73 replies to this topic

[delray]

Here's a table of all mercenary likes/dislikes in the game. Like = higher morale when on the same team, ability to hire even when below the conditions provided the liked guy is employed. Dislike = will not work with that guy, less morale, won't join sometimes.



A couple observations:

- You should definitely pay attention to this relationships because Morale is a strong factor to your success. "Some say" it's a flat multiplier for all mercenary's attributes.

- Fox is the most popular merc, Steroid has the most problems working with others. Buns is fairly unpopular too. ("Fox & Friends" team: Fox, Wolf, Malice, Nails).

- Freebie mercenaries (including Maddog) don't have any likes/dislikes.

- One thing a bit outside of the scope of this table is that "Loner" trait mercs (Fidel, Meltdown) are both great sector defenders, being both skilled with Explosives (mines!) and both strongly preferring to work alone (morale boost just like from likes).

- Another thing worth noting is a whole set of mercenaries who are Team Players, who will get a morale bonus when working inside a team of 6. List of TeamPlayers: Barry, Grunty, Red, Sidney, Fox, Buns, Ice, Hitman, Raider, Len, Thor, MD, and freebie Miguel, Carlos, Dimitri, Dr. Vincent.

- Some ladies like to work with ladies only. Amazons: Spider, Buzz, Ira.

Amazon is a FLAW (like Unfit). Ira, Buzz and Spider get "low" morale if working with any man and just "good" if inside a only-women team. Macho, on the other side, is just a benefit when at least one girl is in squad, but no decrease when working with just men. Loner is the same: very good morale when solo, just good if inside a team.

- Finally, NightOps also affects morale, but only at night. List of NightOps mercenaries: Lynx, Shadow, Spider, Raven, Static, DrQ, Scope, and freebie Conrad.


- Some mercenaries form natural circles of love. For example Raven+Raider, Scope+Sidney, Fox+Wolf, Spider+Static, Igor+Ivan+Grunty, or Magic+Blood+Ice. If you want to form a smaller team of people for scouting or defence, it'll benefit you if you choose those people to work together.

- For a larger team, especially one to fight many battles, you want a solid starting point, like your main medic or sniper, your actual must-have mercenary, and then follow the relations route while picking mercs of other professions to add to the team.

I think the best "solution" here is "Team Ice": Ice (sniper/SMG), Blood (melee/medic), Magic (mechanic/trooper), Thor (medic/trooper), Wolf (mechanic/medic/shotgun), Lynx (sniper/explosives). Magic likes Ice and Blood, and they both like him back. Lynx and Thor like Ice, Wolf likes Lynx. All mercenaries are extremely popular and don't have any stupid voices, all are fun to work with.

But you can create a couple dozens similarly friendly teams when you follow the patterns of like/dislike, and it pays off greatly in combat performance.

Feel free to post your "love" teams in this thread.

[banimoka]

if what u link here represents the actualy and up to date table that's good

think i might add :

Maddog likes Fox ( not confirmed in JA: bia )

dimitri , ira , miguel : no longer seem to have e problem working with Iggy ( confirmed i think )


if u hire a merc that is disliked by another merc - this merc will NEVER join u ( only tried two times to get danny and had steroid already on the team )

i don't see problems with mercs who dislike eachother except the low morale thing - and i could never understand what morale does

[Splatter]

Well it´s diffrent than from JA2, nice work and very usefull thanx.
You could also add special traits, HiringReputation and Hireing Fee and Level to get a complete overview to select your team

€1: I just take a look at the Characters.txt . I didn´t find any likes/dislikes on the Rpc like Ira and so on .

[delray]

I took this from unpacked config/characters.txt. Freebie mercenaries (including Maddog) don't have any likes/dislikes. I have a dislike towards that.

[Dark]

I think someone mentioned that morale appears to be a buff/debuff on all skills and attributes.

[delray]

I think someone mentioned that morale appears to be a buff/debuff on all skills and attributes.

I don't know about that for certain so I didn't post it as a definite statement, but I strongly suspect so and I think I can see that in combat, if there's a dev post about this I'd gladly link to it.

But even without that, I'd build my teams according to these patterns because that's what I am used to doing since JA and JA2, and I would do it anyway for role-playing reasons.

One thing outside of the scope of this guide is that "Loner" trait mercs (Fidel, Meltdown) are great sector defenders, being both skilled with Explosives (mines!) and both strongly preferring to work outside of a team. Another thing worth noting is a whole set of mercenaries who are Team Players, who will get a morale bonus when working inside a team of 6.

[banimoka]

they say morale influences "checks""

so does that mean a low morale Merc will fail healing / lockpicking / repairing

does that mean a high morale will never fail or fail less

i didn't really have problems with these so i doubt there's any need for keeping morale up if u have other priority

[lostprophet]

Ira's morale increases, if she is in a squad with only women.

[Splatter]

Ira's morale increases, if she is in a squad with only women.

any proof ?

[delray]

I added amazons to the guide, I didn't want this to turn into a morale guide, but what the hell. ;-)

[XPTO]

No love for poor Steroid :/

Also i noticed that if Hitman is in the team and even Raven too, Raider won´t join you.. where is my dismiss and refund button?

[Splatter]

Oh I found it Trait Amazon

[delray]

Oh I found it Trait Amazon

I posted a new table, including the morale traits.

[XPTO]

Nice table, it helps alot thank you.

EDIT: quick question: do mercs still rage quit if disliked member is in squad?

[banimoka]

well morale is directly linked with likes / dislikes since when u put two mercs in a team where one dislikes another it will have low morale ... hence the question , how important is morale ? hence the other question "what does morale really do " do i hire mercs based on relationship or do i handpick mercs by price and traits

they don't seem to ragequit , i've had fox and steroid in same squad for quite some time , now i have two squads but she mostly just complains about it

[delray]

Since I can't find any reference to it among unpacked files, I am led to believe that Morale is most likely hardcoded and only a dev (Michael!) could provide us with its exact effect.

Manual only says that Morale affects their "commitment" on the battlefield. Tooltip in the inventory says "determines chance to pass any checks", which leads people to believe it increases for example INT+MED value when healing or DEX+MAR value when shooting.

[XPTO]

Some mercs have two "likes", does this mean it goes higher if two of the liked mercs are in the squad? also i don´t remember very well but in JA2 mercs only complained if disliked merc was in squad and not in team yes? here some won´t even work if you have already hired the disliked guy and there seems to be no way to fire/dismiss contracted mercs.

[Saten]

Mercs aren't limited to like/dislike - there's also a "hates" field in characters.txt, and quick testing shows that mercs can be hired and put into 1 squad with people they dislike. However, they'll refuse to join you at all if there's a person they hate on the team.

[banimoka]

give and example of a merc who hates and a merc who dislikes

[HansW]

michael please provide more info