Death Valley is confusing and awful mission for new players with not enough direction. There's a hint box, and a guy who tells you it's "helicopter crap", and that's about it.

This guide will show you how to use drones, and how to use the Darter to complete the mission.

This looks like a lot, but don't worry, I am just writing it step by step so absolutely nothing is missed. You can do this in moments once you know what you're doing.


When the first mortar shell hits, you will be told to use the UAV to find the spotters on the hill. An invisible timer begins, you now have 3 minutes to do this section. A waypoint will appear on the body of the dead UAV operator.

• Equip the UAV bag into your bag slot.
  
• Equip the UAV Terminal (NATO) into your GPS slot.
  
• Find a clear and flat spot to launch the drone. If the ground is not flat, the drone will shoot off in a direction and hit something and blow up or be damaged and uncontrollable.
  
• Select "Assemble Darter" from the Action Menu. (The one you open with your middle mouse button.)
  
• Be close to the drone, look at it, and select "Connect Drone to UAV Terminal"
  
• Select "Take UAV controls" from the Action Menu.

You now control the drone. Helicopter controls are a little unintuitive and sensitive, but with enough practice you'll get the hang of it.

Hold [LEFT SHIFT] to ascend. Use [Z] to descend. Use the mouse to steer. Helicopters gain speed when you pitch downwards because the rotors can push more air through them, which is a little scary if you're used to flight games with just planes. Pitching up reduces speed. Press [X] to enable Auto-Hover, which keeps the craft stable and still. Disable it when you want to move again otherwise it'll fight you.


Press N to turn on night vision. This will blind you. Press it again for thermal vision.

Bohemia made a change to the thermal vision so that tufts of grass and trees are as hot as moving tanks, fire, and living human beings. This makes it hard to spot people. Setting the Terrain Quality to Very Low turns off the grass which will help with the clutter, but it's not perfect.

The Darter has a "Human Sensor", a panel on the right side of the screen like the GPS, but it looks like a radar. if you don't see it, press Ctrl+]. Enemies will appear as white dots, allies as green dots once you're close enough.

Turning around so the ocean is at your back, and the valley is straight ahead of you, the two spotters you are looking for are on the left ridge, usually behind a rock.




From the Action Menu, select "Take UAV turret controls" to control the turret.

Note: This is NOT the camera you activate with Ctrl+RMB. If you do not have a "Take UAV turret controls" option, a mod has disabled it and you'll need to disable them all and start the mission again. I still don't know which mod does this.

You should see a red laser beam icon on your screen, this means the beam is on. hold it over one of the soldiers for a few moments, and you'll finally have beaten this section. If you don't see a laser icon, click LMB, to turn it on. you can also press Ctrl+T to lock on to one of the soldiers.

yay

Still stuck? Comment and I'll try and help. Bother me for pictures and I'll take some.

Press [SHIFT+Num -] and type ENDMISSION. There's no console or anything, you'll just go straight to debriefing and start the next.