Tips/Strategies

Useful info taken from a bunch of places. Might contain outdated info.

Declare job assignments from the Tactical map
You can do this by right-clicking-and-holding on a mercenary.

Firing Mercs
Click the Contract button on the strategic map and choose dismiss.

Training
A student can't be trained above 85. Adjustable in INI.

Boxing
You can fight every two days to boost your cash.

Flo
Flo gets the best buying/selling rates from merchants.

Stealing
It is pretty straightforward, first you need an enemy with equipment. You put your mouse cursor over this enemy, press the CTRL button to change the cursor to a hand and click the left mousebutton. One of three things will happen:
 * You will steal the enemy's main weapon
 * You fail at stealing, the enemy will keep his weapon and will probably shoot you.
 * You will get an interactive box where you can choose the equipment you want to steal from the enemy, this is the best situation as you can steal their entire gear.

Combining/Merging Items:

 * Open up the sector inventory, and mouse over/pick up an item on the inventory screen.
 * If there are attachments, merges, or combos, those items will highlight in the inventory as well.
 * If you mouse over a gun, acceptable ammo, scopes, attachments, etc. highlight.
 * If you mouse over an armor, armor plates and stuff (breaklights, flares, etc.) highlight, and so on and so forth.

Refueling Vehicles:
Go in tactical mode, put the gas tank into the first hand of one of your mercs and then manually refuel the vehicle (you get a special cursor). Make sure the merc is outside the vehicle.You can't use an empty gas can again.

Removing Heads
Once you've found and dispatched a terrorist, simply hold a knife or machete and 'attack' the space where the terrorist's body lies. Your merc should make a chopping motion and a new item will appear on the square called 'so-and-so's' head.

Reprogramming Rifles
There's a man named Fredo who owns an electronics store can program your rifles. He lives west of Grumm.

Missing Deliveries
There are two ways you can get the "wouldn't let your stuff be unloaded" message:
 * 1) Loyalty is less than 20%
 * 2) You don't control the airport.

Hospital lacking supplies
Don't steal anything from the warehouse by the main hospital building.

Refuel chopper at Estoni
It is possible to refuel (land) the helicopter at Estoni, if you meet these conditions: When you have done these Skyrider will say something like: "don't tell me, I already heard you cleaned out Estoni), when you go back to the strategic screen.
 * Secure the central SAM site.
 * Do the Shank/Jake conversation.
 * Kill all enemies in Estoni.

Boxing BUG
Problem: When giving Darren money, Kingpin doesn't show up. Solution: Make sure there's no NPC standing around at the door. And ONLY having one merc in the sector helps.

Problem: After a fight, the merc just "freezes" in the ring. Solution 1: When you knock down your opponent, kneel and hit him one more time. DON'T kill him. Solution 2: Before you enter the ring, throw away your backpack or pouch. Sounds crazy but it works. Just leave it on the floor. Gun too. My merc "only" has holsters, armor, face gear, medikit and dusters on him. Solution 3: Enter the ring from different angles.

Problem: After the fight, Darren doesn't ask if you'd like another fight. Solution: Don't talk to him. Leave the sector and come back. Be friendly and after the first conversation he should ask for a new fight.

Unloading Weapons
To unload a gun, right-click on the gun to see the description window, click on the ammo icon in the corner, right-click again to close the description window. Remember that putting in the wrong kind of ammunition (pistol to machine gun or vice versa) costs ten APs in combat.

Unjamming a gun
When combat ends, give the gun to a merc with a high mechanical skill to unjam/repair the gun."
 * Attempt to fire it, mercs with low mechanical skill will have trouble unjamming it.
 * Sometimes unloading and reloading the gun will unjam it.
 * Mercs with low mechanical skill should use their secondary gun (if they have one) so they aren't wasting their turn unjamming a gun when they could be damaging an enemy.

Ammo Count
??? for an ammo count means your merc isn't sure how many rounds there's left. Higher wisdom mercs keep better track. Letters are rough estimates: L for low, M for medium and H for high.

Spread fire
When you click to fire a burst (and now after you've spent your AP upping the shots in auto-fire) When you left click to let it rip, don't let go of the button, hold it down and drag the mouse and you'll see little + signs, that's the range you'll be trying to fire in.

Strafing
Target an enemy and then before you fire, keep the mouse button pressed and drag it towards another enemy and you will see little red + signs showing up, that will spread your fire once you release the mouse button.

Grenade Launchers
Stand alone grenade launchers work like a regular weapon. Rifle mounted GLs are a bit more awkward to use.
 * Attach GL to weapon. You can't use a bipod/gripod at the same time.
 * Attach grenade to an attachment slot. Yes this is kind of dumb.
 * Toggle your weapon onto GL mode using the burst/auto key.
 * Take aim! Use Q to toggle to high angle launch and actually get some decent range.

Binoculars:
Just put them in your merc's hand and his field of view will be increased.

Detecting troops

 * Use a merc with nightops and stealth.
 * Make sure the spotter is in camo.
 * Use any weapon/item that can increase sight range/field of view. Get to a higher level to increase sight range as well.
 * Use TNT or other explosives to draw out troops (for the non stealthy mercs to kill).

Detecting Mines:
Make sure you have a metal detector in your hand. Mines have a blue flag over them.

Using Remote Detonators:

 * When you emplace the bomb it will ask you what frequency you want the detonator to work on, 1, 2, 3, or 4.
 * To emplace the bomb, put it in your hand, then right click to get the "bomb" icon and then emplace it.
 * When you want to detonate, put the remote in your hand and right click, you'll get a little remote icon.
 * Click and it will ask you what freq you want to detonate (same as the one you set before).

Shaped Charge:
Shaped Charges damage doors so they're easier to kick down.

Firing a mortars/talons

 * You fire the talon by attaching a 40mm grenade to the rifle and clicking the burst button or pressing 'B' two times, the cursor turns into a grenade cursor.
 * The talon has marksmanship and dexterity (not sure)involved. The mortar has only heavy weapons as a factor.