I Tarkov Poorly

 I've been practicing offline lately - trying to get better at tackling Raiders. I streamed several of those offline raids as well, and learned some things: I tend to keep my weapon aimed too low, when aiming down sight and leaning out I'm not lining up the shot right, and streaming sometimes introduces performance hiccups into my gameplay. So I did not stream todays raid. And the end of last wipe, I would often practice fighting Raiders. They are usually in sets of three, and so when practicing I would typically kill the three in the bunker, pull the switch for D2, which would spawn three more, kill those, then go outside, pull the hermetic door switch, which would spawn more three more raiders near the train station and then go die trying to take those on. But right now this wipe I'm only level 11 and don't have access to the flea market. So I have to make-do with the armor, ammo and weaponry at hand, and that is a struggle. But, after several days practice, I can now...

The astute viewer of my boring stream may have observed me looting a hemostat from a dead scav in my previous raid, and I secured that little treat in my alpha container.  So in addition to completing the Jaeger quest last raid and making level 10, that little hemostat was all I needed to craft a last salewa, with which today I completed the Therapist "Shortage" quest AND her next quest (Gas Analyzer). So now I'm within spitting distance of Level 11.   The quest that pays the most xp for me right now is the Jaeger Dehydration quest. Raid 34 - Dehydrated, Dumb, Dead Goal: Pursue two quests at once: dehydration and finishing shootout picnic (kill scavs on Woods).  The plan is find a bush, eat some food, dehydrate for 5 minutes, heal, drink water, go kill scavs. Loadout: AKM with 6x TAC30 scope, ears, meds, extra cheese, food and water.   I spawned into somewhere, but I don't care where. There was a fat bush nearby and that'll suit me just fine. I crawled unde...

In my last raid I put a bunch of rounds into a scav at close range, but he killed me and the post-mortem said that no rounds hit.  I am sure I got those rounds on him. But I am no great player, I have bad aim, and after a few days doubt began to creep in, "am I really sure?".  A streamer I watch mentioned the value of recording and watching ones own raids to see mistakes firsthand. I know from experience this works very well with music. So I decided to try that. I don't have a top end gaming rig. I don't even have a bottom end gaming rig. My little XO machine struggles to draw even a frame and I don't exactly have terrabytes of free space. So I decided to try hooking up a stream. Why not? I can stream low quality out to twitch, and then watch it back later.  I installed the free version of StreamlabsOBS and tested it out with a quick offline raid and a scav raid.  Seems to work.   I haven't hooked up my camera or my microphone. This is for me, not an audien...

I started these Woods raids with Raid 24. I'm presently trying to kill 15 scavs, kill 5 scavs without armor, and stash food and drink for the Jaeger.  With some luck I could finish all of these quests in one raid. I should live so long.... Raid 31 - The Duo Loadout: AK-74N with scope and laser, meds, ears, food and drink for Jaeger and a snack for myself. No armor. Plan: Go to Emercom and kill scavs. Before or after hit ZB-16 which is not far from there and stash stuff for the Jaeger. I spawned halfway between Emercom and ZB-16, facing Emercom. So I went to Emercom. There was no one there. That's OK - the scavs here usually take a few minutes to start spawning. I looted a medical bag and what do you know: a syringe!!  I put it in my secure container. Awesome. That's a high priority item for me. A scav ran into the camp, I circled round and killed and looted him. I took up a secure position inside one of the containers, ears open for more activity.   Footsteps approac...

I'm trying to undertake three quests at once on Woods: deposit food for the Jaeger, kill 5 scavs without armor, kill 15 scavs.  Progress so far has been slow. Raid 29 - Track and Ambush Loadout: VPO-209 suppressed, ears, meds, food and drink for the Jaeger. Snack for myself. No grenades. No armor. Spawned near the length of wall that run behinds ZB-14. Excellent. Proceeded to ZB-14, deposited the food and water, looted.  Moved on, heading towards scav house, which I plan to circumnavigate. It's slightly hazy, my laser is cutting through the fog like a big pointer aiming back at myself. I turned it off.   Not long after I heard a firefight somewhere in front of scav house. Probably someone killing scavs. I could be travelling in their line of sight, so I ducked behind a rise to stay hidden. And I stepped on a mine. OMG I am an idiot.  Esmarched, healed. No lasting damage.  Continued.  I tried peeking where the firefight might have occurred, but I wasn't...

I have three simultaneous quests I'm pursuing on Woods: deposit food and water for the Jaeger, kill 5 scavs without armor (Jaeger) and kill 15 scavs (Prapor).  Let's do this! Raid 28 Loadout: slightly modded VPO-209, suppressed, with three 30-round mags of .366 TKM FMJ, 4x Pilad scope.  No armor. Ears, meds, food and water for Jaeger, an energy drink in my secure container (along with an extra IFAK and CMS kit). Spawned into the lake region near the abandoned village. Someone started shooting in the distance immediately. That's odd. Pow, pow, pow, I heard the shots persistently firing in the distance.  I turned on my laser and headed forward toward the abandoned village.  POW! I took a hit, heavy bleed. I'm catching sniper fire, or something?  I ran further into the trees toward the village. Esmarched the arm and saved it. Healed.  I'm barely 30 seconds into the raid and I've already used my esmarch.  Hope I don't need another.  I didn't loiter in...

Need to kill scavs on Woods for the Shootout Picnic quest, and loot everything for various quests and the hideout. Raid 25 Loadout: Class 4 armor, AKMS with 4x Pilad scope, meds, ears. Spawned not far from wall behind scav house. This might be the same as my last raid.  Made my way towards the ZB-14 bunker and scav house. Circled the scav house, cover to cover, keeping an eye and ear out for scavs. There is a lot of tall tall grass behind the house making it hard to see.  Killed a scav - he was hard to make out.  I didn't approach his body immediately, don't want other unseen scavs behind me. I continued to circle the house.  Hung out for a bit, looking for more scavs to kill, but it was quiet.  I should go to Emercom camp. There is good loot there and more plentiful scavs.  So I headed to the water. Looted the scav body by the waterside, got an MPX and a spark plug.  Nice.  I scoped the shoreline ahead of me, it seemed clear. I stepped out and st...

All my outstanding tasks are "find it, fetch it" sort of tasks. I need white armor for Skier, salewas for Therapist, a syringe for my med station in the hideout, tushonka and lunch boxes for Jaeger.  Elite pliers for Mechanic.  Plus, assuming I can get any of these tasks cleared, I will soon need gas analyzers, flash drives, blood sets, 60 round mags and more.  And corrugated hose, so much corrugated hose. The only "do something" task I have is to kill 15 scavs on Woods. I was hoping to combine that with my "kill 5 scavs without wearing armor" task (which I don't have yet).  Oh well, I might as well get started. Raid 24 Destination: Woods Objectives: Kill Scavs and Loot.  Lots. Loadout: AK-74N with 4x Pilad scope and blue laser.  Meds, ears, busted up Class 4 armor, water. I spawned near some minefield. It was pouring rain and there was a lot of fog making it hard to see.  After a bit of exploring I realized I was behind the scav house.  I scoped ...

It's been nearly two weeks since I last played. I have done a bit of offline practice, but haven't run any real raids or even scav raids.  With the new wipe I reset my graphic settings to the defaults. This gave me a noticeable performance boost, for which I am grateful. Now I have frames (plural) per second, instead of a frame (singular) per second. Sweet!  But the colors seem darker, more muted and I've been having trouble seeing enemies even at medium ranges. I tried a post FX filter, which worked surprisingly well, but the performance loss was too great - I can't aim properly with the post FX.  So I dropped that and am trying a different strategy: using a scope instead of a collimator. My favorite scope in these situations is the Monstrum 2X scope - it provides just enough magnification to get shots on target but without being disorienting or too zoomed in. Unfortunately, I'm only Level 7 and don't have access to the flea market and I haven't encountered...