Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

That's the mission where you have to Fulton a truck carrying an unknown payload before it reaches the other side of the map, right? It's scripted to move at a certain time, but triggering an alert in certain places may speed it up.

By the way, if you're up for making that mission into a speedrun... try heading to the southern part of the airport, you'll find the convoy there if you're fast enough. Be careful when you approach the truck in question though, you're gonna trigger something nasty...

edited 13th Jan '17 12:08:12 AM by SgtRicko

Yeah, that's the part messing me up. When I try to kill the Skulls, since my only damaging weapon is my grenade launcher, the truck constantly gets wrecked. Quiet only had her tranq rifle on her, and the tanks didn't seem to last long enough/move fast enough to target them.

I might just try the 'speed run' strat and then maybe replay the mission later when I actually have decent gear.

EDIT: Well damn.I almost feel like I broke the game doing that, used D-horse for a quick escape too (thought I'd have use for it once I unlocked Quiet/DD to be honest). I'm assuming I can't just be a chicken and run away from the Skulls every time they appear, can I?

edited 13th Jan '17 1:56:17 AM by absolclaw

They're not THAT hard to kill. Heck, the only time I ran away from them was during the 1st mission (since Miller will be targeted by them and die if you try to fight) and the Extreme difficulty version of the Skull Snipers from Code Talker (I sneaked past them instead).

The trick is to fight them in places where there's lots of heavy weapons and solid cover, to keep sprinting and relocating, and to avoid hiding - they're too good at finding you make a stealthy hit-and-run strategy worthwhile. Your typical assault rifles and sniper rifles work just fine, too. The best stationary emplacement to use against the Skulls would be the Mortar, especially if you're fighting them at the airport. Check the airport terminal's rooftop, I recall at least two mortars being up there, which will give you both cover and a clear view of where to shell the suckers. Failing that, you've got the heavy AA turret, but they'll destroy it super-quick with their rock attacks so make your shots count. I'm not sure if it still works against the Armor Skulls but the C4 packs used to be great at doing serious damage against them, provided you were good at timing and positioning. Overall, use weapons with high armor-piercing values; it'll help to break the 'rock armor' they keep on regenerating more quickly.

Oh, and don't bother with the vehicles, they're far too cumbersome to effectively combat the Skulls. Plus they cheat by constantly popping out of nowhere to stab the top of your vehicle until it's destroyed, and you can't do much to counter that.

edited 13th Jan '17 7:31:51 AM by SgtRicko

D-walker with the gatling gun makes short work of the Skulls. I also killed three of them during the Miller rescue with landmines, but they will destroy Miller in seconds if you leave him unprotected and aggro them.

So, watching the end credits, and assuming no MGSIV shenanigans...

Best MGS gameplay ever, worst story ever. Like, sadly, even worse than MGS 2, which was Mind Screw bullshit but at least featured a story from beginning to end. Too much of this game felt like Big Boss returned from medical leave and just went back to work, just does happen to be professional soldiering. Occasionally Skullface showed up, some guy who had some allies who were really mad at Big Boss for reasons.

Late Africa, when the whole language plague was finally introduced was when the game became damn interesting. But all it amounts to is Skullface is really mad at the English language, because. So he'll kill it for REVENGE, which is a major theme of the game, not that Big Boss seems all that interested in it.

...

Uh...is there actually more to the game, like...an entire second fucking act? Just started "Chapter 2: Race"...

I am become confused.

edited 17th Jan '17 7:17:05 AM by Rotpar

Yeah there's a second act.

It's not very structured. Like, at all. There's like. Five or six actually new missions, and a bunch of repeats.

All I gotta say is, if you like Quiet as a Buddy, put the Butterfly decal on your Motherbase emblem ASAP.

I didn't know she was a buddy in the first place. I killed her because she's nothing but a big ball of controversy, I've been wondering what all the hubbub was about when she had no backstory or cutscenes or anything beyond the mission.

I'm also really annoyed with pacifist runs in games and did not like the prospect of having to tranq pistol a sniper in a sniper duel...again, stupid The End.

....She's got a huge arc and a bunch of cutscenes and stuff. Hers is the closest thing you'll get to completed story in the game. She's also the most overpowered companion.

Like, you're missing out on a solid third of the game's story and cutscenes.

edited 17th Jan '17 2:33:19 PM by LeGarcon

...I like you.

edited 17th Jan '17 8:07:45 PM by Soble

Well, that seems to be the general consensus online - Skullface was under-used, and the plot leaves way too many threads dangling. You'd have to search the MGS Reddit page if you wanted some more nuanced explanations of the game's plot oddities.

Oh, and just in case if you're planning on being a completionist, you'll have to recruit Quiet at some point or another. Mission 45 won't unlock until you've got her loyalty at 100% and watched a couple of cutscenes involving her.

Well, did I miss anything of value? Quiet waving her ass at the camera isn't a cutscene I need to see.

Yeah, lots actually. Her story ties into some of the ongoing stuff with the parasites and her final mission is one of the hardest and most fun in the game.

Why recommend the butterfly decal?

you can get her back easily without it and still play the final mission

Also you could have used any lethal means to beat her in the mission and still recruit her. You just couldn't have executed her. I just blasted her with a tank.

edited 18th Jan '17 5:58:29 AM by Ukokira

Dropping shit on her head is still kind of the best.

You're crouching on a cliffside overlooking an old ruin in the middle of a desert, and then a crate of ramen noodles/bullets falls out of nowhere from thousands of feet and knocks you unconscious.

Completely non-lethal.

I...

...does that work?

Yes.

I'm dropping a tank on Quiet.

Seems like a waste of GMP, but whatever floats your boat.

Also you have to do it twice, IIRC.

edited 18th Jan '17 10:36:44 AM by TheAirman

Let me fix that:

There. Now it's fixed.

It was fun the first few times, then dying to those one-hit-kill tanks became infuriating.

-

@Dropping stuff on Quiet:

If I remember correctly, it only works on the first mission, the second has to be done legit.

edited 18th Jan '17 11:10:14 AM by RunoEddie

Because Diamond Dogs cares about cost efficiency.

Eh, I'm not lie to you Rotpar, you might as well do Quiet's stuff because it is slightly better than the rest of the story.

...It's not by much though.

You can't drop a tank on Quiet, because vehicles have much tighter restrictions on where they can be dropped than supply crates.

That said, using a tank is a good idea for the hard mode version of the fight.