Reserved

My progress this wipe is slow. I don't even care.  I made level 9 yesterday. Survival rate of 29%.

I inadvertently formed a collection of SMGs: three Vityaz and three Kedrs.  What's a good map for an SMG? Factory, obviously. But what about Reserve?   I decided I would run Reserve until the SMGs were gone.  Took about 5 raids to go through the Vityazs.  Survived one raid, insurance brought it back once, but otherwise they were gone, looted by my killers or player scavs.   But the Kedrs were a different story, no one wants those. I'm not sure how many raids those lasted, 10, 15? I took screenshots, so I could go back and check if I wanted, but I don't. It was a long string of death mostly, and I finally gave up. Still had one last Kedr which no one was looting, so I vendored it and moved on. Experiment complete.

This experiment was mostly unfun.  The combination of weak ammo and PACA armor meant I couldn't take on real fights with PMCS. So my strategy evolved to hiding at the beginning of the raid to avoid PMCs, then come out and fight the scavs and player scavs. Extract through manhole, don't worry about looting.  Which sounds like it would be fun, and when that plan worked out it WAS fun.  But what mostly happened is that I'd run into a kitted PMC anyway and die, or that the whole place was just a ghost town, and I'd wander around looking for anyone.

Some highlights

Cheaters

I spawned in those bunkers several times and would hide next to the door frame until five or minutes had passed. On two occasions someone began firing on me, I could hear the shots hitting the door or frame. Obviously someone with a texture hack or ESP. In both of those raids I later died to a player. Not sure if the same person who was firing at the raid start. 

Was hiding, completely motionless at the beginning of a couple raids, and had a PMC run up and swing on me, insta-shot or prefire. ESP or texture hack. 

Player Scavs

Had a great fight against a gang of player scavs. That fight was a lot of fun. Killed two before fumbling with my weapon as the third swung out on me and killed me.  

Raiders

Killed a PMC, part of a duo. Repositioned and was fighting his partner ( me from cover, him exposed ) when suddenly the train raiders rolled up behind me. They killed him immediately. I spun, but tried to aim instead of repositioning for cover. Died.  Fun.

Hunted

Had a PMC chase me under and over the docks. That was harrowing. I kept running into AI scavs, who I'd be forced to kill, and then the PMC would know my position again.  I got some shots on him, but 9x18 PSO was never endangering him.  Amazingly, was able to evade and managed to extract that raid.

Was evading a sniper and ran into the garages, where I encountered a different PMC. We fought and surprisingly, he didn't kill me. He threw a grenade and I used the opportunity to reposition wide - I ran into the field  behind and dropped into a bunker.  He pursued. I heard him above me, on top of the bunker, when suddenly a shot rang out and I heard him slump and die. My sniper took him out. ( Thanks! ).  I really wanted to loot him, but couldn't see the body and wasn't going to make his same mistake stomping on top of that hillock.  Extracted. 

Conclusion

So those were four raids with cheaters, and four good raids. The rest of the raids (and there were many) were either just being insta-killed by cracked AI scavs, [head , eyes ] from a sniper, or BUDDA-BUDDA-BUDDA and dead as I was cut down by some PMC I never even saw or heard.  Mostly that last one. 

But that experiment is over. Reserve is still one of my favorite maps, but until I can get some better weaponry and some decent armor, I'll avoid it.