Expeditions Made Easy

[Warc1]

Three tips for those who have yet to play enough to figure this out on their own:

1. After finding the package, stick around and don't make out for the pickup zone until there are around 30 seconds left on the clock.
   
2. Bring Horatio along as your companion.
   
3. Use armor-piercing ammo in all weapons with ammo clips.

Regarding the first tip, ignore the pressure to run to the pickup zone before the GPS tracker engages. The packages are almost always found in closed environments (building, plane, prison cell, carrier etc.). The closed areas provide ample opportunities to find cover against the highwaymen once they begin tracking you.

In these closed areas, it's usually easy to find camping spots in a room or container with a single entrance where you can mow down everyone at the entry point and then loot the bodies. Even better, the immediate vicinity of the package is usually salted with ammo and med kits allowing you to stock up in the time before the GPS engages. Whenever I get low on ammo and health kits in the regular game, I'll do an expedition or two to restock without having to expend resources in crafting.

The closed environment also means snipers can't get a bead on you, rockets and grenades are seldom used against you, and the ever present enemy mortars are useless. Once the clock counts down to 30 seconds, make a mad dash to the pickup zone and you should get there just in time to jump in the arriving copter.

In contrast, if you head straight to the pickup zone, you will quickly be overwhelmed by highwaymen with elite snipers and rocket launchers constantly raining down fire from a distance. These areas are largely open and what little cover is available can usually be outflanked. As a result, you'll have to spend around 90 seconds standing your ground and fighting back enemy waves. Spending as little time there as possible is a good strategy.

Regarding the second tip, Horatio is a tank. Once he reaches 15 kills, he's close to indestructible and can usually self revive (there are exceptions) from being incapacitated. He can take down shielded and elite highwaymen with little effort. While you're camping, he'll be outside taking down most of those headed towards your position. That makes it easy to eliminate the few that make it through and have time to loot them.

Regarding the third tip, it's either a bug or a feature that your ammo clips get refilled at the completion of every expedition. To be clear, your overall ammo does not get refilled, but if you have a partially discharged clip, that will be restored on completion. If you select armor-piercing ammo for all of your clip based weapons, you will do maximum damage and you should never have to expend resources for this ammo after the first time you craft it.

I primarily use the MG42 LMG for expeditions which has a 200 bullet clip. After a few upgrades, I can get through every expedition with armor-piercing ammo without emptying the clip. You may not be able to do that for your first expeditions, but if you get close to emptying a clip, switch to another weapon with armor piercing ammo clips and use that until it gets close to being empty. Rinse and repeat with other weapons until you finish the expedition, at which point, every weapon that you used will have its clip refilled with armor-piercing ammo.

[CursedPanther]

Very nice tips. Will sure be trying this on my next expedition. One does need to trick the system a bit during the 'horde' stage when playing on Hard-@ss difficulty.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Reminds me of Mass Effect 3/A multiplayer extraction waves. You can head for the extraction zone at the beginning of the wave, but between them not being superb defensive positions plus the infinite spawning of enemies (always in your vicinity, and going after you rather than e.g. trying to hold the LZ) including units specifically designed to force you to move on or die, it's poorly advised. You keep moving until the timer's low and then hit the LZ, which should have relatively few enemies because you weren't there to draw them there.

[Major_Tinz]

Nice ... I'll try this out :)

[Boju]

Good tips. Horatio is great help but mostly use him for scavenging, haven't used him much in expeditions but would probably make things easier.

I find going straight to the pickup zone asap and using molotovs to set a perimeter once they arrive is more successful for me, i'd rather fight head on with less angle approach rather than being surrounded from all sides as you know, they don't stop coming. Plus there are usually couple of buildings at pickup site for cover to avoid snipers and rpgs (if want to) but it's also fun killing those guys from afar for the challenge.

Most expedition maps besides ones with rivers/swamps where boats can flank, have enemies come from pretty much a linear path with some sneaky's coming from a different angle sometimes probably because of the molotovs. Weapon of choice can also make things easier, couple of those helping me are guided rockets and sniper rifle with armour piercing rounds. Don't forget the molotovs, the fire spreads like crazy and extremely useful in wasting time.

difficulty level tough

[MaddogDino]

I take Timber. Go in stealthy and locate the package but don't take it. Instead, start a killing spree of mayhem until I feel I've gathered enough loot then grab package and withdraw from the area laying down a bit of fire and a few proximity bombs whilst the pilot decides on the pickup point. I usually try to gain some height as well here, as much as possible. Direction doesn't matter at this point.
As soon as I have a Waypoint, I jump from the higher ground and use wingsuit to get some distance before the tracker activates. Land, go Angry Mode and take advantage of the added speed and armour whilst speeding to the location, dropping the odd proximity as Io go.
Get to the pick up area and lay down some fire, launch a few fire grenades outside the fire coverage and use smoke grenades to block line of sight from snipers and rocket launchers until the pick up arrives.
Loadout = Grenade Launcher, BZ-19, Sa-50 and Bow.

[Chazz]

those things are surely something to look into :D , but i honestly didnt even know you could take companions with you :'D ....

[Warc1]

Updated original post with third tip regarding ammo.