Diamonds are a merc's best friend

[Art Blade]

thanks for those additional inappropriate words trying to bypass "w o r k"  >:D

[fragger]

The Diamond Tour Goes South

After I'd done everything in Leboa, including going back for the pleasure of plugging that double-dealing piece of pond-scum Kouassi, I headed south to meet up with Voorhees in Sefapane. Once in the intervening desert area however I decided to put Voorhees off for a while and see if I could pull off the Diamond Tour in the Southern District before doing anything else. This I did indeed do, and it yielded a couple of interesting results.

Firstly, I suffered no malaria attacks whatsoever – evidently you stay fever-free in Bowa until you've done your first mission there. Secondly, upon arriving in Mosate Selao for the first time I immediately received the predecessor message, so I could have completed those missions before meeting Voorhees had I been so inclined (which I wasn't). Thirdly, I went to the Marina and found that I could get inside Mike's, which I seem to recall you can't otherwise do straight after rescuing whoever was piloting the barge there (I may be wrong about that). Reuben was the only one in there, doing his writing-at-the-table thing, but it didn't occur to me to talk to him. I should have, it might have been interesting to hear what he had to say, if anything. Well actually, I can still check that out as I have a post-diamond hunt save without having yet met Voorhees. The lagoon at the Marina looked very big and empty without a barge in it, btw.

I was careful to save a lot since I was working without a net - no rescue buddy until the barge episode is over...

Anyway, it turns out that there are 410 diamonds in total in all the cases in the game. There are 205 in Leboa (including the 10 you get from your first case), 195 in Bowa and 10 in the intervening desert area. For what it's worth.

I initially went south with only 2 diamonds in my account, so with 207 rocks in my bedraggled pockets after collecting all the Bowa cases I went to the nearest Weapon Shop with the intention of scooping up all the available equipment, as I did in Leboa, but it was all locked away. Apparently a convoy missions or something needs to be completed before that stuff can be purchased. However I was able to clean out the remaining weapons, upgrades and repair manuals that I hadn't had enough money for in Leboa and still came out 86 diamonds ahead – enough for a good piss-up at Mike's, except the only drinking buddy there is Reuben. Who knows, he might loosen up once he's been dragged away from his flipping writing pad, but I get the feeling he'll turn out to be a maudlin drunk...

[mandru]

Cool experiment fragger.   :)  :-X

Interesting to know about the absence of malaria attacks.

enough for a good piss-up at Mike's, except the only drinking buddy there is Reuben. Who knows, he might loosen up once he's been dragged away from his flipping writing pad, but I get the feeling he'll turn out to be a maudlin drunk...

The way Reuben goes on and on?  I'd prefer not to bump into him when he's been well oiled, limbered up and with all filters removed.   ???

Locked in a holding cell with a drunk Reuben and escape with your sanity could be a whole new series of missions.   :lol

[Art Blade]

interesting read, fragger :) I too had that, no malaria, and there's a savegame in the downloads. Only difference, mine is befor you go to the prison/end game.

[fragger]

I picked up that download a while ago, it was the one I used to clobber the Jackal from outside the prison that time :-X

I've established a couple of things which may or may not be common knowledge. They were news to me, anyway.

You don't suffer any malaria attacks in Bowa until you've had the meeting in Sefapane with Voorhees/Greaves. After meeting Voorhees I had an attack whilst on my way to Port Selao to do the barge mission.

The new stuff in the Equipment category becomes available once the barge mission is over, i.e. after you've rescued whoever the skipper is at the Marina. A couple of weapons are also unlocked at that point without requiring a convoy mission – the Paratrooper, the Desert Eagle, and I think something else (I was too busy greedily snapping up all the equipment to take enough notice). And indeed, you can't gain entry to Mike's at that point in the game, though as I said earlier I could get in before the meeting with Voorhees.

There were a couple of novel developments during said barge skipper rescue mission. My usual modus operandi after warning the doctor in Port Selao of looming trouble and hightailing it out of town is to take the swamp boat from the north part of Selao, make my way across the lake, get off at the shore just west of the lagoon bridge, make my way down the Marina road until I reach the clifftop that overlooks the Marina area and open up on the baddies with a sniper rifle. On this occasion things went pear-shaped when a merc manned one of the grenade launchers mounted on the barge and started peppering my sniping spot with grenades. I've never had that happen before. The bugger nearly killed me, which really would have stunk because I had no rescue buddy at that point and I hadn't saved since the start of the barge mission. It was bad enough having to dig a piece of shrapnel out of my leg with a knife point while my pulse was thundering in my ears. Once I got down to the Marina after dispatching all the mercs, a wounded guy somewhere kept plugging me in the back with his pistol. I looked high and low for him but just couldn't find him, and he was wearing me down. After much exasperated searching I finally located him – completely hidden under the water at the shoreline between the dock and the weapon shop. What gave him away were the little splashes of his bullets leaving the water. For a wounded guy, he sure could hold his breath. I had to extract him from the water with a grenade.

Prior to all that, I had a blonde moment at the start of the barge mission. Whilst trying to climb onto the roof of the wheelhouse I managed to fall overboard and had to swim after the barge while uttering plaintive cries to the effect of "Hey, wait for me!" Fortunately that tub moves so slowly that I was able to catch up to it and climb back on board. I tried to climb onto the wheelhouse roof again and fell overboard again, and since by this time I was getting shot at by the mercs in the rocks on either side of the channel whilst trying to get back onto the barge my cries were less plaintive and somewhat bluer. Then, because I'd stuffed up and delayed so long in clearing the way, I nearly got creamed by a mortar round and had to try and repair the barge's motor while getting hammered by no less than four circling swamp boats. Not my most shining hour... I least I managed to stay dry for the rest of the cruise. I did leave this curious tableau in my wake, though:

[smg id=3182 align=center width=400]

[PZ]

 ^+-+

Excellent story, fragger; I too am still enjoying FC2 quite a bit.  :-X

[deadman1]

Nice story mate, but I don´t remember the barge mission being that frozen though  ????

Spoiler

I think you inserted the wrong picture  :-()

[mandru]

 ^+-+

I've fallen off the barge trying to make that jump to the roof and know how frustrating just one dip in the drink is.  I always make a save as I'm leaving the cabin after speaking with the pilot at the mission start so I'd have to restart it if I ever managed to fall in a second time.   ;)

I've also encountered that underwater merc several times.  There either a gap in the boundary for where the waterline actually is not reflected by the graphics or maybe because if he could stand up the water's not deep enough to drown him.  Either way the peck, peck, peck of him taking potshots at you is really annoying when you don't know where it's coming from.

Fortunately his being merely injured instead of dead doesn't interfere with the completion of the barge mission because that would jump the frustration level of him being in that hiding spot would go up another whole level.

I'll need to go to that spot next time I'm in the game and crouch to see if I can get below water level but not encounter the running out of air graphics.

I keep encountering things I need to check out in FC2.   :-D

[fragger]

@deadman, that picture was taken from the back of the barge while it was about to pull into Port Selao. It was wet and foggy at the time, maybe that's what makes it look frozen :)

I better mention this to the admins - for some reason I can't see the preceding page or two in this topic when I'm in normal browsing mode, but they do appear in the topic summary when I have the editor active. Just FYI. Maybe it's something odd happening at my end, it wouldn't be the first time...

EDIT: The page list for the topic shows 3 pages, but I know there's at least one more.

[deadman1]

@deadman, that picture was taken from the back of the barge while it was about to pull into Port Selao. It was wet and foggy at the time, maybe that's what makes it look frozen :)

I better mention this to the admins - for some reason I can't see the preceding page or two in this topic when I'm in normal browsing mode, but they do appear in the topic summary when I have the editor active. Just FYI. Maybe it's something odd happening at my end, it wouldn't be the first time...

EDIT: The page list for the topic shows 3 pages, but I know there's at least one more.

Actually I´m seeing a BFBC2 picture ???? and my page count for this topic shows that it´s only one page long ????

[fragger]

So you're not seeing a couple of mercs standing on an upturned swamp boat, deadman? ????

I was wondering why you were describing the scene as looking frozen - makes sense if you're seeing a different pic altogether ;)

[deadman1]

So you're not seeing a couple of mercs standing on an upturned swamp boat, deadman? ????

I was wondering why you were describing the scene as looking frozen - makes sense if you're seeing a different pic altogether ;)

Nope I see a picture from the beginning of BFBC2, Cold war I believe.

Edit: I clicked on the image and came to your gallery, I see the same picture (the bfbc2 one) but on top I can see the pic you mentioned as a thumbnail with the same name as the bfbc2 pic.  ??? Makes me wonder if that crash didn´t mess things up a lot more stuff than PZ thought.  :-\\

[fragger]

That doesn't sound good :-\\ I just went to my gallery and it seemed OK from my end. I'm not seeing that BFBC2 picture there. But I can't see the page in this topic where I posted the picture, although I could on the day when I posted it.

[Art Blade]

[admin]Info[/admin]

Guys, I encounter the same error with random pics and topics and posts. Some "new" posts are inaccessible, some pics either have the wrong thumbnail or the wrong main picture, at least they don't match. I too see a snowy landscape that is definitely not FC2. The tumbnail in the gallery is showing a scope view that is familiar, FC2, but I can't get to see the big picture (pun intended)  :-D As to the page count, that may vary depending on your forum look and layout settings, I have mine set to show 50 posts per page while the default is I believe 5 or so, which explains why even if everything was OK we'd still get different page counts. Now that you haven't changed a thing yet still feel something is wrong with the page count is what I have encountered: the post count doesn't match. Like, if there are one old and one new posts, I only see the one old post while "show new posts" displays a list with that topic. Which means, I can't access the new post, hence the topic remains on my "new posts" list unless I mark "all as read" which obviously marks the one new post as read even if I can't read it. Or, I post something and rather than being sent to the latest (my own) post, I keep getting sent back to some post that is weeks old (in the same topic).

So yes.. Houston, we have a problem.

PZ and I have already talked about the issue, I am glad that I'm not the only one experiencing this stuff but that doesn't help much. My educated guess (hehe) was that some of us, including me, may be connected to the net via some ISP that uses some kind of web cache which keeps delivering data from the cache rather than from this site. But it is strange that this problem continues to exist, a cache should eventually be refreshed or cleared. So my guess is.. something is rather off  :-D

We're on it, peeps :) Hopefully we get things sorted out.  :-X

[fragger]

Thanks muchly Art :) I know there's been issues of late and that you and PZ have been diligent in trying to get to the bottom of them. But I also believe that you guys would prefer for us to speak up when we feel something's amiss, even if it's an issue that you're already well aware of, rather than keep quiet about it. Because one day it just might be something you're unaware of, or someone might happen to mention something that sheds a bit of light ;D

Geez, I hope I didn't come across as griping in my last few posts... that's the last thing I would want you guys to think I was doing :-D

[PZ]

No worries fragger - we appreciate any information anyone can offer.  Evidently some of the posts are corrupt with regards to internal pointers, and any of these will need to be manually edited in the sql db.

So, the best thing to do is to post the exact message url so we can see what is occurring.

Another thing to do is to create new topics so that we ensure that the pointers are correct.

[mandru]

When I posted about knowing the frustration of falling off the barge I could see the picture of the two mercs standing on the upside down boat looking miserable in the the rain and fog.

Now the post that had that picture is missing when I look for it. 

[PZ]

So you're not seeing a couple of mercs standing on an upturned swamp boat, deadman? ????

I was wondering why you were describing the scene as looking frozen - makes sense if you're seeing a different pic altogether ;)

Strange - I see a couple of mercs standing on the hull of an upturned boat, as it should be.   Not sure what the problem might be for some of you guys - might be resources that are still cached on your computers or via your Internet provider.  Hopefully things will be updated as time progresses.

[Art Blade]

We just tried a repair. When I checked this post, I could see the post with fragger's pic but it was the ice/winter thing (wrong pic). I then closed all my tabs and then the browser.

On firing up my browser (FireFox) I hit CTRL+F5 (flush cache, reload) and yessssss... I still see the post and this time the correct pic  :-X

[Art Blade]

[admin]Looks good.. fingers crossed, knocking on wood, we're probably all good again :) The issues I had encountered are all fixed. Please let us know if you still encounter something that indicates the forum isn't working properly. Cheers :)[/admin]

[deadman1]

We just tried a repair. When I checked this post, I could see the post with fragger's pic but it was the ice/winter thing (wrong pic). I then closed all my tabs and then the browser.

On firing up my browser (FireFox) I hit CTRL+F5 (flush cache, reload) and yessssss... I still see the post and this time the correct pic  :-X

That didn´t w@&k for me Art, even though I did all the flushing and stuff like you did  :'( I´,m still seeing the wrong pic.

[fragger]

Just to let you guys know, I can now see all the pages in the topic again, got the correct page count and my picture's as it should be :-X

[PZ]

That didn´t w%&k for me Art, even though I did all the flushing and stuff like you did  :'( I´,m still seeing the wrong pic.

There is one more thing to try - should be rebuilt within an hour (unless something else goes wrong)  :-()

[PZ]

try it now deadman - if you still see the old photo, move your cursor into the image but don't click it.  Then check the url you see in the status bar, there should be a 4-digit number at the end and look like this:

Code Select Expand

sa=media;in=3182

The number you should see is 3182, which is the ID for the proper picture.  Should you not see this, let me know what number you do see.

[Art Blade]

interesting.. when I look at the pic in the post it is the right one (other than before the "repairs"). Now when I click  that pic in the post, I get to see the winter pic. ???

When I click details (go to gallery) I see the correct thumbnail on top and the correct preview (bigger, below) but when I click that bigger preview, I get to see a full sized winter pic again. The ID is always the same (3182)