some counters to the common walkthrough

[Ichthyic]

I have read the only walkthrough that appears to be available (like the one posted on gamefaqs).

 

My experiences differ a bit from the author of that faq (and are based on using the unofficial 1.15 patch available on this site), so let me add a few things here to make the game a bit more enjoyable for some.

 

-it recommends picking a scout or sniper, but really you can pick anything you want. the skill trees now have enough diversity in them that you can balance your team out just fine, no matter what role you pick for yourself.

 

-the guide often recommends you grab a rocket launcher whenever they appear. Don't. this is bad advice, since you can throw a medium weight grenade just as far and with much higher accuracy than you can fire a rocket (it has been this way in ALL of the silent storm series; someone should mod that so rocket launchers actually make sense to use). what's more, in H&S rocket launchers are the heaviest single useable item in the whole game, hands down. they weigh 16kg! oh, and before you gasp at how heavy that is... EACH rocket weighs another 3.2kg!! so... no. they totally screwed up on the rocket launcher. it is a giant fucking paperweight. don't bother with it; use grenades. for comparison... a pwm 1 heavy grenade does just as much damage as a rocket, and only weighs 1kg.

 

-play with the fast move mod (enable it in the custom game menu before you start). it makes the game so much less annoying.

 

-cheat. No, really. This game does a TERRIBLE job of providing you with proper equipment for your role. If you pick to be a sniper say... give yourself a sniper rifle of a reasonable class right off. Otherwise, you will have to wait a long time before you even get one! In all previous silent storm games, each character got appropriate equipment to their class, but in H&S, they just give you a lame smg and send you merrily on your way, no matter what class you pick. So... cheat. you can find the cheat codes online easily.

 

-the game is not as hard as the author seems to think it is, it's just that you need to develop strategies to avoid getting hit by bullets. in fact, I even ramped up the difficulty in custom mode to have the enemies do even MORE damage (full damage - 100%) to further encourage good play tactics. you really should only be able to take one or two shots before going down without any armor. played tactically, this game is not hard at all. you will be mopping the floor with your enemies in no time.

 

-on the entry mission (sneak across border fence area). DO NOT TRY TO SHOOT ANYONE. the game is programmed to make you miss (99% hit, the enemies will just ... duck), apparently, and if you get spotted, you're dead. simple as that. this is entirely a mission of not getting seen, so stay in combat mode, move from tree to tree as far towards the bottom of the screen as you can get. try to move as close to the fence as you can, then go back to real time until the tank scene starts. then go back to combat mode, clip the wire fence, and again move from tree to tree, crouched, or even crawling if you have really bad hide skill. once you reach the tree closest to the exit zone, and have full AP available to you, change to run and book it to the exit bar. you should be ok. do not try to run across the map, do not try to explore, do not try to shoot anyone. you will die. simple as that. this is the ONLY reason I think people think this game is hard. you will not encounter another level like this, so don't sweat it.

 

-as irritating as it might seem, on any map where you aren't 100% sure what the status is, go into combat mode. The reason is that there are timers on almost every map, and ambushes on a lot of them too. staying in combat mode slows that timer way down, and you are MUCH more likely to spot ambushes and avoid them.

 

-hide and sneak does not work much like the other storm games. You can't hide during the day, for example, even if you are in a building. Only when you are underground or at night can you hide. Don't ask me why. It's bloody stupid if you ask me. Also, you cannot train hide skill AT ALL. it will never go up for you, during the whole game. so, if you like stealth.... better pick a scout for your PC as all the other characters pretty well suck at it. Also, this means that stealth weaponry is not worth the loss of damage, range, and most especially, durability. IOW... going stealth is really just a way to make the game HARDER for you, in total contrast to other storm games. There are very few maps where stealth will actually play out well. Mostly, your best bet is power and range, moving slowly, and good spotting skills (which, thankfully, ARE trainable, and even easier to train).

 

-you cannot train your shooting skill. It will be directly tied to your dex stat, and increase as you level. You can, however, train your burst and snipe skills.

 

-weapon familiarity now applies to multiple weapons, so long as they are different classes. so, you can familiarize yourself with both your sidearm, and your rifle, for example. or your smg and your knife, etc. this is a welcome and sensible change from the previous storm games. Unfortunately, your limitation is ammo, and the durability of the weapon you choose to use. You will get a decent engineer fairly early on (Larry) who does a decent enough job repairing your gear, but of course, the max durability will always decrease (significantly) with each repair. This suggests primarily using weapons that end up being commonly found or purchasable. keep your eyes open for what drops, and what has the most units available at the weapons merchant (when you get that far). There is no way to get near perfect repairs like in previous games, so take that into account. train your snipe/throw/burst/melee skills with items/weapons that are very common, then go back to your primary weapon to increase your familiarization with it.

 

-money is not an issue really, especially after the weapons dealer opens up, so don't worry too much about that. Just make sure you always keep a grand or two in pocket, as there are quests that will ask you for limited amounts of cash (usually around 600, though up to 1200)

 

-you might freak a bit when it seems that all of a sudden, you can't see people you are standing right next to (like they are hidden). What's happened is that this game actually applies whatever visual modifications your active weapon has to your vision at all times! so, if you are holding a sniper rifle, you vision narrows to a tiny fraction of what it is when you are holding a pistol. keep that in mind when you are walking around; your best off swapping to your alternate weapon slot when looking around.

 

-the prison can be completed entirely without bloodshed, so long as you: wear the allied commando uniform, have the id papers from the convoy attack, and can pass a moderate intelligence check. Just walk (by yourself) into the office that is to your left as you enter the map, and talk to the warden. My guess is that you need an int of at least 6 to pass the check. Mine was 7 at the time. No muss, no fuss. level done in 10 seconds, and you get a ton of xp.

 

-before you go to the water scoop, make sure you have plenty of room in your inventory; you will need it to pick up a buch of weapons and a couple of large canisters. after foiling the iniital attack on the water scoop plant, make sure to pick up as many of the weapons as you can (at least all the easily identifiable russian ones), all f the cigarettes, and probably at least one of the canisters (I grabbed both). STAY IN COMBAT MODE AT ALL TIMES. go into the office area (not through the big "garage door", but through the front door up top). pick the lockers for a couple of goodies. then bring your engineer or a good spotter near where the ladder goes down through the floor. Wait until the big-ass mine gets spotted. Now... move WAYY back towards the front door, but leave a person with good piston/smg skills in the corner, on the metal grid, between where the hallway exits onto the metal grid and the big garage door. Now, have someone either shoot the mine or toss a grenade at it. BOOOM! this will take out half the baddies waiting for you just below the ladder, and the person you left in the corner can jump down off the edge of remaining metal grid and likely get a suprise attack on the remaining baddies that are just below them. just make sure eveyone is at least 6 steps away from the mine when you destroy it. Drag all the russian weapons at the cyanide with you down into the sewers (the manhole at the bottom). after you enter the sewers, I *think* you can safely dump all the excess gear and toxic waste. At least, I didn't get the "bad" transition afterwards.

 

-shortcut: when you get to the sewers, after the first "bend" you will notice there is a room with a ladder on your right, that you can't get to because there is a wall there.... if you brought a heavy explosive with you (lyddite works fine, or a heavy mine or grenade), you can simply blow a hole in the wall here and bypass the entire clusterfuck that is waiting for you at the end of the long way round. stand right at the edge of where the ladder goes down (to the sides), and you will notice baddies start to cluster at the bottom of the ladder. Now.... let's see... you're standing over a big hole, with a bunch of enemies all grouped in one spot. yip, it's grenade time. hopefully you have a few small grendades (the big ones will blow back on you), like srcm's or bredas. just toss them down the hole (manually target the area at the bottom of the ladder). baddies will die without you even seeing all the blood and gore. Now, all you have to do is climb down, and then there are really only 3 baddies left to deal with, two on your right as you pass the first junction, and one more in the depression after you reach the first left turn and have to climb down. So, grand total: you need to kill one before you hit the first wall, one as you reach the first wall (that is beyond and to your left), four at the bottom of the ladder you need to climb down, two on your right after you climb down, and one more after you make that first left turn. that's it. if you go the long way, I think there are about 8 more you would need to kill, lots more mines to have to disable or avoid, and it takes 3 times as long.

 

-after you leave the sewers, STAY IN COMBAT MODE. run your fastest guy up to the house and open the door. quickly exit combat mode briefly, and hit the loot button. collect the benzies and the IV bag, and leave. don't hang around, or you will be ambushed by a large group of army dudes. don't forget to pick up siegfried and take him with you, and then head to your arms dealer straight away. you can "cure" his crippled hands with your medic and an abbey clamp or bullet remover after the brief discussion plays out.

 

-at the hammer base Siegfried points you to... going at night makes it a bit easier; you have more control of the battle. if you are at your home base (where the radio is), leaving at around 8pm should put you at the base at around 4am (early dawn raid!). maneuver saunders and larry (assuming you made him a sniper. you made him a sniper, right?) so they are near the bottom of the screen, at the fence, hidden from sight (crouched). manuever your PC to clip the fence with your wirecutters. move fidel to the trees just behind the truck, and for now, leave siegfried where he is; move him along the powerpoles once the battle has started, to keep an eye on the civilians. after you cut the fence, run larry and saunders to the back corner of the building closest to the bottom of the screen (the barracks). wait a turn. have larry poke back around the corner and snipe any hammer guys he sees in the open. have saunders do a blast at the boarded up door with an SMG or machine gun to blow it open. when larry is done, take saunders and larry to clear the barracks, move your pc and fidel to pick off people in the courtyard, and move siegfried along the line of the power poles. after the courtyard is clear, and the barracks are under control, go ahead and shoot any civilians you see with a weapon in their hands. they are not your friends. this will start a new round of combat, and you will immediately see that some civilians are still in blue. just don't shoot those civilians, and you're good. one enemy civilian will be hiding at the bottom of the barracks in the bathroom area, so watch out for that.

 

-after the base, guide does a good job with setting you up for the ambush at the larry's dad's place, but for foresster, you can actually take out the motorcycle with sidecar machine gun in the second turn of combat. before you investigate the house, move siegfried near the edge of the forest by where the well is (move him past the well, but at the edge of the forest) and give him one of your heavy grenades (pwm 1). move saunders to the right of his position, nearer to the road, but still in the forest, and put another unit nearby that position too. on your first combat turn, move those two units up, away from the well and the house, towards the road, until you spot the group of enemies that is approaching from that direction (call it west?) clear those enemies as best you can (grenades work great), now siegfried is clear to run towards the morocycle until he is close enough to lob his heavy grenade at, or even just very near it. Boom. he should even have enough ap left to take out the driver if he's still alive. then have him take cover behind what is left of the motorcycle, which you no longer have to worry about. Oh, also, Fidel has the key to the door to the basement. if you use him to open the door, you don't have to pick it.

 

-your new sewer rat base. you will find some paybooks on the floor here. one of them is very interesting. the scene you get next entirely depends on who, exactly, you let pick up the paybook first. try saving before you pick them up to see the what happens.

 

-the nuke bomb level is really stupid. you have to be way too far away from it to do any direct damage, even with the rocket launcher. again, bad guide, bad. instead, toss a heavy grenade near the tail of it to star the damage going, then run your sniper all the way as far away from it as they can get down to where the gate closes on you (yes, you have to be that far away), and snipe it with a high penetration rifle until it is destroyed (you'll know, because the area goes green). Now, there is a really nasty bug here, in that you can only open the gate ONCE. if you trigger it to close again, you will never be able to open it, no matter how many times you push the damn button (even plays the sound effect, but the gate does not open). so... don't ever go through the gate. instead after you climb through the hole before the gate and clear all the baddies. ...including the ones guarding the bomb itself (there's one hidden on the other side of the wall you can't see; climb through the furthest hole in the area that links the switch room to the bomb area, and then look right). Ok, all clear? good. climb into the room where the bomb is, and go across that room to the other side, where you will see a hole blocked up with boards. grenade or shoot those boards out, and climb through that hole into the passage beyond. work your way down, and you will see a machine gun next to another hole, that leads right back to where the gate is, now, the problem is, that gun is in the friggen way. you can't climb through the hole with it there, and you can move it so... blow it the hell up. use a heavy grenade or nitro on it and get rid of it entirely. NOW after your sniper does the bomb, he will be standing right next to this now clear hole, and he can crawl through. likewise, move your whole team OTHER than your sniper into the passageway where the gun was at least as far as that hole so they won't be exposed to radiation when the bomb is destroyed. Now destroy the bomb, and have your sniper climb through the hole. the rest is just clearing a few baddies on your way to the exit. *whew* Really, the guide sucks total donkey balls for this level. Follow my advice and NOBODY WILL TAKE ANY DAMAGE. suffice it to say, bring at least a couple of heavy explosives (like nitro and hex).