Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - S-Rank Walkthrough - Mission 19: On The Trail

Mission 19: On The Trail
Works best if you have sleeping gas grenades or stun grenades in your inventory. Immediately head to the location of the commander. He is guarded by a group of soldiers. Throw the sleeping gas to take out all enemies, then fulton extract the commander and escape the area on horseback.

There are two golden rules for getting S-ranks:
1. Don't try it on your first playthrough (a lot of strategies only work when replaying missions and you will unlock better gear over the course of the game).
2. Skip all cutscenes to save time (yes, cutscenes add to your time and will greatly reduce your points!)

S-Rank Strategies, basic tips and things you should know:
- Getting 130,000 points in a mission unlocks the S-rank (same score requirement for all missions)
- Only main missions have a ranking system, side ops don't. Main missions 02, 22, 43 are an exception, they don't have any ranks. There are 50 main missions in total.
- Completing the missions as quickly as possible without being seen is usually good enough. Skip the bonus objectives, they take too long and will complicate things.
- Equipping the Invisibility Camo, Parasite Suit, Raiden Suit, Cyborg Ninja Suit, Chicken-Hat, Infinity Bandana, using D-Walkers Fulton Ballista or calling in air strikes / helicopter support will void the S-rank. With these items you are limited to A-rank at best. So don't use them!
- On your first playthrough of the missions, always try to take out the enemy radar stations. This gives you a huge tactical advantage because you can call the extraction helicopter directly to the enemy base (or start the mission there).
- S-Ranks earn you a lot more money and heroism than lower ranks

With these tips in mind you should have very little trouble following these video guides and obtaining all S-ranks. Be warned, however, that the game uses a variable difficulty system. If you use a lot of headshots, enemies will get helmets. If you always infiltrate at night, enemies will get night vision goggles. If you always use sleeping grenades, enemies will wear gas masks etc.
In this walkthrough series I stick to the basics to make it as easy to replicate as possible. These guides are fairly spoiler free as I skip the cutscenes to save time.

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Follow PowerPyx:

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Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Trophies and Achievements:

Apprentice
Completed a mission using a Combat Unit staff member.

Accomplished
Completed all missions.

Executed
Completed all mission tasks.

Elite
Completed all missions with an S rank.

Undertaken
Completed a SIDE OP.

Cleared
Completed all "Mine Clearing" SIDE OPS.

Achieved
Completed all SIDE OPS.

Captured
Captured an outpost or guard post.

Search-and-Destroy
Captured all outposts and guard posts in Northern Kabul, Afghanistan.

Sweep-and-Clear
Captured all outposts and guard posts in the Angola-Zaire Border Region.

Deployment
Completed all key Dispatch Missions.

Intruder
Played an "Infiltration" FOB mission.

Cry Havoc
Made D-Dog available for deployment.

Speechless
Made Quiet available for deployment.

Trusty Steed
Raised bond with D-Horse to the maximum.

Man's Best Friend
Raised bond with D-Dog to the maximum.

War Buddy
Raised bond with Quiet to the maximum.

Extraction
Fulton extracted an enemy soldier.

Interrogation
Interrogated an enemy soldier.

To The Rescue
Extracted a female prisoner.

Platoon
Increased Mother Base staff to 50 or more personnel.

Battalion
Increased Mother Base staff to 250 or more personnel.

Army
Raised all Teams/Units to level 99.

Enhancement
Developed 50 or more development items.

Reinforcement
Developed 100 or more development items.

Locked and Loaded
Developed 300 or more development items.

Architect
Constructed all available platforms for Mother Base.

Deterrence
Developed a nuclear weapon.

Disarmament
Disposed of a nuclear weapon.

Prosperity
Earned a total of 10,000,000 GMP or more.

Conservation
Extracted all wild animal species.

Collector
Obtained all blueprints and key items.

Reminiscence
Obtained all memento photos.

Hero
Obtained the codename "Hero."

[venneance]

Goyta respect that the guys doing S Rank videos while the pandemic is killing his men back at base, thats some dedication to your audience👌🏻💯

[TecnoTyler]

The better (and funner) way to do this is to equip the max-level stun arm and fully charge it. It takes like 12 seconds, but it will insta-KO everyone.

[AllThings_Gaming-cm]

This mission. I use grenade ricochet command of Quiet, K.O all of Em. so cool!

[yourdaddy]

This was very helpful. Thank you so much

[ScopedogTC]

I tranq'd the Major's subordinate on the way to his car, and his soldiers just walked back to the nearby base like nothing happened, leaving him and their car behind.
I just waited for the major's group to get on his car before tranqing one soldier to get them out of it and then using a smoke nade and fultoning nearly everything.

[corpliner]

Throw one good sleep grenade and then stun arm the rest. Also, you can fulton the other guys bc they have a high chance of being S rank soldiers, or at least they were for me

[xCam]

Another easy way is stun arm level 3, that's if you've unlocked it.

[chrismeyers]

sleep grenades are so much fun to play with, i use them whenever i can lol

[HunterOfDarkness]

Similar to what I had done on my first run of the mission, followed the subordinate and once they finished talking, few stun grenades then CQC them and fulton xD
Only got a B rank though naturally due to the time I spent following the other guy

[wiisalute]

I'm not gonna lie, this game is pretty hard. Like I don't get how to be stealthy especially when that white line comes on. I love metal gear, but this is hard. I think I'm worried about losing heroism.

[ERROR]

If you have the stun grenade variant of the Zorn KP, it's even easier.

[DeepakKumar-gfip]

Getting a foxhound codename is really tough

[abhyudaisrivastava]

i will use electric arm thunder strike its more easier and i can also use parasite ability mist then it will be very very easy

[Creepface]

I didnt have enough rank for sleeping grenades and the stun grenades i had weren't effective enough for this mission. So i used 1 frag grenade on the Major and his buddies and still got S rank. With the exception of not getting the intel though.

[SHAH-UZER]

Using stun grenade was not a good idea at all but still got the S rank, thanks

[HassanKhan-rkhu]

i destroyed the chopper to complete the mission??

[moocowman]

This is impossible to do with stun grenades. Just tag the target, throw a few smoke grenades, run in with NVGs on, slam him, Fulton, and run out. Stuns don't last long enough.

[rileybradley-zn]

the quickest way is just go to were the major is fire an rpg at him call your heli and get out

[KumaCody]

If you have the 4 star stun arm this is way easier lol

[davidworrall]

Once they got in the trucks i just fultoned the majors car away and no one was alerted 🤣