enemies are initially hidden until they come within visual range. This is called "the fog of war". As your squad moves through the battlefield they will spot new enemies.

You can only see what your mercs can see. If an enemy soldier moves behind a wall out of sight, he will appear to disappear. Soldiers have a visual range of 16 squares.

Enemy soldier target data

Enemiy soldiers display a clan insignia above their head. If they are in range they will also display a target indicator.

The color of the reticle indicates the hit chance. For instance bright green means 100% hit chance, while red means less than 2% chance of hitting the target.

If you hover the mouse pointer over the soldier a target data box will appear, which displays the percentage chance of your soldier hitting the target, and the health of the targeted soldier. Also displayed is information whether the target is in range, out of effective range, behind cover, etc.

If the target indicator is a purplish color, that means friendly fire, i.e. you could accidently hit one of your own soldiers.

If there is some obsticle blocking your soldier from aiming, you will get the "can't aim indicator".

The HUD

The HUD displays the currently selected merc. On the left hand side is displayed the currently equipped weapon and below that the merc portrait. Clicking the portrait will center the scene with the merc in the middle (useful, if you have trouble locating the merc).

Fire mode button

The fire mode button selects the fire mode. The modes available depend on the weapon

Single shot: this is most accurate mode. Suitable for long range shots
Burst: shoots a 3 round burst. Less accurate than S. Shot, but more accurate than auto
Auto: fully auto. Least accurate mode. Always takes 20 AP.
F. Burst: Fast burst. If the merc has an Auto skill of 2, then this mode will be available on weapons that have auto fire mode (but not weapons with burst mode). F. burst uses 13 AP
F. Burst+: Fast burst+. If the merc has an Auto skill of 3, then this mode will be available on machine guns and submachine guns. F. burst+ uses 10 AP
F. Burst++: Fast burst++. If the merc has an Auto skill of 4, then this mode will be available on machine guns and submachine guns. F. burst++ uses 10 AP and has more accuracy than other burst modes
40mm low: If the gun is equiped with a under-barrel grenade launcher this mode will be available. Fires a 40mm grenade in 'low' trajectory. The player aims by clicking the rotate button, or by holding down the CTRL button and moving the mouse.
40mm high: The same as 40mm low, except the trajectory is higher.

Posture

Click on the stand / kneel buttons to change posture. Changing posture costs 1 AP.

Rotate

Pressing the rotate button puts the merc into rotate mode. In rotate mode he will turn in the direction of mouse (used for overwatch). It also doubles as the Grenade button when the merc is equiped with a grenade, or his rifle is in 40mm low / high mode . Rotating can also be done by holding down the CTRL key.

Undo

The undo button undoes the last action and restores the action points used. The number on the button indicates the total number of actions that can be undone. Clicking on this number will undo all actions. Movement, posture changes, weapon changes and opening / closing door actions can all be undone. After spotting a new enemy all undos are deleted for entire squad (to prevent cheating). Sometimes an undo action isn't possible (for instance, if a soldier is standing in the way of movement). In this case the undo will abort.

Enemies / allies visible

Two circled numbers can appear in the top left corner of the HUD. The number in blue means the number of allies seen and the number in red means the number of enemies. Clicking on the red number will show where the enemy is, and clicking further cycle through each enemy.

Doors

When the merc moves next to a door, the Open / close door button appears in the HUD. Opening / closing the door costs 3 AP. Note: The door may not be able to be opened, or closed for various reasons. For instance, the soldier cannot open or close a door while kneeling. Also, an another soldier standing behind the door may prevent it from opening.

Hearing enemy

You can hear nearby enemy movements. They will be marked by red circles. However, if your merc has fired his weapon in the last turn, his hearing range will reduce. Firing a gun with silencer will not reduce the hearing range.

Alerting enemy

Initially, the enemy is unaware of you presence. They will only be alerted if you are spotted, or if they hear a weapon fire. Firing a weapon will alert all nearby enemy, unless the weapon has a silencer attached.

Silencers

There are two types of silencer, 9mm for submachine guns, and 5.56mm for assault rifles. A silenced weapon will not alert enemy, however it reduces the power of the weapon by 10%. Silencers can be attached and detached during the battle (costing 1 AP)

Picking up weapons

When an enemy dies, he / she may drop weapons. To pick up the weapon move your merc to the square where its dropped and the ground panel will appear automatically. You can open the HUD into extended mode and drag the weapon into any free slot. If there is no free slot the weapon will be exchanged, i.e. the weapon in the occupied slot will be dropped on the ground. The merc can also drop any weapon by dragging it into the ground panel. Picking up a weapon costs 3 AP. Dropping a weapon costs nothing.

Changing weapons

The merc can change weapons by dragging from the holster/pouch slot to the hand slot, which costs 1 AP.

Loading under-barrel grenade launcher

The merc can load a 40mm grenade by dragging from the pouch slot to the rifle's 40mm grenade slot, also costing 1 AP.

Getting hit

When your merc gets hit he will lose both life points and action points. If he is unlucky he may also lose other stats (auto skill, accuracy, permanent APs, interrupt skill, etc.). The loss of action points is temporary and will be recovered over several turns, however the loss of life and skill points is permanent and the merc will have to be treated in hospital to recuperate the lost points.

Overwatch

Clicking the Rotate button, or holding down the CTRL and moving the mouse will rotate your merc and display the overwatch 'kill zone', which is shown by green circles. If the enemy moves into this zone your merc will get an interrupt and will automatically shoot the enemy. Your merc must have a interrupt skill of one, or more and have enough APs to fire his weapon in the current fire mode. The merc will not fire if there are friendlies in the way.

When you end your turn, if any mercs have enough APs to take a shot and have a interrupt skill of one, or more, then they will automatically go into overwatch mode

Auto / manual Overwatch

By default, overwatch works in auto mode, but you can change this in the settings:

Unchecking the setting will cause overwatch to be manual. In this case, when you get an interrupt you can choose which enemy to shoot and the fire mode (s. shot, auto, etc). You can also change posture, but you cannot change weapon, nor move your merc. When finished, click the End Interrupt button to continue.

Enemy overwatch

Enemies handle overwatch differently. When the enemy is in overwatch mode it has an interrupt counter. The interrupt counter starts at three and decreases each time you move your merc within their kill zone. When it reaches zero the enemy will shoot.

The counter retains it's value even after the turn is ended. It will only be reset if you hit the enemy, or if the enemy decides to exit overwatch mode.

Accuracy

The accuracy skill of the merc (1-10)
The accuracy rating of the gun (1-10)
Posture. If kneeling the merc has better accuracy.
The fire mode of the weapon. Single shot is the most accurate, burst is less accurate and full auto is the least accurate.
If the weapon is fitted with a scout scope it gets a 1+ bonus in accuracy. If it's fitted with a sniper scope, both the merc and the gun get a 1+ boost.
If the merc fires more than once at the same target, the second shot gets a small accuracy boost.

Throwing grenades

Step 1: Equip your merc with the grenade

Step 2: press the rotate button, or hold down CTRL key and move the mouse to the position that you want the grenade to be thrown

Step 3: press the left mouse button to confirm and the grenade will be thrown

The distance the grenade can be thrown depends on the throw skill of the merc and the weight of the grenade. Soldiers hit by grenade blast will lose extra action points.

If the grenade path collides with an obstacle a red cross is shown in the path.

Grenades have two throw modes: low trajectory and high trajectory. Low trajectory is good for throwing from inside buildings. Also, the grenade will travel further in low trajectory, because it will bounce further along the ground.

High trajectory mode lobs the grenade much higher and is good when the enemy is behind some obstacle.

The trajectory path is shown in red when there is an obstacle in the way. Yellow indicates that the grenades might hit a obstacle. An green means it has a clear path.

Launching 40mm Grenades, works the same way as throwing hand grenades, except that you must select the rifle's 40mm low or high mode. These modes will be disabled if the grenade launcher isn't loaded.

Game tips

The most important thing is to minimising the amount of damage your squad takes during a battle.
In the beginning you should move through the scene moving to where there is cover always. Try not to get caught out in the open.
If you can, make your mercs take a path where buildings block potential enemies line of sight, so they are less likely to be spotted
Enemy soldiers tend to be inside buildings, or guard posts (at least at the start of the battle)
Wait for the next turn before going into an area where you might be spotted (for instance entering /exiting a building). This way you will have enough APs to retreat to safe area if your are spotted.
Listen for enemy noises coming from inside a building before you enter.
Reserve APs, so you can take cover after shooting at enemy
Do overwatch from a position with cover, rather than out in the open, because if you miss the shot it's easy for the enemy to hit your merc.
When the enemy is 'Dug in' (i.e. sticking behind good cover), try to flank their position with one of your mercs
When there is an incoming raiding party, make note of which road they will enter, so your squad is not caught in a bad defensive position.

The Campaign map

Campaign difficulty

At the start of the campaign you must choose the campaign difficulty level : easy, normal, hard and very hard. For the easy level it is easier to earn cash (i.e. scrap dealer and fence pays more). Enemies are weaker and there are less of them. As the difficulty level increases, it's harder to earn cash and enemies are progressively stronger. You can change the difficulty at any time during the game, however enemy militia groups that you have already encountered will not change.

Movement

The campaign map shows a number of villages connected by roads. The yellow vehicle indicates the location of your squad.

You can select any destination by clicking on any village that is directly connected by road and clicking on the Move to button

To move to the destination you must switch the game from paused to running state by pressing the Paused/Running button.

Your vehicle will then move to the destination. You can cancel a destination by pressing the Cancel Move button

Summary Panel

The summary panel shows the your current cash level, your reputation and the current difficulty setting of the campaign. On the right the time is shown. On the Team button is shown the number of mercs (indicated by black squares), and the rating. Every militia group has a rating, which is calculated by considering the skills, armour and weapons of all soldiers within the squad.

Inventory screen

You can open the inventory by pressing the Team button. You can drag and drop items into the current merc equipment panels to equip the merc. You can also view stats of both mercs and weapons and armour

Merc stats:

Life: (1 - 100) When you merc's life points become low you should bring him to a hospital to heal.
Accuracy: (1 - 9) A merc's accuracy can be boosted when his weapon is fitted with a sniper scope.
Action points: (17 - 32) The more action points the more actions he can do in one turn.
Interrupt: (0 - 3) If the interrupt skill is zero the merc will not be able to interrupt at all. The interrupt zone gets progressively bigger the higher the interrupt skill.
Auto: (1 - 4)

Auto skill 1: can only use normal weapon fire modes (i.e. burst, auto)
Auto skill 2: gives the Fast Burst ability on weapons that only have full auto. Fast burst costs 13 AP.
Auto skill 3: gives the Fast Burst+ ability, which uses 10 AP
Auto skill 4: gives the Fast Burst++ ability, uses 10 AP and has more accuracy than other burst modes

Throw: (1 - 3) The higher the skill the further a grenade can be thrown.

Gun stats:

AP Shot: (5 - 14) This is the number of action points required to fire a single shot (if the gun has S. Shot mode).
Range: (14 - 26) Maximum range of the gun. The effective range will be 60% less.
Shots full auto: ( 4 - 17) number of shots fired in full auto mode (if the gun has Auto mode)
AP Burst: ( 10 - 14) Action points required to fire in burst mode (if the gun has Burst mode)
Accuracy: (1 - 9) The accuracy can be increased by attaching a scope.
Power: (0.5 - 3.0) Determines the amount of damage done when hitting an enemy.
Condition: (1% - 100%). Every time you fire a gun it's condition deteriorates slightly. When the condition reaches below 70% it is in risk of jamming

Grenade stats:

AP Throw: This is the number of action points to throw a grenade (12 AP), or to fire a 40mm grenade (11 AP).
Max Throw Dist.: (4 - 17) Maximum the grenade can be thrown, or fired. This depends on the weight of the grenade and the throw skill of the merc.
Power: (1.7 - 12) The exposive power of the grenade, the higher the more damage.
Weight: ( 0.35 - 0.8kg) The weight of the grenade. The heavier the shorter the throw distance
Bounciness: (1 - 10) The higher this value is the more the grenade bounces.
Fuse type: There are 3 fuse types
- Timed fuse. Explodes after the time limit has passed. All hand grenades use this type of fuse
- Contact fuse. This explodes immediately on contact.
- Air-burst fuse. The grenade jumps up after contact allowing it to hit enemy behind cover.

Merc specialty:

Rifleman: An all round good soldier. All skills are reasonable strong.
Scout: Action points upgrade fast. Interrupt and auto skills are poor
Auto weapons expert: Auto skill upgrades quickly. Very poor interrupt skill.
Marksman: Accuracy skill upgrades very fast. Poor action points and auto skills

Upgrade points

During a battle your merc gains upgrade points, depending on how he performed in the battle (i.e. amount of shots on target). You can then spend these points on upgrading a skill. Occasionally, a skill will automatically be upgraded (i.e. if a merc gets a lot of interrupts, the interrupt skill might be automatically upgraded).

Detach Attachments

Clicking this button will remove all weapon attachments in the inventory, and place them into the Misc tab. (If you get a lot broken weapons with attachments during a battle, this is a useful shortcut to retrieve them quickly.)

Village resources

Some villages will display one, or more small icons, which indicates that there is a resource at this location. Clicking on the location will open the context menu and then you can select the resource (in this case a scrap merchant).

Then the resource screen will open and you can carry out transactions if your squad is at the location. You can still open the resource screen if your squad is not there, but in this case you cannot do any transaction. (This is handy for, for example, checking on progress of weapons repair.)

List of different resources found on the campaign map

Enemy militia

The location of the enemy is initially unknown, until you come within range, or one of your allies comes within range. The game will pause automatically if the militia is very strong and you have the option to retreat if you want.

There are several enemy clans, who are at war with each other. Militia groups in villages continuously gain new recruits and when they are strong enough they send out raiding parties to attack nearby villages. Battles occur when ever two hostile militia meet. That can happen in villages, or on the road.

Team management

You can have several teams in different locations, however only one team is assigned a vehicle. In the image below you see that Team 1 with the vehicle has the selection circle, showing that it is currently selected. To change the currently selected team, press the corresponding team button. If you are trading (with a scrap merchant or whatever) the trade is only with the currently selected team.

Creating teams

You can deploy mercs in a village (to garrison) from the Inventory screen. Click on Deploy in Village to deploy the currently selected merc, a new team will be created. Press Retract all Mercs to put them back in the main team. A new team is created automatically if a merc is discharged from hospital and the main team is in another location.

Game settings

General settings:

Ambient sound: controls the volume level of ambient sound during battles
Music: controls the volume level of the music during the game
Show grid: shows the ground grid during battles. (Shortcut: G)
Show stats: shows the FPS in the top left corner during battles.
Anti-aliasing: switches on / off anti-aliasing. Note: requires a restart to take effect.
Hires shadows: switching on gives more detailed shadows. Note: requires a restart to take effect.
SSAO: Improves the graphic quality by creating shadows in occluded areas of the scene (requires a restart)
VSYNC: Enabling prevents the frame rate from going above 60 FPS (normally leave this enabled)
Random seed: if this is selected the game will start differently each time (i.e. the scenes and campaign map will be randomised differently).
High quality texture: The ground texture will have more detail if this is selected
Show help: disables / enable in-game help
Auto-overwatch: enables auto overwatch mode
WASD keys: if selected WASD keys are used for panning the camera instead of the arrow keys.
Click to select path: if selected, clicking in the scene with the left mouse button will create a move path. The path can also be created by dragging. If unseleted, only dragging creates the path.

The following settings affect performance: SSAO, Hires shadows and anti-aliasing. If you notice a low frame rate (below 60 FPS) you can disable some of these features to increase performance at the cost of graphics quality. Also, disabling high quality texture will increase performance.

In-game help topics are only shown once. You can re-enable all in-game help topics by pressing the "Clear help" button

Saving / loading games

There are 14 slots where you can save / load games, plus one Auto save slot, that saves the game automatically after the last battle.

Merc Tactics: Hotkeys

keyboard shortcuts in battle mode

arrow keys, or WASD	pan camera
BEGIN / END	zoom camera in/out
SPACE	Selects the next Merc in the current squad
CTRL	Holding down enters rotate/throw grenade mode
C	current merc crouches/stands
B	toggles between fire modes (single shot/burst/auto)
U	undo's previous move
Y	pick up item (if possible)
E	Load grenade from inventory (hand or 40mm)
L	ends turn; ends deployment mode
ENTER	cycles through all enemies your team knows about
Z	Opens/closes door (if standing next to a door)
F	Rotates camera by 90° clockwise
V	Rotates camera by 90° counter-clockwise
I	toggles HUD extended / retracted
K	opens main menu
M	opens map
O	opens settings screen.
G	toggles grid on/off
H	opens hotkey popup screen

keyboard shortcuts in campaign map

arrow keys, or WASD	scroll map
SPACE	toggles between pause / run
I	opens the inventory screen
ESC	closes any open window, or screen
left, right	in inventory screen, select next merc
K	opens/closes main menu
O	opens/closes settings screen
H	opens hotkey popup screen