Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

Just bring the HTI with you, it will one shot helicopter and you never have to worry about them agian.

Just be sure to take the supressor off, it only does that with it off.

I usually leave the choppers alone unless they spot me. Its over more quickly and I can get on with what I am doing. Believe or not, not going in guns blazing often works out the best for you.

My buddy and I developed a pretty solid strategy when we wanted to take down a base. First was recon. Using rebels, drones, and binocs to get everything and watch patrols we would find, generators, jammers, alarms, mortars, enemy sniper/overwatch guards, and vulnerable perimeter guards. My buddy usually did all of our sniping while I did the mid to close range work.

We typically started off picking off perimeter and tower sentries. If we're facing jammers we often looked for a generator if we could. We would sit at a distance and call in a rebel distraction. While the enemy wasn't looking we would hit the jammer or generator and knock it out. Often Jammer first followed by the generator. Any heavy group of enemies or vehicle concentrations got a mortar attack and as soon as we committed the mortar attack we would also call up rebel troops to follow us in and begin the assault. We would hit the enemies in the hardpoints like anyone bunkered up or behind cover and lead the rebels in dropping any heavy hitters from the bad guys or knocking out vehicles. Any onsite rebel troops were freed ideally as we launched the assault.

Overall it worked pretty well and we could even knock out the harder military bases with that method. We would use everything from munition drones, grenade launcher, mortar strikes, and sniping to knock out key assets. I got pretty good with the grenade launcher that I could peg a static position a few hundred meters out. Like a mini artillery barrage with my buddy using a drone to spot.

My buddy was also sometimes a dumb ass and he couldn't fucking resist shooting at choppers half of the time. He was also obsessed with shooting down an airplane. We actually chased down an airplane in a fast helicopter and shot it down to see if we could. He also managed to snipe the planes a few times from impressive distances.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Apr 17th 2021 at 7:45:59 AM

Thanks for the advice, I'm very impressed.

As for the HTI: the AK actually does enough damage and has less bullet drop that I can hit and down helicopters with it with no problems. But it's fun to one-shot all helicopters.

Tip: all the anti-material rifles in the game, including the ones you can get in the store, will one-shot helicopters anyway. The KVSK and Z93 AMR smashed UNIDAD gunships just fine.

Also, started a new playthrough of Narco Road. I decided to make my Ghost look like Jason Brody to fit the DLC's out-of-place tone.

.... There is a KSVK now?

In crates, yes. But yeah, it's in the game. You'll have to succumb to accursed Ubisoft microtransactions to get it, but it's pretty fun.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 17th 2021 at 3:33:37 AM

Couple funny things:

1. Eddie's animation has him randomly groping the Ghost's chest (male and female) while they're driving.

2. When extracting him on foot and running through the beach mansion, I had to go back to get him because he stopped at one point. The animation had him hanging about near a girl who had Mia's character model, so I guess Eddie was distracted by the chicks again. Typical.

So I just had perhaps the most satisfying time in Media Luna so far:

1. I ran around blowing up all the SAM launchers outside MOB Condor before going in and doing the same to the SAM launchers at the airfield. I wiped out the troops there without raising the alarm before flying off with the Comms plane.

2. I landed the plane safely and without crashing, a rare feat as I find bush planes far more difficult than helicopters, largely due to flying low. I wanted to grab the Kingslayer file and 6P41 LMG back in MOB Condor, so I grabbed the airfield's helicopter and flew back, still flying low.

3. Ended up being tracked by a SAM and made an emergency landing on a nearby hill before the missile hit, on the northeast of Junin village. Proceeded to use sync shot and my own suppressed FR-F2 to wipe out the snipers. I blew a hole in the fence with a grenade. Troops came to investigate. They all bunched up together, so I wiped them all out with a precision mortar strike after marking them with the drone.

4. Snuck in, took out more enemies quietly, tried making my way towards the location of the file and weapons case. Got spotted. Ran to the sniper tower near the parking lot where all the big trucks are. A firefight began. UNIDAD was on full alert. Sent in trucks, sent in helicopters, the garrison started moving towards the tower. Almost died a couple times.

5. I called in rebels, and they started pushing back UNIDAD. They cleared enough trucks and troops that I was able to move towards the location and get the file. I had to hole up in the armory nearby, got shot again, was basically on my last life. I was more careful and ensured to take cover and return fire whenever I could. Eventually I got the file, and the gun. I vowed not to die as I'd already tried and failed to get them several times before.

6. UNIDAD was still coming. I called in more rebels and kept fighting, downing helicopters with AK fire, and shooting every UNIDAD soldier that popped up. Killed enough enemies to make my way towards the tents where supplies I could mark were. Then UNIDAD called off the hunt. Amazingly, I'd managed to wipe out practically the entire garrison and most reinforcements.

7. Only trouble was one remaining sniper who I quickly eliminated, but another vehicle patrol arrived. By then we were far away from the patrol. I wiped the three-man team out with sync shot and mortars.

8. Just to make sure, I blew up the generators, drone jammers, and SAM launchers in MOB Condor. I eliminated the last patrolling soldier and sniper. A SB convoy passed. I tried and failed to snipe down the helicopter, but I annoyed it enough for it to return and hover around. Shot it down, and then got rid of the machine gunner in a SB vehicle that had driven into a civilian car and was having a mini tug-of-war on the road. This happens a lot.

9. The sicarios noticed, drove to the side of the road, and I called in a mortar strike. I realized what I'd done and was terrified I'd hit civilians, but fortunately the mortars just hit the side of the hill. The car exploded and killed three of the sicarios, and the last one died via sync shot. So I'd just gunned my way through a battalions' worth of UNIDAD and now I'd hit SB good.

10. I withdrew by summoning my favorite armored pickup. I bypassed the guarded archaeology site, then headed to a food helicopter I'd tried and failed to steal multiple times.

11. I eliminated the enemies there with sync shots around the helipad, then suppressed sniper fire without raising a single alarm, to my surprise. I then used sync shot to clear the archaeology site, and one last one for the sniper near the roadside, and mortars to kill the sniper on the hilltop. Back to the UNIDAD base, shot down a UNIDAD helicopter just as it was hovering over. I marked supplies, blew up a few vehicles for the lulz, destroyed the generator, then stole the helicopter.

12. To avoid getting shot down, I carefully plotted my route to fly around Media Luna itself, avoiding the SAMs on other maps by using beacons to plot myself a flight route. I flew through San Mateo, Remanzo, and Koani. I then checked, prepared to fly low, and headed to the Media Luna rebel airstrip.

13. Miraculously, I did it. I flew so low I was basically driving the helicopter on the ground, and I landed it to get my reward.

14. No civilian casualties. No restarts. No getting shot down. I'd torn a bloody swathe through UNIDAD, gotten all my objectives done, and lived. And it was still nighttime.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on May 19th 2021 at 1:11:12 AM

I am now grinding Tiers and on Extreme Mode, and trying very hard to stay out of sight in general.

I have died many times, so it's best I bypass enemies entirely and stick to carefully raiding convoys.

Breakpoint has gotten another big update. Your squad AI team now levels up among other bits and bobs.

Not sure if anyone noticed, but the rebels in Wildlands occasionally do a cool thing where if you summon them, they'll grab the nearest vehicle and drive around tearing up the place. I've also seen them grab the nearest technical and use it to attack incoming sicarios.

Something that struck me as real bizarre on Operation Watchman was the intro banter. Is Nomad supposed to know all that stuff and tell his team about it, even if it's written purely as 'summarizing fan feelings?'

You got a link to that particular conversation? It's been awhile and I barely even remember that it was the series of missions connected to Sam Fisher, let alone their dialogue.

Here.

Also I finally extracted Madre Coca alive. Unfortunately she only says a single line, which is 'You destroyed everything!' I drove her around and she didn't say another word.

So I did what any reasonable man would do, get into a fight with UNIDAD and use Madre Coca as my meat shield.

Whoa... never saw that conversation before, and it was a deep one to boot. It's a valid point too; the type of mindset Sam Fisher has versus... well, pretty much anybody on planet earth, at this point - has got to be something dark and alien.

Can't even think of any real-life comparisons to Fisher; most decorated war heroes tend to quit after their respective major conflicts and often have lifelong PTSD: Audie Murhpy and Simo Haya come to mind. But guys who go back for more, despite all the prior abuse, and still perform at peak shape? Unheard of.

Edited by SgtRicko on Oct 6th 2021 at 11:54:28 PM

Well, then it seems like it was just 'Nomad speaking for all the fans.' It is a nicely written piece of dialogue, I was just wondering how Nomad knows so much about Fourth Echelon. Or perhaps I should not think too hard about it.

Then again, the prequel book details that Nomad was in Delta Force and has been working in the Ghosts for quite a while now, so at some point he likely knows what else is going on. Plus Bowman and Sam having worked together in the past.

There's plenty of military figures who served in multiple wars until they were simply too old or get killed or wounded in action. Admittedly, you tend to see this more in fighter pilots than infantrymen, who are arguably at more risk of injury and death on the ground than in the air.

Harold Fishcer enlisted in 1943, obtained ace status in Korea, and served in various roles during the Vietnam War and only retired in 1978 after it had ended.

Lauri Torni served in the Finnish and German forces during World War II before seeking asylum in the US. He then was deployed to Vietnam where he was killed and became the only former WW 2 German soldier to be buried in Arlington.

Amir Nachumi served in the Six Day War as a tank crewman, then in the Yom Kippur War as a fighter pilot, and then various Israeli air operations until finally retiring in 1996.

Busy reading the prequel novel Dark Waters that details Kingslayer Team's first op together. Turns out there's an actual reason to why we can't just extract El Pulpo ourselves.

In the third act of the book, Nomad gets captured by the rogue Venezuelans and shown off to their business partners; Caton Oil, a Midwestern oil giant, and Santa Blanca. The representatives are an Oklahoman oil man named Briggs and El Pulpo. Caton Oil is part of Big Oil and thus independent of Washington's oversight. Santa Blanca wants a new smuggling route through the remote Amazon.

They both chew the Big Bad Venezuelan secret police colonel out for being stupid to take a SOF guy hostage. Briggs wants Nomad kept as a bargaining chip, but Pulpo wants Nomad shot and his body dumped in the river before his GPS implant can call in an airstrike.

Naturally with Ubisoft, none of this is mentioned in-game, but the book had Pulpo get a very good look at Nomad's face, eyes, and beard (Nomad was gagged.) Chances are that Pulpo would recognize him and realize he was being played.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Oct 25th 2021 at 2:02:24 AM

Yes, the RL military actually puts out Special Forces (and other soldiers) well before they're at a point of uselessness. So much so that a lot of the Private Military Contractors are made of people with the training and skills but not at 100% the best they'll ever be.

The PMC people also illustrate some people are lifelong career soldiers and happy to do it until they drop dead.

But even in-universe the whole point is Fisher is recruited as a guy who has already been pushed out but the Government Agency of Fiction is willing to use as a deniable asset. Because, well, he is officially retired.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Oct 25th 2021 at 7:16:01 AM

IIRC, Fisher tried to become an operator for The Activity but didn't succeed, right?

Something else I've been wondering about recently is if El Sueno could've actually bothered to pretend to be head of a large Mexican corporation with multiple branches that happens to have its own PMC (sicarios) rather than being so upfront and public about being a cartel.

Then again, most cartels disguise themselves as legitimate businesses solely by money laundering and philantrophy.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Oct 26th 2021 at 12:18:04 PM

I mean, El Sueno did have a bunch of legitimate businesses. It's just he was so wildly successful in conquering Bolivia that it wasn't an issue. I mean, the dude was exporting his own heretical form of Catholicism.

Good God, this is a late post! But I'll put it here anyway. Operation Motherland is a go, and Bowman is officially back! Reception is very good so far.

First-Person Mod came out for Wildlands.

It's a hit!

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Jan 31st 2022 at 2:22:16 AM

Very nice. I plowed my way through Operation Motherland with glee.

I had some good fun doing it. It was actually nice to have Bowman back.

Ubisoft has officially ended development for Breakpoint. The servers for both Wildlands and Breakpoint will still be running, though.

It was only a matter of time, really - the biggest clue being the announcement of that Ghost Recon Battle Royal wannabe... which I'm not even gonna bother touching.