This guide will cover the full guide to the human side in Pandemic Express. If you would like to see visually what I am talking about, you can watch my video instead, as everything that is written here, will be explained in the video. I hope this helps and if you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

Pandemic express is a unique human vs zombie game in which you start in a small lobby with 20 or more players.

1 human is randomly turned into a zombie at the start of the game.

Once that zombie has converted 2 other humans into zombies, the gates open and you can start escaping spawn.

You need to arm yourself with the best weapons you can find and jump onto the escape vehicle which is either the train or cable cart, depending on which mode you are playing.

Your goal is to reach the escape zone, while the zombies try to deter you from moving forward.
The safe-zone becomes increasingly smaller as you play until only the escape vehicle remains safe from it. It deals damage over time which forces you to stay in a small area making dodging zombie attacks even more difficult.

There are 2 game mechanics which make pandemic express feel VERY unique:

• First: This is a movement game! Continuous movement Is even more important than shooting zombies.
  
• Second: Your game does not end once you have been converted, but you rather enter the second phase of the game, in which you to try to convert the remaining humans into zombies.

Now before we get into the basics I wanted to mention this tip to all new players:

There is not much to comment on when it comes to the settings of pandemic, as they are very self explanatory… However one thing I always see new players stuck on is their FOV. Players with the standard FOV of 70 are at a huge disadvantage in pandemics fast pace gameplay! So I highly recommend to turn up your FOV to 119 (the maximum) as the added vision makes fast paced gameplay much easier to grasp!

• Slidehopping and gunhopping are both essential to your gameplay as the entire game more or less is based on you, moving around as fast as possible! To slide hop you need to sprint, press the crouch button and then mid slide jump. Upon landing you keep holding the crouch and forward key. Now double jump again mid slide. Repeating this process is what will transport you out of spawn and through the entire map much quicker than running, as you keep gaining momentum!
  
• Gunhopping is essential, especially in nasty situations where you might be standing in a small corner and are trapped by zombies. Basically you go to a wall and jump while shooting into the opposite direction of where you aim to get knocked back to. The best guns for gunhopping are the rifle, the shotgun and the pistol! The AK and the SMG can be used for climbing up tall walls through continuous small knock-backs, but are not really usable for gunhopping!
  
• The combination of gunhopping and slidehopping is what you will use most! As you can jump twice, you can use your second jump in combination with shooting the ground or against a wall you're passing mid jump! This will launch you far distances!
  
• If you struggle to understand movement, I would be happy to recommend Goberinos in depth guide to movement! You should totally watch it if you haven't yet, as it will clear up any questions you might have!
  
• Practising your movement is essential as the entire game is a movement game, rather than a shooter! Movement is what wins your game, not shooting zombies.
  
• Pro-Tip: Slidehopping or Gunhopping uphill can be difficult when there are no guns or objects to bounce off of! If a rail is close by, you can try to find the sweet-spot by just standing right on top of the metal rail and you will run faster than normal!

• Stars are the currency in-game. You can either purchase them or earn them by playing. You can get up to 6 stars depending on how many points you score. These stars can be spent in the shop to get new songs for the radio or new skins!
  
• You can also use them in the emote menu: When you hold down the right mouse button while in the emote menu, you enter the star paid menu in which you can cast an emote with a guitar melody for the cost of one star, every time you cast it. Try to save up your stars for the most useful skins first before spending them on anything else, as some skins offer you some huge tactical advantages!!!
  
• Keep in mind though that your perks will only be activated when you have all 3 pieces of the same skin quipped! If you mismatch skins you will not get any perks!

• Skins don’t just look good, they can severely alter your gameplay! Every skin will give you a unique benefit when all 3 parts of one set are equipped (seen in the top left)
  
• The default skin currently gives you one armour heart additionally
  
• The Doubtful set gives you the ability to equip not just 2 weapons but three weapons at the same time. Initially you would think that this is a huge benefit. But in comparison to the other skins it really isn't that viable tbh. Fun fact: During the beta of Pandemic express, you were able to attain the limited edition of the doubt set, which adds some gold ornaments like this golden bobble you can see here!
  
• The vanity set allows you to jump three times and is by far one of my favourite sets as the additional movement almost guarantees escaping while accelerating the pace of the game, challenging you even more to use your movement elegantly to evade any zombies, that are thirsty for your gooey inky blood.
  
• The Lovers set is also one of my favourite sets as it provides you with life-steal, which is ridiculously overpowered, as you gain health by damaging the zombies. In the endgame this will be the strongest skin perk, as you can basically stay outside of the safe-zone while farming zombie kills. And rocket launchers will become your favourite weapon! More on that later ;)
  
• The safety set only gives you one normal heart but 5 armour hearts. I don't really find it that useful and viable compared to the other sets tbh.
  
• The Hope set equips you with a special rifle with one bullet that can cure a zombie converting it into a human! This can be either SUPER useful, or not useful at all. So it is an interesting skin to switch things up every now and then, but not anyone's main skin of choice. It is worth mentioning that if you're luck enough to get converted back, you can not hit glass directly without getting a lot of damage! This damage ignores even your shield hearts! So take care to shoot the glass windows from a distance!
  
• The Leader is probably my third favourite set as it completely changes your gameplay. Upon crouching long enough, you become invisible. This can change the entire gameplay as you now centre your gameplay around standing still regularly as opposed to moving around quickly like with all the other skins.

• Normal Zombinos: They deal a lot of biting damage and have the ability to pick you up and throw you away! As a human avoid this at all costs in the endgame! When you're thrown down a nasty cliff or into a big ocean, it usually ensures your conversion into a zombie!
  
• Mimics: Mimics are imitating normal players. They may look like normal players BUT they can deal medium amounts of biting damage while also being able to put down fake bombs which kind of look like armour potions! Beware of stepping into those as they poison you and can be really enjoying! When they place down bombs which look like purple glowing shield potions, make sure to shoot them from a distance! When these mimic mines are close enough to each other, triggering one will set off another, meaning you can sometimes clear an entire mine filed by just shooting one mine! Because of mimics, you should always look out for randomly appearing players in front of you, as they are most likely mimics that spawned in! If you happen to get negative damage when shooting them in checking if they are human or not, you know, that they aren't mimics!
  
• Bombers are the red glowing zombies with only one heart. They are very dangerous as they deal a lot of damage when they explode right next to you. BUT they barely damage you when they bite you! So perhaps the most important rule of pandemic is to not panic and shoot them when they are close by you! Hop away and shoot them from a safe distance. The main problem however will be your fellow humans shooting them while you're standing close by the bombers. So always make sure no bombers are anywhere close by when you shoot them. HOWEVER when you are at a safe distance, I invite you to shoot them regardless of whether they are close to your fellow humans as this is what makes the game a lot of fun! Don't overdo it though! Btw Bombers set each other off! So when 2 are close enough together, you can shoot one of them to clear both of them! This also means however, that if you are close to multiple bombers, you are in a lot of trouble when someone else shoots one of them!!! So please keep your distance!
  
• The conductor: The conductor appears whenever the humans are overpowering the zombies; especially when they are able to open the airdrop. There can be as many as 4 conductors simultaneously! They might not be able to slide jump and move quickly, but they deal a lot of biting damage and have the ability to throw barrels, which upon contact explode and deal lots of damage to all players close by the barrels explosion! They also have a very large pool of health! So focus your human teams gun attention towards them! ALWAYS keep a safe distance from them to shoot them from! It is especially important to stay away form them as they only remain in conductor mode for 60 seconds. For every bite to humans, they gain 20 seconds of lifetime additionally. Once their time is up, they turn into a normal zombie and are able to hit and grab humans again. So always make sure no one gets hit by them directly! There is also a mechanic that I do not fully understand where the conductors bites cause an explosion occasionally. I think this mechanic is randomised but I'm not too sure! Lastly the conductor is extra tough to evade as you cant knock him back! So make sure you run away fast enough!
  
• I would be happy to discuss tips for playing zombie side in this video, but I don't have enough time for that, so keep in mind that this guide focuses on human side only for now! But stay tuned as my zombie side guide will come out soon after this video!

• You will spawn in one of 4 small lobbies, where you wait until at least 10 people have connected to the lobby. Before the game begins you can look at your position on the leader-board, talk to the others, pick up the radio to blast some tunes and mute all other players as mic-spam is rampant.
  
• Your most important task to survive is to practice the jump and runs of the individual spawns and figuring out which locations are often overlooked by zombies.
  
• Here I will show you how I jump and run at the 4 different lobbies, to give you an idea of how the timing works
  
• When you survive the zombie conversion in your hiding spot of choice, you can start escaping. I have some usual routes that I always prefer to use! Mind you for a quick escape the vanity set is an absolute recommendation as it is very good for escaping any zombies with the added jump providing much faster acceleration of your slidejumping over the normal double jump! Try to get to a gun spawn close by and search for guns (preferable a pistol, shotgun or rifle) and armour potions! Now quickly try to scavenge for better weapons at the airdrop or explore the apartments in harbour and city before approximating the escape vehicle.
  
• I do want to mention one quick thing here though! PLEASE do not rush going to the train or cable cart. This ruins your game and the game of all other players as the safe-zone will shrink much earlier! Time for exploration and opening of airdrops is will be much shorter and the game will be much less complex and end sooner. The developers already implemented a timer for the train luckily to prevent train rushing. BUT cable cart is still affected by this very problem. Waiting at least 5 minutes before jumping on the cable cart will make the game a lot more enjoyable for everyone!

• Lets talk about guns and their effectiveness! You can find many high tier guns at the airdrop (more on that later), or in harbour and city! Decent guns are also available in many places like houses or pretty much all over the map! There are 5 levels of gun tiers ranging from 1-5 stars. 1 star being represented by grey, 2-star by green, 3-star by blue, 4-star by purple and 5-star by gold. 1 star representing the lowest and 5 stars representing the highest tier!
  
• If you want to explore all the different types of guns and their properties yourself, I recommend checking out the firing range in the warm-up map you can enter from the main menu!
  
• When collecting guns you always want to search for your preferred guns (which is usually a pitstol paired with an AK or SMG) in of course the highest tier you can get your hands on. The purple and gold tier weapons can usually only be found at the airdrop or in harbour and city apartment houses! More on that later! For now lets talk about the different guns and their use cases!
  
• Pistol: This will be your go to essential gun as they are incredibly viable for nearly all situations you can find yourself in! They deal a lot of damage, are accurate over long distances, are easy to aim with, have a high fire rate and make fast movement ridiculously easy! The first thing i look for after I spawn is a pistol.
  
• SMG: Low damage, high fire rate and big magazines make this weapon pretty useful, especially the higher tier ones. The ability to spam is neat in the endgame, but keep in mind that you have to aim your weapon consistently at the moving enemy to kill them, as their damage even for the higher tier SMG’s is still pretty mediocre!
  
• AK-47: One of my favourite weapons as they deal a lot of damage, have up to 50 bullets in their magazines and can be useful to decimate lots of zombies! One thing I don't really like about the AK-47, is how it is tough to aim across longer distances. Furthermore since it is large in size, it blocks a lot of your field of view, decreasing your overall visibility!
  
• Rifle: It is a niche gun with high damage, long range and high accuracy. Because of the fast gameplay style of pandemic express and the safe zone, this gun is usually pretty useless in the endgame, hence why it is rarely used. However for movement this is the best gun in terms of the added speed it gives you when gun hopping, making it a nice weapon to switch things up with every once in a while! Keep in mind that you can not engage in close combat with this weapon because of its low fire rate! This makes it especially useless in endgame when many zombies will be close to you, which is why I rarely pick up the rifle. I do wanna mention though that the rifle is by far the best Item for movement, as even single gun hops launch you much further than with any other gun!
  
• Shotgun: Sometimes useful and sometimes really not! I don't really use it but its also nice to switch things up with every now and then. Like the AK it also blocks a large part of your field of view. It also has a low fire range and a very low fire rate. Sometimes lining up shots on zombies heads in close range can result in an instant kill, however you are at the risk of getting grabbed, making this weapon not really useful in the endgame! In the early game however, the shotgun can be very useful as it is a great tool for movement and many zombies will approach you individually.
  
• The rocket launcher is available only when the airdrop is opened and provides you with only 6 rockets that will decimate anything in a large radius of their impact. Careful use of this in the late-game can be incredibly useful in getting up to 10 kills or more with one rocket. When using the Lovers skin with its life-steal perk, the rocket launcher can be like an instant heal as killing multiple zombies at the same time will heal you up instantly, making you very resistant to the effects of the safe-zone!
  
• Headshots work and deal significantly more damage per shot! For some guns especially if they are lower tier, it is essential to aim at the head! So when possible, always go for the head! This applies especially to the shotgun!
  
• Btw friendly fire is a thing in pandemic! While you cant damage your fellow humans, you will still get negative points for the damage you would cause to humans! So make sure you don't accidentally launch rockets at a full cable cart or something!

• The airdrop it an awesome way of getting high tier equipment! However it is much easier to open it with a few fellow humans and some preparation. While you open up the air drop, zombies will most likely notice as someone opening the airdrop, the progress and the amount of people actively opening it, is shown in the top middle of your GUI. SO be prepared that many zombies will jump at you. The biggest danger at the airdrop are still bombers as your fellow humans will most likely panic and shoot them all the time. My tip for airdrop is to bring as many people as possible there and always have at least one getaway weapon with you to quickly gunhop away from the airdrop, should some zombie try to beat you up or explode near you!
  
• This is all worth it however if you do get it open, as you are rewarded with ridiculously strong weapons making the rest of your game pretty easy to beat.
  
• I wanna stress the importance of knowing when you cant open the airdrop though! If you are only one or 2 people and the zombies keep preventing you from opening the drop, just get out and get some guns! The safe-zone will come in faster than you can safely open the airdrop and get to your escape vehicle! In that case your best bet is to search for alternative gun spawns.

• Here the best options are city and harbour! In both you will find large apartment houses with sometimes even purple or gold weapons! Across the rest of the map you will be able to find up to three star tier weapons though, with which you can still comfortably escape!
  
• Don't get too hung up on collecting weapons as this is just a small part of the game! It is better to get 2-star and 3-star weapons and join in on the fun quickly rather than to search 6 apartment building only to find one purple gun and be late to the zombie slaying!
  
• As long as you have at least a 2-star green revolver paired with a 3-star weapon, you should be fine generally speaking. Obviously it is still possible to survive with with any or even no gun, but part of the end game is to shoot zombies and launch yourself far distances with gunhopping. This is just a generalisation! You will figure out your preferred style of playing as you go!

• To heal up normal hearts, use healing stations! They have a 10 second countdown and can be found in many places! Its worth mentioning that they can be found at the top of all concrete towers! In the endgame all heal stations outside of the safe zone will stop working. Only after the escape vehicles planned, one minute stop half way through its full path; a healing station will appear on top of it.
  
• Time your heals carefully and don't heal merely half a heart as some of your team mates perhaps need the station more than you do!
  
• Armour pots are the golden jars you find in all houses! You can gather up to 3 armour hearts at the same time! Picking them up whenever you come by a house, and before you approximate the airdrop is a great strategy for surviving bomber attacks.
  
• Ammo packs are essential to your gameplay! You can find them all over houses or apartment buildings! However Zombies also drop them, when you kill them. Make sure to collect them as you keep killing Zombies! I personally have had some games where I emptied my revolver too quickly and forgot to pick up packs, leaving me with only my secondary weapon. This ended the game much quicker than it should have and is easy to prevent.

• Trucks and boats can be a fun tool for movement around the map! Make sure to drive carefully though as you are limited by fuel and the wonky physics! Other than that, its one of my favourite mechanics and I find people use them way to little!
  
• Helicopters have also been added to the game. They aren't as useful as the other vehicles in their current state though as they are tough to maneuver. Their controls are limited to up, down, left and right. You can not go forward or backward.
  
• Its also wort mentioning that you can kill zombies with your vehicles! Especially the pick up trucks are useful for regaining control of the train at times.
  
• Sadly, many times these vehicles are stuck for some reason. Boats and helicopters especially only work about 50% of the time for me. Pick up trucks are less affected by this bug, but lets hope they fix it soon!

Thank you very much for reading my tutorial! I hope it helped you. Of course there is way more to the game that I have not even talked about, but this should cover the majority of whats important for beginners who want to play the game. I am planning on making a more in depth guide on the Zombie and Human sides both, but it may take a while. Anyways I hope you have a great day and I will see you in-game!