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Bobby Ray & item progression

With Tons of Guns enabled, 1.13 contains hundreds of weapons — but you are not meant to see them all on day one. What Bobby Ray's web shop sells, what Tony has under the counter and what enemy soldiers carry is controlled by two numbers:

  • Progress — a 0–100 score of how far your campaign has advanced.
  • Coolness — a 1–10 quality tier assigned to every item.

The rule of thumb that ties them together: an item becomes available when your progress reaches roughly ten times its coolness. If Bobby Ray's only sells junk, that is almost never a bug — it is a progress question. This page explains both numbers, the Bobby Ray Quality/Quantity settings on the new game screen, and how the store itself works.

Progress: the campaign clock

Progress starts near 0 and normally climbs toward 100 as you take over Arulco. You can check it at any time by pressing V in tactical view, which shows the game version, difficulty, Bobby Ray settings and current progress.

Four things can generate progress points. How much each may contribute is set in Ja2_Options.INI under [Strategic Progress Settings]:

Source INI key Default Can it drop again?
Killing enemies GAME_PROGRESS_MAX_POINTS_FROM_KILLS 25 No
Holding city/SAM sectors GAME_PROGRESS_MAX_POINTS_FROM_SECTOR_CONTROL 25 Yes, if you lose them
Mine income (and town loyalty at mines) GAME_PROGRESS_MAX_POINTS_FROM_MINE_INCOME 50 Yes, if income falls
Exploring map sectors GAME_PROGRESS_MAX_POINTS_FROM_EXPLORED_SECTORS 0 No

Two ways of combining these exist:

  • Classic (weighted): the four sources are added up. The four values must sum to exactly 100, or the game resets them to defaults. If you then ignore a heavily weighted activity, you can never reach full progress.
  • Alternate (ALTERNATE_PROGRESS_CALCULATION = TRUE, the current default): each source is scaled to a full 0–100 range and your progress is simply the highest of the four. Playing to your preferred style (conquering, mining or killing) is enough to advance.

Two more knobs exist: GAME_PROGRESS_MINIMUM (a floor value your progress starts at) and GAME_PROGRESS_MODIFIER (a flat bonus or penalty, useful to speed up or slow down an entire campaign).

Item availability never goes backwards

Shops and enemy equipment are keyed to the highest progress you have reached so far in the campaign. Losing a mine can lower your current progress, but it will not take items off Bobby Ray's shelves again.

Progress also gates several campaign events (all tunable in the same INI): assassins can appear from progress 20, enemy jeeps from 30, enemy attack helicopters are unlocked at 30 at the latest, robots from 45, tanks from 60, and — with AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI = 2 — the Queen launches major offensives at 65 and 85. Certain optional quests and enemy characters are progress-gated too (GAME_PROGRESS_START_MADLAB_QUEST = 35, GAME_PROGRESS_MIKE_AVAILABLE = 50, GAME_PROGRESS_IGGY_AVAILABLE = 70).

Coolness: the item rating

Every item has a <ubCoolness> value from 0 to 10 in Data-1.13\TableData\Items\Items.xml. Simple pistols and cheap gear sit at coolness 1–2; top-tier rifles, heavy armor and rare ammo sit at 9–10. Items with coolness 0 are never sold by any shop.

The basic availability formula (progress divided by 10, rounded down, plus one) means a coolness-5 gun starts appearing in stores at around 40 progress, and coolness-10 gear only near the end of the campaign — unless you change the Bobby Ray settings below.

Two other gates are independent of progress and worth knowing about:

  • Available Arsenal (Tons of Guns vs. Reduced): guns outside the selected gun set do not exist in that campaign at all.
  • Game Style (Sci-Fi vs. Realistic): a few futuristic weapons only exist in Sci-Fi games; in Realistic mode no amount of progress makes them appear.

Both are chosen on the new game screen.

Bobby Ray's store

The Quality and Quantity settings

When you start a campaign you set two Bobby Ray values, each on a 1–10 scale (defaults: Great (2) for both). The screen labels the ranges after the four fixed choices old 1.13 versions offered: Good (1), Great (2–3), Excellent (4–9), Awesome (10).

Quality raises the coolness cap of what Bobby Ray's may stock:

Quality setting Max coolness, new items Max coolness, used items
Good (1) progress/10 + 1 progress/10 + 1
2 through 9 progress/10 + Quality progress/10 + Quality + 1
Awesome (10) 10 — the whole catalog 10

The result is always clamped between 2 and 10, so even a fresh campaign sees coolness-2 items. On the default Great (2), at 50 progress Bobby Ray's carries new items up to coolness 7 and used items up to coolness 8. Quality also makes the simulated store run "hotter": restock rolls succeed more often and stock lingers on the shelves longer. At Awesome (10) the store additionally skips all ordering delays — everything is in stock immediately.

Quantity multiplies how much of each item the store tries to keep on hand. Every item defines a base stock level in Items.xml (<BR_NewInventory> and <BR_UsedInventory>); the store's target is that number times your Quantity setting. A gun with base stock 5 is kept at up to 10 units on the default 2x, or 50 on 10x.

More toys, easier game

High Quality settings make the mid and late game noticeably easier and, for many players, less interesting — you skip the improvised-weapons phase that gives JA2 its early-game tension. The old wiki gave the same warning in 2008.

Used items

The used section sells items at reduced price in worn condition (roughly 20–80% status). Because used gear is allowed one coolness tier above new gear (at Quality 2+), checking the used page is the classic way to get next-tier weapons slightly early. Used stock is restocked only one unit at a time, so grab bargains when you see them.

Restocking

Bobby Ray's simulates a real store. Once per day:

  1. Simulated customers buy random items, reducing stock.
  2. Every item at or below half its target stock gets a restock roll; the chance depends on how well the item fits the current coolness window (and your Quality setting).
  3. Successful reorders take a few days to reach the store shelf — so an item that has just come within your coolness window may show up in stock a few days later.

Exceptions: the very first day an item becomes eligible it is stocked instantly (your reward for making progress), ammo for guns the store carries is always kept available, staples such as medical kits, tool kits and canteens are always suitable, and low-end gear is never dropped from the catalog — the crappy pistols stay listed until the end.

Ordering and shipping

Ordering works like vanilla JA2, with a few 1.13 twists (settings in Ja2_Options.INI under [Bobby Ray Settings] unless noted):

  • You can buy up to BOBBY_RAY_MAX_PURCHASE_AMOUNT of an item per shipment (default 30; vanilla allowed 10).
  • The order form's destination list is real: shipments can go to Drassen airport (B13) or Meduna airport (N3) — a destination only works while the sector is not enemy-controlled. The other cities on the list are flavor. Destinations and per-destination fees are defined in TableData\Map\ShippingDestinations.xml and DeliveryMethods.xml, so mods can add their own.
  • Three delivery speeds exist — Overnight Express, 2 Business Days and Standard Service — with shipping cost depending on speed, destination and package weight.
  • In Drassen, Pablo can steal from your shipments unless you set STEALING_FROM_SHIPMENTS_DISABLED = TRUE, and CHANCE_OF_SHIPMENT_LOSS (default 10) is the percent chance an entire shipment goes missing.
  • FAST_BOBBY_RAY_SHIPMENTS = TRUE (under [Shopkeeper Inventory Settings]) speeds up deliveries.

Quality-of-life: with BOBBY_RAY_TOOLTIPS_SHOW_POSSIBLE_ATTACHMENTS = TRUE, hovering over a weapon in the store lists the attachments it accepts, and BOBBY_RAY_TOOLTIPS_SHOW_LBE_DETAILS = TRUE shows pocket layouts on load-bearing equipment.

What enemies carry

Enemy equipment follows progress too, through a slightly different mechanism. Each soldier gets an equipment rating built from:

  • Difficulty level and soldier class (administrators, regulars, elites — elites are always a couple of tiers ahead).
  • Progress, filtered through the Progress Speed of Item Choices new game setting (Very Slow / Slow / Normal / Fast / Very Fast). On Very Slow, enemy gear lags up to five tiers behind normal early on; on Very Fast everyone is loaded with top gear quickly. This same setting drives the coolness-based item lists, so it also shifts what militia get.
  • Location: TableData\Map\CoolnessBySector.xml rates every sector 0–20 for the quality of men and equipment. The far northeast (Omerta/Drassen) is the low end; the closer to Meduna, the nastier the loadouts.
  • Optional flat INI modifiers per class: ADMIN_EQUIPMENT_QUALITY_MODIFIER, REGULAR_EQUIPMENT_QUALITY_MODIFIER, ELITE_EQUIPMENT_QUALITY_MODIFIER (each −5 to +10, default 0).

The rating then selects guns from progress-tiered tables in TableData\Inventory\ — EnemyGunChoices.xml (or the per-class GunChoices_Enemy_Admin/Regular/Elite.xml files), each with eleven brackets from 0% to 100%. Militia use matching GunChoices_Militia_*.xml files. Whether a dead enemy actually drops his gear is a separate roll, controlled by the DROP_ALL INI setting and per-item drop chances.

Local shopkeepers

Arulco's resident dealers follow the same progress/coolness logic with per-dealer tuning in TableData\NPCInventory\Merchants.xml: each merchant has a minCoolness/maxCoolness range, a coolnessProgressRate (how fast his window follows progress), an addToCoolness bonus and a useBRSetting flag that lets him piggyback on your Bobby Ray Quality choice. Tony in San Mona runs one coolness step ahead of Bobby Ray's, which is why he often has next-tier guns first. Unlike Bobby Ray's, most local dealers' minimum coolness also rises with progress, so they stop stocking junk later on. See XML files for how to edit these safely.

"Why are there no good guns yet?"

The most common new-player question, and it is almost always progress, not a bug. Work through this list:

  1. Check your progress with V. At 15 progress the coolness cap is 2–3 — of course the shop is full of revolvers.
  2. Raise progress: take and hold towns and SAM sites, get mines running with good loyalty, kill enemies. Progress comes from those activities, not from game time passing — waiting in a fortified Drassen achieves nothing by itself.
  3. Give it a day or two: newly eligible items can take a few days to work through Bobby Ray's ordering simulation (except the first batch, which appears instantly).
  4. Check the gates that aren't progress: a Reduced arsenal or Realistic game style removes some weapons from the campaign entirely.
  5. Impatient by design? Start your next campaign with a higher Bobby Ray Quality, a faster Progress Speed of Item Choices, or set GAME_PROGRESS_MINIMUM / GAME_PROGRESS_MODIFIER in Ja2_Options.INI. Quality 10 (Awesome) puts the entire catalog on sale from day one.

For general early-game advice, see the starter tips; for every other option on the new game screen, see New game options; for the full Ja2_Options.INI tour, see the options INI guide. Jargon like coolness, progress and Tons of Guns is also summarized in the glossary.

Sources