I Tarkov Poorly

Practically nothing came back from insurance on my last two failed raids. I don't have any armorsets, but maybe I don't care. I just want to go to Reserve and see if I can kill some raiders.  I've been practicing keeping my weapon aimed at head height, instead of letting it slump down. This one little change makes a huge difference in my offline CQB fights against raiders.  Time to put this new skill to use.  Raid 61 Loadout: HK rifle that I've modded to have two sights: 4x Pilad scope and canted delta point dot sight, plus a flashlight.  Meds, ears, backpack, grenade. No armor. Spawned outside one of those vehicle bunkers on Reserve. I scooted out and began to move when I saw a wall where I was expecting barbed wire and realized that I didn't know where I was. Oh God - this is that far in the corner death trap spawn. Just then grenades began exploding. I hit the deck behind a bush, praying the grenade fire wouldn't get any closer.  Eventually the emplacement wa

Raid 59 - 0 Exp Destination: Reserve Goal: Go to bunker and kill raiders, get the sweet XP and maybe some decent armor and weapons. Loadout: busted class 4 armor, Vityaz PP-19 SMG, one grenade, ears, meds.  Spawned into the little barracks at the far corner of the map that has the marked room. Oy, I have a long way to trudge. I jumped out the window and started walking along the back fence, behind the cleavage hills heading towards scav lands extract. After the cleavage I scoped out the area ahead. All clear ahead, but I may be exposed on the right from the loading docks or the dome. So I started running along the pipe, stopping at the little wagon and the cargo container for hard cover.  I was making my last run in the open towards the corner hill with the tank when a PMC stepped out from behind the hill and began firing on me, landing shots.  Not good.  I am fully exposed and no nearby cover. I immediately turned to my right, to make his shots harder to land, and tried to rotate arou

I need 30,000 XP to reach Level 17.  I have about a dozen quests available, but the majority are just find and fetch quests. Between those and my hideout I have a huge shopping list.  I need a power cable (or a T-adaptor), flash drive, cans of stew, car batteries and spark plugs, and on and on.  Many of the quests require keys I don't have.  So there are not a lot of good choices. But if I can kill all six raiders in the bunker on Reserve, that's worth about 9000 XP. So maybe I'll try that. Raid 57 - Bad Luck Destination: Reserve Plan: Try and kill the raiders in the bunker, afterwards see if someone unlocked the two rooms I need access to for the Disease History quest (I don't have either key).   Loadout: Class 4 armor, Vityaz PP-19 with many mags of Pst gzh. One grenade, ears, meds. I spawned at the hermetic door. This is one of the furthest from the bunkers. Took the underground route to the far side of the loading docks, made my way to King.  No sign of anyone, but

I've already had four shots at "Kill 3 Scavs Without Healing on Woods", and the stress from those failures has made me dread returning. Heck, I chose Factory over Woods as a way of avoiding it.  However, it is now my quest that pays the most XP, so I need to face my fears and venture in. Raid 56 Loadout: Class 4 armor, my newly beloved ADAR with a canted dot sight and a basic Pilad 4x hunting scope, food and drink. No meds. I spawned in some woods. I can see a sign for mines over there, and after some study I concluded that was the USEC encampment over there.  Well, the nearest scavs would be at that hideout with the radio tower. I checked the map, took a bearing and set a course. It seemed to take longer than I thought it should, as I recall they are pretty close to one another. So I began to second doubt myself. I stopped and scoped around. Is it possible that what I thought was the USEC camp was actually the scav bunker?  I had a bearing and a course and I should have

Cheered up by my last raid, I decided to get back to some questing.  The two quests I have that award the highest XP are on Reserve and Woods respectively. But maybe I'm not ready to reattempt those quite yet. How about Farming Part 1 on Factory? The annoying one where I have to repair those two control panels. Raid 51 Destination: Factory Goal: repair one of the control panels Loadout: APS pistol, with an extra magazine. Class 3 armor. Meds. One Zarya flash grenade. Set of tools in my secure container. I spawned in the room immediately outside Gate 3. Awesome! The panel is just over here. I hustled down the hallway heading toward the panel - someone was crouched behind a cable wheel at the end of the hallway. I forgot to put the pistol on autofire, but that's ok. I fired fired fired and took him in the head. He got off a shot but nothing too bad.  I grabbed his dogtags. Level 6. Ok, keep your stuff.  I was secretly hoping he'd have another set of tools.  I repaired the pan

Tarkov has been very mixed lately.  I continue to practice offline, and am having fun and success on taking on raiders on Reserve, Impossible scavs on Customs, and even killed Reshala and his guards at the gas station. Enjoyable, and even the failed raids are pleasant. In part because I don't have to waste time re-kitting and can just try again.   But the online raids have not been going well, even a bunch of my scav raids have ended poorly. Now I'm perilously low on funds and courage. Raid 47 - Woods Goal: Kill 3 Scavs on Woods without healing.   Since I can't heal in the raid at all, I thought it might be a good idea to get some extra protection. As luck would have it, Fence was selling class 5 Ghzel armor. I got it and repaired it. Total cost was close to 130K. Half my net worth. Loadout: AKM, Class 5 armor.  No meds. I spawned on the spine, made my way to Emercom camp. Someone had already been there and killed two scavs, but it was empty now. I hunkered down and waited.

 I am still kicking myself for messing up the "kill three scavs without healing" last raid. That cost me 7000 exp, plus now I need to return to Woods to reattempt. Goals kill 3 scavs on Woods without healing this will also complete my "shootout picnic" quest (2000 xp) Raid 45 - 0 Exp I spawned on the spine, above the old sawmill. Made my way to the village, which is a fairly reliable place for chasing down scavs.  Scoped it from above, very quiet.  I made several circuits of the village - nobody home.  Hmm.  What to do? Should I just wait until scavs spawn?  Yesterday I killed one scav at Emercom and waited a very long time after, and no more scavs spawned there.  I could hear the rhythmic "pop ... pop pop" of fire in the distance, near the abandoned scav village. I know on Customs that the scavs at the gas station and dorms sometimes fire at nothing just to attract PMCs. What I had just heard sounded similar - just a few random shots, no return fire.  Do

Raid 42 - Double Questing Destination: Customs Goals: extract with case from dorm room 114 ( "The Pharmacist" quest) kill as many scavs as possible, ideally 15 for the Therapist "Operation Aquarius Part 2" quest. Loadout: Suppressed VPO-209, Class 3 press armor. Meds, food and drink, ears. No grenade.  It is not my intention, but with the purple armor and the VPO-209 I look like a scav. No balaclava or face covering today, to help round it out.  The plan is simple. Hang around and kill scavs until the last 15 or 20 minutes of the raid, then go to dorms and get the case. I spawned behind old gas, looted the area and then went away and hid for a bit, let the scavs spawn and the PMCs move.  I started roaming around the industrial section looking for scavs. Killed a sniper scav and another. Got tagged by the second scav, heavy bleed. But I esmarched and was good as new. As I approached the hole in the wall that leads to the road I was briefly pincered. There was a scav

Raid 39 Destination: Reserve Quest: The Bunker Part 2 - visit all five entrances to underground bunker. This is my third run at this quest.  I still want to get in some PvP action, but I also want to complete teh quest. These two goals are at odds with one another. Goal: Complete quest, engage in some PvP. Loadout: Bruised Class 4 armor, 5.45x39mm AK-105 with flashlight and 4x Pilad scope, ears, meds backpack. No keys, one grenade. Spawned in the King garages.  This is one of the closest bunker spawns. It'll do. I proceeded to the bunker, opening and then closing the doors behind me. If someone is coming behind me I don't want them looking for me.  As I reached the top of the last flight of stairs I heard someone stepping in water. Probably a raider or a scav.  I turned on my flashlight and descended. No one reacted to my arrival. Ducked into the storage on left that has an approach to the water. A player at the bottom of the black knight ramp, aiming down sight. I dodged to th

My offline practice against raiders has been going well lately.  Need to return to the Bunker for Prapor and not avoid action. Raid 37 - Too Fast Loadout: Suppressed AKMS with Valday scope, beat-down Class 4 armor, meds, ears, one grenade. I spawned at the entrance to the hermetic door.  Crossing the train-yard can be dicey, I decided to go under.  In retrospect maybe I should have ducked into the cleavage and went along the back fences.  No matter.   I went underneath, hoping to get some quick scav kills, but there was no one there. Crossed up to the stairs next to the train loading docks, close to the truck repair bays.  This is still a quite dangerous area - Glukhar and his guards could spawn in any of the three closest buildings.   I ran over to the hole in the fence, crossed the road and started running towards black knight.  Someone barked out "кепка!" and began firing. I know that voice, that's Glukhar's guards.  I zig-zagged, taking hits, but got on the far si