Punishing Boredom - Raids 113 and 114 - Level 20

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 see it was because there wasn't actually a target?

After 15 or more minutes I finally just headshotted sniper scav myself and went down to the power station. There was no one there - no other scavs, no bodies, and precious little loot.

Proceeded to the weather station. It had been thoroughly looted, every file cabinet, bag and safe open and empty, but no bodies of any scav defenders and it was utterly unoccupied. Am I the only PMC on the map this whole raid? 

Hit some stashes and extracted. Except for sniper scav, never saw a soul.

Time In Raid: 35 minutes 6 seconds
Exp: 1145
Shots: 2, Hits: 1, Accuracy: 0.5, Body: 35
Kills: Potap Blatnoy

Mistakes

• need a better plan

Raid 114 - Ennui

I need a better plan. Someone on reddit mentioned a spot inside the resort where they could easily get kills and also be well situated for other battles. If I get a resort spawn I may try that.  Also, my usual playtime is later in the evenings on the west coast. If I want more players, maybe I should try a different time slot. I got an opportunity to play midday on the weekend and ran this raid. 

Spawned in on the north east wall. This is a pretty good resort spawn, so I headed out.  Kept scoping the way in front and behind me looking for other resort bound players, but saw none.

Entered the resort, went upstairs, took my position and began to wait.  Heard a scav voice downstairs - that's good, he'll lull any incoming players into thinking they have the place to themselves.  As I waited the scav downstairs would occasionally turn, his boot scrape kept me company. For my part, I was dead quiet.  

After 20 minutes of this, I gave up. I haven't heard a single shot this entire raid. I should probably grab some loot in the resort, but I don't actually know where loot is, I don't have any keys, and I don't even have a flashlight because the stupid RFB won't take one.  

Sniper scav behind the resort had been killed.  So I guess someone is here, though it could just easily have been a player scav.  I hit some stashes and started to make my way to extract. 

There is a rock along the northwest wall where a scav often lurks. I approached carefully, and a good thing I did - I spotted one scav to the left ducking behind the rock and heard another to the right. I jumped to cover behind a tree. The scav on the right spotted me and started to lay into the tree with his AK-74.  I peeked out from behind the tree, but couldn't spot him. He fired and I ducked to safety again. Where is he? I tried scoping both sides - can't see anyone on either side of the rock, no one in front, trees behind seem mostly clear. The bushes? He fired again - and I just managed to duck back safely, but I hadn't seen any weapon flash. Where is this guy?

What's the plan? This RFB is ungainly, but I had found a pistol in a stash. How about I switch to the pistol, run forward to the cover of the rock, and then circle and try to kill them one at a time?  Sounds good. But I really dislike the idea of running forward when I don't have eyes on either scav. I peeked out one last time hoping to catch sight of someone. The operating word in that sentence is "last" because the invisible scav headshot me.  Sigh.

Time In Raid: 33 minutes, 8 seconds
Exp: 162
Killed By: Nikanor Vorobyaninov 

Mistakes

• should not have attempted to peek for the third time. 

PostScript

I had a chance to play some more on the weekend evening, but I just couldn't drag myself to sit in a bush or wander the empty wasteland that is Shoreline. So boring. Instead I ran some offline raids with the Ash-12 on Customs, Reserve and Lighthouse. Difficulty: Impossible, Quantity: High, Bosses Enabled.  Had a blast.  Died many times, but killed Reshala and his guards twice, had fun fighting raiders, got totally creamed by Gluhar's guards, was killed repeatedly from out of nowhere by Rogues.  Awesome. 

Post PostScript

Two observations:

• EFT used to have this "bug" wherein a weapon was default ranged to a particular ammo type. If using that exact ammo and zeroing the scope correctly, the weapon would fire accurately. But with different ammo, it would fire high or low. This was especially pronounced with low velocity weapons like the VSS, Ash-12 or when using subsonic ammo in an AK/AKM.    I re-tested this with the Ash-12, and as far as I can tell, this bug is gone. The scope seems to correctly range to the ammo.  For example, there is a huge difference in the falloff between PS12 and PS12B.  At 100 meters PS12 has almost no falloff, but PS12B drops a full half meter.  However, if you range the scope correctly either ammo works great. I tested it at 100, 150 and 200 meters and both were reliably hitting at center if the scope was ranged correctly.  I didn't test putting different rounds in a single magazine or anything - rather I would change ammo, use the rangefinder to confirm ranges, set the scope range, and then fire with my arms at full stamina.  Spot on.     Nor have I tested this with the VSS, or US ammo variants, but with the Ash-12, if you range the scope right, your hits are accurate.
• I observed this a long time ago, but didn't note it here.  If you set the scav difficulty to Impossible then scavs are not only difficult, they have single word raider names (and often have better weapons and armor). But they still appear as SCAV in the post-mortem.  Sniper Scavs still have two word names.