::::::::: :::: :::: ::::::::: :+: :+: +:+:+: :+:+:+ :+: +:+ +:+ +:+ +:+:+ +:+ +:+ +#+ +:+ +#+ +:+ +#+ +#+ +#+ +#+ +#+ +#+ +#+ #+# #+# #+# #+# #+# ######### ### ### ######### . . : : txrom's DMZ gaming journal : : . . ---[ .plan ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [~] Extract all of the Al Mazrah weapon cases [*] Second insured slot [~] Third insured slot [ ] Unlock bartering for comms vest [ ] Unlock bartering for stealth vest [*] Unlock bartering for the medic vest [*] Unlock contraband stash expansion [~] First insured slot cooldown [*] Second insured slot cooldown [*] Unlock wallet [*] Black Mous tier 1 [*] Black Mous tier 2 [~] Black Mous tier 3 [*] White Lotus tier 1 [~] White Lotus tier 2 [ ] White Lotus tier 3 [*] Crown tier 1 [~] Crown tier 2 [*] Phalanx tier 1 [*] Phalanx tier 2 [~] Phalanx tier 3 ---[ what? ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Although I've been playing this the beginning of season 1, I decided to start journaling some of my DMZ progress during season 3, mostly to look back on and remember the fun later on. And also because I needed more ways to procrastinate when I should be working. ---[ 17 April 2023 ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last night I managed to finish the Death from Above mission, by getting 5-6 kills with a single mortar strike. This opened up the Train Tracks story mission for Tier 2 of White Lotus. This was an easy story mission to complete. I may do a short video on it, because it was unique and fun, and easily done in a single deployment. I've thought about doing videos for each of the story missions... depending on how fun they are. Untraceable was fun and unique. Train Tracks was a fun one too. And it looks like there are a couple of other fun ones coming too. I also used the workbench to modify a contraband M4 that I had to remove the thermal optic for the Aim OP v4 optic instead. This feature is suuuuuper nice for fixing up contraband weapons. I'm also bartering for the comms vest whenever I can, since it's super easy to acquire 2 batteries, 2 hard drives, and a soothing hand cream. I kinda felt bad in my last game of the night. We spawned at Rohan Oil, did a ton of looting, and then ended up in PvP with a duo at the northern part of Rohan Oil. I got downed on a roof and immediately requested to change teams... this effectively killed my original team. I felt bad. ---[ 18 April 2023 ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Had another satisfying night of DMZ. I finished off three of the Tier 1 Black Mous missions in one deployment, and then geared up all three of my active duty operators with 3-plate comms vests, and self revives. One of my next missions requires killing enemies while on each train in Al Mazrah. That should be easy, but I may need to take a sniper rifle to do it, and it may attract other people now that the weapons case is on the cargo train. I think I wanna level up the new FJX Imperium whenever I unlock it from the battle pass. I think I'm gonna skip tonight though, unless I can somehow start early. I've had two late nights in a row, and I'm too old to keep doing that. ---[ 21 April 2023 ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last night I got through another mission, and started progressing through another, but I lost nearly 2 hours of my play time waiting for a tiny update to MWII to finish. So frustrating... For the last part of this mission, I need to destroy 4 armored AQ vehicles at the oasis. Presumably, I need to go and find them around the map, drive them to the oasis, and then destroy them. Luckily oasis is generally dead, so I don't have to worry about PvP there. And then it's onto the story mission, and finally my second insured slot! ---[ 23 April 2023 ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I finally got to the story mission for Black Mous tier 1, but it requires going into Building 21, and I didn't have any keys, so I spent tonight squad-filling and looking for keys in supply drops, and orange crates. I found one! So I'll have a go at the story mission on Sunday night! ---[ 24 April 2023 ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I did it! It's done! I now have my second insured slot finally! Frustratingly, I had to install the multiplayer DLC packs to get into Building 21, so I ended up dropping in at peak sweat-fest time. I went in solo, and - based on suggestions from videos I watched - hung around and did nothing for the first few minutes, to let any PvP happen in the opening few minutes. This worked well, but as soon as I hit the generator room, I got downed by AI, and it alerted the other teams that someone was at the generator room, so I got smashed soon after. But that doesn't matter! I didn't expect to live through the entire match anyway! The goal was to finish the story mission, and that's what I did! And now I can just do whatever missions I want, although I'm leaning towards the Crown missions, just because it gets me closer to the third insured slot... but I'm not gonna be as strict about it like I was with Black Mous tier 1 for the second slot. I'll also use the second slot to start levelling up the FJX Imperium. So I think for now, I'm just dropping into Al Mazrah and farming bot kills. Also, after modding a STB 556 contraband weapon a few days ago, I've now max levelled that gun without really trying. That happeend much quicker than I expected... was there a 2x weapon XP over the weekend? I certainly didn't notice it. Oh well! ---[ 26 April 2023 ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I sorted out a couple of smaller missions last night. Going in with random teammates was super frustrating, so I made most of my progress as a solo, but there was also a lot of PvP happening for a Tuesday night too, so I died a lot. In one game, I infil'd with a random team, we went to the Black Site at Sarrif Bay, and immediately ran into another team. Both of my teammates died. I took down one enemy with a 20-round Kastov 74u, and then both of my teammates jumped ship to the other team. Which was fine, except when I tried to join their team, they ignored me! So I ended up doing the rest of the match as a solo anyway, and still managed to exfil. I also played a few games this morning before work. I completed the Crown tier 1 story mission. It was actually kinda fun. I spawned at Al Safwa Quarry, drove down to Hafid Port, used the Special Ops Relay Station key - which was surprisingly good - boarded the ship, got the shipping manifest, and extracted back up at the Quarry. I'm also levelling up the FJX Imperium. Running around with a sniper rifle is really refreshing actually. ---[ 28 April 2023 ]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm almost done with the mission to kill AI, operators, and a commander with a weapon from the Kastov platform. Last night I took in a Kastov 74u and did almost everything - I just need one more operator kill. For the commander kill, I went after The Chemist, and managed to unexpectedly land on the roof where he was waiting. Luckily I only needed one mag to kill him, but I still didn't get away alive. Too many tier 3 AI waiting for me! I also finished the Unearthed mission, which requires finding the Crane Control Room key, unlocking it, and then extracting the Quarry Operations Folder. It turns out that for finding the key, if you already have it in your key stash, it will tick off that part of the mission when you infil with it. I thought I needed to find a fresh one during a match. The first time I tried to finish the mission, I was with a team, but the Crane Control Room had already been looted, and the Quarry Operations Folder had already been taken, and then we died anyway. The second time I went by myself, and I went directly to the Crane Control Room, only for both doors to already be unlocked, and everything was looted. The third time, I went in solo again, and managed to get it done, although getting to an extraction became risky. I was driving from Quarry towards Rohan Oil, and the Scavenger appeared right next to me, so my vehicle was disabled by the DDOS, and then both trains passed by, with a team getting off to kill the Scavenger. I managed to kill one of them before getting the fuck out of there. I eventually found another vehicle, and then headed to the exfil next to Zaya Observatory. Also, Plunder launched yesterday, and I felt like there was less PvP last night, but that's only one night, so we'll see what happens in a week. ---[ 3 May 2023 ]----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I had some fun the other day, and forgot to write it down. I was trying to exfil towards the end of a match on the hill next to Sattiq Caves. When I got there, another team was already at the exfil, so I took a few shots with my sniper rifle. I don't remember which rifle I had. I managed to get a few downs, and I got one finish. But the enemy team got out. Another team showed up, and I took shots at them too, to scare them off. I was engaged on the hill by someone much closer, but I managed to stay alive. I flanked around an back on top of the big pipes, but they had already headed back to the exfil, and got out. Finally, I called in the exfil as the gas was getting closer, kept lookout for anyone else coming for the exfil as the gas would be pushing them towards me, and this was the last one before the final exfil spawned. Nobody came. I got out safely. Usually I would've just noped out of that exfil with that level of spice going on. ---[ 4 May 2023 ]----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slowly making progress on missions, but I've definitely noticed the difficulty of the missions has gone up in tier 3 of the Legion and White Lotus factions, and also in tier 2 of Crown. So progress is much slower. Also, the Boring Operation mission for the drill charges is annoying as fuck. I need to blow up vehicles with drill charges, and I definitely got two last night, but they didn't count. Considering skipping this mission... I think next week I want to have a go at the mission to kill enemies with all 9 weapon types. I'll go in with a pistol, a sniper rifle, and maybe a marksman rifle? I can easily find a Vaznev 9k, Kastov 74u, RPK, and Lockwood 300 or Bryson 800 in-game to take care of SMGs, ARs, LMGs, and shotguns. And I know a couple of spots up near Taraq to find RPG bots for launchers. The fun part will be doing it without getting killed by other operators. ---[ 8 May 2023 ]----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Holy shit what a frustrating night. I'm trying to finish off Fast and Strong, and I only need to clear one more stronghold in 20 seconds. And in a whole night, I couldn't make it happen. On two occasions, I opened the stronghold, but because there were no enemies in them, it doesn't count. On another occasion, I started working on it just north of the Quarry, and then a team launched UAVs and came after me. They eventually killed me. And on other occasions, the strongholds that I went to were already cleared. So I stopped and dropped into a couple of games of Plunder instead, for the firt time. On my second game, I picked up a Most Wanted contract, and nearly stuck it out, but then I broke my legs when I tried to get to my getaway car, with about 25 seconds left. So I dropped back in, picked up a Bounty contract, and it pulled to the team who had just hunted me for my Most Wanted contract. They popped a couple of UAVs to chase me down all the way through Al Bagra Fortress, and then when I thought I got away, and was hiding in a building on the east side of the island, and it looked like they were heading off towards the Airport, they picked up a Bounty contract on me, so I then spent the last minute of match getting away from them _again_, and I just barely managed to stay alive... it was fucking intense. -- I ended up playing game of DMZ this morning and managed to finish Fast and Strong, although it took three strongholds to get it done - the first one I barely got done with less than a second to go but it didn't count, and the second one was an empty building, which also doesn't count. I also played a couple of Plunder games, and finished levelling the Crossbow and the Deagle, and got some fun clips that I have no idea what to do with. But this week we're doing the Sample Platter mission! I wrote a plan the other day to do this: infil with a pistol, a sniper rifle, and a marksman rifle. Start with those, and then get a Kastov 74u, Vaznev 9k, RPK, and a Lockwood from wherever the nearest AI are, and get an RPG from one of the two places up at Taraq. I just need to figure out where to get a Battle Rifle from... or I need a better option to get a pistol. ---[ 10 May 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I finally made some decent progress on the Vehicular Manslaughter mission, which requires 10 enemy kills from a C4 detonated vehicle, and 4 enemy kills from a C4 detonated helicopter. Last night I tried a bunch of times to make it happen, but either the C4 didn't do enough damage to the vehicle to blow it up, or the AI shot the C4 before I could detonate it. But this morning I made a ton of progress. What I ended up doing was finding ATVs, shooting it twice with my sniper rifle - to get its HP low enough to be destroyed - and then placing two C4 on the back of the ATV - so the AI couldn't shoot it when I drove it directly at them. This worked, and I've only got one more kill to get. Finally! For the second part of the mission, I have no fucking idea how I'm gonna do this... maybe with the reinforcement helicopters that drop in? Will two C4 destroy them without having to waste time shooting it first? We'll see... I also managed to find a Scavenger calling card on a randomly killed operator! I think I need to spend more time finding the spicy engagements and waiting for the Scavenger to show up. After this, I'll go back to Boring Operation to get these god damned drill charge vehicle explosions. Maybe use the drill charge underbarrel? Maybe throw the drill charge after it's "disabled"? ---[ 12 May 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boring Operation is done! Throwing the drill charge after it's "disabled" was the winning strat. I had a couple of false starts with it and it exploded before the drill charge blew, but I just think it's because I put a few too many extra bullets into it after seeing the disabled prompt. But it's done! Also, Season 3 Reloaded launched yesterday, so I also ended up getting to go into the new Koschei Complex map, and it was intense! After going into Al Mazrah and getting into some early PvP with my random teammates, we ended up going into the Complex via the Rohan Oil entrance. And then the timer starts again, so it was another 30+ minutes in the Complex. I mostly followed one of my teammates who seemed to know where they were going the entire time. We ended up taking out the two new bosses, The Sniper and The Rhino, and extracted the weapons case. A couple of times the bots nearly wiped us out, and we even nearly got wiped by an enemy team, but we seemed to work pretty well together despite having no comms. It was intense, and pretty damn fun! Especially with the night vision goggles on! As an aside, I should make it a goal to finish of the Al Mazrah weapons cases solo. I think I've done 5 of the 7 so far. Maybe if the juggernaut spawns with it I might have a go solo? ---[ 13 May 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I finished Sample Platter and Vehicular Manslaughter last night! Sample Platter took two attempts. I got into PvP in the weirdest spot on the first attempt. I was way down south, west of Al Bagra Fotress. I've almost never seen anyone else in that spot if I spawn there. But my comms vest went off, and I had an Advanced UAV, so I popped it, and I saw they were on top of the lighthouse tower. I let them go, but one of them landed on the building I was in, and came straight into the window into the room where I was, so I downed him, but then I lost to his teammate. I realised afterwards that I would've probably failed the run anyway, because I banked on using the LM-S for the sniper rifle kill, but the LM-S is a marksman rifle, so I probably wouldn't have found a sniper rifle anyway. But we got it on the second run! I took in a TAQ-V, LM-S, and MCPR to sort out the battle rifle, marksman rifle, and sniper rifle, respectively. I picked up an AR, LMG, and a SMG off enemies. I luckily found a Basilisk in the armory between the Quarry and Sattiq Caves. I rotated up around the west edge of Sattiq Caves, and I found an RPG enemy and a shotgun guy to finish it off. I also finished off Vehicular Manslaughter in the middle of all of this too! There's a reinforcement chopper that actually lands on the ground near where I spawned, and it turns out that you don't have to completely blow up the helicopter for the mission to track. I simply threw a C4 onto the heli, blew it up, killed the enemies, and the mission tracked as the heli then flew away. Either way, that was a pretty good start to the night! Everything after that was mostly disappointing. I started the Weapons Research mission, which is to complete a Hunt Squad contract and extract an enemy operator's weapon. It turns out if someone poaches your Hunt Squad, it counts as completing the contract. But I couldn't extract anyone's weapon, because I kept dying to people. Oh! I randomly found the Scavenger boss though! But I killed him before he could leave his calling card. ---[ 17 May 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Between last night and this morning, I think I finished five missions, and almost a sixth. Really good progress, despite getting killed a lot xD I happened across some dead bodies and The Scavenger, and picked up the last two calling cards I needed. I used my Sawah Hotel Room 302 key to extract the golden Deagle for the Good Fortune mission. I also finished the Redacted mission to craft a Secure Backpack after coming across a Golden Skull while using the IHTAQ Warehouse key. And there were a couple of others that I can't remember. I also used keys a bunch. I used all three uses of my IHTAQ Warehouse key to try and get a 3-plate vest, but I didn't find one at all. And I started the Medical Mule mission, which is pretty easy and just requires extracting Self Revives, and delivering AFAKs and Revive Pistols to the Zarqwa Hydro dead drop. Just a really satisfying few hours of game time. I had a lot of fun! ---[ 19 May 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Worked through a few more missions last night. I finished Medical Mule, and I did Hideout Preparation, which required placing a few items in the smuggling tunnels. And I did the Redacted tier 1 story mission too, which was just going to Hafid Port, spotting a Cartel member with a Tactical Camera, and then extracting some intel from the Sattiq Caves dead drop. Had a crazy exfil at the end of those missions too. The exfil was just south of Zaya Observatory, outside the gas station. I could hear shooting near the exfil, so I went up the top where Zaya Observatory is, and spotted a team at the exfil. I waited for them to go, and then I planned on dropping down to the exfil after that, but then another team showed up immediately, and they spotted me and starting sniping at me. They launched a Mortar Strike at me, then the gas came from behind as their exfil came in. I jumped from my spot and landed on top of the chopper, just as yet another squad rolled up in a car. Luckily the team who was shooting at me starting shooting at the car, but from their comms they clearly heard me parachute in. They threw a drill charge to the roof of the chopper, but not on the bit where I was, so I extracted successfully. My nerves were completely shot after that! Instant clip. I don't think I died the entire night. ---[ 22 May 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Played a few games last night, and it was super slow going. I managed to finish Electric Sheep, which was to hack the Wheelson on Ashika Island or Building 21. I jumped into Ashika Island solo for a couple of attempts, and finally got it. I took in a DDoS to disable the Wheelson, and it worked! But I couldn't hack the Wheelson quick enough, so I got curbstomped. But I pleaded, and another solo came and picked me up. I saw a video on Reddit earlier about killing the Pyro in the Post Office building from outside, so I had a go at doing that, and it worked easy. Yet another way to rack up those Boss kill calling card numbers. Other than that, I didn't get much else done. I went into Plunder for a few games, but it was kinda meh... obviously the BR sweats have moved off to Plunder, because everyone was using a meta game, and here's me running around with a Crossbow and a Deagle getting absolutely destroyed! ---[ 24 May 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nothing amazing last night. I tried to regain and do some stuff, but the DMZ servers were the worst I've experienced so far, so I swapped into Plunder for the rest of the night to harrass people with meme guns and builds. On the upside, I learned there are Plunder-specific rewards for doing things like winning games, killing 1000 enemies, buying and selling stuff at buy stations, etc. So there's something new to grind for! ---[ 26 May 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I played a couple of games this morning to regain my comms vest, and then I did the Crown tier 2 story mission, Scavenger. The first time I tried finding the underwater ship in Al Mazrah, but couldn't find it the first time, so I came back and found it in the second game. And the first attempt to find the Contraband Packages on Ashika Islandn failed too - somebody already took one of the packages. ---[ 30 May 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Only got in a couple of games. Managed to finish off the Return to Sender mission - opening the Sattiq Poppy Farmer's House, taking the Politician's Laptop to the Sattiq Caves dead drop, and returning the hacked laptop to the house. It was a pretty fun mission, and the threat level at Sattiq Caves was high, so the bots were super annoying and plentiful. But even after all of that, I got killed by bots down at Sawah Village as the exfil chopper was coming in. I got downed, and before I could get another Self Revive equipped, they downed me again. I fucking hate how they changed the behaviour to not auto-equip extra Self Revives. Just an absolutely hostile change to make. So I went back in to gear up again, and went into the Channel 7 building for the first time. Picked up a 3-plate vest in the locked room and then exfil'd, to play Plunder for the rest of the night. ---[ 6 June 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welp, they're resetting everything again in season 4, so I'm not really spending anymore energy on grinding missions until that happens, so I get to catch up on sleep for a bit. Any DMZ time will just be spent having fun... maybe meme'ing around with a crossbow and a pistol. Actually! I still need to get the rest of the Al Mazrah weapon cases, so maybe I'll do that. ---[ 14 June 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just me waiting for season 4 to start so I can start grinding missions again. In the meantime, I've been grinding gold camos in Shipment and getting clips of meme builds for guns, like the full auto FTac Recon. I had so much fun with that one. I've unlocked the auto Deagle, so I want clips with that next too. And also the Lockwood Mk2. And I want gold on the normal Deagle. ---[ 16 June 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Season 4 is in! I smashed through the first tier of Black Mous in a couple of deployments, and am working on tier 2 now. I've also unlocked the ability to get my second insured slot back, and have already extracted an enemy operator's weapon to work towards that. Incidentally, that also tracks for eventually unlocking my third insured slot too. I absolutely love all the extra stuff in the Forward Operating Base. Having different paths to unlock certain things feels much better than just grinding tiers of missions. I mean, it's still grinding mission-y things, but with extra steps, so you can tailor the path forward in your own way, rather than being forced into doing things one specific way. ---[ 18 June 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Had an entire night without any deaths... what the hell is going on? I was being relatively careless with my deployments too. Managed to finish off another few missions, and I unlocked the second insured slot. Calling that a successful night! ---[ 19 June 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last night I had another night of almost no deaths, except when I got overrun by AI during my first trip into the Vondel map. But otherwise, I managed to sort out another few missions, including two missions that required hitting up Koschei Complex solo, which was a bit intense, but we got it done. Another solo suggested taking a shotgun into Vondel to deal with the AI at the moment, rather than going with the usual AR + sniper rifle combo. I think that's a good idea, especially seeing how shitty the visibility is for a sniper rifle anywway, unless I put a thermal optic on. Looking forward to hitting up Vondel again! ---[ 21 June 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Managed to get into several 6-man teams in Vondel last night and finished off many missions. Got a few boss kills, but I didn't get a Weapons Case extract despite our team extracting the Weapons Case... oh well! My Forward Operating Base upgrades are slowly coming along too, but I probably need to make a directed effort to hit up supply drops and kill bosses to get gold skulls for the third insured slot. Unfortunately I'm pretty much now at the point where I have a bunch of Ashika Island missions, so it's look like I'm going there next... sigh. ---[ 26 June 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Had a couple of interesting games... I had a few missions on Ashika Island to do, which I wasn't super happy about. I went in once solo and managed to get a couple of missions done and exfil successfully with minimal PVP. After that, I went in with other teams and got slaughtered every game. I think I'm gonna stop going in with other people. Also, I really wanna unlock the ability to barter for a stealth vest, since it's now super useful to keep off Advanced UAVs, UAV towers, and comms vest callouts. The barter recipe is: * 1 encrypted USB stick * 1 comic book * 1 game console But to unlock the bartering, I need to kill... The Sniper. And to get to The Sniper, I need to kill The Rhino first, and to do that I need to go into Koshcei and unlock the area for it... ugh. Okay... I'll need to theory craft how to do this as a solo. Need to take an AR, and a shotgun to deal with the AI. I need a bomb drone for The Rhino. I need lots of plates, self revives, and a munitions box. If I can find jumper cables and a car battery before going into the complex, that'd get me out of the first area faster, giving me more time later. Do I try to do this with a squad? Maybe I'll have a few goes at it solo first. ---[ 28 June 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Terrible morning of games. Got PvP'd a couple of times without a pick-up, so I lost some passive mission upgrade progress, but the worst was the last game. I had gotten picked up by a team, and I was on my way from Zaya Observatory to the exfil at Akhdar Village with a scavenger backpack full of mission items, and a 3-plate stealth vest. But I had no armor plates. I got downed by AI just as I was trying get away off the eastern edge of Zaya. I used my self-revive, but as I went to press the buttons to get into my backpack to equip another self-revive, it instead activated my killstreak, which was a fucking bomb drone, which took forever to exit out of, so I got downed again. But two of my teammates were already on the exfil chopper, and the other two were way up north in Taraq Village and didn't have time to come and get me, so I lost everything. I was fucking pissed. Oh well. On to the next one. ---[ 29 June 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I love the scavenger backpack. After losing all of my gear in the most annoying way possible, I got it all back. I managed to come across The Scavenger in my second game, and picked up another scavenger backpack and also a gold skull. I got a 3-plate vest out of the loot too! I then spent the night looting a ton of the stuff I need for my passive upgrades, so now I can work towards the next level of contraband stash, and mission item/key stash, and more! Although it was annoying each time, because I was driving to exfils when it happened each time, but I managed to kill The Scavenger a couple of times last night after getting DDoS'd, so I got some progress toward my third insured slot with the gold skulls, aswell as a couple of gold bars and enemy operator weapons. I need to make more mission progress though, but some of the tier 1 and 2 story missions are kinda nutty to do solo. One of them is to read the code for the locked door in the Koschei Complex Alpha Cluster with the R4D Detector, and then extract the Koschei Complex Map... fuck that. The AI are really turned up everywhere at the moment, so the idea of doing that mission solo sounds painful. Speaking of the AI being turned up, I managed to pick up a pleading solo at an exfil at Mawizeh Marsh last night too. They clearly got overrun by AI, because when I popped the UAV tower nearby, there were red dots everywhere. ---[ 2 July 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spent the night mostly on Vondel and had a blast. I did a few missions solo, and a few with random-fill squads. I ended the night solo on Al Mazrah. I found a Secure Backpack immediately, and then I killed The Chemist, and cheesed a couple of Gold Skull extractions before I clearly got too greedy and got smashed trying to kill The Pyro through the post office window. Oh well! Still a successful night! ---[ 4 July 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Got some more missions done last night, but wow the PvP was a bit more crazy than usual, and I got really unlucky with some of my random fills, and ended up with terrible teammates. One game on Vondel I was running around solo trying to regain, while passively doing some of the mission to kill 25 enemies while standing, while crouching, and while prone. I was over on the western edge of the map, in the Fire Department POI. I managed to pick up a Stage Bag key, so I wanted to get to the stage bag nearby, but the bots were fucking crazy accurate while I was jumping around on the roofs. And then someone popped a Hunt Squad contract on me. As the hunting team got close, I parachuted down through all the AI, hoping it would slow them down, but somehow they managed to stay right on me as I swam down to the Zoo... almost like the bots weren't shooting the person hunting me at all. A little frustrating. And I lost that lovely contraband KV Broadside that I'd been using to sort out the bot problem on Vondel too :( Also, the Phalanx tier 1 story mission to dead drop 3 ISO Hemlocks, kill 10 enemies with an ISO Hemlock, and extract with an ISO Hemlock isn't tracking for me. I did the last two parts of it - kill 10 enemies, and extract with a Hemlock - in one game, because the dead dropping part was marked as complete, but it didn't track the extract part. Maybe it's because I took my own ISO Hemlock in? Instead of extracting one from a bot? Maybe it has to be completed on Vondel, whereas I was on Al Mazrah? I don't know... I'll try it again tonight. Also managed to find and build out a lovely little SP-X during that last match too, which adds nicely to my contraband stash. And some of my passive upgrades made some progress... I think I got out with a couple of dog tags, and a classified documents. Just need some more. I can't get over how much more fun this season is compared to every other season. There's so much to do, and I love it. ---[ 5 July 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Made zero progress on anything. On the first game I redid everything in that Hemlock Phalanx mission again. I dead dropped three Hemlocks at the Museum dead drop. I kjlled many AI with a Hemlock. I saw both of these things make progress during the game, as they happened. I then extracted with a Hemlock equipped as my secondary. It then said I had only killed 10 enemies, but did nothing else. That kinda soured my desire to do anything else. So I spent the rest of the night dropping in with random fills, levelling up the MCPR as much as I can. I died a lot, but got some good snipes in too. The last game was a bit crazy. We were a 6-man squad, and we went after the Weapons Case team. We almost all died twice, but had one guy left to revive us all in the gas. We double-timed it to the final exfil, but died on the exfil chopper. I managed to get onto the choppe and down one enemy. There was only one enemy left, but I had no plates, so I died quickly. If I'd had my semtex's still I probably couldn've got it, as I wanted to throw them in the chopper right before I hopped in the side door. Oh well! At least that last game was fun, I guess! ---[ 7 July 2023 ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I got that stupid Phalax story mission complete, finally! It took a couple of attempts. On the first attempt, I went in with a squad, and we got PvP'd and lost. The second game I went in solo by managed to not find a single ISO Hemlock on any enemy at all... somehow. But on the third game, I went in solo, headed to the Zoo dead drop, and came across another solo operator. I teamed up with them, and got my mission done, aswell as helping them with their mission! I don't know why it was different this time, but it was, and it worked. After that, I started doing some other missions in Al Mazrah. I think it was Medical Mule - deliver 3 self-revives or revive pistols to the Zarqwa dead drop, and deliver 5 AFAKs or large medical bags on the same dead drop - and Green Something - complete 2 Nuclear Material contracts, extract 4 nuclear rods. I was nearly done extracting the last nuclear rods. I was on my way to an exfil at Hafid Port. So I stopped my ATV on the hill near Sattiq Caves to see if I could snipe The Chemist before leaving... and my ATV killed me. That's the first time I've had that happen to me. I've seen countless videos on the internet of it happening to everyone else... I never thought it would happen to me. That was my last game of the night, and I really wanted to complete that mission before going to sleep, but oh well! ---[ 11 July 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Doing everything I can to avoid the Koschei Complex missions. I finished the Nuclear Material mission, and the HVT mission. I had a couple of shots at the Night Operation mission, which is to retrieve an IR beacon from the Al Sharim dead drop, and place a beacon on the north, and the south Al Mazrah construction towers. On my first attempt, someone was firing their JOKR at me while I was looking for where to place the beacon on the north tower, so I parachuted to the south tower, and I found another player, who was immediately sniped by a team on top of High Rise. I finished that player, but then I got downed too. Used my self revive. Quickly equipped another self revive. I then parachuted down to where the fire station is at Mawizeh Marsh. I took a few snipes at the team on top High Rise, and then they parachuted down to the construction towers, and then onto me. I managed to kill one, but then ran away since I had no eyes on the second operator. I decided to exfil down at Sawah Village, and even that was too spicy. There was someone sniping me from the top of one of the small buildings to the west, and then as I climbed up the hill next to Al Samman Cemetery to fight back, another team pulled up in a vehicle on the same hill. I downed one of them, and nearly died in the process as I slid back down the hill to plate up again. I popped a UAV to see where everyone was, and saw that someone was already waiting in my exfil chopper, so I got back into my vehicle and drove off. I'm so happy that I'm disciplined enough to take vehicles with me when I head to exfils. I ended up assimilating with another team on my way to another exfil, and we all ended up on the final exfil in the far north east of the map, so at least that worked out. Decided to try and get this mission done one more time to finish off the night. Wasn't the best idea. I spawned in that residential area between the airport and the eastern edge of the map. I went straight to a vehicle, and immediately got sniped by another team. I drove immediately towards Al Sharim Pass to get the IR beacon again and continue on with my mission, but I saw another vehicle and a chopper already in the area, so I went to the south-east edge of Al Sharim Pass to take the zipline up, but because the threat level was high, there was 5-6 tier-3 bots waiting at the top, so I jumped off, and decided it was too spicy. I also started hearing one of the other teams shooting the bots in the area, so I parachuted down to Mawizeh Marsh. I heard a couple of advanced UAVs go off, and some regular UAVs, and before I knew it a chopper was coming from Al Sharim Pass, and I got sniped out in the open. They quickly landed on me and finished me off. Turns out it was a 5-6 man team. Pretty sure it was the same team who sniped me at the spawn point. I guess that doesn't happen to me very often, but still pretty annoying! ---[ 15 July 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Got the Night Operation mission done, without any trouble this time. I then went on to do a few more Phalanx missions, and then I did the tier 2 story mission, which was to get a GPS from the Vondle Zoo dead drop, extract it, take it to Al Mazrah, activate 3 UAV towers in Al Mazrah in the same deployment with the GPS tracker, extrac it again, and then return it to the Vondel Zoo dead drop. It was actually a really fun mission to do. I love missions with these kind of mechanics. I've now got a few Ashika missions to do, so I might do those next time. Still avoiding those Koschei Complex missions... ---[ 17 July 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh, I forgot about this Vondel game from the other night. I went into Vondel with a random fill team. We were doing well, spawning at the Cruise Terminal. One of my teammates had the key and was looking to regain, so we went in to find backpacks and plate vests. I was also looking for a 3-plate vest, since I only came in with a 2-plate. No luck though. Things were going well, until we ended up near an exfil at the top edge of the Fire Dept trying to complete a Hunt Squad contract. The enemy team took out my two teammates inside the building, but I was still alive on a nearby rooftop trying to prevent any flanks. I parachuted down. I got a couple of downs, but couldn't get the finishes. If only I'd stayed up on the rooftop, maybe I would've had a better angle to finish them off. I swam through the canals to stay out of sight. I resurfaced to make my way through the buildings to turn on the nearby UAV tower, but the enemy team got there just before me as I was a few metres away. They would've immediately seen how close I was to them. I fled across the rooftops until the UAV tower went down. Once it did, I went back to the UAV tower, but as I approached, the enemy team was on it and were about to turn it on again. I empty a full magazine into the two enemies I saw, downing one of them. They yelled out that I was on them. This time they followed me up a building, and then into the canal again, but I managed to swim up to the Castle area. I could hear them on proximity chat chasing me... looking for me... assuring themselves that they were going to kill me. I managed to get away from them again, and then as I took another approach from the east where the University is, I saw an enemy running back towards where my dead teammates were. I downed and finished him, and as I repositioned on top of a nearby building, I saw the enemy team was now made up of 4 or 5 people talking on proximity chat, trying to find me. Shit. They spotted me on the roof. Shit. They chased me. But I got away again as I headed south towards the Zoo. My teammates who were patiently waiting for me to revive them had both now left the game, so I was on my own. I hadn't noticed, but the gas was already expanding, and the only exfil left was the one where all this trouble started. No way I was going back. I waited for the Final Exfil. It was all the way on the western edge of the map, right near the Fire Department where I last engaged with the enemy team. Not good. I still had a precision airstrike on me from the start of the game, so my strategy was to get into the Final Exfil chopper before they did, and if I heard them on proximity chat, I would call in the airstrike just outside of the chopper, hoping to down as many as possible and then finish them off with my M4. But I figured with 4 or 5 enemies on the team, I would probably die. I got to the chopper. Luckily nobody else was there yet. I hadn't even considered that there may still be multiple enemy teams making their way to the Final Exfil. My hands were so sweaty as I waited for the countdown to end. 40 seconds. Bots were starting to fill the area and take shots at me. I repositioned to the back of the chopper for more cover, but left the bots alive, because it may work against the enemy team. 30 seconds. Still nothing. Maybe they took the Fire Department exfil? The one where all of this started. 20 seconds. Yeah... I think I'm safe, otherwise they're cutting it super close, arriving in a vehicle, and just charging in. Maybe they were also worried about running into other teams? 10 seconds. I'm safe. They're not coming. I made it out. My hands were sweaty and shaking. My heart rate was through the roof. ---[ 18 July 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once again, I didn't get much of anything done, mission-wise. I attempted to do the Dark Water mission, which is to find the Cartel Warehouse Key in the sunken ship to the east of Sawah Village. I figured out how to use the Rebreather, but I couldn't find the damn key. By the time I watched a video to show me where the key is, I couldn't find anymore Rebreathers. Typical. In another game, after killing The Juggernaut on the way to an exfil, I got absolutely dumped on by a team with an Armored LTV clearly driving around killing everyone in sight. Goodbye Gold Skull. I feel like I'm never gonna unlock this third insured slot. On the last game, I went in with squad fill, and we spawned just north of the airport. We immediately ran into the team that spawns just barely east of our position. Some dude was in a car on proximity chat blazing music and talking shit to everyone around. We got into PvP with him and his team, and I managed to the car guy as he was climbing up the water tower to kill my teammate. I took his dog tag, because I needed it for a mission, and also for an upgrade at my FOB. We saw three people pleading for help at the airport, so we decided to help them. Both of my teammates died soon after we got to the airport. An enemy team popped the UAV tower, so I had to get out of range to the east of the airport. Once the UAV tower stopped, I revived one of my teammates, but I couldn't get to the other one. My teammate went up to the roof, and got killed again, so I retreated out to the ocean again. I took a few snipes on the enemy, who were all firmly situated on the roof now. I downed one and repositioned. They spotted me. I got sniped. Luckily I had a 3-plate vest, otherwise I was dead. I repositioned to the apartment building across from the airport to get eyes on them. Looks like they moved on. I revived the teammate on the roof first. I found a couple of backpacks of dead operators and took their dog tags. At least I'm getting _something_ done. We revived the last teammate, and by then the gas was expanding and it was time to go. We took the exfil at Akhdar Village. --- The last few nights have been absolutely crazy with PvP. The new pleading system appearing across the map, rather than in your close proximity, is attracting so many teams like a magnet. Like "oh there's PvP over there, let's go!". It's making for interesting games at least, but I'm making no progress on my missions D: ---[ 19 July 2023 ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keeping it short today. I got the Dark Water mission finished pretty easily. Picked up a Special Ops Relay Station key while looking for a Rebreather. Scored 2 gold bars and a gold skull from that, so... great success! I also got a few FOB upgrades done - my second insured slot cooldown has been shortened, and I've expanded my wallet capacity. Also, I barely saw another player all night, with exception to a dude I saw on a jetski as we passed each other, and another guy taking pot shots at me with a sniper rifle while trying to exfil at Sarrif Bay. +---[ announcement ]-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | On holidays for a few weeks! | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ---[ 15 August 2023 ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We're back! And it's already so grindy I'm kinda not having fun xD I've gotten a couple of smaller missions done in Vondel and Ashika Island, but most of the missions I've got available are pretty long/hard now, so progress will be slow. On the upside, Season 5 is here now, and I'm already loving some of the changes. The Scuba gas mask is amazing, and being able to swim away underwater for a long period of time has already saved my ass on Ashika Island! We'll see how we go with the rest of these missions...