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Support roles

1.13 adds a set of optional teamwork mechanics that let mercs actively support each other in combat instead of everyone simply shooting. This page covers three of them:

  • the spotter, who guides your snipers onto distant targets,
  • the assistant machinegunner, who keeps a belt-fed machinegun supplied with ammo,
  • the radio operator, who can call in militia reinforcements and artillery strikes, or fight an electronic war against enemy radios.

All three were contributed by community developer Flugente during the SVN era (2012–2013), so they are present in every current release. They are entirely optional — if you never touch them, the game plays as usual.

The skills menu

Two of these roles (spotter and radio operator) are used from the tactical skills menu. With a merc selected, press A or Shift+4, or hold Alt and right-click. The menu lists everything the selected merc can currently do — Radio Operator, Intel, Disguise, Bandage, Spotter, Focus, dragging bodies, filling canteens and more — depending on their traits and equipment. See the hotkey reference for the full list of tactical controls.

Spotter

A merc holding binoculars can act as a spotter: they observe an area, and any teammate firing a rifle or sniper rifle at a location the spotter can see gets an accuracy bonus. The bonus applies under both the old and the new chance-to-hit system. The Sniper trait is not required — anyone shooting a (sniper) rifle benefits. The feature entered the SVN trunk in r6694 (December 2013).

What you need

  • Any merc — no special trait is required. The spotter must be conscious, awake and not a prisoner.
  • An item with a spotting value (the <usSpotting> tag in Items.xml) held in the hands. In unmodded 1.13 both binoculars qualify: the Compact Binoculars (spotting value 50) and the Quality Binoculars (70). Attachments on a spotting item count toward its value — even scope modes on guns — but each hand item is capped at 100 points, so you cannot stack a spotting monster out of attachments.

How to use it

  1. Position the spotter somewhere with a good view of the target area, binoculars in hand.
  2. Open the skills menu (A) and choose Various → Spotter.
  3. Wait. The spotter needs a couple of turns to prepare (2 by default). A red eye symbol on the merc's portrait means they are still preparing; a normal eye means they are actively spotting.
  4. Have your snipers fire at targets the spotter can see. The bonus keeps growing the longer the spotter keeps watching, reaching its maximum after twice the preparation time.

How the bonus works

  • The sniper must be close to the spotter — at most 10 tiles away by default.
  • The target location must be visible to the spotter and far away from them — at least twice that range (20 tiles by default). Spotting is for long-range shooting, not close-quarters fights.
  • The size of the bonus depends on the spotter, not the sniper: the quality of the spotting item (40%), experience level (30%), marksmanship (20%) and leadership (10%). Wounds and fatigue lower it, and the personal relationship between spotter and sniper (opinions, character backgrounds and traits) can raise or lower it: sociable mercs work 10% better with their partner, loners 10% worse (added in r6698), and mutual opinions count double — buddies like Raider spotting for Raven roughly double the bonus, while mercs who dislike each other make spotting near useless.
  • Multiple spotters do not stack: only the single largest bonus applies.
  • The spotter's eyes are what count: the sniper also gets the bonus on spotted tiles they cannot see themselves — though the usual heavy penalty for firing at unseen targets still applies.
  • The spotter gets no bonus themselves — they are busy watching, not shooting.

Caveats

Spotters must stay still

Spending any AP ends the spotting — moving, turning, even changing stance. A spotter is effectively out of the fight for as long as they spot, so give them a safe position and cover their back.

The feature is tuned in Ja2_Options.INI under [Tactical Gameplay Settings] (see the options tour):

Setting Default Effect
SPOTTER_PREPARATIONTURNS 2 Turns before the bonus kicks in; maximum bonus after twice this many turns.
SPOTTER_RANGE 10 Sniper must be within this many tiles of the spotter; the target must be at least 2 × this range away from the spotter.
SPOTTER_MAX_CTHBOOST 50 Maximum chance-to-hit bonus once fully prepared.

Assistant machinegunner

Machineguns flagged as belt-fed can be fed externally: a second merc standing next to the gunner holds an ammunition belt, and the gun draws its rounds from that belt instead of its own magazine. The gunner can keep firing without stopping to reload for as long as the belt lasts. External feeding entered the SVN trunk in r5415 (July 2012); r5458 added the ability to feed from stacks of belts in a slot.

What you need

  • A gun flagged as belt-fed — the <Beltfed> tag in Items.xml in current builds (older versions used the BELT_FED item flag). When the feature landed only the MG3 and FN MAG were flagged; shortly afterwards every stock machinegun that could plausibly be belt-fed was. The capability can also be granted by an attachment (turning a G3 into an HK21, for example).
  • An ammunition belt (the <Ammobelt> tag, formerly the AMMO_BELT flag) of the same caliber and ammo type (AP, tracer, etc.) as the gun is currently loaded with. In stock 1.13 the 100-round 7.62 NATO, 200-round 5.56 NATO and 200-round 7.62x54R WP ammo items are belts; feedable items say so in their item description.
  • The assistant must stand directly adjacent to the gunner, holding the belt in their hands, with both mercs facing roughly the same direction (or facing each other).

How it works

There is no menu or skill to trigger — when the conditions above are met, rounds fired are deducted from the assistant's belt rather than from the gun's magazine. An icon on the assistant's portrait shows that they are feeding, and the belt in their hands displays an ammo counter while it does. The gun's own magazine only starts depleting once the belt runs out or the assistant moves away, and it is never magically refilled from the belt.

Depending on settings, a gunner can also feed their own weapon from dedicated ammo-belt slots on certain load-bearing vests (part of the new inventory system), with no assistant needed. In stock 1.13 the LRAK SAW-Vest is the only vest with such slots (the <AmmobeltVest> tag). With four 200-round belts in the vest and a fifth loaded, that is 1,000 rounds before the gunner has to reload.

The behavior is controlled by one setting in Ja2_Options.INI under [Tactical Gameplay Settings]:

Setting Default Effect
EXTERNAL_FEEDING 2 0 = no external feeding, 1 = only other mercs can feed a gun, 2 = also feed from dedicated ammo-belt slots in your own LBE.

Caveats

  • External feeding only changes where the bullets come from. It does not make the gun fire faster or in longer bursts — the rounds left in the gun's own magazine still cap how much it can fire per action. A gun down to its last round fires single shots even with a fresh 200-round belt beside it.
  • The caliber and ammo type of belt and gun must match exactly, or nothing happens.
  • Enemies can use this mechanic too — and the AI is allowed to feed a gun from a belt in any inventory pocket, not just from its hands or dedicated vest slots.

Radio operator

Radio Operator is a minor trait in the new trait system (selected as Skill Traits: New on the new game screen). A merc with this trait can operate a radio set to call in outside support or wage electronic warfare. A few mercs came with the trait when the feature was introduced — Bob, Weasel and Ears. Hovering over a merc's portrait shows their traits. The feature entered the SVN trunk in r6547 (October 2013).

What you need

  • A merc with the Radio Operator trait. Only radio operators can use the equipment.
  • A radio set (item #1697), worn on the back like a backpack — carrying it in a backpack does nothing. In SVN-era builds the set also needed special batteries (item #1698) that drain while the radio is in active use; GitHub builds since the December 2024 release removed the battery requirement.

What you can do

Open the skills menu (A) with the radio operator selected. Skills you can currently use are shown in green. Skills that need a target location (such as the artillery strike) act on the tile your mouse was over when you opened the menu, marked with a green square. The radio skills are:

Skill Effect
Call reinforcements Summons your militia from neighboring sectors into the current battle.
Artillery strike Fires a signal shell that marks a target area with red smoke (and illuminates it), then militia or merc mortar teams in adjacent sectors shell that area.
Jam communications Blocks all radio frequencies in the sector, so no team can use radio skills.
Scan frequencies Searches for enemy jammers by triangulation: regions containing a jammer are marked on the map, but not who or exactly where they are.
Eavesdrop Greatly improves the operator's hearing range, but leaves them easier to interrupt.
Switch off radio set Stops active jamming/scanning/listening and conserves battery power.

Artillery strikes land within a radius around the smoke marker (10 tiles by default), so do not call them anywhere near your own troops. How a strike plays out depends on who fires it:

  • Militia strikes: the signal shell is fired immediately (landing within 2 tiles of your target point by default) and the barrage arrives at the beginning of the next turn. The size of the barrage depends on the number and quality of militia in the sector you call it from, and strikes per sector are rate-limited (once every 120 minutes by default). Note that militia never call artillery on their own — only you and the enemy have radio operators.
  • Merc strikes: your mercs in an adjacent sector need mortars and mortar shells in their inventories. Every shell they carry is fired, in inventory order, and removed the moment you make the call — you can deliberately mix shell types, such as a few mustard gas shells among the explosives or illumination shells at night. The sector rate limit does not apply, but the barrage targets a random patch of signal smoke, so mark the target first with a 60mm Mortar Signal Shell or a Signal Flare. If no signal smoke exists when the shells come down, they target a radio operator of the calling team instead — and failing that, a random tile.

When the enemy calls artillery on you, their barrage arrives one turn later than yours would, so you have one turn to scatter after their signal shell lands. Since barrages pick a random signal smoke source, popping extra smoke signals of your own is a legitimate way to decoy incoming shells — as is killing the enemy operator before the call, or jamming the sector's frequencies. Jamming shows as a crossed-out radio symbol on the operator's portrait and also stops the AI from calling militia-style reinforcements, which can take the edge off battles like the Drassen counterattack.

Whether you can call militia reinforcements at all depends on where you are — by default the current or the adjacent sector must be part of a town — and on militia reinforcements being enabled for your difficulty (AllowReinforcements in DifficultySettings.xml). You can fine-tune how many militia you call in. See the militia page for how militia move between sectors.

Radio operators are also useful outside battle: on the strategic map they can be put on a scan assignment to detect enemy activity up to 5 sectors away by default. Each sector has a scan modifier (<sRadioScanModifier> in SectorNames.xml, −3 to +3), so mountains make rewarding listening posts.

Configuration

The feature is tuned in Skills_Settings.INI under [Radio Operator]. Highlights:

Setting Default Effect
RADIO_OPERATOR_ARTILLERY TRUE Enables the artillery skill (for all teams).
RADIO_OPERATOR_ARTILLERY_SECTOR_FREQUENCY 120 Minutes between militia artillery strikes per sector.
RADIO_OPERATOR_MORTAR_RADIUS 10 Shells land within this many tiles of the target.
RADIO_OPERATOR_MORTAR_SIGNAL_SHELL_RADIUS 2 The initial signal shell lands within this many tiles of the targeted spot.
RADIO_OPERATOR_REINFORCEMENT_SETTING 2 Where militia can be called: 0 never, 1 same town only, 2 this or the adjacent sector in a town, 3 anywhere.
RADIO_OPERATOR_ASSIGNMENT_SCAN_BASE_RANGE 5 The strategic scan assignment detects enemies up to this many sectors away.
RADIO_OPERATOR_LISTENING_HEARING_BONUS 20 Hearing bonus while eavesdropping.
RADIO_OPERATOR_JAMMING_BLOCKSRADIOBOMBS FALSE If TRUE, jammed frequencies also block remote bomb detonation/defusal.

Caveats

  • The enemy has radio operators too: they can jam your radios (scan frequencies to find the jammer) and call their own support. By default there is even a small chance that enemy jamming sets off remotely detonated bombs (RADIO_OPERATOR_ENEMY_JAMMINGSETSOFFRADIOBOMBS, 5% chance).
  • A damaged radio set can fail during operation — keep it repaired. Nastily, a failing set gives exactly the same feedback as jammed frequencies, so with battered gear you cannot tell equipment failure from enemy jamming.
  • Artillery targets the signal smoke. If you enable RADIO_OPERATOR_ARTILLERY_DISTRIBUTED_OVER_TURNS (barrage spread over several turns), the smoke must last long enough (<ubDuration> of the signal smoke in Explosives.xml), otherwise later shells re-target the operator who fired the signal shell.

More detail

The original feature announcements by Flugente on the Bear's Pit forum (linked below) contain the full design discussions, including modder-facing details such as item flags and XML tags.

Sources