When you first start the game, you are given a package and asked to deliver this to Lakeside Safe Zone. The problem with this is, the Lakeside Safe Zone is the most unsafe place on the entire map. This is where 90% of all PVP happens. Veteran players circle the safe zone searching for other players to kill. This does not mean you should not complete the tutorial, you definitely should. Once you complete it though, grab a couple of packages in Lakeside to be delivered to either Westview or Riverside, and get the heck out of there! This game should be called Oregon Trail, because all noobs should immediately head west after completing the tutorial. After you deliver your packages to Westview or Riverside, head for Trainyard Safe Zone, and just run packages in the wasteland for a little while, while you get used to the mechanics of the game. See other guides for wasteland package routes.

The other thing is, you are going to die in this game. Go in prepared for that. You will be killed. By players, by nether, by gank squads, by accidentally jumping off a building. It will happen. I've been playing for 150hrs or so, and I still die all the time. This game is all about PVP and hard core survival. The good news is, you can survive for long periods of time by doing nothing but following the guidelines I set above. I still jump everytime I get killed, and my heart still races everytime I go after another player. That is why this game is great, and why survival games in general are great.

1) Trading with other players - Risk Medium - This is far and away the absolute best way to get good guns. Sometimes people will just give you guns because they have too many. Get to a safe zone, and just ask if anyone has a gun you want.

2) LMS - Risk Low - I put risk low because nothing that happens in LMS will take away from what you have in the regular game, and if you win you get good stuff. Came in second once and got a military back pack. Came in first once and got a Mag DR! The rewards are random though.

3) Killing Nether - Risk Medium - Nether recently have started to drop a lot of loot, and they very often drop the Smith & Risley gun. (Let me pause and say that the Smith & Risley gun is going to be an underlying theme of this whole guide. It is the most underrated gun in the whole game.) The creature you should specifically look for is this one.





This is a hunter. If you kill a hunter, it drops a Smith & Risley every time.

4) Loot Drops in the Wasteland - Risk Medium - Sometimes players camp loot drops, but often they are too busy PVP'ing in the city to worry about loot drops in the wasteland. You could get lucky and get great guns here, but you'll at least get the medium valued guns.

5) The Military Grain Silo - Risk Medium - You almost always find Shotguns, HAZ's, and Smith & Risley's at the Military Grain Silo. Just be careful, because lots of players go there for this very reason.

6) Looting in general - Risk Low - The reward is low as well though. Loot boxes don't drop much other than food and ammo (which you need both anyway). Just loot as you go to different locations on the map.

7) The Reaper - Risk High - The risk may not be worth the reward here, because currently the Reaper drops nothing, but all his minions around him will drop tons of stuff. You have to be very heavily armed already if you want to attempt this. Noobs should avoid Reapers until they have a good gun, and at least 200 rounds of ammo.

8) Loot Drops in the City - Risk Very High - Players camp these all the time, and the loot that gets dropped is not worth the risk. Just avoid all together.

9) Killing other Players - Risk Very High - The reward here is the highest though. If you kill a player, you get everything they have on them. So if you kill a good player, you'll probably get some great guns that you cannot find any other way. If they're good though, it probably means they are very good at killing other players as well.

Here is a ranking of the guns in the game as I see it. This is 100% my opinion, and I'm sure some people will disagree, but using this knowledge is part of how I've grown to love this game.

1) Mag DR - Range Medium - In my opinion this is by far the best gun in the game. It is a medium range fully automatic assault rifle. You can't find this gun anywhere at this point other than killing other players, trading with other players, or spending weeks and weeks searching for the gun parts. Get your hands on one and save it for special occasions. I typically don't break out a Mag unless I have at least two more in my GI, because I hate losing it when I die (which will happen).

2) Cru - Long Range - This is the best sniper. It's a simi automatic sniper rifle that kicks like a mule, and can one shot kill people of you have your gun perk maxed out. A lot of the pro players prefer this over the Mag because of the one shot kill ability, but it's unforgiving unless you have really good aim, and there is no crosshair on this game when shooting from the hip. The best way (and possibly only way) to get this gun at this point is to kill a Reaper (actually the minions around the reaper now because of the glitch that causes the Reaper not to drop loot) and trade Reaper Claws with the Order of the Cull for it.

3) Heartburner - Short Range - This is a shotgun style gun crafted from nether parts. It does tons of damage, and has one shot kill ability as well when the gun perk is maxed out. The downside of this gun is the short range of it. You have to be up close and personal to see the benefit of it's power, otherwise you'll get mowed down by people with medium and long range guns.

4) Smith & Risley - Medium Range - This is where a lot of people will disagree with me probably, but I feel this gun is extremely under valued by most people because it's so easy to find. This is a simi automatic pistol. What makes it so good though is, it has a 19 round clip, and you can fire it accurately as fast as you can push the mouse button. And, it uses 9mm ammo which you can find everywhere! It does 50 less damage than the Mag DR according to the in game damage numbers. Use this gun, love this gun!

5) MACH-9 - Medium/Short Range - A lot of people will probably feel that this gun is better than the Smith & Risley. I personally disagree because it does slightly less damage than the S&R, and the range seems to be less than a S&R. It is an automatic short range assault rifle that shoots 3 round bursts of 9mm ammo. It is still a great gun though.

6) TFC Special - Short Range - This is a short range fully automatic shotgun. This is absolutely your gun of choice if you want to go on a Nether killing rampage. It's great for PVP too if, and only if you are fighting at close range. Medium to long range and you're dead with this gun.

7) KB-12 Combat Shotgun - Short Range - Exact same pluses and minuses as the TFC. This gun has a smaller clip and it takes a lot longer to reload than the TFC.

8) Pipe Sniper - Long Range - This is a long range sniper that does a ton of damage and uses .45 ammo. I believe if I'm not mistaken that it is a single shot rifle. I have it edging out the Rab because it does more damage, but I could go either way really.

9) Rab - Long Range - This is a long range simi automatic rifle that does a medium amount of damage. It's an ok gun. Not great for sniping, not great for medium range. One benefit to this gun is it's silenced.

10 Gravedigger - Medium Range - This is a pieced together gun from stuff you find from looting. It's ok. Similar to the Rab, but it doesn't have a scope and it's not silenced.

11) Lopez - Medium Range - You always see this gun get dropped, and you get excited because you think it's a Mag DR or a MACH 9, then you find out it's a Lopez. It shoots .45 ammo. Does very little damage. It's not great for killing Nether, and you're pretty much dead if you try to kill a player with it. Only benefit to this gun is it's silenced.

12) The Can Gun - Short Range - People will laugh at me for not putting this dead last, but it does have some benefits. It is a one shot gun that takes forever to reload. The benefit is, it shoots shotgun shells, so it does a lot of damage. It's horrible though. Don't use this gun longer than the tutorial.

13) HAZ - Short Range - This gun looks cool, and makes you feel like a gangster when you're carrying it, but in my opinion it is the worst gun in the game. It hardly does any damage at all. I've been killed more times by players trying to use this gun than any other gun.

Tribal Wars - There is no clear way to tell how to wage tribal warfare, but I believe there is a mechanism for this, it's just not written down anywhere. So I'll give it a shot here. When you're in a tribe, and you go to take over a location, there are three stages that happen.

1) If another tribe already has that location claimed, when you enter the territory there will be a bar at the bottom of the screen and a percentage that shows what percentage they have the territory claimed. That percentage should start going down. If it doesn't go down, or it continues to go up, the other tribe is still present. If it goes down, you are in the process of claiming the territory, and a message will get sent to the other tribe saying your tribe is claiming one of their territories.

If you're not claiming a location and you get that message, and you only have one location claimed, then this message will tell you to go fight for your claim. If you have more than one location claimed, you will not be able to tell which location someone is attempting to take at this point.

2) If you're claiming a territory, once the percentage reaches 0%, the other tribe no longer has a claim to that location. Right now no one does. At this point the percentage will start going up again in your favor, and a message will go on the map saying "<blank location> is being contested by <blank tribe>." This message is visible to anyone. If you see this message on the map and you want to wage tribal warfare, now is the time.

3) Once the percentage reaches 50%, you have claim to this location, and sticking around till it reaches 100% does nothing other than make it more difficult for another tribe to take it.

This requires a little monitoring, and it's not the most intuitive thing in the world. It is possible to keep an eye on messages on the map and messages on your hud, and use them to wage war!

Note - The more people you have from a tribe on site at the locations the quicker the percentages move.

1) BROMAX - Learn to always buy a few bromaxes everytime you have money. The reason is, it restores your stamina! What? Yes! Nothing sucks worse than when you're running from a player or a hord of Nether, and you run out of stamina. With a couple bromaxes on hand, it's not an issue. When I first started playing, I had no idea why the people I was playing with kept giving me bromaxes. Then I realized. It is a life saver. My method of survival from maybe my 30th hour of gameplay through 80th hour was, buy a bunch of bromaxes, max out my stamina perks, and sprint everywhere. No one will catch you if you play this way, and you try and run inside of buildings as much as possible. Once I figured this out, the game became much more fun because I could get anywhere fairly quickly, and alive!

2) Doctor Bags - I know they seem expensive, but don't waist your money on anything but a doctor bag. They are a life saver as well. You'll find enough pills and wraps from looting, so you'll pretty much always have something that will give you back a little health. You need the doctor bag though when you get shot by someone and you escape initially. Heal with the bag and you're pretty much back to 100% health. Then it's on!

3) Wing Gliders - An absolute must have for any survivalist. Been killed numerous times running down ladders off of buildings. You don't have that issue with a wing glider though. Get shot while on top of a building, just find out which direction it came from and glide off in the other direction. When you get one for the first time, practice a few times in the safezone, because there is no fall damage in a safe zone. And don't forget to equip it in your quick slots every time you log onto a server. 99% of the time when someone commits suicide in the game, it's because they jumped off a building and forgot to equip thier wing glider in thier quick slots. Remember you can't use the glider until after you've jumped. That's why you should practice in a safe zone. :)

4) Backpacks - A lot of people really like the red and tan Large Military Backpacks. With one of those on, it's like painting a big ole target on your back saying, "Shoot me, I've got great gear!" Those things are status symbols and nothing more. They don't even have that much more space in them. If you want to survive, buy the black backpack. It's still big, and it's black making you much harder to see.

5) Food - The affectiveness of the different types of food to restore health goes I believe in this order. Military Rations, Water, Canned Food, Bromax, Energy Bar, Crunchy Bens. Two waters does the same thing as a military ration, so I would not waist money on the military rations. Typically I drink so much bromax, that these other foods are of no use anyway.