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Sink the Buccaneer
Sink the Buccaneer 3
Mendoza's destroyer.
Story Mission
Previous Dismissed Without Honors
Next Taking Out The Garbage
Faction The Agency
Location The unmarked monster truck rally track; unmarked military base and the Don Ernesto Harbor on the eastern edge of the map, south of Isla San Cristobal.

Sink the Buccaneer is the eighteenth storyline mission in Just Cause (1).

Introduction[]

This is one of the most difficult, adventurous and also one of the most controversial missions in the game.

It's recommended to bring a rocket launcher and save your ammunition until you're aboard the ship. The RPG M-112 or the Mako Ocra are good choices for one of your weapons.

Mission information from the PDA: The president still has a small arsenal of nuclear tactical missiles on his destroyer. Your mission is to take out the destroyer while the president and the missiles are still on board.

Tom Sheldon briefs Rico on a beach and tells him that he confirmed what Carmona has told him before - Salvador Mendoza "has nuclear missiles on his personal destroyer".

He tells you to take the provided boat, Jaeger 5FJ 7, and go sink the destroyer, with Mendoza still on it.

Use the gallery below for reference with the action.

Walkthrough[]


As soon as you get going, Tom tells you that there's 3 "long distance" missiles on the ship. You'll need the key codes that go with them. The guy who programmed them, keeps the codes in 3 suitcases at a nearby military base.

Alternatively it is theoretically possible to do this mission with a helicopter, but that's only possible if you're very good with the Grappler and you're an excellent pilot. This walkthrough explains the way this mission is intended to be completed.

Get the codes[]

Get in the boat (or your helicopter, if you came here with one) and travel north along the coast. Soon you should see a black dot on the map, inland.

Go there. There will be a monster truck parked there.

You could complete the mission with the one that's parked at the gate, but it's recommended to use the one at the dot. If you use the one at the dot, the other truck that was driving around the track will follow you. The other truck will not help you complete the mission, but it's a cool otherwise hidden feature of the game.

Follow the racetrack to the northern end. There's a big natural ramp. The recommended angle of approach is from west south-west to east north-east. Look at the picture below and see the map at the corner.

If you took enough speed, you should land inside the base. That's no normal base. It has very few soldiers in it and two vehicles: a Ballard Centronel AAWV-21 and Harland DTWV-2 AA gun. It's very important that you capture the brown unmarked Ballard at the western corner of the base. Unlike the other one, this vehicle is completely bulletproof. Also note that the turret weapon is only effective against aircraft. Do not stand still when a helicopter starts shooting at you. The helicopters are only shooting unguided missiles. If you don't take this vehicle immediately, a soldier will take it and use it against you.

Now find all three codes. One is inside the garage; one is between the tents, and one is at the building in the northern corner of the base.

Get to the port[]

You will be told to use the Underwater Scooter to make the mission easier. It is theoretically possible to complete the mission without it, but that might be extremely difficult. Besides, this is the only time ever when the Underwater Scooter can be used.

There will be a government Jackson Z-19 Skreemer attack helicopter, trying to stop you. Shoot it down.

In the port[]

The mission has a checkpoint at the point where you enter the port, the Don Ernesto Harbor. It's important to make it here with the Ballard Centronel AAWV-21, even if your vehicle is damaged. If you have to restart from this checkpoint, the vehicle will be restored to mint condition.

There will be a cut-scene that shows Salvador Mendoza escaping in a Huerta PA51 Aztek helicopter.

If you drive straight ahead, towards the crane that holds the torpedoes, you'll hear an alarm going off in the port. This alarm can be avoided, if you go around the back of the large reviewing stands, but it makes no difference to the mission.

Unless you want to look around at the port for a little longer, you should get to the Underwater Scooter as soon as possible.

Take a close look at the destroyer and memorize the location of the ramp where you can get on it. Failure to memorize it can get you killed and fail the mission, because it's more difficult to see it when you're under water later.

The scooter is held up by a crane. There's a computer near the crane. Use the computer to drop the scooter into the water and get on it. The scooter is controlled the same way as airplanes, but as the name implies, it works under water.

Alternatively you can hijack a Jackson Z-19 Skreemer and then parachute from it onto the ship.

Get to the destroyer[]

As soon as you're on the scooter, accelerate towards the ship at full speed and stay as deep as possible. As soon as you get into a vehicle, the Jackson Z-19 Skreemer attack helicopters will start shooting missiles.

If the scooter explodes from all the action, reload the game from that last checkpoint.

On your way to the destroyer, you'll see naval mines. Stay far away from those. You don't have to be in contact with them to make them explode and kill you instantly. Some of them might even explode randomly.

Get off the scooter when you're under the ship and swim up. The scooter can't survive the gunfire up there.

If you were fast enough, there should only be 2 helicopters. If not, then 3. If there's 3, you can consider the mission to be failed, because you'll die as soon as you get close to the surface of the water. This is the point when you need to remember where that ramp is, so you could swim straight for it, with out wasting any time under fire.

Restarting from the save point multiple times may give you a lucky scenario with only 1 helicopter. It's hard to tell what exactly effects the number of helicopters. Possibly leaving the port before approaching the ship might also help.

Aboard the ship[]

When you finally make it aboard the ship, take cover immediately. If the helicopters are all on one side of the ship, good. If not, use your rocket launcher to shoot one or two down. Don't try to shoot them all down, because even if you have enough ammunition, they'll send new ones to replace the old ones.

Kill the soldiers on the ship. Note that some of them are on higher decks. When you're low on health, take cover at the safe side of the ship and wait until Rico's health bar is green again.

There are 3 vaults on the ship. Use Triggered Explosives, or Grenades to blow the doors open. When the doors are open, you can enter the key codes. When you've done that and when Tom tells you to, you can jump off the ship.

There will be a cut-scene where the ship blows up and the mission is over.

Stuck on the lighthouse?[]

Rico will spawn on top of a Lighthouse. Some players think that they can get down from there with the Parachute. That would get you killed and would mean having to redo the mission.

Look around. There is a ladder that leads to a lower level and another ladder down there that leads to the ground.

Controversies[]

This mission has two serious inconsistencies.

3 missiles vs. 12 torpedoes[]

It's not known if Tom Sheldon was misinformed, or if the game developers were too lazy to play the mission once it was finished.

Tom tells you that there are three nuclear missiles on the destroyer. The PDA mission info also says that "The president has a small arsenal of nuclear tactical missiles on his destroyer".

This is not true at all. There are no nuclear missiles in this mission.

If you look around at the port, during the mission, you'll see that the most eastern crane is holding a frame with 4 torpedos.

The destroyer has 3 vaults that contain identical sets of 4 torpedoes, each.

So who's right? Was the ship really transporting 12 torpedoes inside vaults, or is it that the game developers were each doing their own thing and never spoke to each other?

This controversy has been officially resolved!

There's an official promotional comic for Just Cause 3 that shows a few events from Ricos past. Link to comic. One event is this mission. In the comic Rico opens a vault and immediately realizes that those look a lot like torpedoes: "These the same 'supposed' nukes that could just as easily have been torpedoes?" He decides to blow up the ship anyway, because: "Nukes? Torpedoes? What does it matter? What mattered was that we got the job done--"

Appearance of the destroyer[]

The ship that is seen exploding in the cut-scene at the end of the mission looks completely different from the ship in the mission. The mast looks about the same, but the decks and even the hull are completely different.

This is because for some reason the cut-scene used a different ship model.

Trivia[]

  • During the mission there are two The Vampire monster trucks driving around the track. If you go there outside this mission, there will only be parked ones.
  • In reality, no one would ever put their own ship into a minefield, especially if they plan to defend it. Safely maneuvering the ship would be extremely difficult. Also, ships that aren't secured to a pier at both ends normally drift a little, and if the mines are not secured either, one of the mines might bump into the ship and explode.
  • This ship and the minefield can only be seen in this mission.
  • This is probably a glitch, but sometimes the SAM launchers will start firing random missiles into the air, but these don't seem to be homing.
  • If you are skillful enough with the Protec Grappler G3 and manage to Hijack one of the government Jackson Z-19 Skreemers, you will come under attack by either Delta MAH-15 Chimaeras, or Ulysses-McCoy Redcloud fighters. Both of the last will be firing missiles at you.
  • This is the only time the highest concentration of Jackson Z-19 Skreemers can be seen: 3.
  • Along with River of Blood, this is one of two times Black Hand soldiers can be seen on a ship, or boat.
  • The ship is about 165 meters long.
  • This mission is an excellent way to obtain certain rare vehicles, as the heat system is revamped during the mission. For example, the San Esperito Military will send Meister LAV 4 series 2 after the player at Heat 3 to 5, and the military version of the Apache Army Model 842 will be the dominant opponent during chases.
    • However, it isn't the most common thing for enemy pursuers to even spawn. You may be able to drive from the unmarked military base to the port in silence.
    • In addition to this, you can incredibly rarely find the San Esperito Police Department variant of the Pequod - Harpoon PC 350.
  • "Buccaneers" in the old times were pirates who attacked Spanish shipping in the 17th century. In this case, you are sinking a "pirate ship" More on Wikipedia.
  • Depending on the player's opinion, this might be the penultimate Agency mission in the game if the next mission, Taking Out The Garbage, is not divided into three parts.
  • There are some rare vehicles featured in this mission:

Gallery[]


Video[]

Mission walkthrough[]


Mendozas destroyer[]


How to get the unique unmarked Ballard Centronel AAWV- 21[]



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