FC3: Tips and Tricks

[PZ]

 :-D

[fragger]

If you've done the Payback mission and by some chance you need a good infusion of funds without having to shoot, race, play poker or open a bunch of loot crates to get it, go visit Vaas' compound. There's hundreds of dollars' worth of cash there, lying around all over the place just waiting to be picked up! Unless you picked it all up on the way in earlier, or course. Odds are though that you were too busy trying to stay alive and eager to waste Vaas to want to spend time looking around the place.

[PZ]

Good one  :-X  Do you recall the approximate location?

[durian]

I too like cooking grenades, playing with mines, and setting off C4.

Same here.

[fragger]

Good one  :-X  Do you recall the approximate location?

Right here:

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[PZ]

Thanks fragger; I'm in dire need of cash.  >:D

[fragger]

Have a good look around. In addition to the usual sorts of places, you'll find it on the pole dance stages, the cruddy sofas out in the open, on top of boxes and pallets of drug bags - it's not all on tabletops :)

[fragger]

I found a cool spot to begin the Paint It Black mission.

Without going close enough to the comms centre to trigger the mission start, find this spot (X:213 / Y:481). The approach from the direction of Gaztown is best. A track branching off the main road will take you right to it.
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You'll see this shack with a barrel outside. X marks the spot!
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From here, you can tag all the privateers in the comm centre compound, and snipe most of them, without triggering a mission start. The furthest guys may take a moment or two to register in the camera, but be patient and they will. Using a suppressed Z93, I was able to get all of them except four - the sniper in the highest tower, the two heavies, and the furthest regular guy, near the truck. They were all just out of range. If you time it right, you can get all those other guys when they're out of sight of the others. They all wander around a fair bit and at some point go behind something that blocks the other guys' views of them. Drop the sniper in the lower tower first when the other guys aren't looking, they can't seem to see his body once he's down.

After dropping all the guys I could, the remaining four were none the wiser. Of course, if you move too far away they'll all respawn. I tried driving back to Gaztown to replenish and when I came back they were all up again.

This approach may make things easier on the way in. I haven't gone in yet as I'm on my own private relic-hunting mish and I just happened upon the shack, so I had a go. The Paint It Black mission is pending in my game but I want to gallivant a bit more first :)

[Jim di Griz]

A good spot to do that from - I was on that smaller ridge just a bit east of your spot. I did the sniping too and had help from a leopard or two  :) I won't spoil the rest of it for you but I will say that you should grab every loot chest you see if you are keen on collecting them all as afterwards, the place will be inacessible.

[mandru]

I later pulled a big truck up on the iron doors and leapt up on a ledge and from there I was able to scramble the rest of the way to the top of the bunker with the thought of recovering the few chests I'd missed in the frenzy of the Paint It Black mission.  I was able to get the chests that were outdoors on top however the interior of the base is effectively boarded up so that even C-4 won't crack it and becomes as Jim said permanently out of reach.



The old Japanese concrete trenches for their gun emplacements when accessed from the lower open field  to the North East of the base have the potential of bringing you up to within a few steps of the iron doors.  An advantage with that is having the same big truck as I described just above for decent if potentially explosive cover from which you can plot your ambush of the two heavies guarding the door.

Combined with the sniping clear out of the area as you've described fragger those two heavies should be close to the last impediment you meet before blowing the doors and things will get really lively.  Once you're inside the only advice I can offer is to take advantage of every ammo restock pile you encounter, keep your eyes open for surprises and supplies as you press forward, if the need arises fall back to a previous position to top off ammo/C-4/mines and keep something on hand to quickly deal with heavies.  The enemies through this stage of the mission are not infinitely respawning so keep a cool head and save your health for what comes after the climb up the ladder for a checkpoint and the final push to smash the dish.

PZ previously noted elsewhere that it's Sam in the chopper who's come to get you.  Don't frag it.  ;)

[Art Blade]

perfect walkthrough for that mish, guys, NICE  :) +1 for each and everyone of you   ;D :-X

[PZ]

I'll echo that!  Great spots  :-X

[Jim di Griz]

Cheers muchly  :) Topside is definitely fraught and hectic - good call on the chopper PZ and mandru  8)

[mandru]

 :-D Wow!

Thanks Art and PZ.  :-X

[fragger]

Thanks from me too, chaps :)

Regarding getting the loot crates in the upper outdoor area of the comm centre, you can wingsuit/parachute into that area but only after Paint It Black is complete. Before that, the game won't let you parachute in and if you try you will be forced down short or "pushed away". There are a number of places back up the hill from where the hut is that I described that will give you enough altitude to get a sufficient base jump. But as mandru and Jim have said, you can't access the inner area at all after that mission, nor of course before it, so grab 'em while you can :-()

Same goes by the way for the loot chests inside Hoyt's mansion (plus some wads of cash in there that show up as diamonds on the map) - get them after the interview with Hoyt, on your way to the basement to do the interrogation. You could conceivably get at least some of them later after you clobber Hoyt, but you'll be racing against time at that stage, so it's better to grab them during the earlier opportunity. After you leave the place to rescue Riley you won't ever be able to get back into the mansion, not even post-game.

P.S. I'm wondering: what if mandru's technique at the comm centre was tried before Paint It Black comes up? It's too late for me to try that in my current game, alas. It would probably mean taking down all the guards as I can't imagine they would just stand around and let you do it, if you can do it. I believe the main outdoor area doesn't become restricted until Paint It Black comes up - I'm sure I've just wandered around in there among the privateers prior to that mission with no probs.

[mandru]

I was going through and reorganizing my syringe kit by dumping useless syringes I'd never use or if the need arose I could prepare and apply on the fly since game time stops when you hit the ESC Key on the PC.

There were a couple Deep Dive syringes in my kit so for a lark I went out to a spot off the North shore of the North island (X:515.7, Y:823.4) where it looked on the map like the lighter blue island shelf plunged in a canyon like structure down into the darker deep water.  So I applied the first Deep Dive syringe and went over the side swimming as quickly as possible to the bottom.

I should say here that I've unlocked Faster Swimming and Longer Breath Hold as well as both of the syringe duration extensions on the skill tree resulting in 1:00 of syringe effectiveness.

As the first Deep Dive syringe hit the less than 0:10 second mark I noted a glowing fuzzy looking loop off in the distance.  Applying the second Deep Dive syringe (where I discovered they can extend without coming up for a breath resetting in 1:00 increments) I stroked towards the curious object and had my first encounter with a Moray Eel who quickly swarmed me and chomped onto my arm resulting in a QTE (quick time event from AC3) with the ever popular (  8-X  ) random button mash.

In my recently discovered (thanks to Art) personal stats for the Animals Hunted and Skinned categories this should have rounded out my dance ticket with all animals collected for the handbook but on further inspection my encounter with the macaques (monkeys) I killed and skinned (simply provided the same nondescript leather as crocks) during one of the Buck missions mysteriously failed to count towards my totals.  :o

The only other place in the game I've encountered these annoying little buggers is in Amanaki Town where weapons are not allowed.  So now I'll need to try standing just outside the weapons ban perimeter and not only hope that one of these rats with thumbs scamper into range but after bagging one I'll be able to lift his pelt.  :-\\


Edit additional:  Done and done!  >:D  Animal section of handbook and stats completed.  ^-^

[Art Blade]

 :-D :-X

[PZ]

 :-X

[fragger]

 :-D :-X

Good timing with that post mandru as I only just discovered the stats page last night. I had a look at the Animals section and was interested to see "Moray Eel" on the list. I thought I'd seen all the animals in the game, but I haven't seen that one. Now I'll have to go on a (very careful) quest to see one :-()

I was surprised to discover that I've sent six rats into the hereafter. They must have gotten run over or caught by grenade blasts or stray rounds or something because I've never deliberately targeted them. I did run over one of those birds of paradise or whatever they are (a blue one) but I've never clobbered a seagull or a lizard. I've also yet to stone a crow, although I have permanently grounded a vulture and gotten a bunch of feathers off it which I sold for a few bucks (who in the blazes buys vulture feathers?)

I've raked in a lot of dough during the course of this playthrough - over $120,000. Not bad for a twenty-something Californian greenhorn with the IQ of a sea anenome on a sparsely populated Indo-Pacific island that apparently nobody in the wider world has known about since the Imperial Army last had a jamboree there.

I may revise my plans for my next vacation...

[Art Blade]

count me in  :-D

[fragger]

 :go

[Jim di Griz]

Yes, I can imagine us lot arriving on one of the Malaysian islands ready for anything - it'd be like when Deep Silver offered a prize of a two week holiday on a similar island to Dead Island players...

[mandru]

I was surprised to discover that I've sent six rats into the hereafter. They must have gotten run over or caught by grenade blasts or stray rounds or something because I've never deliberately targeted them.

Hitting a rat or a chicken while driving will cause almost as big of a jolt as if you'd run over a water buffalo.  ????

[Art Blade]

well, if the rat or chicken is really big.. or the buffalo really small..  :-D

[PZ]

I've raked in a lot of dough during the course of this playthrough - over $120,000. Not bad for a twenty-something Californian greenhorn with the IQ of a sea anenome on a sparsely populated Indo-Pacific island that apparently nobody in the wider world has known about since the Imperial Army last had a jamboree there.

I may revise my plans for my next vacation...

:-X