Well, I did one of my cross-country night deep penetration patrols looking for the 4-5* hunting rifle in the ruins (1603 -3357) and found it crawling with Hunters! So I backed up a little and to make something of the night and to make a plan, I went looking for a safe house that showed on the HUD, but I couldn’t find in passing, just close by.
JARVHALAN!!
Under an overhang. Best Safe House ever!!! It overlooked a Beacon which I sniped from the entrance - nothing got near me. Then came a Harvester with its escort and then 6 Hunters. Place crawling with “Trade”, and not a round struck me. Took me forty minutes of action before I could even go and collect from the Harvester, but never hit me once. You can sit up there all day and knock them over for a past time. I started off protecting my flanks with mines, but they never found the way up, so I went round and picked them all up again. I like mines…
Mind you FNIX Harvester never dropped one single intersting thing. A bit of buckshot. Among 14 FNIX Dogs, six FNIX Hunters and an FNIX Harvester, not a round of 7.62. Not one. I was under constant artillery fire the entire time, clods of earth and rocks being blown into the air, dust in clouds and one Dual Purpose round out of the lot of them. And that’s with a Salvage unlocked. They must think I like crawling about old bases looking for ammo. They must think I like it.
Didn’t drop one single interesting thing between the lot of them. Not one round of the type I had used to kill them all, so I shall have to go shopping before I come back, 'cos this is ammo desert. Perhaps I have a bug.
The whole area is crawling with Trade, all of it FNIX, I can’t go down to the crossroads without attracting the next lot. But as i say, I shall have to go shopping before I go back - I’ve got nothing left ot kill them with except the SMG and shotgun slugs…!
Järvhålan is great. It’s right on the precipice overlooking a good bit of the open plains of the northern parts of the map where FNIX patrols are the thickest. Often a pack of Hunters will wander past, and they can’t seem to get up to the mouth of the cave, just standing awkwardly below.
It’s perfect and from there having cleared the crossroads, I can draw the Hunters out of the ruins and have somewhere to defend. I feel a “Come-on” coming on! Then I can go and get that rifle… :))
Mind you, is there a base underground, under it? I got into “combat” with something I couldn’t find, and get outside to have a fag and wait for the combat to break, but after half an hour of waiting I still hadn;t escaped so had to quit to break contact. The Dogs round the Harvester dropped barcodes, so I’m guessing there’s a base close enough for one of the defenders to have picked me up with no way to get to me…
The Alvaret plains from the windmills to Jervhålan and the two ruins placed in the middle are crawling with fnix mechs and don’t cross it solo without a lot of ammo and medkits. This plain can provide epic battles out in the open, hard as hell solo but so satisfying if you can clear it. Good loot in the upper ruins guarded by a bunch of runners many with “laserbombs”.
If you are looking for AR ammo fnix mechs dont provide much, prototype hunters often delivers a good amount of such.
I’m always solo and don’t do battles in the open. In this case, mission-wise, I am just out of the South Coast, but I prefer my own missions. So I went North to find Normyra, and found a safe house in the logging camp. So this time I went from that Safe House, to the ruins, through the woods and mountains, and got there without contact of any kind, finding two safe houses on the way. The second of which I shall use as a mech trap. I shall clear the area, and then draw the ruins defenders to me and destroy them on my terms!
It is a shame - I am running out of places to deep-patrol to. Once you have unlocked all the Safe Houses and bases in an area, it is much less fun for me. I love a long patrol, through the woods, skirting dangers I never knew about, hiding as Hunter and Dog patrols walk past, sniping the Spotters if they come too close, and generally sneaky-beakying around, making up my own missions, with whatever equipment I’ve got (all South Coast level!). I’m running out of unexplored map!
And this brings up one of the few big issues I have with GZ. Because there’s essentially nothing that’s randomized on a new play-through, and the only way to actually run through the story again is to completely nuke your progress across all characters, there’s essentially zero replay value outside of co-op right now. While I get that they want it to be a co-op game, it should have more replay value than just gallivanting around south-east Sweden with friends and killing robots.
You’re playing my tune! Maybe they’ll increase the map size…
I understand what they are doing - I love going back to certain places and taking on the machines, but for me it’s not about screaming at my friends while we run around a tank. For me that’s Doom, and I did that. I like the unknown - my mission last night was epic - a long way into unknown territory and find a base and operate from that to clear the area and achieve my objective. Having done so, I’ve achieved something solid and memorable. Eventually, I shall go back to official missions and after that I shall explore every single building and coastline on the whole map, and then we’ll see if there’s a new missionpack!
Do you have the co-ordinates for Jarvhalan, the only safe house I’ve found is the house just over the ridge from the ruins where the rifle is, but it’s not called Jarvhalan it’s called Lovnas.
It’s in a fold half-way up the cliffs facing the road and the crossroads. The crossroads has a beacon on it, but you can snipe it from the Safe House entrance…
Go looking - there are patrols in the woods behind, in the woods opposite, and a Tank in the field over the way, which vanishes when it reachs the end of its run and magically reappears at the start again…
Mines are a good idea - he never stopped when I engaged him, just carried on his merry way, but with a lot of accurate fire over his shoulder. He’s in the middle of an open field, mind…
Wow that must go off in quite the boom! How damage does it do to a FNIX Tank?
And btw as a side track, is it any difference with the red or white canister? The red contains gas and the white compressed air, but other than that, is it any notable difference in damage?
Quite good questions, but I do not know. Each time I use different number of canisters, red or white, sometimes mixed with the fuel cans dropped by runners and seekers, and they exist in three varieties. One would need to have a more methodic approach.
However, I must admit, I am always disappointed by the result, and finish the job with some clips of 7.62 followed by a long agony of a shotgun and/or 44.
