Roaming the islands

[durian]

 :-()   :-X
Another way to burn your bankroll: buy C4. I prefer it to mine as I  don't worry about accidentally setting it off  and killing myself ;D

[fragger]

I was just looking at the list of FC3 Achievements at Uplay and realised that I've done all but six of the single player ones. They are:

Free Fall - Freefall more than 100m and live
Memory to Spare - Gather all the memory cards (I would have had this one by now if it hadn't been for all the weird save issues I've had lately)
Say Hi to the Internet - Find the lost Hollywood star (dead celeb, TV show reference or misplaced Walk Of Fame star? Dunno which)
Heartless Pyro - Kill 50 enemies with the flamethrower (need to get my arse in gear on that one :-())
Never Saw It Coming - Kill an enemy with a takedown from above from a glider, zipline or parachute (sounds tough)
Improper Use - Kill an enemy with the Repair Tool (I believe Art has done this one)

There's also an Action called "Higher Than A Kite", defined as, "Use your wingsuit to reach the southern island". I don't know whether it's permissible to drop from a hang glider or whether you have to launch from a high point somewhere on the north island, but I intend to find out. I don't know what happens if you fall into the sea halfway across. I guess you do a long swim and be prepared to biff out a few sharks along the way. Or be a total wuss and Fast Travel your way out of strife...

[JRD]

Never Saw It Coming - Kill an enemy with a takedown from above from a glider, zipline or parachute (sounds tough)

I had just learned the skill to takedown from above when I zipped down from a tower and right below me was a pirate, quietly strolling down a path. I acted by instinct and hit LMB and pierced him head to nuts straight away... man, that felt great (for me, obviously)... what a fantastic feeling of accomplishment!  8) >:D

[fragger]

Well done mate, I'm impressed! :-X 8)

[JRD]

Out of pure luck!

I never saw the pirate there... it just... happened!  8)

[fragger]

I think it would have to be a "right time, right place" scenario to be able to pull of that trick at all. But the fact remains that you acted quickly enough to score :)

[Art Blade]

Very nice, JRD!  :) I need that one still, too.

And no, I haven't killed anyone or any beast with the repair tool yet, only caused a few blisters and got done in for that :-()

[Binnatics]

I have the "never saw it coming" achievement, but I have no idea how I did it. It's just done in my achievements list ^-^

I did all the SP achievements, only 5 coop related achievements left to do.
The one "higher than a kite" should you get automatically once reaching the second Island mission-related I thought ???? Once you reach the second island it's accomplished in my case.

"Say Hi to the Internet" is found on the beach. It's the actual cover of the game, without Vaas that is. You can find the location on the western beach of the southern-most piece of the northern island. Just left of the 'bear-symbol'. You have to  'interact' with the head in the sand. Nothing happens though :-\\ But you trigger the achievement ^-^

[fragger]

Looking at my Achievements page, Higher Than A Kite is ticked as having been done, but if I look under Actions, it indicates that it's yet to be done ????

<click> I haven't run the game online for quite a while... maybe it's a synchronisation thing. Odd that the achievement is done but not the action...

Thanks for the info regarding the head in the sand Binn, will go and look for that :)

[Art Blade]

Here details in a pic, fragger (and all)

Spoiler

There is a machete, too :) Binnatics showed me, I then took pics  :-D
[smg id=5239 type=link align=center width=500 caption="FC3 say hi to the internet"]

[fragger]

I actually found the scene on my own before I came back here, but still thanks Art and Binn :)

[smg id=5240 width=600]

Yep, I too noticed the machete (on the far right at the water's edge in this pic) 8) Thing is, in the cover artwork the two bodies in the trees are both hanging upside down - here, only one is. I guess maybe Vaas likes to rearrange the decorations from time to time :-()

Any idea who that is supposed to be buried up to his neck (in the cover artwork, that is)? The achievement for interacting with the head says "Find the lost Hollywood star" so I don't know if it's supposed to be someone in particular. It does look a bit like Tom Cruise, or to a lesser extent the guy who played Jack in Lost. The head in the game just looks like a Rakyat guy without tatts.

[Art Blade]

Hmm, shape round, on a beach of a forgotten island.. It's Tom Hanks's "Wilson" in Cast Away 

seriously, no idea.

[PZ]

Heartless Pyro - Kill 50 enemies with the flamethrower (need to get my arse in gear on that one :-())

I love the flamethrower in FC3 - it is permanently in my load out.  When wandering through the wilderness on foot, I pull out the flamethrower as soon as I hear a menacing animal sound.  A quick blast of flame will take out just about any animal, or at least make it run away.

[fragger]

Only three SP achievements left to get now - Heartless Pyro, Never Saw It Coming and Improper Use.

Free Fall was pretty easy to get - just take a hang glider from a high location near a coast, fly out over deep water, let go, fall into the water, then swim back to shore.

I've wrung out my second playthrough. The actual story ended ages ago and I've been free-roaming. I've done all outposts and towers and collected absolutely everything there is, including all but a handful of the loot chests, that handful being the ones in places like Vaas' compound and Hoyt's mansion that I couldn't get after the relevant missions were done. Everything has been maxed out and every single box in the Handbook has been ticked.

I thought about trying the outpost reset mod but I'd just as soon start from the beginning again, which is what I've done.

[JRD]

Only three SP achievements left to get now - Heartless Pyro, Never Saw It Coming and Improper Use.

Never saw it coming: When doing the last mission for Buck I saw at least two oportunities to kill an enemy from a zipline. All it takes is to use stealth not to alert the pirates and you can pull out a few deaths from above there!  ;)

[durian]

Here details in a pic, fragger (and all)

Spoiler

There is a machete, too :) Binnatics showed me, I then took pics  :-D
[smg id=5239 type=link align=center width=500 caption="FC3 say hi to the internet"]

Thanks Art and Binnatics. I didn't know the location.

[Art Blade]

welcome, mate :)

[fragger]

I've been tackling this playthrough differently, and it's making quite a difference to the game.

This time I'm not unlocking any towers (except for that one you have to do during the tutorial), not liberating any outposts, and getting the main missions done as quickly as possible. This changes the feel of the game substantially:

No map visible: Means groping around the countryside essentially blind and making it far more challenging to find relics, letters and loot.

Plenty of combat: No shortage of pirates to fight with! The buggers are everywhere. For an extended scrapfest, sometimes I'll deliberately kick up a hornet's nest at an outpost and let the reinforcements come. Duke it out big time, then run away when the ammo or bad guy supply gets low (to avoid accidentally liberating the outpost).

All weapons must be bought: Personally, I feel now that I'm earning my weapons and not just having them handed to me. It also helps to keep my wallet lean and fit for a change!

Skill points harder to accumulate: Because there are no Supply Drop races, no Wanted Dead and Path Of The Hunter missions available, skill points are a bit harder to come by. This is an incentive to fight more and gain more points via Multikills, Head Shots, Takedowns, etc.

The downside of this approach is that I'm denying myself a lot of Fast Travel locations, Safe Houses and some of the Sig weapons, but conversely it's extending the gameplay duration by making me travel everywhere through normal space (although there are two FF points that become available by completing main missions - Citra's Temple and Badtown. There will be plenty more on the south island).

Game ending discussed here, for any who haven't gotten to it yet

And as I just arrived in the south island I will do the same thing there, up until that last clutch of main missions, where I'll leave off the rest of the main game. I know how it all will go down anyway - exactly the same way as it does every time. The painfully long card game at Hoyt's place followed by the totally unsatisfying knife fight, the race against time to the airport, the protect-the-helo caper, the interminable cut scene where I walk the fiery warrior's path while moving at the pace of a doddery old geriatric in a walking frame, and ending with the choice of saving my friends or bumping them off for a bit of houghmagandy with Citra. Been there, done that.

The way I'm going about it this time, all the fun stuff will be left to do at the end, in one big hit :-X

[Art Blade]

nice :)

And I fully agree about what you said in the spoiler.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I've been trying to get back to a certain place that I was at during my crash-a-minute phase. It was early on, and I seem to recall a mine shaft or entrance, a tunnel, then a large, deep open ravine with water at the bottom. There were a few loot chests and a relic in there, plus some scaffolding that led down to the water where there was a jet ski that I presume could take you out into the ocean or a river somewhere.

Anyone recall where that might be? North Island, of course.

Oh yeah, and how are you supposed to know the coordinates on the map screen? When you move the map, the coordinates change, but it doesn't tell you where those coordinates are pointing to. There's no crosshair or any indicator to go by, are you just supposed to guess that it's the center of the map somewhere?

[mandru]

D_B, from your description I'm thinking that the place you are referring to is near the Old Mines outpost North Island.  It should show on the map as an irregular lake S.E. of that outpost.  You can see the scaffolding on the lake if you zoom the map in far enough.  The easiest way to get there is to use the cave entrance that is in the back corner of the Old Mines outpost and follow it through to the scaffolding and the Jet Ski.

There is another way in but the outpost is the easiest way to describe how to get there.  By the way that Jet Ski is part of a emergency supply delivery mission so it will also give away it's location on your map with that mission start marker.  :-X

[Art Blade]

agree, got to be what mandru described.

About the coordinates, indeed. Easiest way to get a somewhat precise location is if you first centre the map (on your position) and put your index finger right on top of the Jason symbol and keep it on the screen, then move the map around until you are literally pointing at the coordinates you seek. Set your map marker, done. May sound and look silly, but hey, we didn't program that s#!t  :-()

[fragger]

Dunno why they couldn't have made it so that the coords are continually updated as you move the pointer around. I've seen things like that in other games.

[Art Blade]

well, they haven't  :-() And if they had, they wouldn't know how to do it  >:D

[Dweller_Benthos]

Thanks guys. I haven't done a lot of the supply drop missions yet, so I'm sure I'll stumble upon that one again. I have a large disconnect in how the island feels as every time I'd save before a crash, it would save to a new tower or safe house. So, I'd respawn at a new location and not have traveled the area between where I crashed and where I was now, so I'd have no idea how the two locations related.

OK, so the map coordinates are for the center of the map? With no indicator whatsoever what the center of the map is? Nice. My problem is most times when I open the map, for some reason my cursor jumps to the edge of the screen and the map starts auto-scrolling that way, so I lose where the center is. I'll just have to fiddle with it. When I used to do portal placing in Minecraft, I had a map utility that would do the same thing. I resorted to placing a piece of clear cellophane tape ("Scotch" Tape) on the screen with a pre-measured center point marked with a sharpie to align portals correctly. Fun times.