Barge mission: another variant

[PZ]

Just went to Bowa-Seko and did the barge mission with this new twist:

I started as usual by mounting the bow GL and blowing up the mercs on the right and left sides as you head toward Port Selao.  Then I GL'd the RPG merc on the island directly in front and was preparing to blanket grenade the island where the mortar merc resides.  However, instead of doing that, I jumped off the boat and swam toward his island where I quickly dispatched him with my MP5.  Gunboats descended on my position and much to my surprise, they could not see me!  three .50 gunboats were beached right in front of me and no one fired a shot. so I killed them all and restarted the mission to try it again.

The second time through, I left Frank on the bridge and headed toward the bow and jumped off the boat, then swam to the mercs on the left.  They saw me and started firing - killed them and then the mercs on the right.  The RPG guy fired at me, but I used the Carl-G and got him.  Still no mortar rounds, but I could hear a Mac-10 in the distance - the mortar merc!  He was using his side arm instead of the mortar!  I swam toward him and killed him.  The gunboats descended on me, but this time they could see me, so I had a fight on my hands, but managed to survive.  The interesting thing is that if you kill the driver and the gun man, the boats kept re-spawning - must have don at least 8 boats before I figured that one out.

Then I swam to Port Selao and headed to the Clinic but the Doctor was not there, so I headed back to the barge (still in the middle of the lake) and the gunboats and mortar merc had re-spawned.  This time the mortar merc started shelling me as I was at the Port Selao bus stop and ruined my Uni (I guess he taught me a lesson) so I had to fight them all again to get back onto the barge to complete the mission.

[Art Blade]

strange stuff  ;D Cool idea to abandon the barge, I'd never have thought of that  :)

[tehsam016]

I thought of taking one of the mercs boats after I shot em off last play through, but decided just to play it safe and stay on the barge since I was(and am) on hardcore mode.

[spaceboy]

Great story PZ.  A good way to test the limits of the structure of the missions to see what happens. 

On a similar note, my son found a trick on inFamous where he got into a certain area before accepting the mission that takes you there, dismantled the two turrets, went back to accept the mission and when he came through they were still disabled which made for a much easier time through that section.  In fact, one of the Reapers was just standing in front of the dismantled gun.  I think he'll grow into a good tester for OWG!

[PZ]

lol, spacekid needs to be online with us old guys - he sounds like a perfect OWG experimenter!  :-X

[JRD]

Indeed a nice twist... swim ahead and clear the way... too bad they respawn or you'd be able to do it smoothly this time through  :-X

Reminds me of the nitrous oxide mission.

++++SPOILER ALERT+++++

You can park the truck in front of the garage (but not inside yet). Kill everybody in Sefapane, no mercs will respwn. Get back to the truck and park it inside the garage. As it blows up, nobody will show up for the final shoot out. Mission accomplished. You and your buddy safe and sound  ;D

[PZ]

Great variant on the nitrous mission, JRD - Sefapane is one of my favorite places to play with mercs because they do not re-spawn.  I enjoy going to the roof of the faction headquarters to start fires with the flare gun, listening to the choruses of "ahhhh...hhaaaasss"

[Art Blade]

JRD, I think I missed one or two... I tried to kill everyone like you did, drove the truck in and blew it, and to my surprise a whole lot of mercs were coming at us from the town centre (the house with the AT parked in the restricted area).

And a big grin at spacekid, that's the way we like it  :-X

Like PZ I love Sefapane... usual loadout dart, mp5, 6p9, go to the rooftop of that very house with the AT parked behind it, and save the game. Ready for action. I did re-play from there like 4 hours straight once. So, so much fun to try burn down the area with molotovs and local flammables and explosives... and snipe a couple of mercs in between... great  ;D

[JRD]

When i did the nitrous oxide mission i killed everyone in Sefapane, but after blasting the truck, two more came over for some led chewing... but that's all. i thought I've missed them somehow as I didn't check every corner in town to be sure they were all dead.
Maybe when you trigger the truck script, the game prompts to spawn a pre determined number of mercs to add to the local garrison in Sefapane (funny, I only saw two)

[Art Blade]

JRD, I could't tell how many, because there were corpses all around from my preparations  ;D Maybe it were only two, but one shot my buddy and I had to take care of him, heard all the while shooting. Makes me grin, only two... have to give those credit, for make-believe  ;D

[PZ]

I did this one again this morning and had fun using the flare gun on the dry grass in Sefapane.  I waited until there were lots of the mercs collected under my location (the AI tends to send them as close as possible to you)  There were at least a half a dozen when I tossed a grenade among them - the bodies went everywhere.

[JRD]

Back to topic...  ;)
There is one mortar guy in the island right in front of Sehlakalase, which I always snipe, and another one I use to wipe by shelling the whole area till mortars stop falling. Where is he? You swam to his location and killed him... I don't see a star in D_B's maps as he is there only in the barge mission  :(

[PZ]

hmmm.... the guy I'm accustomed to directly in front of the barge is an RPG guy rather than a mortar guy.  The mortar guy is on the beach on the island to the left.  If you stand on the bow of the barge facing left when he fires his tracer, you can see his general location.  If you swim/boat to his location, he is standing in a rocky area near the shore of the lake.

[JRD]

Right... RPG, of course... but my concern was that other guy.
Thanks PZ... soon I'll be going to Bowa again and will try your approach  :-X
I never have time to search for him as by the time the barge moves out of the channel in Sehlakalase, gunboats gets my attention

[PZ]

One caution though - save your game before hand.  For the first time ever, I've encountered what appears to be a game-stopping bug - I have malaria, but no malaria mission ever appears.  In fact, I've lost consciousness due to the disease and have awakened in the Doctor's clinic, but he just stands there and does/says nothing.  I left (still no malaria mission) and am continuing to play the game.  It appears that I have somehow been healed, but I still have no pills, nor malaria mission.  :'(

We'll see how it goes - at least I have a save from before the barge mission.  :-X

[Art Blade]

I think I had that malaria problem during my very first hours of gameplay. That's why I went into it so deeply and posted a lot about malaria. I didn't know it could have been a bug then. However, I could solve it somehow (maybe an early savegame too). Good luck with that on the barge mission, then :)

[Art Blade]

On topic:

Yet another and very simple variant. Just finished the barge mission that way:

Get a Dragunov. That's all. When the barge starts to move, immediately run up to the bridge, and jump onto the sandbags, starboard side, from there jump onto the roof and crouch in the centre of the rooftop.

Not only do you have excellent sight from there, mercs have a hard time trying to hit you.

I shot the few mercs to the left, then to the right, next the carl-G (yes, no RPG) to the right (funny to watch his rocket go crazy), then the mortar guy to the left. Then I took out the boats, the gunners only, not the drivers.

I survived unharmed and the barge didn't get its engine shot once.

I did it in full daylight, but it was a walk in the park :)

[fragger]

Thanks for the tip mate, another cool thing to try :-X

[JRD]

Yes... shoot the gunner of the gunboats and not the drivers so no other boats show up... why didn't I think of that before?  :D

[Art Blade]

Hehe, yes... PZ figured that out, only he didn't say so explicitely:

The interesting thing is that if you kill the driver and the gun man, the boats kept re-spawning - must have don at least 8 boats before I figured that one out

Besides, I always thought it was funny to annoy the driver and watch him getting more and more angry but he can't do anything about it, once his gunner is gone  ;D

[JRD]

Hehehe... this one could easily fit in the "Remember the first time when..." post but I'll post it here instead:
I remember the first time I went through the barge mission. it was extremely difficult... pure adrenalyn as mortars went down on me, surrounded by gunboats, barge out of propulsion, mercs on the margins shooting at me, ammo pile cooking up, running out of syrettes...

Now everything seems soooooooo much easy  ;)

[PZ]

Great variant, Art  :-X

The barge mission is one of my favorites (I formerly feared it  ;D) and accomplishing that using different techniques is a blast, so this one is definitely on my plate for the next play through FC2.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I remember one time actually hopping off the barge and taking a swamp boat, but I didn't get too far.

[fragger]

I tried Art's variant on the barge mission (climbing onto the roof with a Dragunov) - brilliant! I was able to take down all the guys on the rocks early, as well as the rocket guy and the mortar guy, before they even knew what was happening, then could pick off the swamp boat crews with ease. And not once did I have to fix the barge's engine. Plus, it's a great view from up there!

Great tip Art, cheers :-X :-X

[Art Blade]

 ;D ;D Ta, fragger  :)