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Hunting PMCs and Rubles - Raids 108-112 - Level 20

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 heading to a stash that didn't exist. Just then I heard a BOOM of an RFB to the west. That can only mean someone is shooting at me. I wasn't wrong, not 5 seconds later BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM and I was dead to several rounds of M62.   

Time In Raid: 4 minutes, 10 seconds
Exp: 145
Killed By: Sharpy_Gao  - Congrats Sharpy_Gao - good hunting. Are you working on Punisher 4 too?

Mistakes

  • getting lost in swamp. dumb
  • going for that "one more stash". I had plenty of loot and was considering dipping out. For some reason (well, thousands of reasons) I wanted to get just a bit more and decided to hit that last misplaced stash. 

Raid 110 - Loot Run on Shoreline

Time In Raid: 19 minutes, 57 seconds
Exp: 635

Successes

  • I encountered another player overwatching the swamp, but evaded and extracted this time. Is camping the swamp a good place to pick up Punisher 4 kills?

Raid 111 - Bugged Out

Tried to load into Shoreline, but ended up back on the main screen after a long wait. Had all my gear, but my insurance was lost - had to reinsure the gear on the next raid.  30K rubles I cannot afford.

Raid 112 - The Hunt

Loadout: Keltec RFB loaded with M80, sporting a Valday scope. Scav vest, meds, ears, water, snacks. No armor.

Got one of the village spawns.  This is the second closest spawn to the power station. It was pouring rain. I headed out.  Someone was shooting at Sanitar's country house. Is Sanitar up?  I arrived shortly after, but no sign of anyone - no PMCs, no bodies, no guards, no Sanitar.

Continued. Not long after saw a PMC above me, heading away towards the resort. Took a knee and aimed down sight, but between the bushes, trees, rain and fog lost sight of him.  Should I follow?  No, let's stick to the plan.

So my plan is simple: for each of the possible spawns on Shoreline I've chosen a nearby high traffic zone. I'm hoping to arrive there first and camp it, killing any PMCs that approach. For today's spawn, that destination is the power station.

I arrived at the power station, got on my belly and crawled into a bush. The rooftop sniper scav is up on the power station. Excellent. Now I just wait for those poor slobs chasing Punisher 1 and 2 to waltz up.  

I waited and waited. A tiny bit of fire up at the resort, but nothing happening down here.  Suddenly sniper scav shouted at something to the west and he fired. Then he went back to just walking around and looking. I scanned the area south of me looking for the PMC that he had spotted - but couldn't spot anyone. Did he one tap some poor schlub?  Probably yes - certainly, he's one tapped me before with his SVD. Damnit - sniper scav took my kill!

I waited. Footsteps approaching from the power station. I had trouble with my scope, but I spotted someone looting the sandbagged foxhole near me. Most likely a player scav. I couldn't get the reticle on him before the player scav started running - he ran right by me. I turned around and went to kill him (out of boredom) when "Auugh!" a scream from behind. I spun around - sniper scav had been killed. But by whom?

I scanned the area - nobody, nothing, completely forgetting about the player scav I had been about to kill. 

Patience. I waited. Still nobody came to the power station. God this is so boring. I almost bailed but forced myself to wait. Energy low - I ate. Hydration dropping - I drank.  The clock was down to 17 minutes of raid left.  I haven't heard anything in the longest time - undoubtedly I'm the last PMC on the map. I need to get some loot and extract. I abandoned my watch and went down to the power station - checking for hostile scavs or a newly spawned sniper, but it was quiet. The second I entered the grounds, footsteps came running - I jumped to cover, a player scav ran right by me. I stepped out and awkwardly gunned him down. Man, that took a lot of shots, does this guy have armor?  He did not. I grabbed his duffle bag and his rig and moved on. Not 80 meters later, came across another player scav who was crouch walking in the woods. He didn't see or hear me. I killed him and took his loot too. Well, it's nice of these player scavs to save me the trouble of looting the area myself.

I approached the weather station - there was an AI scav there, he ran away as I fired on him. I'm struggling to hit clean shots with this RFB. Didn't bother chasing him, it's getting too late. I made my way to extract - checking stashes, but they were all hit already.  

Time In Raid: 41 minutes, 21 seconds
Exp: 1329
Shots: 15, Hits: 9, Accuracy: 0.33, Body: 462 --- How the hell did 9 hits of M80 just cause 462 damage on unarmored targets at close range? These weren't headshots. 
Kills (player scavs): Saveliy Fantomas, Goga Akademik.   As someone who is starving for rubles right now I feel bad for killing players who were just trying to scav up some extra rubles. These guys didn't even have good loot - just lighters and measuring tapes and bakelite weapon parts. 

Mistakes

  • I forgot to wear the balaclava.  You know, like a moron. 
  • I need to adjust my plan. Whether "camp high traffic areas" is a good plan or not, I just don't have the patience for it. Should I chase down gunshots?  Or maybe try to set up and overwatch for the first ten minutes of the raid, and then switch to something else?  I should review my own deaths to other PMCs on Shoreline and see if I can learn anything.
  • Poor scope and weapon control - I should have easily killed that first player scav in the foxhole.
  • Should I learn resort? That's a big ask, but maybe it'd be worth it. Certainly might be more fun.

Successes

  • survived.
  • In offline raids I found a weapon I'm really liking and looking forward to use: the Ash-12.  I roamed Customs in an offline raid (Quantity:High/Difficulty:As Online/Bosses:True) and had a great time taking down 20 scavs, including Reshala and the Zavodsky bodyguards. Why am I never able to reproduce these victories in online raids? 

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