WOW. I just got to mission 45 and banged my head against it for the past two hours. Fuck. This. Trying to use my weak-ass Grom is just a waste of time and GMP, eventually switched to spamming sandstorm airstrikes and Fultoning everything, but I still end up getting one-shot by those ridiculous tanks... this is actually giving me a stress headache. I'll come back to it tomorrow and just cheese the fucking thing with bomb spam. This just isn't a fun mission at all.

I mean, it wouldn't be Metal Gear without one infuriating section, but this is the... err... infuriatingest. It'll be fun to see Drew play this mission...

Edit: Okay, *finally* made it through. I'll admit, the payoff is worth it. Not ashamed to admit tearing up a bit, especially when Quiet's Theme started over the credits. Say what you will about Kojima's ridiculous token sexpot characters, but damned if I don't feel for them every time. (except for the B&B Squad)

God. This mission. So glad to have people's shared pain to feel less shitty about how terrible I am at this. I'll eat some pizza and give it another shot--non lethal should be viable throughout, I swear to god.

Beat it. Sandstorm and nightvision and turning the sound down and listening to a podcast. Fun stuff. That cutscene? Eh. Noble sacrificing the only female character when she finally gets some development--tropey.

Got killed a few times before I realized tanks can not only snipe you, but see through sand storms while it blinds YOU.

In the end though I still got S rank with level 2 Battle Dress, and a maxed FB MR R-Launcher. It's all about being careful where you take cover/shoot from, and relocating often.

In the end what calmed me was I realized if I just reload the checkpoint which comes like 2/3 way into the battle, it's easy to figure out a way to beat the final part. You def don't need No Retries points for S anyway.

I ended up taking about 17 hits and did it in about 17 minutes too. Seriously though, who really would not have high powered weapons by then, since you battle Sahelanthropus well before then?

Really the main reason why people have trouble with this mission is because no one bothered to develop some good rocket launchers. I did a bunch of side-ops that involved taking out helicopters, so I already had some high-level rocket launchers I could call in to take those tanks out in a shot or two.

Well, like I said, you have to battle Sahelanthropus well before this, so a powerful rocket launcher is like, duh!

Yah I dunno what the problem is. I mean I guess I can see how someone might be mainlining the game like Drew and not developing anything and I hate to use this awful phrase but that really seems like you're playing the game wrong.

That mission is pretty late in the game. I had a maxed out combat suit, basically maxed out at least two rocket launchers because there were plenty of missions along the way where I had to deal with armor, and a ton of other improvements to my cybernetic arm that lent me more health - stuff like that.

I even wrote this earlier in the thread that when I started the mission I thought it would be broken up into two parts so I was in full sneaking gear - sneak suit, tranq gun, nothing lethal. Got dumped into the mayhem and had to call all my gear in and I still finished it with an S ranking. Just run around, blow up tanks, and hide behind a rock or two. I had to call in for more rockets once or twice tops.

After a couple of tries and dies I called in a sandstorm and fultoned every tank. It felt a bit cheap, but I didn't care :)

Well I beat Sahelanthropus by just using the cars, it was so easy I never even got the chance to think about developing a better RPG.

And on Sahelanthropus you could, at least I believe, leave the mission and come back once you had the gear for it. You know what mission you can't do this in? Mission 4-freaking-5.

I learned the path of every tank and ran around frantically fultoning all of them.

Took me about 100 tries though. There are better strategies but I am stubborn.

With regards to rocket launchers, I also did Sahelanthropus buy just jumping in the armored vehicles you find near the crash site. I was doing a no kill run as far as possible so would mainly fulton enemy vehicles or use C4. When I had to take down choppers I would actually just clear the round and call Pequod in.

So it's totally possible to get to that part of the game without having needed to invest in rocket upgrades. That freedom is another awesome part of the game. Despite it kinda biting you in the ass for this mission.

@dudeglove: As for the viscount mission, it's not like when the scripting breaks that the mission is incompleteable. It's just something that becomes annoying if you're looking to do the optional mission tasks.

I want to apologize guys... I think I'm getting too much enjoyment from reading this thread of so many others suffering like I did even months after the game has launched. Can't wait for that four year necro bump from someone who plays this down the line and just posts "Fuck this". xD

Is there any way to get Quiet back after this mission?

....please?

Play mission 11 seven times. I know that sounds like "my uncle works at KojiPro" style bullshit, but they recently patched that in. When the mission changes to [Reunion] Cloaked In Silence, you can get her back.

Until I found out you could Fulton yourself back to the ACC on the supply container I was almost considering uninstalling the game and never coming back to it.

Pretty sure that's an extremely atypical method, esp considering you're best off circling a large cover spot when he goes into his one shot kill railgun phase. And that means being self sustaining weapons wise.

Of course you can wait until he goes out of that phase, and hope to take cover in time when he starts trying to target you again. How long did it take you to use that method BTW?

Also, not talking about RPGs, they're very weak compared to the FB MR ROCKET LAUNCHER. Different weapon.

its actually not that bad. here is what i did if i remember correctly use the heavy armor suit thing. (or parasite armor if you got it) call in a sandstorm (its not perfect but helped me alot) and just run around and extract the tanks or shoot them down depending on what you want. if you want to destroy them just use the lock on launcher where he discards the launcher instead of reloading since its faster and just keep dropping supplies so you have one ready to pick up when needed. when the chopper comes you can run back to the 2 sheds and use that for cover in an attempt to take them down.

For anyone still having trouble with this, getting behind the big building Quiet uses as a sniper spot offers you great protection from everything but the chopper. That can be taken down pretty easily. If you're not interested in an S-rank, call in a supply drop every time you're about to poke your head out for a shot at the tanks. That way you're never in any danger of running out of ammo and having to deal with the exposed automatic supply drop points.

@frag_maniac: I used the car that shoot missiles or something and just mashed on him, and he basically went down before reaching any phase. It went really, really fast. Fast and easy, it took me 2 tries to actually find that missile car, but after that I did it easily on the first try.

My main issue with it is that you can't abort the mission. So if you weren't loaded out with explosive weapons and heavy armour, or you wanted to back out and research some stuff, you can't. Which isn't the case for every other mission the game.

@heltom92: You can it's just most didn't see the container next to the building. Just go to the left side of building (facing where the onslaught come from) got on top of the container and GTFO. Now the problem will be is that since she gives you the shitty grom in the CS it forces you to start with said shitty grom even if you enter the mission with something else. Though this doesn't affect the rest of your loadout so you could still come better prepared with grenade launcher and decoys and stuff. .

@junkboy0: If you're saying it's no use bringing a rocket launcher with you, that's not correct. When the fight starts you'll automatically pick the said crappy Grom, but the rocket launcher you picked at the initial loadout will still be there right next to you. I feel zero guilt or shame in bringing a fully upgraded CGM to that mission.

@retsuseiba: Really!? I don't remember that at all. When I loaded in it took my CGM and I had to still call it in but my other weps bought me time. Good to know though and great info for those other who also don't know about it. Danke!

ATTENTION:

You can escape mission 45, there is a crate on the left hand side of the palace (as if ur facing the tanks) go onto the crate and Fulton yourself out with the crate and u end up at the ACC. However u have to redo the side mission to start the episode

Sat down at 10 o'clock ready to play the few last missions, it's now 2 o'clock in the morning. Holy shit that mission sucked ass. I stealth every mission and had no combat gear, and I'll be damned if I back out of the mission to farm some gear. How did people hide inside air striking the tanks without quiet dying??? I had to spend hours mastering a plan that would barely finish every tank and the damn helicopter off while praying to the rng gods not to get sniped by the godly enemies.

And that ending, wtf??? I had a tiny suspicion that they would create some sob story for quiet after they tried so hard to force a relationship with her, but damn. She was like the only female character in that massive game! Take the damn code talker or something, not a fucking buddy that I've played with throughout almost the entire 80 hour game! That was some complete bs, a fucking snake is attacking snake is the reason that now we will never see her again??? Lol, did they just really want to show us some irony? Don't think I've ever seen a snake in the entire game, they really pulled that out their asses. At least I heard there's a way to kind of bs quiet back into the game, although it doesn't make any sense story wise. So, eh kinda good job I suppose. This was a fucking amazing game though, definitely one of the best.