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(i.e., useless for a custom merc, IMHO).
- To improve, use knives. Sometimes punching helps.
- Dexterity improves if you do a lot of stuff with your hands. No that
doesn't count. Mercs on repair get it quickly and i think Medics do too.

Strength - 55
Strong enough to haul a full load of ammo around, & that's strong enough. I don't
plan
to be wrestling a grizzly bear.

- How you going to open all these damn doors and boxes? I've set 80 for me,
and anyways spending too much time to open something.
- I think that Strength goes up if you haul stuff past your limit (101% and
up). At least that's what happened with shank when he had a 200% encumbrance
and i got him to go from Tixa to Estoni.
- To improve, use punches. Sometimes knifing helps.

Leadership - 70
I think this is more than enough to be able to recruit any NPC in the game.
- This affects the influence and the power of persuation with NPC's
(determine if you can recruit them or not).
- To improve, practice and train militia.

Wisdom - 85
I would make it 99 if I could. Since you have the same guy around from the very
beginning to the very end, he has plenty of time to improve his attributes--if he has
enough wisdom. Also, I don't there you can ever improve this one beyond what you start
with.

Marksmanship - 80
The most important attribute in the game, of course, but I think 80 is high enough to
start with. You shoot more than you do anything else, so if your wisdom is 85 &
marksmanship is 80, marksmanship will be up to 90 soon enough.

- This is too much, IMHO. Marksmanships grows really FAST, so you can set
it 70, and spend 10 points for someting else.
- The most important attribute in the game, of course, but I think 80 is high
enough to start with. You shoot more than you do anything else, so if your wisdom
is 85 & marksmanship is 80, marksmanship will be up to 90 soon enough.
I started out with a bit lower, since it goes up so fast. I think had 74? Depends
on if you are willing to suffer for a bit in the beginning.
- To improve, practice and shoot enermies a lot. Most of all, always aim for
heads, and shoot enermies from out of weapon range.

Mechanical - 35
It seem that if your mechanical is zero or close to that, your gun will jam much more
frequently. That sucks. If zero you can't improve this skill.

- To improve, practice and fix things.

Explosives - 0
Unless I can give him explosives of at least 80--& I'm not going to do that--zero is the
number. I'm not about to give my precious custom merc a 35 & then have him start
messing around with RDX. If zero you can't improve this skill.

- I left this at 35. I think it might affect your chances with grenades and
LAWS. At least I have seen this skill go up once in awhile with successful use of
those.
- Explosives is one of the easiest skills to increase. Just keep setting and un-
setting dynamite. Acutally, use the student to set it, then someone with high
explosives to disarm it(much safer that way). You can get it up real fast...
- To improve, practice.

Medical - 0
Since I like to take MD as a starting team member, zero is plenty. I'll have MD & Ira
available on the very 1st day. Also, my philosophy is to run from back-up if I take too many
hits, anyway, so medical is fairly useless. If zero you can't improve this skill.

- Since I like to take MD as a starting team member, zero is plenty. I'll have
MD & Ira available on the very 1st day. Also, my philosophy is to run from back-up
if I take too many hits, anyway, so medical is fairly useless.
- Depends on your style I suppose. In the beginning I have my team spread
out fairly thin so I find it useful for everyone to be able to bandage themselves if
they take a bad hit.
- To improve, practice and doctoring patients.


Other hints on skills:

- You can save an incredibly amount of money by using guys like Igor (with high wisdom)
early. They have very comparable stats to the more expensive soldier mercs later, because
Marksmanship goes up fairly steadily.
But for Mechanic, Explosive, or Medical skills you're probably better off buying
experienced guys. Those skills go up much slower than Marksmanship. Fox and Barry were
my early doctor and mechanic, but compared to Danny and Trevor, their skills aren't even
close even though through experience their combat ability is comparable.

- After you have cleared out a sector and wait there for about a day, the corpses of
the fallen begin to rot which attract crows. The crows are the key, they are the targets. I
thought I'd be weird and try to kill one with my bare hands, well that didn't work
because
every time I'd walk/run up to them, they'd run away. Well my custom merc has stealth
specialty so I turned that on and most of the time I can get in to melee range to problem.
One punch and they go down (even with my then measly 60 strength.) It seems that killing
things with your bare hands gets you big experience and raises to your stats fast. I had
both my dex and str go up 10 points EACH in a period of about 30-40 minutes of crow
bashing.
I killed Doreen barehanded (beat that bitch down!!) and gained a level from just that
alone. Between the crow bashing and Doreen I was a level 3 on like day 6.

- For Strength, Dexterity, and Agility, attack your car with your fist and knife. 10
minutes of this boring work can increase one's stats more than 10 points each. I didn't
do
it though.... not that much.

Index
? 1.2 – MERCS SPECIALTIES

Your custom merc starts with 2 skills. He doesn't learn anymore, but as his level goes
up, he improves them. Here is the list of all the specialties and what they do:

Auto-Weapons: burst fire is more accurate
Boxing: skilled at h2h combat
Camoflouge: less likely to be seen
Ambidextrous: shoots well with 2 guns
Electronics: not sure, anyone?
Heavy-Weapons: more accurate with mortar, LAW, etc.
Knifing: knifing does more damage and is more likley to hit
Lock-picking: more likely to pick locks
Martial Arts: skilled at h2h combat
Night Ops: better sight and stealth at night
Stealthy: quieter in stealth mode
Thrown Weapons: much more accurate with thrown weapons
Teaching: teaches/trains militia or other mercs faster

When you are "skilled" at something, what PRECISELY does that mean? (My guy is
Ambidextrous and Martial Artist.) For example, will someone skilled at Knife Throwing
hit or kill nearly every time? (As opposed to someone with simply a very high
Dex/Agil.)
I would say there a much bigger chance he'll succeed with any task that belongs to this
skill.

For those not Ambidextrous, bad idea to use two pistols at once?
Yes, low chance of hitting.

How to make good use of Stealth & Night Ops?
Quite the same as daytime tactics, though with camo paint, they can be more effective
at night.
1. When dashing from position to position, make sure you're in a half prone position,
don't run. Don't even move around standing upright.
2. Prone position is good when you want to avoid the enemy or taking cover, thus, if
you're hunting enemies, this is a position to avoid, until you make contact of course.
3. Use cover. Hide behind trees and corners, climb up to roof tops, usual stuff. At
night, the enemy's sight is reduced to that similar to yours, hence when you come into
contact with one of them, it is usually a fair fight.
4. Note that the night ops perk, does not guarantee initial movement in an interrupt.
Agility does! Night ops just make the merc less tired during the night. Try this with a non
night-ops merc, move him across the map, and boy you can see his stamina plummet (The
blue bar).

Index
? 1.3 - MERCS INCOMPATIBILITIES & OTHER INFO

- The best mechanic from MERC and Steroid won't work with Ivan and Igor.
So is Dimitry with Stefan and Static with Stefan. Surely, there are much more.
Just for laughs I restarted the game trying to put together a team that would dislike
each other more than they did the enemy. I hired Lynx, Buzz, Buns, Fox, and Steroid. They
argued for so long in the DZ in Omerta that the enemy managed to sneak up on them
before I could move them.
- Grizzly - Dr. Q, Lynx - Buzz, Buzz - Lynx
- Magic seems to hate Buns, he called her some uppity b*tch who gots to get out of his
hair.

People complain about the corpses when they see them after they have decayed
and crows are picking at them. Does this affect the morale in any way, and if so,
how can I get rid of the corpses?
The sight of corpses don't affect the mercs' morale. The corpses will rot away in a few
days...
Eric T. Cheng – Sirtech Canada

Index
? 1.4 – M.E.R.C.

How to get new MERC guys?
Hmmm. I've been going for about 12 days game time now and MERC doesn't seem
to have any new guys. Has anyone had MERC recruit new guys? Does it seem to be
triggered by time or by how much money you give them?
I've got about 9 MERC guys to choose from now. When Speck lets you know he hired
some more mercs he says it's thanks to your patronage. I don't know if it's true or
not.
But you definately want to support MERC just in case. They get some decent mercs later
on, in particular Numb. I've been playing a long time without anymore MERC guys being
available so I think I'm at the max.

But by time Bubba, Larry or even Numb and Cougar became available, I can afford
way better mercs from A.I.M., so I'm not going to waste time with them. Don't you
think?
Well, that's subjective since it's variable when they come online. Cougar is one of the
best mercs in the game, and definitely the best bargain.
Ian Currie - Sirtech Canada

Index
? 1.5 – I.M.P. (CUSTOM MERCS)

- If you type 90210 as a password in the IMP page, u get the same custom merc you
created last time. (Cheat in the Russian version, don't know if it works in English version)

o 1.5.1 - Answering The Quiz
Along with with the skills you may get, you also get one in six types of personality:
Aggressive: Makes you a better fighter, but worser at talking to people.
Friendly: More success with talking to NPCs.
Normal: Just like it sounds.
Optimist: Always has a higher morale, better leadership abilities.
Pessimist: Lower morale and likely poor leadership abilities.
Psycho: Causes mercs to be over-aggressive. If they have a burst-capable weapon, they
may tend to fire off bursts when you least expect it, for no apparent reason. However,
they do have a 15% higher chance to hit.
The only way to find out what kind of personality your merc has, is to read the email
you get from IMP on day 3.
Below is a list of how you should answer the I.M.P. Quiz to get the specialties wanted
and personalities: (missing answers means that it doen't affect the generation process)

Question 1:
1: Martial Arts 3: Hand to Hand combat 4: Lock Picking 5: Throwing 6: Optimism
Question 2:
1: Teaching 3: Psycho Personality 4: Friendly personality
Question 3:
1: Lock Picking 3: Stealth 4: Normal personality
Question 4:
1: Automatic Weapons 2: Friendly Personality 3: Normal Personality
Question 5:
3: Aggressive Personality
Question 6:
2: Night Ops
Question 7:
1: Electronics 2: Knifing 3: Night Ops
Question 8:
1: Ambidextrous 3: Optimistic Personality 4: Psycho Personality
Question 9:
No answer to this question has consequences on the specialties and personality.
Question 10:
No answer to this question has consequences on the specialties and personality.
Question 11:
2: Teaching 3: Aggressive Personality 4: Normal Personality
Question 12:
1: Martial Arts 2: Knifing 4: Automatic Weapons 5: Hand to Hand combat 6: Electronics
Question 13:
2: Normal Personality 3: Normal Personality
Question 14:
2: Normal Personality
Question 15:
1: Throwing 2: Ambidextrous
Question 16:
No answer to this question has consequences on the specialties and personality.


o 1.5.2 - The Choice Of The Faces

If you pick face 1, 7 or 8 and have Strength higher than 75, you get a 'big guy' meaning
his body is bigger than usual and he can't have a speciality that's called
'Ambidextrous' so
i'm guessing it's the one that lets you use both of your hands equally well, cause
it's not
Stealth and not Night Ops although it only makes sence if it was Stealth.

o 1.5.3 - The Equipment You Get