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New game options

When you click Start New Game, 1.13 replaces the tiny vanilla options dialog with a full INITIAL GAME SETTINGS screen. The choices you make here are locked in for the whole campaign — unlike almost everything in Ja2_Options.INI, they cannot be changed later without starting over.

This page describes the screen as it appears in current GitHub-era releases. It was verified against the 1.13 source code and game data on github.com/1dot13 (fetched July 2026; the new-game screen code was last changed in December 2025). If you play the legacy r7609 build, your screen has several extra options — see Options that moved to Ja2_Options.INI below.

The options

Option Choices (default bold) What it does
Difficulty Level Novice, Experienced, Expert, Insane Sets starting cash, enemy numbers and quality, the Queen's troop pool and aggression, and more. Details in What difficulty changes.
Skill Traits Old, New New replaces the vanilla skill system with major and minor traits, changes existing traits and adds new ones. Hover over a trait in-game for a tooltip explaining it. Old keeps the vanilla-style traits.
Game Style Realistic, Sci Fi Sci Fi includes a unique enemy type and some unrealistic weapons, as in vanilla JA2. Realistic removes them.
Extra Difficulty Save Anytime, Iron Man, Soft Iron Man, Extreme Iron Man Restricts when you may save the game. Details in The save modes.
Inventory / Attachments Old / Old, New / Old, New / New First value: New Inventory System (LBE vests, backpacks, holsters). Second: New Attachment System (slot-based attachments). There is no Old/New combination — NAS requires the new inventory.
Progress Speed of Item Choices Very Slow, Slow, Normal, Fast, Very Fast How quickly better equipment becomes available to you and the enemy as the campaign progresses. On Very Slow you will fight with pistols and SMGs for much longer.
Available Arsenal Reduced, Tons of Guns Tons of Guns enables 1.13's huge extended weapon list. Reduced keeps a smaller, roughly vanilla-sized arsenal.
Max. Squad Size 6, 8, 10 Maximum number of mercs per squad. Limited by screen resolution — see below.
Bobby Ray Quality 1–10, default Great (2) Tier of guns stocked by the Bobby Ray's online shop. Displayed as Normal (1), Great (2–3), Excellent (4–9) or Awesome (10).
Bobby Ray Quantity 1x–10x, default Great (2x) Stock quantity multiplier for Bobby Ray's. Same label scale as quality.

Some selectors depend on your resolution

At 640x480 the squad size is fixed at 6 and the Inventory / Attachments selector is hidden (the game runs Old/Old). From 800x600 you can pick squads of up to 8, and resolutions of 1280x720 and above allow 10. The new inventory also requires the standard v1.13 VFS profile to be active (it is in a normal install; see configuration).

Two more buttons live on this screen besides Start and Cancel:

  • 1.13 Features — opens the feature-toggle screen described below.
  • In JA2: Unfinished Business mode the screen instead shows UB-specific toggles ("Tex and John", "Random Manuel texts") in place of some options.

What difficulty changes

Difficulty in 1.13 is data-driven: everything it affects is defined in Data-1.13\TableData\DifficultySettings.xml, so mods can rebalance it (the difficulty names shown on the screen even come from this file). The headline values in the current game data:

Effect (XML tag) Novice Experienced Expert Insane
Starting cash (StartingCash) $45,000 $35,000 $30,000 $15,000
Bonus APs for enemies (EnemyAPBonus) 0 0 0 5
Kills needed per progress point (NumKillsPerProgressPoint) 7 10 15 60
Initial garrison strength (InitialGarrisonPercentages) 70% 100% 150% 200%
Minimum enemy group size (MinEnemyGroupSize) 3 4 6 12
Counterattack group size, 4 groups (CounterAttackGroupSize) 6 10 15 24
Extra elites in enemy groups (PercentElitesBonus) 0% 0% 25% 50%
Queen's initial troop pool (QueensInitialPoolOfTroops) 150 200 400 8000
Merc deaths tolerated (MaxMercDeaths) 2 4 6 8
Enemy ambush chance modifier (ChanceOfEnemyAmbushes) -15 +5 +12 +25

The same file also controls the Queen's reinforcement and decision-making behavior, creature spread rates, underground sector garrisons, loot damage on higher difficulties, and — when NCTH is enabled — chance-to-hit modifiers for enemies, militia and (up to progress 30) your own mercs.

The save modes

The Extra Difficulty selector has grown from two to four modes:

  • Save Anytime — no restrictions.
  • Iron Man — you cannot save during turn-based combat, nor while enemies are present in your sector.
  • Soft Iron Man — you cannot save during turn-based combat, but you can save with enemies in the sector as long as combat has not started.
  • Extreme Iron Man — you can only save at one fixed in-game hour per day. The hour is set by EXTREME_IRON_MAN_SAVING_HOUR in the [Strategic Interface Settings] section of Ja2_Options.INI (engine default: hour 0, i.e. midnight).

Iron Man is forever

The game asks for confirmation when you pick any Iron Man mode, because the choice applies to the entire campaign. There is no supported way to relax it later.

1.13 does not have a mode named "Dead is Dead" — the four modes above are the complete list in current releases.

Presetting your defaults

The screen reads its initial values from an optional ja2_sp.ini file (section [JA2 Singleplayer Initial Settings]) if you create one in the game directory. Recognized keys: DIFFICULTY_LEVEL, BOBBY_RAY_QUALITY, BOBBY_RAY_QUANTITY, PROGRESS_SPEED_OF_ITEM_CHOICES, SKILL_TRAITS, INVENTORY_ATTACHMENTS, GAME_STYLE, EXTRA_DIFFICULTY, AVAILABLE_ARSENAL, SQUAD_SIZE. Without the file, the defaults shown in bold above apply.

The 1.13 Features screen

The 1.13 Features button opens the 1.13 FEATURE TOGGLES screen — a graphical way to enable or disable many of the mod's optional systems without editing INI files. It works as an override layer:

  • The master switch Use These Overrides must be on for the screen to do anything. It is off by default, in which case your Ja2_Options.INI values apply unchanged.
  • When it is on, each toggle takes precedence over one specific boolean in Ja2_Options.INI (hover over a toggle in-game to see which).
  • The toggles are stored in Ja2_Features.ini (section [JA2 Feature Flags]), separate from your other settings.
Feature toggle Overrides (Ja2_Options.INI unless noted)
New Chance to Hit [Tactical Gameplay Settings] NCTH
Enemies Drop All [Tactical Difficulty Settings] DROP_ALL
Enemies Drop All (Damaged) [Tactical Difficulty Settings] DROP_ALL (variant: undropped items are dropped severely damaged)
Suppression Fire [Tactical Suppression Fire Settings] SUPPRESSION_EFFECTIVENESS
Drassen Counterattack [Strategic Event Settings] TRIGGER_MASSIVE_ENEMY_COUNTERATTACK_AT_DRASSEN
City Counterattacks [Strategic Event Settings] AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI
Multiple Counterattacks [Strategic Event Settings] AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI (harder variant, repeated attacks)
Intel [Intel Settings] RESOURCE_INTEL
Prisoners [Strategic Gameplay Settings] ALLOW_TAKE_PRISONERS
Mines Require Workers [Financial Settings] MINE_REQUIRES_WORKERS
Enemy Ambushes [Tactical Difficulty Settings] ENABLE_CHANCE_OF_ENEMY_AMBUSHES
Enemy Assassins [Tactical Difficulty Settings] ENEMY_ASSASSINS
Enemy Roles [Tactical Enemy Role Settings] ENEMYROLES
Enemy Role: Medic [Tactical Enemy Role Settings] ENEMY_MEDICS
Enemy Role: Officer [Tactical Enemy Role Settings] ENEMY_OFFICERS
Enemy Role: General [Tactical Enemy Role Settings] ENEMY_GENERALS
Kerberus [PMC Settings] PMC (hire militia from a private military company)
Mercs Need Food [Tactical Food Settings] FOOD
Disease [Disease Settings] DISEASE
Dynamic Opinions [Dynamic Opinion Settings] DYNAMIC_OPINIONS
Dynamic Dialogue [Dynamic Dialogue Settings] DYNAMIC_DIALOGUE
Arulco Strategic Division [Strategic Additional Enemy AI Settings] ASD_ACTIVE (enemy jeeps, tanks, robots)
ASD: Helicopters [Enemy Helicopter Settings] ENEMYHELI_ACTIVE
Enemy Vehicles Can Move [Tactical Gameplay Settings] ENEMY_TANKS_CAN_MOVE_IN_TACTICAL
Zombies the "Allow Zombies" toggle in the options menu
Bloodcat Raids [Raid Settings] RAID_BLOODCATS
Bandit Raids [Raid Settings] RAID_BANDITS
Zombie Raids [Raid Settings] RAID_ZOMBIES
Militia Volunteer Pool [Militia Volunteer Pool Settings] MILITIA_VOLUNTEER_POOL
Tactical Militia Command [Tactical Interface Settings] ALLOW_TACTICAL_MILITIA_COMMAND
Strategic Militia Command [Militia Strategic Movement Settings] ALLOW_MILITIA_STRATEGIC_COMMAND
Militia Uses Sector Equipment [Militia Equipment Settings] MILITIA_USE_SECTOR_EQUIPMENT
Militia Requires Resources [Militia Resource Settings] MILITIA_REQUIRE_RESOURCES
Enhanced Close Combat [Tactical Gameplay Settings] ENHANCED_CLOSE_COMBAT_SYSTEM
Improved Interrupt System [Tactical Gameplay Settings] IMPROVED_INTERRUPT_SYSTEM
Weapon Overheating [Tactical Weapon Overheating Settings] OVERHEATING
Weather: Rain [Tactical Weather Settings] ALLOW_RAIN
Weather: Lightning [Tactical Weather Settings] ALLOW_LIGHTNING
Weather: Sandstorms [Tactical Weather Settings] ALLOW_SANDSTORMS
Weather: Snow [Tactical Weather Settings] ALLOW_SNOW
Mini Events [Mini Events Settings] MINI_EVENTS_ENABLED
Arulco Rebel Command [Rebel Command Settings] REBEL_COMMAND_ENABLED
Strategic Transport Groups [Strategic Gameplay Settings] STRATEGIC_TRANSPORT_GROUPS_ENABLED

Unlike the main new-game options, these toggles can also be changed during a campaign (the screen warns that doing so will affect your experience). Militia-related toggles are covered on the militia page; the Drassen Counterattack is discussed in starter tips.

New players

Leave Use These Overrides off for your first campaign and play with the defaults. In particular, do not enable Drassen Counterattack on a first game — the screen's own help text calls it "not recommended for new players".

Options that moved to Ja2_Options.INI (r8610)

The classic stable release r7609 shows several extra feature switches on the new-game screen. In r8610 (paired with GameDir r2442) these were moved into Ja2_Options.INI so they could be changed mid-campaign, and the screen was reduced to the setup-only options listed above. Flugente announced the redesign on the Bear's Pit forum in September 2018 with a simple rule: the start screen should only hold choices that are stored in the savegame and genuinely cannot change later (squad size, Iron Man, and the like); anything the code can change at any point in a campaign — food, NCTH, the improved interrupt system, "half the start screen, really" — belongs in the INI. Two follow-ups landed later that month: r8622 deleted the Max IMP Characters option outright (IMP slots are now defined purely by profiles marked <Type>6</Type> in MercProfiles.xml, which the standard game sets on every free slot — about 29 possible IMP slots), and r8625 moved NCTH into the INI.

If you play r7609 you will see these on the new-game screen; on anything newer, edit the INI instead (or use the 1.13 Features screen, which can override most of them):

r7609 screen option Default Ja2_Options.INI key (current releases)
New Chance to Hit System Off NCTH in [Tactical Gameplay Settings] (default FALSE; moved at r8625)
Enemies Drop All Items Off DROP_ALL in [Tactical Difficulty Settings] (default 0; 1 = drop everything, 2 = drop everything but normally-undropped items are severely damaged)
Merc Story Backgrounds On Introduced as BACKGROUNDS (default TRUE); in current releases the key is ENABLE_BACKGROUNDS in the [Backgrounds] section (default TRUE)
Food System Off FOOD in [Tactical Food Settings] (default FALSE)
Improved Interrupt System On IMPROVED_INTERRUPT_SYSTEM in [Tactical Gameplay Settings] (default TRUE)
Inventory Manipulation Costs AP Off INVENTORY_MANIPULATION_COSTS_AP in [Tactical Interface Settings] (default FALSE)
Max IMP Characters 1 Removed entirely at r8622 — the number of IMP slots is now determined by how many profiles are marked as IMP type (<Type>6</Type>) in MercProfiles.xml

See the Ja2_Options.INI tour for what these settings do in depth, and version history for where r7609 and r8610 fit in the release timeline.

Sources