Update: Raids 86 and 87 - Duo-ing on Interchange

Om3ga and I ran some raids together today.  They were a lot of fun, it's a nice change to go into a raid with someone (especially someone as good as Om3ga). It's much less tense than a solo raid.

Om3ga had just come off of a solo raid when we started where he had killed 5 PMCs - a duo and a trio.  I can barely fathom such a thing. 

Minus some recent setbacks, after making level 10, my financial situation has improved. Now my balance floats around 2 million rubles. I can't exactly afford to kit out (and then lose) Level 6 armor while packing 300K worth of ammunition, but I can comfortably buy a nice VPO-209 and maybe some level 4 armor without stressing too much.  Today, since I knew I'd be raiding with him, I logged on early and went armor shopping. I was able to snap up a fully new Level 5 Ghzel armored vest for 80K. 

"I'll bring you a weapon - don't worry about it. I'll bring you a rig and ammo and mags,"  he has tens of millions of rubles and nowhere to spend them.  

Raid 86 - The Fair Weather Friend

Destination: Interchange

Goals: Find trouble.

Loadout: Level 5 Ghzel armor, backpack with some grenades, meds in pocket.  I'm carrying an SR1MP Gyurza pistol with a magazine full of SP13 and three attached lasers. That weapon is so fine.

We spawned onto the roadside, near Oli. It was loudly pouring rain.   Om3ga dropped me a rig and a DT MDR .308 (7.62 x 51mm) with a laser and an Elcan Specter scope.  Holy heck! I can probably kill everyone in the mall from here just by shooting through the walls.

I gave him the pistol.  He tried it out, dubiously at first, but I think he liked it. It's punches a heart-stopping punch.

Romance over, time to head out. We crossed the lot, entered the mall, Om3ga in the lead. He dropped his walk speed and so did I. We ascended the stairs. 

"I think there's someone in this little shop," he said, followed by Bam! and "I'm dead".

What? What just happened?  "You're dead?" I raised my walk speed, where did that shot come from? I went up a stair or two. Bad idea. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!  More shots, some hitting me. I turned and ran back down the stairs, badly messed up. I turned to throw a grenade but nothing happened - shit, the grenade is still in my backpack, didn't move it to the rig.   I exited the mall and staggered over to the planters where I crouched and began medding.  Heavy bleed, one arm blacked, the rest of me in bad shape. I staunched the bleed, and used up the rest of my meds.  Should I do surgery on the arm? What's the point? It's not like I'm going back in there.  I'm going to leave.

"Hey, could you grab my gear and hide it?"

"Umm, I'm sorry - I already left the building. I'm really sorry" (I did not offer to go back for it).

"That's ok."

"I just want to get out of here"

"Take your time".   I would soon be testing those words.

As I came around the corner of the building, I saw a player crossing the road, headed my direction. I fired, but too quickly, I was having trouble getting the shots lined up. The player finished crossing the road as I tried putting shots on him, then he dropped and threw a grenade. I had just put the weapon into autofire mode. I ran forward, straight to him and didn't even bother aiming down sight. I point shot him at point blank, unloading the rest of my magazine. He gasped on my last bullet. I reloaded...or tried to...why is it not reloading?  I ran across the street and hid in a bush. 

Does he have a friend? Anyone hear that? Apparently not. The reason I couldn't reload is because I had not yet "examined" the rig I had donned.  I opened it, saw the mags, and then was able to reload.  Went back to the body and began searching it.  The surprises they just kept coming.   My victim, PrisonWallet, was level 45. I think I may grow to like this DT MDR .308. 

PrisonWallet had a huge empty backpack with a smattering of loot. I grabbed his helmet, his weapons (fancy Remington M700 sniper rifle with all the trimmings and a silenced Glock pistol), threw my backpack into his, grabbed his rig, and .... "Disconnected due to poor connection quality".  The surprises, they just keep coming.

I waited for the game to reconnect, and Om3ga was very patient.   After several minutes the game reconnected, amazingly I hadn't been killed in my absence. I ran towards the exfil, a distance of maybe 400 or 500 meters?  But the game disconnected four more times. The last time I was just 5 meters from extract.  I killed PrisonWallet at the 6 minute mark of the game, but didn't extract until the 22 minute mark.  It took 16 minutes to cross that short distance, and, unbelievably, wasn't murdered in the downtimes.

Time In Raid: 22 minutes, 38 seconds
Exp: 1986
Kills: PrisonWallet, level 45 PMC.  Godspeed PrisonWallet, good luck on your other raids.
Ammo used: 20  Hits: 7  Accuracy: 0.25   Damage to Body: 388. Damage absorbed by Armor: 11.

Mistakes

• the whole "top-of-the-stairs" thing was bad in all ways. I couldn't place where the shot fired had come, I peeked head-first with no plan or target or even aiming down-sight. Don't deserve to have survived
• forgot to move the grenades to the rig
• didn't pre-examine rig, rendering its contents useless
• was fleeing the first encounter the right thing? Given that Om3ga just has to listen to me give a voice play-by-play of anything that occurs after his death, just leaving seems the right call. 
• couldn't land shots
• got lucky PrisonWallet was transitioning between grenade throwing and aiming. Otherwise I'd be dead.
• we should not have gone into the area around Oli without a clearer plan or goal.  Half the time I've died on Interchange it's probably been in that area. Between the high-tier loot areas and Killa, it's a clusterf*ck.
• 5 disconnects OMG
• Note: after the raid I realized I had not taken PrisonWallets rig. That surprised me. I thought I picked him pretty clean, excepting the pockets and the armor. I probably overlooked it.

Successes

• rushing after the grenade throw was the right call, though in honesty, I feel I just got sort of lucky - there was nowhere else to go.
• survived
• made level 14

Raid 87 - The Battle of Three Duos

Back to Interchange!  This time there was a quest goal: Om3ga had to stash some Ghzel armors in the trash at the bandstand.  We spawned in on the road outside Oli. Still raining.  Rather than cut across the parking lot, which might take us in front of incoming players, we swung around wide and went up the low path on the median strip until we came parallel to the bandstand. Along the way we encountered two scavs. Om3ga noticed them before me and dispatched them handily. I fired on one but forget the weapon was on autofire - just wasted ammo on the rain clouds.

He stashed the Ghzels. We went up to IDEA, to check the computer room there. It had already been looted. The mall was quieter now - probably the other players had hit the key stores and were on their way out.  We wandered IDEA, then the mall. Om3ga was leading, me behind. He fired and killed a player - it was over before I even knew what was happening. I stood guard while he looted him. We didn't really have a plan, and wandering aimlessly will just lead us into the trap of some lurker. 

We decided to go and hit Killa's stash.  That stash is under IDEA, and most players that enter the Saferoom Exfil also hit the switch to open the stash - but they rarely go and loot it. As a Scav I nearly always check it and it's open more often than not. Usually easy loot. 

Made our way back to IDEA, I was leading. I started down the stairs leading outside when I spotted a player dart into the little coat check room at the base of the stairs. I fired. "There's a player, next to the bottom of the stairs - he should be below you" I called. I threw a grenade down into that room - it went off near its entrance.  I went down the stairs and peeked the room. A player was against the back wall, I fired, he fired. I'm not sure if I got him, but he definitely clipped me. 

Suddenly there was a volley of gunfire back behind - towards where IDEA meets the mall. 

"Two players, I got them", reported Om3ga nonchalantly.  He just killed two in a like a second?  I was still playing the peeking game with the player in the coat room who I could hear medding.  I peeked and fired again, and was fired upon. 

I was planning - I need to pre-fire, do the peek move, and return all in the same volley - keep the gun up at head height. I was rehearsing this in my head when Om3ga came down the steps and shot up the place, killing a player at the front of the room. That's strange - that's not where the player was before. We heard a player gasping, stomach wound. 

"There's another" Om3ga said, and threw a grenade over the desk to the rear of the room. "That should have taken care of him."

"I can't believe you killed two guys up there, and another two down here - so effortlessly."

"Oh, no. You took these guys down here, I just got in the last shot."   One of the coat room guys was level 9, we left him alone. The other level 20.   We medded, packed mags, Om3ga looted the two he had dispatched during my fight while I stood guard.  

That was some encounter  - our duo was sandwiched between two other duos - one below and one behind. It's hard to believe we survived. Om3ga killed all four of them. 

Killas stash was not unlocked. We were running on our way to extract when Om3ga became winded (too much killing on an empty stomach). We stopped to catch our breath.

"There's a player by the red container," he reported

"Where?" I couldn't see anyone. I scoped the area - suddenly I saw Om3ga down at the containers - man I wish he would tell me if he's going in.  "Where are you?" I asked

"I'm right next to you."  

Oh, so that's not him, just some other player that looks just like him.  We started firing.  Damn - forgot to take the weapon out of autofire - that's like the third time today. I switched to single fire.  The player was (not unwisely) mostly concerned about Om3ga.  I moved left through the bushes, and came up where I could fire down into the players back. Which I did. Bam. Bam. Click. No ammo.  Reloaded ... and Om3ga finished the guy off.  While not smooth, that was a good play on our part. Even though it was bullying - two against one, it's the battle I'm the most proud of - nice pincer movement on our part. 

I forgot to screenshot some of the post-mortem screens, I only captured one of the stats screens: 

Kills: None.  (But Om3ga killed 6 PMCs and 2 Scavs)

Ammo Used: 60.  Hits: 13  Accuracy: 0.13  Damage to Body: 542   Damage Absorbed by Armor: 77

 

Mistakes

• Forgot to eat and drink between raids. I brought a "Hot Rod" energy drink, but it wasn't enough. 
• playing peeking game - good way to get oneself killed
• mismanagement of single fire vs auto fire.  I need to practice.
• I should probably bring another magazine
• When on the stairs, fighting the players in the coat room, my actions were hesitant, clumsy, and too slow. Need to be more smooth, quicker, more doing and less thinking

Successes

• survived raid
• used grenade correctly
• raided with Om3ga.  He is a killing machine. 

PostScript

Today was a lot of fun. It is so enjoyable to play with another person. I have this blog to thank for that, which is a benefit I had not expected.

Today gave me a lot to chew on. Before our raids Om3ga had killed five PMCs in his previous raid, and in our last raid, he killed six.  To me that's nothing short of astounding. But he was also shot dead within the first minutes of a raid, without having gotten to fire a single shot. I was there. And look what happened to PrisonWallet - level 45, yet brought down by a noob who couldn't manage his weapon. I was there too.  So that sort of thing doesn't just happen to me, it happens to all of us, even the good players. Om3ga says he struggles with the game, dies a lot, and doesn't think he's exceptional. I'm not sure I completely agree but I fully believe that he feels this way. For my part, I know I struggle with the game, I die a lot, and I'm not exceptional.  Is everyone as tense and scared as I am?