Do not reload in the middle of the wave (don't spray too much, shoot in short bursts foir ammo conserve).
Reload right after wave end (or just before, when only few enemies remained).

What MrDB said: short, controlled bursts. You should not have to reload with a full screen of enemies. Closer enemies do more damage, so take those out first.

Prioritize closer targets , always reload before leaving the turret to search for the jewel.

I am continuing to struggle with this one after numerous tries. I am already reloading at the end of each wave and attempting to prioritize closer enemies. The colossal first person gun model doesn't help.

The first wave of cops is trivial; the second wave is easily three to four times as many enemies; the third has all of them coming from all areas at once. This desperately needs the ability to crouch down, or damage mitigation, or something. I could far easier handle all of them on foot.

I'm alt tabbing and restarting each time I die; I cannot imagine trying this with the campaign mode's effective permadeath on top of it. It's a really sour note on an otherwise very cool character story.

Originally posted by Finale:

I am continuing to struggle with this one after numerous tries. I am already reloading at the end of each wave and attempting to prioritize closer enemies. The colossal first person gun model doesn't help.

The first wave of cops is trivial; the second wave is easily three to four times as many enemies; the third has all of them coming from all areas at once. This desperately needs the ability to crouch down, or damage mitigation, or something. I could far easier handle all of them on foot.

I'm alt tabbing and restarting each time I die; I cannot imagine trying this with the campaign mode's effective permadeath on top of it. It's a really sour note on an otherwise very cool character story.

One thing that you can try is to take Ranger on heists while he is not hallucinating about his vietnam war days, and if you can, level up him a few times so that he gains more max Health and also a few perks, I think he is guranteed to have Vigor (increased health regen) and Health (even more bonus health) if he is level 2.

Other than that, try to conserve your ammo, and be quick on shooting the enemies. Yes the model is difficult to see with properly. It's unfortunate. It's definitely doable, but I admit I have also lucked out before when I only managed to survive with like 5% health.

I've now tried several additional times. The game seems to have saved Ranger's "progress" in the story so that when I start a new campaign, I get two days with him max before he is locked into the operation red star mission. This only lets me level him up once.

The game is thus functionally locking me into a no-win scenario. Attempting it requires either running an entirely new campaign or force-quitting the game process. What a terrible set of decisions. This badly needs to be patched.

Was a real painfull achievement. The only difficult one.

I was in the same case : not enough days to LVL Ranger. His health bar take so much damage.

One thing that help me : reduce the FOV. Like an artificial ADS.

After a lot of ALT F4, I finaly finished this mission.
So Doable... but barely in our case.

But I was thinking of something else :
Maybe start an other plot campaign (other than secret vault). Hope for Ranger to appear in the crew. Kill him to restart his missions.
And then redo the secret vault campaign in the hope to LVL up enough to get stronger.

I saw video where player don t take as much damage than my Ranger was taking.
Maybe a solution ? But long solution.

Much appreciated- I'll try minimizing FOV next. As far as I can tell, killing ranger just keeps his mission progress anyway.

I read that if Ranger die in a heist during a campaign, you lose his progress mission. But you can die a couple of time in his story mission before a reset. But not sure of the source.

Good luck in that horrible mission anyway !

I'll give that a shot, then, thanks- but this does need fixing even if I'm able to eventually force my way through it.

Operation Red Star's difficulty really brings down the whole point of the story. I like the reveal of the Captain to actually be Dollar Dragon , and especially the PTSD allusion/hallucination, but the SWAT team does way too much damage.

I cannot do it either. Tried everything. :(

Originally posted by neophyte_7777:

Operation Red Star's difficulty really brings down the whole point of the story. I like the reveal of the Captain to actually be Dollar Dragon , and especially the PTSD allusion/hallucination, but the SWAT team does way too much damage.

The identity of the captain is pretty much obvious from the very 1st story mission. It's also not even the hardest mission in the chain. If you got past the 1st M60 holdout mission (crashed helicopter), the rest shouldn't be difficult.

Originally posted by B Dawg:

The identity of the captain is pretty much obvious from the very 1st story mission. It's also not even the hardest mission in the chain. If you got past the 1st M60 holdout mission (crashed helicopter), the rest shouldn't be difficult.

yeah but i hid behind cover most of the time. red star doesn't allow for that

Originally posted by Larve Solitaire:

I read that if Ranger die in a heist during a campaign, you lose his progress mission. But you can die a couple of time in his story mission before a reset. But not sure of the source.

Good luck in that horrible mission anyway !

For the record, this doesn't freaking work either- I'm right back at mission 5, and every bit as screwed. Infuriating!