I have tried now to complete the campaign in Ghost Mode over 20 times, The first 5 times I died by my own fault, The other 15 were to unbelievably stupid things.
My latest one was apparently from "suicide" according to the screen that popped up, But in reality I landed a perfectly fine helicopter in the middle of a field... it then blew up for no reason, Other times my parachute has refused to open for whatever reason, Other times the vehicle I'm driving has just blown up while normally driving, No vehicle damage, Just BOOM and then dead.
Making Ghost Mode difficult is nice and all but the permadeath thing should be optional, There's just too many things that go wrong with the game itself to make it viable.
I know the feeling. Perhaps a little too well. Buried 24 characters, although never during a mission:
- 8 because of SAM launchers (in old ghost mode, before behavior of SAM launchers got reworked and faction vehicles got targeted less)
- 4 fell through a hole in terrain and ... that was it. Since then, some terrain holes got patched by automatic fast travel, while others still remain and result in almost instant death.
- 4 characters bled out to death because team AI wouldn't revive
- 2 characters got mowed down by minigun while taking over network stations, revive was not possible since the same thing happened to all AI teammates too
- another 2 characters died during guns for hire rebels ops
- 1 character died due to fast helicopter landing. It was completely intact. Just exploded the moment it landed on the ground without catching fire first.
- direct collision with civilian plane during supply helicopter lift off
- got ran over by a civilian shortly after being downed in a fight. Only 1 down, no extra down skills unlocked at the time
- default parachute didn't open during jump/base jump. Using a parachute in ghost mode wasn't always an option. At first, characters would instantly get cut down and die upon exiting helicopters.
Actions that lead to these senseless deaths were (more-less) avoidable. All SAM launchers can be avoided and when there's too many of them, ground transport is a perfectly viable alternative. Rebel operations are entirely optional (spotting is useful on higher difficulties). Supply helicopters and planes have all the risk while offering little to no reward in return and should be ignored. Parachute skins fix most parachute related bugs, but base jumping still isn't recommended in ghost mode.
Vehicles don't explode randomly, they explode because of terrain bugs or occasionally - destroyed tires/rotor blades. Bikes can do all kinds of stunts, but sometimes a tiny pebble can make them explode like in a cartoon. This can look funny in campaign, but it's not so funny in ghost mode. There's plenty of places in the game world with incorrect/invisible textures, buggy collisions and invincible leaves. Some vehicle spawns can be very deadly due to chain explosions. Use regular campaign to study vehicle spawn feature.
What can't be avoided or predicted is AI not reviving for whatever reason and civilian behavior. So, whenever you find yourself in a situation where your character is about to alert the whole base, go down or die, just quit the game to desktop. Quitting to main menu still leaves the game running and doing who knows what in the background, don't do that, bad idea. Quitting to desktop also saves you from character deletion in case the game decides to crash. Fast travel is not recommended either, because you never know what will carry over from before. The most important thing in ghost mode is ... life. Not mission, not progress, not unlockable items, not speed. Life above everything else.