Yup, did exactly the same with the chopper. One of my great pleasures is to climb to one of the highest points on the map and see how long I can wingsuit for (and how many bridges I can fly under).

Wingsuiting is real fun, but those motherfucking tree tops. Also, WTF does a pack of wolves or some enemy combatants need to be lolling about just where my parachute lands?

I just cued up for an assault on Yummy's fortress, sub-optimal loadout be damned.

Discovered a Yummy fortress bug (according to steam forums): after killing every enemy + dog and triggering an alarm, no choppers pulled up and the capture didn't take (a couple of workarounds suggested). I spent 15 minutes looting the fortress, and got on a gyrocopter for a spin around the perimeter.

Could you escape after that?

All the defenders were dead (AFAICT), and I used the minichopper to fly out. Apparently the 'trick'* is to kill everyone with sniper rifle | kill dog first | trigger alarm & take out choppers first. Since I saved with a looted RPG swapped for the sniper rifle, I'll try the chopper takedown method.


*I've since read that there is no 'trick', it really is a bug (for the unweakened fort), and your only recourse is to keep doing it over until it takes (or you takes it).

I've been playing a bit more over the last few days and am catching you up. I've just done the prison and taken the mad woman in charge of the arena's fortress.

I saw the demons before the prison by doing the Shangri La levels (kicked off by the Yogi and Reggie missions), they're not as disturbing there as they are in the prison, though they use the same graphics. Must be something to do with the way they fade in and out in the prison.

I've got my homestead kitted out with some upgrades meaning I've got a little herb garden to restock the syringes and free body armour among other things.

Free body armour? I hate hunting for herbs to make syringes that last ~30-seconds.

Yeah, it comes as part of an upgrade to the Ghale homestead, you speak to the caretaker chap outside the front door and he can magically build around 9 or 10 bolt ons of which about 4 are useful. You can get free body armour, the herb garden, free molotovs and a shrine that for some reason generates small piles of cash. Oh and a trading cabinet. Some of the less worthwhile ones give you an interior and exterior makeover and a lighting upgrade.

Wow. How'd you learn about this?

It was the aftermath of one of the Reggie and Yogi missions, you kick them out of your house and they pitch up a tent in the garden. You then get access to the caretaker (just a golden path chap who sits outside).

Oh, the add-ons do cost a fair bit.

Oh, I didn't complete the Y+R missions or the Shangri La (sp?) either. I'm actually short on cash because I spent it all on weapons that I rarely/never even use after trying them once.  :-(

Same deal with royal palace: wiped out minions including 4 heavies (with the aid of handily-emplaced mortar and HMG, since I didn't bring an RPG). One alarm set off, no choppers, no capture, so I looted it and left. I did get Yummy's fort on 2nd try though, chopper came after I sniped/bolted the locals, and I got it with on-premises RPG. Cool thing about the palace is there's no way in except to fly over in a buzzer (improbably not drawing anyone's attention) and crash-land on the cliff behind it.

Got Min's fortress (not the "Royal Palace") on the 4th try: 2nd try the buzzer was detected, alarm tripped and I was killed by a sniper shortly after landing on the cliffs behind. 3rd ditto, killed by helicopter which arrived after a long while during which I sniped/bolted a ~half-dozen minions. 4th and success (buzzer not detected), I brought a rocket launcher, but only used it on two heavies (after killing the other two with the on-premises mortar), setting off no alarms so no choppers. So now I got my first(and only) fast-travel point in Northern Kryat, at the far end.

There's a great easter egg in the Ghale homestead when you finish Yogi & Reggie.

Nitro .700. Great fun, absolutely the wrong gun to bring to an outpost capture, unless you want to re-enact the same, spectacularly bloody battle over and over, and I do.

I'm gonna have a change around in my load out after sticking to the same ol' each time.

I unlocked that gun some time back and just haven't added into my collection as yet.

I'm trying to get all the Shangri-La missions out of the way. Being armed with just a bow and knife after all the weapons available in the main game makes things very tricky. I've done 3 out of (I'm guessing) 5 and although they look great, they're not fun to play. I much prefer the R + Y missions where they get you high and you're tearing around the landscape with heightened senses accompanied by some of the best in game music I've heard in a while.

I've found the best way to beat those Shangri-La levels is

to take it really slowly. Only take out the enemies as they appear, you can soon be overwhelmed. There are some large mani wheels that need to be spun to progress in the levels and the enemies that haven't been dispatched will gang up on you, still attacking while the animation is playing for spinning the wheel. You don't have any time to turn, target and shoot before they've beaten you to a pulp. There are some big firebreathing heavies who can be taken out by siccing the tiger companion on them, then back stabbing while they're temporarily distracted by fighting off an angry tiger, however you can take a lot of fire damage from residual flames they spread, so it's best to take them out with arrows from a distance. Arrows seem plentiful which is good. I don't like the whirlpool things that launch you into the air, to get to distant platforms. The flight mechanic is like the wingsuit, but doesn't seem as responsive, and the first thing you hit completely wipes you out.

If you're looking for some snow leopards to finish off your xlarge Gucci grenade handbag &ct, they's aplenty (annoyingly so) around Min's fort.

Haven't got that far yet, I'm taking down the radio towers in the north before I move onto the missions proper. That said, I've done the first Amita task in the north, it just involved meeting up with some Golden Path members and hiding in a basement while the elite guard poked their noses in. If you're siding with Sabal you might have a different set of missions, so potential spoiler ahead:
While hiding in the basement you gingerly lift a trap door to see Pagan Min interrogating some locals, he storms off after having them killed and you give chase out in the open. Flying a buzzer you track him down and I took him out with grenades while flying around. You then get a call from the real Min complaining that you've destroyed one of his impeccably groomed body doubles.

I tried out the nitro gun and it's a lot of fun and packs a punch even from a distance. :J

Ah, I tried that mission, but I didn't bring the one-armed grenade launcher so I couldn't complete (actually I couldn't even keep up). I checked a walk-through after which didn't disclose it was Min's double so I was scratching my head, if Min's such a big deal why does the story off him halfway through? Does it do flashbacks? (no worries about the spoiler, I don't really care about that sort of thing). So, big reason why I decided not to complete the mission and move on to the fortress and outpost caps etc. Well, also it was loads of fun to go deep into 'uncharted' territory in the buzzer, which really only took a few minutes from S. Kryat. And I wanted to do the forts full strength (not 'weakened' after the boss dies).

So anyway after capturing the outpost nearest to Min's fort I tried out an assassination mission, the kind where you MUST use specified weapon because the survivor's a bit neurotic about that, and I kept capping dudes with wrong weapon before checking their status, it confirmed a big difference between FC3 and 4: in 4, Min's bots don't venture beyond the defined bounds of the mission (visible on the map) whereas in 3, they would chase you all over hell's half-acre. In this one, they'd walk to the end of the driveway, I was crouching behind a rock, and I'd shoot 'em in the back when they gave up and walked back. Then the one's I hadn't shot come right back, rinse, repeat.

I think the homebody inclinations of the guards are unique to the assassination missions.  In standard base-taking missions they seem to follow you to hell and back if they get a proper sniff at you.