What is everyone’s preferred general weapon loadout before getting the high end tech stuff ( i.e. Laser Weaponary, Bionic weapon, etc…)
Summarised I enjoy using:
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Melee – Loaded Stick ( bludgeon weapon and works nicely with specific weapon martial art) – Kukri ( Cut weapon, nice with a good martial art and decent accuary for “knife” weapon)
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Depending on ammo availability I take 1 secondary and 1 primary
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Secondaries – Glock 19 ( modability, gun and ammo availability) – FN Five-Seven ( good penetration) – Sig P226 (personal preference)
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Primaries – M4A1 (ammo and gun availability, good mod profile) – M14 EBR ( Decent all-purpose Marksman Rifle)
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Throwables – Throwing Knives : 3 to 12 ( depends on loadout, silent, reusable and can cause bleeding) – 2 Molotovs ( Emergency crowd control, building demo) – 1 Grenade ( homemade or military grade, emergency use)
I do use other weapons and switch it up when situation demands, but for general purpose exploration and loot runs I can rely on the above loadout to handle most situations to my personal preferences.
It isn’t the creatures in the river that kill you necessarily though they certainly will. It is the geography of rivers that kills you since each run you spawn somewhere different and have another random place you have to get to in order to take the portal home. Finding lots of road maps and expanding the road network of your map can definitely get you lucky break if you happen to have to cross those areas to reach the portal but otherwise you are charging across unknown landscapes.
When there are no easy crossings in sight rivers are wonderful questions. Do you commit to crossing now, dump a bunch of gear so you can stay afloat and potentially destroy useful gear in the process or worse get murdered in the water? Do you keep wandering along the riverbank trying to find an easier crossing while the clock ticks down? Do you try to brute force your way through the town and cross the bridge through the inevitable horde?
Yeah I don’t think I will really ever get to the labs and do a full run, best case scenario it would leave me with a bunch of cleanup and I definitely would end up just getting totally stuck in the mud of all the little decisions about what gear to hoard and how to methodically move it out. I’m not hating on that stuff as gameplay it’s just I literally can’t concentrate on it for very long before I lose my desire to play and then my hyperfocus runs off like an annoying little child to something else hahaha
Aah, okay, died to rivers so long ago I forgot. I ended up believing swimming naked is the best although I guess there is the bouyancy problem if you need to return quickly but then you need to dump stuff, but read that your character never returns to the same spot, so risk/reward of deciding whether dropping loot to get to portal quickly or taking a chance there might be an alternative path that risks losing everything anyway when you get overwhelmed because your character is still on a timer.
So ultimately there is always that constant calculation deciding if you really need this loot or if what you have is worth the risk that you can take everything you have but can lose it all on a bad decision.
Most labs are samely, but there are a few labs that are -at least I find- interesting by the enviromental story-telling and it is probably the most combat dense areas in regards to the danger to reward.
I at least have to be vigilant I don’t walk into a “portal room”, a zombie army ( which are usually higher tiered) of what ever weird stuff the lab was used for
Yeah, there is just too much stuff in them, I have to really up my loot hoarding tendencies and have to force myself to take note of interesting stuff, only take low weight items or items I would need for crafting. Still doesn’t stop me from dragging 1000 unit loot piles outside to the entrance of a lab for later loot runs.
Essentially sky islands seems to me the equavalent to me running labs, but you are restricted a lot more to one loot run and have to consider taking stuff and resolving yourself to returning with even less if condition calls for it because if the decision is not made you can end up returning with nothing and not being able to return to collect it as that location will not be visited again.