Yes, and also possible in few other sectors.

Ye, id prefer to not even touching anything not critical there, of course if its something that ruin a game its another story.

Yes, I am sure it was on 1.15 pre-y (I switched to it 3 years ago). I have had other freezes, especially in S29 (I thought maybe this is about the guy hidden in the middle, he doesn't know what to do and goes into some infinite loop) - maybe this is what you have fixed. But the one I meant here really seems related to tear gas: it was in various sectors and whenever tear gas has been thrown I was a bit worried about the lock-up.

Thats something im entirely unaware of, i always thought about it "oh, its only tear gas", so i dont think i ever encountered that. Sadly i cannot say more on it without reproduceable save. (upd: Ah yes, if it happened only in 1.15 and not in 1.13-, and DosBox was set to Dynamic - it could be one of those Laptop-crash-like stuff i hypothetized about. If its not happens in Normal, then its great).

So you finished the slow game, how many days you spent to kill all reserves?

I am sure it happened on 1.15, but I cannot be sure it did not on 1.13.
I'm afraid you cannot expect a reproduceable save in this case. It was rare, there wasn't anything too specific about it except for said tear gas and it's a hard freeze, so you cannot save afterwards.

The reserves ended on day 66, the day I captured S2 (S21 was hard to keep with all shipments to them). They came many times on that day, but that was it, no additional defending days were needed.

So that means its fine as it is? Day 66 is really late one. I just worried they could dry out in more "normal" game course, but from it looks like its not a case.
I think you not planning long game through all the sectors in near future? With great find by you of that freeze technically i could publish z version, but if you not gonna really play it yet, id better wait in case something else would be found to include there. How to include a mention bout you in readmeh, by this nick here or some other name?

I have my supposition on what happened here. If you listen to his sound files, he does have a line on double salary, but Sam is already inserted there (perhaps someone was checking how it sounds with an inserted name, but mistakingly saved it as final soundfile). When they realized it, they probably decided to "fix" it by hardcoded check instead of messing with sounds.

As I thought more about bugs, two more things came up:
- very minor: there is a typo in ending subtitles, "journals" are spelled "jounals"
- "flying mode" - there were one or two occacions where my mercenary's sprite froze and moving him looked like he hovered over ground, even over water. I think it was in real-time. Unfortunately, I don't remember circumstances that might have caused this or which version it was. But since that was a long time ago, it probably wasn't any 1.15. Does it sound familiar?

Thats up to you ofc, but it would took way more time or pretty possible wouldnt been fixed at all without you. Nobody really play it, so all saves i used prior that being of my own. Yes, i coincidentally found that Exp training thing some time ago, but still its really magnificient to manage to discover it simply empirical way as you did.

Wow, thats really amazing, really. And i wonder now, if all others similar lines, that are not exist in real game, but kept in messages (like stealin' Mike etc) somewhow spoiled in sound?
My favourite one from Jack messages (dont think this one is recorded) is
{RECORD QUOTE # 156 WITH THE FOLLOWING AMOUNTS: $1000, 3000, 5000, 8000. RECORD QUOTE # 172 WITH THE FOLLOWING AMOUNTS: $3000, 5000, 10000, 15000. }
#156 is
{"I must apologize for yesterday. I had fully intended to thank and reward you for reclaiming my daughter's lab. I hope $5,000 meets your satisfaction." }
#172 is
{"I can't thank you enough for rescuing my daughter! This is the best day of my life! I'm giving you a $15,000 reward in addition to my eternal gratitude." }
so it means they planned to do 4 (?) difficulty levels, or just wanted to have a way to change a balance quickly in later part of tests. But as the amounts of those rewards are not difficulty related in game, likely troubles with recording changed an actualy game balance. They seems to put alot of effort into sound recording, and it was very impressive for their time too, i tihnk, but it clearly spoiled some other parts of development.

-"jounals' Maybe they just speak Metaviran there? Im really not sure its the only typo over messages (even setting aside Ivan, weird that they got a native speaker (from what i know he speaks very fine, but text messages are horribly spelled), but he had no time to check a written text? there is not really many of them, about 2 pages max).
- "flying mode" Maybe im not getting you right, but there was a bug in some animation sequences resulted in merc who tried to open a box sometimes being displayed as swimming and maybe some other obviously wrong frames. This one should be fixed in 1.15l:
{- Fixed a minor graphics bug resulting in weird animation sequences (such as drowning or fighting snake, etc) when a moving merc tried to interact with a close object.}
If you mean something else and not this one please tell.

By the way, what is the condition to get this reward? I never got it in go ahead, I suppose it was too late.
This is the only one that comes to my mind. As for Ivan's lines, I couldn't tell (maybe the native speaker was a Russian immigrant whose most education was outside Russia).

I don't think this is it, it's not about wrong animation sequence, but rather about lack of animation. One static sprite was moving smoothly instead of normal movement.

Another bug:
When a fight ends and the game turns to real-time, then if a mercenary had just been using a knife he gets a message "no one there" when ordered to do something else, like picking an object, as if he tried to use a knife.

If Lab is captured not later than 12 for Easy, 10 for Normal, or 8 for Hard\GoAhead days. Actual triggering of CaptureLab quest (with Brenda asking about it) is not required.

I mean he spell it perfect in vocal, but maybe not so good in written, dunno. Unnaturally cheerful voice clearly show he's immigrant for long time ofc.

The only thing i could think of is Fast Animations. They work only in real time, and im not using them, so it could be why i never encountered that. If you know how to reproduce it, would be great.

Yes, this one is fixed too. Its not related to real-time tho, from 1.15z Readme:
{- Mercs, who had to travel some tiles in order to stab somebody, no longer erroneously produce "No one there" message when ordered to touch some object as next action without moving first. }

Firstly, so nice seeing the good'ol Jagged Alliance still getting love. And thanks for detailing a lot of mechanics on this thread!

One question though... Taking sectors on day 1...
The best I've been able to do has been 7 on day 1. 11 sectors sound crazy optimized, so if going for 9-11 sectors
what sectors, and in what order, would you take on Day 1?

Its about Hard, should be more for lesser difficulties (tho i already think 12 could work for Hard too) and less for higher (never get more that 7 in GoAhead with armor-related options, but there its about a pure luck unlike "classic" game difficulties).
59-49-50-40-39-48-38-29-19-20-10.

Personally, I have never felt the need to take that many (and, to be honest, I would be unable to, unless I tried it MANY times or used save-reload). If the purpose is to make the rest of the game easier, then why not make a slower schedule that lets you take all shipments?