I Tarkov Poorly

Goal: Taking a break from Punisher 4, attempting The Pharmacist quest where I simply need to pick up a package from room 114 in two story dorms on Customs Raid 120 - Thermals Loadout: Class 4 armor, Ash-12 with three 10 round mags of PS12B, Monstrum scope, ears, meds. Extra ammo and the 114 key in my secure container.  Spawned next to Old Gas. Hit the stash and immediately scored a class 5 Korund armor-set!  Off to a good start.  Killed a bit of time waiting for the scavs to spawn and let other players move, then headed out. Sniper scav on the big tower is up, but I forgot my range finder. I don't feel comfortable eyeballing the range to him and without the scope dialed in correctly there is no way I can hit him.  Made my way north towards big skeleton, and when I next checked, someone else had killed him already. So I guess I'm not alone on this map. Bus depot and road were empty. Made my way past them and started ascending the hill behind, hoping to get a look at dorms before

Killing 10 PMCs on Shoreline for the last part of Punisher 4 is not going well.  I'm five raids in. In four of the raids I encountered no other players, even though I was hanging out in the resort for two of them. In my last raid, I was headshot just after stepping onto the resort grounds.  Awesome. I'm going to try something different. Return to Customs and try running the Pharmacist quest in which I pick up a package from room 114 in the two story dorms building. Raid 117 - Awesome Loadout: Ash-12 with some ten round mags of PS12B, and one twenty round mag of PS12 (for CQB), meds, ears. Extra ammo and key 114 in my secure container. Spawned in at Smugglers. This is one of the three closest spawns to Dorms. I made sure my laser was on and the weapon ranged and headed out. I didn't run to dorms but walked directly there.  The scavs starting bait shotting as I went.  As I approached three story dorms, I dropped in a bush to listen for a second - to listen for other players,

Ode to the Ash-12 Here are some of my favorite weapons in EFT. Any SMG (especially the Vityaz and the UMP).  Pro: Easy to aim, fun to use. Easy to walk up to the head to get kills. Cons: short range and weak ammo. The sniper scavs on customs suddenly become serious threats instead of nuisances. You live or die by headshots and anyone with a face shield is unkillable.  Even the "good" ammo (like AP 6.3) isn't actually very good.   5.56 Scar-L (especially with 14 inch barrel) Pro: Fun to use, deadly, great for long and short distances. Cons: the good ammo for this weapon is impossible to get. The weapon itself, with mods, is expensive and never comes back on insurance. 5.56 ADAR Pro: is cheap, fun to use, great for long and short distances Cons: has no autofire, has same problems with the ammo as the Scar-L The Ash-12 (see below) The Ash-12 So if you look at the Ash-12 on paper, or maybe just look at the list of Pros, you'd wonder why anyone would use any other weapon i

Update: I check this every two months. My latest (June 2022) can be found here:  https://itarkovpoorly.blogspot.com/2022/06/counting-cheater-part-4.html How to estimate the number of people cheating in Escape from Tarkov?  I have discussed this twice before ( here and here ) .  The last time there was a ban wave I went through all my raids in 12.12 and gathered up the names of all the people who had killed me. Then I went to try to look them up in the Chat/Friends tool in EFT.   I had been killed by 14 people before the February ban wave, and 4 of them could no longer be found in the Chat/Friends tool.   Another ban wave was announced this week.  So I went and checked again, re-auditing all my killers (where two more were discovered no longer in the Chat system).  It's not a lot of data, and I'm reluctant to draw conclusions from it. But it's some data.  PMC Who Have Killed Me since the last time I checked, I have been killed 10 more times by other players. And 4 of those

Goal: Kill 10 PMCs on Shoreline Progress: Kill who, exactly? Raid 113 - Nobody Loadout: Keltec RFB with Valday scope and M80, scav vest and balaclava (required), meds, ears, no armor. I caught the same spawn as last raid: near the inner edge of the village. So I pursued the same plan - hoof it quick over to the power station, set up and wait for some poor player who is pursuing Punisher 1 or 2 to come looking for scav kills, and then kill him.  And, if that doesn't work out after 10 minutes or so, go chase gunshots. I took position. Sniper scav is up.  Yes!  I waited. And waited. There was some brief weapon fire up at the resort. At one point sniper scav shouted "Granada" and threw a grenade, and then turned around and returned to patrolling. But I couldn't see anyone where he was throwing - no body, not activity, nothing. Is this just one of the scav "bait shots" maneuvers?  Could that mean that in the previous raid where he shot at a target I couldn't

I made a huge mistake. Now that I'm advancing to the "kill PMC" phases of the Punisher quest, instead of the "kill Scavs" part, I need better ammo. So I spent all my money upgrading my Workbench so I can craft some M856A1 (or maybe AP6.3 or .45 ACP). But I didn't realize it takes 12 hours to craft just one batch. So between the M855 rounds, the Hawk gunpowder and the 12 hours of fuel, that's well over 150K rubles per batch. I don't play all day, if I did I could also use the generator time to run Med Station crafts to offset the cost. As it is, I've turned off the generator and now my first batch of M856A1 will be done sometime next week.  Now I've wasted all my rubles, and need to figure out a different weapon ammo combination for killing players. Raid 108 - Loot Run on Shoreline Time In Raid: 19 minutes, 4 seconds Exp: 817 Raid 109 - Failed Loot Run on Shoreline I was looting the sunken village, made a wrong turn and got stuck in the water

Maybe I should be using the Saiga shotgun, instead of a pump action one. The only reason I don't is that I haven't levelled up Jaeger yet and can't buy one from him. The Saigas on the flea market are all just low-durability scav weapons. Goal: Kill scavs on Woods with a shotgun Progress: Subtask Completed Raid 106 - The Convergence Loadout: Modded Remington 870 shotgun with dot-sight and laser, Class 4 armor, meds, ears. 5001 rubles for the car extract. Spawned between the abandoned village and the Scav Hideout. Went up the hill to the hideout.  It was quiet, no one there.  But it seems quiet everywhere. I tucked into a bush behind the hideout and waited.  Chonk, Chonk!  That weird sound at the beginning of raids was finally made, and shortly after I heard footsteps approaching.  Is that a scav? The movement doesn't sound scavvish.  Suddenly a scav shouted from within the camp and started firing. I swung around the wall. Before me was a naked zero-to-hero player armed w