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Reservations. Raid 116

It's been almost two weeks since my last PMC raid, mostly due to time constraints.  Before I go any further I'd like to take this moment and thank Battlestate Games for making Escape From Tarkov be such a great immersive game. During this past year of covid and lockdowns and boredom and dread EFT has been a godsend.  As a game it is often frustrating and dispiriting, but it can also be terrifying and thrilling. And awesome.  

I don't think that my Tarkov time is ending, but as the vaccinations increase and the lockdowns wane, normalcy seems nearer and I expect my habits will change. So it's possible.

Destination: Reserve

Goals:

  • find military tech. Especially Virtexes, Iridiums, and Military Cable
  • kill PMCs
Plan:
I still don't have a good plan for this level. I've played it offline more and I've made several discoveries: some of the Raiders have voice lines in English. The raiders are tough and will absolutely kill you if they catch you from two different angles and will likely kill you even if kept to one. The raiders have one word names (like Stamoz ), not two like regular Scavs. They will pursue you, which means the normal scav strategy of simply breaking line of sight and having the scav forget about you does not work. They will pursue you from building to building. Because they pursue, it's possible to funnel them and control the encounter, but this is easier said than done.

I've heard players say that Reserve is a great level for loot - that they walk away with a half million rubles or more per raid. Maybe I need to watch more videos, but this is not my experience. Sure, there are lots of intelligence spawns, and I guess if I farmed those I could do pretty good. But except for the drop-down room, I have not seen Reserve being a big money maker. Especially given the risks. Look at Interchange - outside the one hot zone, the map is very low risk and high reward. So I need to figure this out.  Also I'm not here for loot, I'm here for military tech.  

Anyway, the plan is loot and then leave via the manhole extract. 

Raid 116 - Short and Sweet

Loadout: Class 5 Ghzel armor, VSS with four mags of SPP, grenade, drink, meds. Azimuth rig and a backpack.

I spawned into the garage of the King building, predawn. Nice!  I started looting immediately - found a motor, some stuff. Went up to the third floor, the roof, and down again to the computer rooms on the first floor. It was quiet outside. I started shuffling loot - I put the good stuff in my rig. Kept some trash in my backpack. I'm full. Hmm. Now what? Leave, I guess?

So I abandoned the trashpack and left, killing a scav on the way. 

Time In Raid: 8 minutes, 38 seconds
Experience: 876
Kills: Maks Fantera (scav)
Ammo Used: 3  Hits: 1  Accuracy: 0.33 

Mistakes

  • poor prioritization. Where should I be going to ensure I find the military tech and in what order? I was under the impression King was good, but now I'm not so sure.
  • manhole extract - this extract is limiting. Maybe I should try д2 - but fighting my way to the switch and back out again will be very difficult. Supposedly there is an Iridium spawn down near the switch.  I'll die more, but it'd be more fun.
  • do I need keys? If so, which ones?

Successes

  • Survived.  I've run exactly two PMC raids on Reserve and survived them both. Even if they were timid and abbreviated, that counts for something.
  • After two combat encounters, my armor is still unscratched. 
  • Stuck to the plan.

PostScript

I've also been running scav raids on Reserve. Scav-on-scav violence is commonplace on Reserve. I survive maybe half of my scav raids, and when I die it's pretty much always at the hand of another player scav. 

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