Thought I would post a bug I found years ago when playing this game, as it isn't documented anywhere else. In darklands, during a battle you are usually lucky to get a couple of missile weapon shots off (especially if you use a handgun) at approaching enemies before they close distance and you have to resort to melee. This hack lets you dish out a lot more damage using ranged weapons.

At the start of a battle tell all your characters to shoot at some target. I would suggest each character to target a different enemy because they will go down fast if you have decent skill/weapon and then you will have to go through a reload period before you can do it again, so you want to take down as many enemies as possible.

tap the space bar to resume time. Your characters will pull out their missile devices for a second before before firing. While they are holding up their weapon, and before they let loose, tap the spacebar to stop time.

Give each character the Flee command, but don't give them a target. Just select each person and hit the F key.

Tap the spacebar to resume time.

Your characters will put away their missile device, pull out their melee weapon and start swinging at empty air. Every other time they swing they will shoot off their missile device. This should work for bows, handguns, and the arbalest too (never tried that one)

Have fun!

Trevor

That's a rather neat trick.

Is it correct to assume, the faster the melee weapon, the faster the fake ranged attacks?

I don't think so. They seem to always swing at the same speed. It is very fast though, like when your characters deal out multiple hits in a row and just keep knocking the enemy around.