Nueva (New) Tortuga Choices

[Thandrall]

Me again, doing another thread about New Tortuga now. This time though I will try to keep it shorter by purely doing what each choice does rather than do a full explanation. A lot of this is already known to people, but this allows you to bring it all together.

Cohen, the civilian right at the beginning. To save him you only need to pay 10 Pesos. He will mark on you map a bunch of locations. You don't need him to go into any of the buildings, but he will also give you a code allowing you to access the black market at Haluk. Make sure you buy the shotguns before anything, otherwise someone else will buy them.

Killing Skulls Gang - Extra rebel Militia unit with Plasma rifles
Killing Mad Mike - Extra rebel Heavy unit with Plasma Recoilless
Killing Fury Gang - Extra rebel Sharpshooter unit with laser rifles. When you take over the armoury, you get movement van, having killed the Fury gang it will be loaded with a TOW launcher

Go though everything normally, then we get to the main part. After getting Flinch, you have 3 optional objectives, plus a 4th "hidden" one shall we say.

First thing to note, you are now part of the Cartel, allowing you go cross the train tracks and go anywhere but the integrator's camp at free will. They don't care if you take all the vehicles either, of which there are a lot, including a Humvee and a M113. Highly recommend taking them and moving them to a secure place (mine is to the left of the rebel buildings).

At the top right of the map, just below the firing yards, you will find a building guarded (this is the 4th hidden objective). Killing them while the firing yard is shooting will allow you to get some extra troops (a sharpshooter, a RPG and a guerrilla squad). Good thing to note is the Fury gang will also drop a laser sniper rifle in the arena, you can use the sharp shooter squad to go pick it up.

What to do with Flich. He can try to "hack" the legion troops in the town square but this will cause them to activate and attack everything. This will lead to the cartel to realise you did it, and make them hostile to you a bit earlier.

You can also give him over to the integators in return for the controller for the Legion Tank. Otherwise, you can go to the arena guy for a "special"fight against a MLRS spider bot, in which you can either kill it for 3000 Peso's, or you can use the Movement agent with her EMP to knock it out, infect it with Flich virus, then retreat from the arena. This will lose you the 3000 peso's, but after about 30 seconds, the Integrator's will attack the cartel, doing some damage depending on RNG, and pulling troops away, making the attack easier. Note if you go this way, you can then go to the legion tank and pick up the controller from the dead integrator troops. EDIT: Thank you to Falcon_BR, I had forgotten about the Ingetrator's reactions. If you do destroy the spider to get the 3000 peso's, they will not attack you when Miguel ask's for help. But if you don't do anything with the spider, they will attack you, which can be annoying since he ask's right after you take the town square, so they can hit you in the back. They have a Legion artillery piece in their base which makes it better/worse depending on which path you do.

None of this is needed to be done, but it does make things a bit easier later on. When you get to the rebel buildings, you will have to get to the Heli that the mayor has. When you get to the gate to this place, if you have the Legion Tank controller, you can go right up to him. Do note that the controller is sent to Migeul, so you WILL have to fight said tank. Otherwise, you will have to attack the gate, and fight your way up to the mayor. This is the end of the choices.

[Thandrall]

For what I'm sure people are more interested in, is the Cheese of this mission, which there is quite a lot.

A lot of people by now will know about the cheese method of using the guerrilla's to plant C4 everywhere as well if they wish. Now the spawn point has been pushed back I don't find it is needed nearly as much as it was, but it's up to you. The cartel won't care your planting bombs at their feet.

The AI for the Cartel doesn't fully activate until the Heli has taken off as well. This means that after fighting your way up to the mayors house, you can then go back down and take out a truly large amount of troops before anything happens. One thing I have noted though, if you have taken all the vehicles to one area, is a Bandito's group will run and take over the M113 you can steal. Not sure if this is scripted but since you moved it they just run there, but it's something to note.

The Cartel tank is amazing, as AP rounds are great for putting vehicles on fire. Pretty much all Humvee's with Cartel armour will go on fire after 1 AP round. Follow up with snipers to kill the troops, wait for the fire to die down, and you got yourselve another vehicle. In another thread I posted a picture of the insane amount of vehicles I got before I took the Heli.

The best part is you can inch forward, argo a vehicle, pop smoke if need be, and retreat backwards and they will follow you, allowing you to then set them on fire in a safe location. The only vehicle that didn't move was the minigun Humvee at the gate. I was not able to separate the humvee and cartel tank that guards the entrance across the train tracks, they both would also attack together. I did manage to the get Bradley though! Biggest issue was 2 AP rounds have a better than average chance of blowing said Bradley up, while 1 does not set it on fire. I save scummed until it didn't blow up, but if someone else would like to figure out a better way, feel free. The 2 AP rounds still left the armour at blue lines, so HE rounds didn't work.

Van's and the one unarmoured truck would die to a AP round, so I ended up using my snipers, one with a laser sniper, to take them out.

One that purely came from a "What if" thought, but the prison, when Miguel "executes" the prisoners, a group actually spawns and runs to the exit. I am unsure if it changes, because I believe the second time he does it it is an RPG unit, but the first group that it happens to is a Technician squad. If you managed to get them all the way to the end alive, they will join you, and start with Tank crew and grenades (which is a bug as Technicians already can use grenades, though they do have double the amount of grenades, 32, to use) upgrade for free.

[Falcon_BR]

You can do all 4 hidden objectives
Also, plant some c4 on the enemy artilhary down southeast, they are the worst You are going to face, you can plant all around the map, but I didn't.
To do all 4 objectives, buy the tank controller
Save people.
Go to your mission objective and tell you are going to give the controller to the mayor.
Go to the front gate.
Send flinch in a unarmed vehicle, it is important, if it is armed, enemies will take it back.
Drive close to the mechs in the center.
Hack them, drive to the arena entrance, dismount and get inside and hide.
Tell the mayor you won't give the controller, kill front guards, get light tank, make your way upwards.
All secondary objectives archived, but always save before trying, sometimes the spiders attacks you legion tank.

[Thandrall]

I knew I forgot something. The Integrator's reactions! I'll put it in now, but yeah, the tank honestly isn't something I'd say you need. And funny enough, if you don't do anything with the tank, no one get's it. Technically also, it's not all 4 objectives, since one of them is to hack the integrator spider so they attack the cartel, which that doesn't. That is honestly a bit of a big point in regards to their reactions, since they actually attack you if you don't do anything with that last spider, where as if you destroy it they don't attack you, and obviously hacking it means they attack the cartel.

[HeathenSW]

Nice write-up, now I can unclutter my memory of all this :D

I wonder if any other prisoner squads are special and if it's worth just waiting for all of them to run away. I rarely am able to secure the center for them to run away, since I didn't use that cheese in my previous runs and whoever is freed are kinda dead almost instantly.

Do you know if hacking the spider changes their future attitude towards you? Since they will be hostile if anyone survives the Cartel attack (usualy a technical way in the back does survive).

[Falcon_BR]

Originally posted by Thandrall:

I knew I forgot something. The Integrator's reactions! I'll put it in now, but yeah, the tank honestly isn't something I'd say you need. And funny enough, if you don't do anything with the tank, no one get's it. Technically also, it's not all 4 objectives, since one of them is to hack the integrator spider so they attack the cartel, which that doesn't. That is honestly a bit of a big point in regards to their reactions, since they actually attack you if you don't do anything with that last spider, where as if you destroy it they don't attack you, and obviously hacking it means they attack the cartel.

This made no sense.
Repeating what I did to complete all 4 objectives:
Hacked arena drone.
Saved prisioners
Hacked cartel spiders.
Before the 30 seconds cooldown of the spiders I told I will not give the tank controller and started blasting my way up.
The spiders started attacking everyone, the hacker was safe my cover was already blow off, so, no difference they get aggro on me because I Hacked the cartel spiders.

[Thandrall]

Originally posted by Falcon_BR:

Originally posted by Thandrall:

I knew I forgot something. The Integrator's reactions! I'll put it in now, but yeah, the tank honestly isn't something I'd say you need. And funny enough, if you don't do anything with the tank, no one get's it. Technically also, it's not all 4 objectives, since one of them is to hack the integrator spider so they attack the cartel, which that doesn't. That is honestly a bit of a big point in regards to their reactions, since they actually attack you if you don't do anything with that last spider, where as if you destroy it they don't attack you, and obviously hacking it means they attack the cartel.

This made no sense.
Repeating what I did to complete all 4 objectives:
Hacked arena drone.
Saved prisioners
Hacked cartel spiders.
Before the 30 seconds cooldown of the spiders I told I will not give the tank controller and started blasting my way up.
The spiders started attacking everyone, the hacker was safe my cover was already blow off, so, no difference they get aggro on me because I Hacked the cartel spiders.

Ahh, you missed the hacked arena drone part in your last post, that was what confused me.

[HeathenSW]

For Bradley cheese that you are talking about you could ambush it with your RPG squad - first aggro it with anything and then lead it towards shooting range, since there are a lot of small spaces there, with enough space to hide your RPGs. Still not a sure way, since it's a toss if it'll fire from a single salvo on the side/back or decides to shrug it off/blow up.

Just got it myself first try with a cartel tank method, but I guess I was extremely lucky - it took 3 AP shells to the face and got on fire instead of blowing up.

But this cheese is disgusting, man :D You can clear and loot almost the whole map without enemy or yourself getting reinforcements. Just need to C4 most difficult buildings with most amounts of infantry and you only have vehicles to worry about.

[Falcon_BR]

I got the bradley just attacking him with arty, it was inside the integrator camp.
But you must tell your arty to hold fire when the crew gets out, because they like to fire at the crew and blow up the bradley, just send infantry to finish the job.
Do not get inside the builinds, the enemy will just blow the, they are very weak and dies with 2 infantry rockets.

[Arden]

For Bradley shoot 2 ATGMs. One will miss for reasons but the other will set it on fire. For vans use cartel tank he rounds or recoilless he. Recoiless he is good for humvees as well as it usually destroys the gun. Send the dozer with the 50 bmg to finish setting it on fire and shoot the crew.

By far the easiest way to set anything on fire though is the 20 mm rotary on the bradley. Shoot till you see the message that it's on fire, pause and turn off all weapons. Done but you need to be quick. And make sure that some trigger happy sniper is not in range.

By the time I finished Tortuga every one who could drive had a vehicle. Still can't spend all the goodwill I made. And you can do the same thing in the following bridges mission.

[HeathenSW]

About prisoners that spawn in waves. Waves are like this:
- Techicians
- Sharpshooters
- RPG
- Heavy Weapons team
- RPG (I honestly expected militia)
- Heavy weapons, Sharpshooters, Technicians, RPG, Engineers

The last wave is huge and when it starts mission disappears. My guess if you've taken so long the game thinks that you failed. Engineers just stand there, they do not run with everybody else and if you take Flinch to them - nothing happens.

Each prisoner squad if not spawned before the prison is secured will add 10 manpower on the worldmap. Each except Engineers it seems. Thus you may gain 90 manpower here, if you are fast.

They will go through the left street, sometimes partialy through the middle. The prompt about them joining us played only for the first squad to reach safety and only one already upgraded squad was added to my roster - technicians with perks for tanks and grenades, like Thandrall said. I waited for Sharpshooters and RPG squads and they also added to the roster, but they were lvl 0 and with default weapons equipped (LAW launchers and .300 sniper rifles), so if you want a free tank-driving crew - it's best to let Techs run and protect them before capturing the prison.

About integrators:
I forgot about their arena spider this time and didn't even touch this mission. They still refused to help Miguel and were neutral for the whole battle duration, until there was no Cartel left - after that they instantly became hostile. I guess it's a bug, since it goes against the narrative of them being neutral and refusing to help Miguel. That could have been quite painful, since they still have artillery, but they do not use it until provoked.

About cheese:
Jesus, you DO NOT have enough drivers for this mission, if you try and take everything :D I left my ally intact with their vehicles, plus had to leave like 6-8 of those that I looted.

Misc:
Medium difficulty had 520 enemies.
Hard had close to 700+ if I recall. No wonder it feels like the hardest mission, since you deploy with what, 100, with no ally and enemy is heavily entrenched?

[RPS 12324]

The laser sniper is more important than the plasma MG. You should buy one anyway even after you get one from the furies because your other snipers can pick it up. While you only have 2 squads apart from the hero than can pick up LMG at this point. Also don't miss the two laser snipers dropped by the enemies in the bar.

[Falcon_BR]

Something people told me and I had to check.
Change your hero squads formations to line they will fight much better in duels

[Andrew]

Where is the Mad Mike gang?

[HeathenSW]

Originally posted by Andrew:

Where is the Mad Mike gang?

Bar in front of the arena.
If you give the guy in the map start (Cohen) 50 pesos then the fight will start the moment you step in and forward some dialogue. After this fight you will NOT get his weapons, so no extra squads, that Thandrall explained.
If you give 10 pesos for Cohen then the dialogue will be more neutral and you could go on a duel with him in the Arena if you choose corresponding dialogue option.

[Andrew]

Originally posted by HeathenSW:

Originally posted by Andrew:

Where is the Mad Mike gang?

Bar in front of the arena.
If you give the guy in the map start (Cohen) 50 pesos then the fight will start the moment you step in and forward some dialogue. After this fight you will NOT get his weapons, so no extra squads, that Thandrall explained.
If you give 10 pesos for Cohen then the dialogue will be more neutral and you could go on a duel with him in the Arena if you choose corresponding dialogue option.

That where my mistake was. I payed 50.