Newbie and I need help

[TheGrimReaper00]

Okay so I get the mechanics of the game and all but I think I am a little stuck (mission wise).

I am at the "main" mission where you need to climb a crane on the second map and get a black box at the top. But I am seriously struggling with all the enemies here.

The most notable ones are at the top. I now got a sniper riffle (one of 2 I could even buy) and still I cannot seem to kill them. Also when I do it seems to alert so many enemies, I literally shoot up all my ammo for my handgun, shotgun and sniper rifle.

Am I doing something wrong here? I love the game but I wanna progress now. I feel like I am just doing the other missions to get money just to be able to do more missions.

[Hyriol]

Howdy,

It sounds like this is actually a side mission ("Warren's Legacy?") which you can skip or drop without consequence. There's only one "main" mission involving a black box ("Top Priority: The Intrusion") but it doesn't involve a crane at all.

Second, sound and stealth are big part of the game, so you're encouraged to use suppressors when possible to avoid alerting too many enemies. If you go loud, make sure you have the ammo and fire power to deal with it. The game is designed around completing missions, not killing enemies. You're encouraged to avoid fighting when it isn't necessary for your objective. You *can* go on a killing spree, but you generally aren't rewarded for doing so outside of completing a mission and you may just be wasting a heap of ammo in the process.

Lastly, there's a whole slew of difficulty options available to you to make sure the game stays fun and isn't frustrating. If you think the enemy detection range is too high, turn it down a smidge. Rewards too low? Guns break too fast? Not enough bad guys? A lot of that stuff can be changed to your liking and might just prevent you from banging your head against a wall.

[Fardy McShiddpants]

When you alert enemies they will head to where they heard the sound and pursue you if they see you, so always have an area you can run to and take cover to prevent enemies surrounding you. This way, when they pursue you, they will funnel towards you and be much easier to take out.

For example in that construction building near the crane I will sometimes run to the truck outside the main gate on the road and shoot the enemies as they funnel through the gate.

A sniper rifle is only good if you can reliably hit shots at long distances because they are either bolt action or have very limited magazines meaning it's easy to get killed while you are reloading. The early shotguns have the same problem, only being able to hold two shots. Devastating at close range but the reload will get you killed if you miss or there are more enemies than you have shots.

The best distance to take out enemies is a medium distance, where they are too far away to hit you with every shot and you have some breathing room if you need to reload but they are also close enough for you to quickly dispatch them by getting a lot of hits. Assault rifles are best for this but at your stage in the game pistols are very good as well. Have a pistol that is anything except PM or the TT-33, I.E. either the OC-33, GSH-18, M9, G17, which are all great. The main reason for using one of these pistols is that they all have significantly more magazine capacity, so you won't get stuck reloading as often as with the PM. They all do better damage than the PM too I think.

If you have trouble hitting your target use a red dot and a laser sight. Makes it so much easier to hit targets. With the laser sight you don't even have to look down the sights (though it is still recommended) and with the red dot you aren't stuck lining up front and back sights and can just put the red chevron on the target and pull the trigger.

[rubjonny]

Yeah the black box or whatever won't be on the crane, it's either behind the building or maybe in the basement. The problem with many of the side missions is they have enemies that spawn in as well, so if you take them before clearing the map you will have a lot more dudes to clear or sneak/run past