User blog:Noakes/Loadout - an epiphany

I was today years old when I realized something.... ''Man, I should REALLY change my gear. I've been using the same weapon types since, like, the first time I went to the Bar in the Metal Factory.''

Ever since I started going into the Zone, I thought to myself that I should bring a weapon for long-distance sniping and something for close-quarter encounters. So, like the average peon I am, I brought with me an automatic sniper rifle and a shotgun. Models are irrelevant, the weapon type is all that matters here.

I did well for myself. Got all the way to the CNPP and drilled some Monolith skulls like the MF boss I now am. But something happened today.

Returning from another foray into the CNPP, I went back through Pripeat to do some trading with the military outpost there (If you're not in the cahoots with the military, I feel bad for you. Those guys are real cool, once you get to know them.) Lo and behold, the outpost was under assault by a somewhat large Monolith contingent. I took the "long way around" to get in the outpost from the sides. Everything was fine in there but the military at the intersection outside the outpost was taking some heavy fire.

I intervene and whack some loonies, from a distance. But they managed to get closer, shielded by the dense vegetation. So there I was, stuck in the park in front of the outpost, with enemy forces too close to efficiently use the sniper and too far away to blast them with my trusty shotgun.

In the end, I managed to escape and reposition myself and fend off the invading force, with lots of help from the military. But the situation stuck with me... I needed a weapon for medium-and-close range encounters.

Enter the assault rifle. Managed to get my hands on a nice piece, manufactured by some German company. Upgraded it to the fullest and tested it in some encounters. Real nice. Bullet velocity at the nozzle exceedes the speed of sound. I'll need to call myself Master Blaster, hehe!

After all this, I'm planning that my general loadout be made out of:
 * assault rifle: for contact at 150m and anything under
 * sniper rifle: for contact beyond 150m
 * heavy duty, elephant-hunting, bone-chilling, street-silencing, wrist-damaging Desert Eagle for those contacts that REALLY don't understand that I don't like them close to me.

I wonder what the other guys at the Bar in the Pripeat outskirts think of this... I'll need to have a chat with them.