tips Breaking Even (The East Wind) important tips (walkthrough)

[Baraz 10]

The Arma 3 campaign mission Breaking Even has a few scripted tasks that are not obvious and can cause issues/frustration.  I succeeded, to my great surprise after a few attempts, and feel it is necessary to share these useful tips as they can certainly be needed to succeed. 

 

These spoilers are rather necessary, as the mission will impose failures that have nothing to do with your tactics, your combat success, etc.  I would dare say this mission has un-fun hurdles. 

1) Introductory step - Shooting the two guards (difficulty: scripted tasks) 

 

What you must know : this first step has nothing at all to do with gear, weapons, accuracy or anything combat related.  They are simple tasks to do following the scripted dialogue. 

 

a) The rebel leader will ask your squad to target the two guards...  Select a part of your squad and target a first guard; select the rest and target the second guard. Do NOT fire yet.  Voilà, the game will print a mission notice about succeeding that initial step.

b) The rebel leader will then ask you to wait for his command to open fire and eliminate both guards quickly (to start a surprise attack).  

Once he gives his go-ahead, select your entire team and make them fire.

Both guards will suddenly drop (it is scripted). 

 

Important : you (the player) must not fire until that first phase is done !  Only your squad mates are ordered to fire. 

 

I had to search the Internet to succeed, as naturally I tried to snipe them or gave the order a bit too late in the rather rigid script. 

 

TIP : do a save game immediately once that is done, to save you the hassle of doing it over and over again :P

2) Taking over the base (difficulty: easy)

 

This part is generally easy and fun.  If unlucky, you could lose a few squad members (I used my saved game). 

 

TIP : throw a few smoke grenades in the open field: in Arma 3, they greatly reduce the AI capacity to hit you.  If you use the mod C2: Command & Control or GetTactical, you can also ask your squad to throw smoke on that field. 

 

Note : though it was not my case, many players have reported a bug where, after clearing the base, the game does not activate the next mission phase.  If that happens, you may have to revert the mission and remove mods just in case (though the cause of this bug seems unknown).  

 

 
3) Taking out the mortar (difficulty: time is important: move fast while fighting) 

 

Must know : the timer is ticking.  If you take too much time, the last phase can become impossible (it happened to me: the supply truck was destroyed 100% because I was not fast enough). 

 

TIP : storm or rush towards the mortar position, while fighting the infantry that will try to stop you.  Of course, when shooting, your squad and yourself will have to at least crouch once in a while, but you should not stop very long. 

TIP (alternate) from Lexx below : order your squad to defend base or a position near the base and rush the mortar alone (much faster, if you can kill or evade the defenders).

 

 
4) Regroup to defend the base (difficulty: no time to waste, hold fire and run for your life) 

 

TIP : at the second the mortar operator is down, don't wait : make your squad (and you) run non stop back. You really should ask your squad to Hold Fire, otherwise they will stop to fight.  

Do not fight : RUN and use the terrain to avoid being in the enemies line of sight. 

Reminder : having your weapon down (not in Battle Pace) makes you run a bit faster.  Try it in the virtual training, you can see the speed difference. 

 

SPOILER ALERT - this following tip is not really necessary.  You may ignore it and see for yourself :P

 

Spoiler

 

5) Defend the supply truck (difficulty: neutralize an armored vehicle) 

 

The only challenge, if you reached the base with some time left, is to stop the armored vehicle moving towards the base.  It is slow, and stops a while. 

 

Knowns options : 

• Have a weapon that can destroy the vehicle (rockets) or destroy its wheels (grenades or many bullets). -- Personnaly, I had a guided rocket launcher (Coyote, Titan missile: overkill really) that I had found and kept for a special occasion.
• One of your squad mates has a RPG-42 : ask him to Engage the vehicle (notice I wrote the order Engage, not Fire: the probability is much higher that he will use his RPG against the armored vehicle; I hope for you anyhow).  You can also take it for yourself, but the menu(s) to take gear from a squad mate is insanely complicated and buggy.  See Secondary Tip below. 
• There is also a fixed heavy machine gun position towards the left side of the base: use it abusively (as seen on a Youtube video). 

 

The rest is easy, as the enemy cannot cross the entire field alive...

 

TIP : once that is done, run for your life to the exit waypoint.  Again, order your squad to Hold Fire and run!  You can also use the map to order them directly to the waypoint. 

 

--

Though I was getting discouraged at first, I am proud to say that I succeeded with only one KIA in my squad! (he did not get the order to Hold Fire and stayed back to fight at the base, very heroic of him ; select all squad does not always select all team members). 

 

Secondary Tip : Did you know that when the map is shown before the mission starts, you can change your teams loadouts!  Holy f... not obvious.  
In the Team menu on that initial mission map, you can change the inventory (weapons and the likes; not armor).  For example, you could take the RPG-42 and rockets from an AI, and put them in your own gear. 

 

Final tip : if you like using the squads and keeping them alive, I highly recommended one of the voice command tools.  Commands are confusing otherwise.  I use the one called Articulate (made for Arma 3. It works out of the box: just set Commands to their default keybindings), along with C2: Command & Control (for extra commands, like heal each other, take this item...) or GetTactical Interface (allows more top-down paused planning, but I have not tested that last one in an official campaign mission).

[lexx 1388]

If you head to the mortar, make your squad stop. There is no reason to slog with them to the town and then (under fury and anger) slog with them back to the outpost. You're quicker this way and save yourself the nerves of dealing with the stupid squad ai.

[Baraz 10]

10 hours ago, lexx said:

If you head to the mortar, make your squad stop. There is no reason to slog with them to the town and then (under fury and anger) slog with them back to the outpost. You're quicker this way and save yourself the nerves of dealing with the stupid squad ai.

Quite true, good point.

[charge 1]

Last time i played the mission, if i remember right i killed the at guys in the town and stole a titan launcher, then i stole a car and rushed back to the outpost. The titan helped me to quickly dispose of the strider and the VTC

[M. Glade 524]

Also if you fuck up the mission with a bad approach I'm pretty certain they'll send some CSAT. These guys will take out your team (especially the guy on the turret) so I would place some explosive charges on the adjacent road since the CSAT ai clump up like retards. 

 

Pretty easy mission tho, thanks for the watchtower guard tip. 

[drebin052 324]

CSAT reinforcements will eventually arrive regardless of how long you take to eliminate the mortar. Those T-100s that show up towards the end are no joke (when Kappa says they're almost done packing).

[ineptaphid 6413]

I never got that bit at the start with targeting the guards! Thanks man :D

 

2 minutes ago, drebin052 said:

CSAT reinforcements will eventually arrive regardless of how long you take to eliminate the mortar. Those T-100s that show up towards the end are no joke (when Kappa says they're almost done packing).

Very true-had a few mad dashes back to the woods at the end of that mission :D

[FallujahMedic -FM- 867]

Post Hidden. If you cannot discuss things in a mature way (regardless of actual age) and in accordance with the Guidelines/Rules, be prepared to have posts hidden, deleted or Users removed. Carry On. 

[You stupid wench 0]

@FallujahMedic -FM- Just what was flame-baiting in my post? The guy did post worthless, untrue advice. And he did it on Steam too. There he called me a moron because I questioned the credibility of his guides.

[FallujahMedic -FM- 867]

@You stupid wench Firstly, you may want to reconsider your user name. Secondly, you may want to review the Rules / Guidelines. 

[You stupid wench 0]

14 hours ago, FallujahMedic -FM- said:

@You stupid wench Firstly, you may want to reconsider your user name. Secondly, you may want to review the Rules / Guidelines. 

 

Sorry if my goofy name breaks the rules, but it's just my google plus username; I used g+ to log in. On a sidenote: I respect the concept of rules, but you folks need to loosen it up a bit. It's definitely not my intention to insult nor demean anyone here, it's just the op posted info that is not backed by proof, and I called him out it.

[FallujahMedic -FM- 867]

The rules are there for a reason. Learn them, live them. 

[Baraz 10]

On 12/10/2017 at 8:18 AM, You stupid wench said:

 

Sorry if my goofy name breaks the rules, but it's just my google plus username; I used g+ to log in. On a sidenote: I respect the concept of rules, but you folks need to loosen it up a bit. It's definitely not my intention to insult nor demean anyone here, it's just the op posted info that is not backed by proof, and I called him out it.

 

PROOF : here is another thread about the topic and even a VIDEO showing how it is done (they are scripted or sequential tasks to be done in order and it should succeed automatically once done, period). 

 

NOW, if this no longer works since last patch, it has nothing to do with the thread here which was meant to HELP because it is a frustrating scripted bit in the mission.  If so, it should be posted in the official Feedback/Issue Tracker here. 

 

You are the ONLY person who claims it is false and you mostly did it with such a bad attitude that I did not want to waste my time doing a video (calling me a "lying toad" on Steam, etc.).  Again, you are the ONLY person raging at me. 

Edited January 6, 2018 by Baraz
Placed the more useful info above the useless comment.