Update: Raid 67. Aquarius, Level 11, Some Pig

I died in the last three raids and only one weapon (MP9-N) and one armor (Zhuk Press) came back with insurance. That hurts. I very much want to start sporting class 4 and 5 armor, but I simply cannot afford to lose 150K per loadout. Plus, this string of deaths drops my survival rate below 40%. 

I've been scavving more, trying to recoup the funds from those failed raids. 

Raid 67 - Age of Aquarius

Goal: Go to dorms, enter room 206, get out, survive and extract.

Loadout: MP9-N submachine gun with many mags of Pst gzh. Press armor, ears, meds, one RGD-5 grenade.  Secure container has IFAK, CMS surgery kit and key 206.  Also, I finally remembered the 7001 rubles for car extract.

Insurance: 25.5K 

I got the spawn closest to dorms, the one just above the wall.  I hustled down to dorms, switched to autofire, up the outside staircase, opened it - quiet. Ran down the hall, unlocked the door, entered, did a quick circuit of the room, ran back out and ran down the stairs (too loud!).  I quieted down and made my way over to the car extract.  But no car.  Oh well. Let's move on. Switched to single fire. 

I moved by three level dorms and as the underbrush and trees began to clear I was thinking that I should be careful, because players might be coming the opposite direction this early.  Cue the footsteps!  A player was running directly towards me. I spotted him, aimed, and mashed the fire button. Oh shit, single fire. I shot a couple more shots, then switched to autofire. He ducked behind a tree and started firing on me.  I likewise took cover behind a tree. We exchanged fire from behind our trees. I was getting shot up, and having trouble getting my shots lined up. Magazine empty.  Oh fuck, I'm going to die. I pulled the pin on a grenade, leaned out, threw it, leaned back to safety, just as I've been practicing offline. It was a nice throw.  He was firing on me, I was reloading and thinking - what will I do when he backs off because of the grenade? I'm badly messed up and only have an SMG - I won't be able to hunt him down. Should I hide and wait for him to pass? I can't continue - it's open ground and he clearly knows the direction I'm bearing.  Should I go back to dorms and go around it? But I need to med, or I won't be going far.  The grenade exploded and the firing stopped. Did I just kill him?

I peeked - yes, there was his body. I limped over to it, I am badly messed up. I searched him, but just to grab his dogtag and then go hide and med. I'll loot him later.  I limped away and hid in a bush. I had two blacked limbs and a fracture and bleeding. The damn dorm room key is occupying the place where I normally keep my ALU splint - shit, I need a splint.  I fixed up one of the blacked limbs and restored myself to good enough. PK'd. The dog tag was for a level 4 PMC named Euphamia.   Nice name - it's greek for "well spoken".  If he's level 4, then it would be uncool to loot him, poor guy. So I didn't. 

As I approached Sniper Roadblock I heard footsteps on the road above. Player? Probably a scav.  I kept low, and waited. Skier doesn't seem to like his guards to just stand around, he's always making them patrol back and forth. Sure enough, after the scav caught his breath he resumed running, his footsteps heading down the road to the bridge. I crossed the road, went down the hill, came back up the hill once I was close to the bridge and used the bridge to cross. Limped my way to the crossroads extract and got the hell out of Customs.

Time in Raid: 13 minutes, 35 seconds.
Exp: 1810
Ammo Used: 30. Hits 8.  Accuracy: 0.03   ( ?? the numbers don't make sense. But I'll bet its grenade vs. SMG)
Kills: Euphamia - nice work Euphamia - you almost had me. Godspeed and good luck on your future raids.
Heal: 3.6K

Mistakes

• I should have checked Euphamia's body for a splint or more meds. Those don't come back anyway. 
• Really shitty combat. Terrible aim.
• Should have switched to autofire quicker.
• Did not take control of combat situation. Fired first, but seemed to have lost initiative after. Lucky to have survived.
• I should not have taken Euphamia's dogtag. Once I've taken his tags, then any other player that comes along won't know he's only Level 4 and they may loot him.  Could I have put it back?  Sorry about that Euphamia.

Successes

• did OK managing painkillers. Should have more clearly thought out the route ahead and decided to use them for key parts (like crossing the bridge). But still, I conserved them and used all four across the journey.
• Nice grenade. Need to practice that "pull-pin-while-in-cover-lean-out-to-throw-and-back" more though.
• finished the damn quest. Achieved Level 11. 

PostScript - Wilbur

With the flea market and my workbench unlocked, I find myself spending a lot more time doing non-raid activities. Need to manage this, because I don't have much time to play as it is, and wasting it trying to minmax profit and loss is unwise.

However, I did allow myself to enjoy some weapon modding. I got an AKM down to 99 vertical recoil. And then I used the skills I learned to take a VPO-209 (one of my favorites)  down to 136 vertical recoil.  Amazing! I took a weapon and converted it from unusable to merely awful!  

Not only that, I put a suppressor AND a scope AND a canted dot-sight AND a laser on this beauty.  Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you "Wilbur", lovingly known as "Some Pig":

  

While my arms quickly tire of holding him, my eyes never tire of admiring Wilbur. And, lest ye laugh and jeer "folly" remember that Wilbur is already blooded. dunkmilkers1488 is pushing up daisies today thanks to an earlier unmodified version of this very same VPO-209.  

Post PostScript

I was scavving in interchange, quietly looting upstairs in Ultra.  A PMC came up the escalator and headed over to Burger Spot, no doubt to activate the Saferoom Exfil.  Boom! Boom! Boom!  Shotgun fire echoed through the mall.  I crouched, hiding, should I run?  After a while, nothing else happened.  I continued looting. Another PMC scurried up the escalator, ducked into Burger Spot and Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!  Damn, the rafters are going to fall. Again, things grew quiet.  It was getting late, I need to head out, but I'm not going that way. I slunk along the far wall, in the darkness. A duo came up the escalator, I considered shouting a warning to them, but couldn't remember the keybind for "They go in, but don't nobody ever come out."   Boom! Boom! Boom! was the drumbeat to the tune of me dancing down the _other_ escalator, on my way out of this hell hole.