This game is still in development, so certain things in the guide might not be accurate all the time. I will try to update it regularly but you have been warned.

I try to be as accurate as possible as well as helpful, but I am not a developer of the game. I can simply tell about what I learned by playing myself and wish I had known beforehand.

There is not a lot of handholding in the game. Probably none at all. I'd like to remind you that handholding was one of the most complained about elements of many recent games. Be happy this game gives you the chance to show your wits and intelligence.
For all the things you can't possibly know, this guide is written for.

I play on my own most of the time, so the things described in the tactics section do work for solo players. Yes, you can play this game solo perfectly well.

Your home and the place you start at when you log in. It doesn't look like much, because it isn't much. At least not yet. A few things that are not overly explained by the game:

• You do not have to physically walk to the stations along the "rails" where you spawn in order to access them. Region select, Loadout, Character select, Mission select and Mission start can be accessed by simply using the Esc-menu.
  
• Not all vendors are available from the start, some are tied to your water level.
  
• There is a place to store stuff you do not want to lose, ever: The Vault. It does not show up in the regular Esc-menu. You have to manually walk to it and access it, it is situated behind you when you spawn.

Vendors are attached to a reputation system. The higher your rank, the better your prices and you gain access to better stuff as well. You gain rep with factions by doing missions and killing their enemies. This is not something a beginner should concern themselves with.


Your character progress is always permanent, even if you die or lose the invasion battle. On the other hand, you have to reset your character often, due to the prestige system.
There is a cap on how much XP you can earn and distribute on skills before you have to reset and prestige. Whenever you do that, your base attributes increase, which is most notable with HP.
Sticking with a character therefore is rewarded by being stronger, able to carry more and reaching higher skill levels.
You can freely try out characters for a while, as the prestige cap is reached fairly quickly for the first few levels. For the long run, you might want to stick to one you like.

They differ in playstyles, which is very vague, I know.

• Different base carry weight
  
• Different base speed
  
• Different skills available
  
• Different guns you can use
  
• Different rigs you can equip

The developers have announced, that following "Gunheads" lead, all characters will get a special ability like the robot's head-gun.


The game can be considered an extraction shooter and that means that, if you die, you lose everything you had on you. That is how these games work.

• You always lose the content of your backpack. You can not recover that.
  
• You "lose" your weapons and your rig. However, you are allowed to recover those. If you enter the same region again, you can reach your death-marker to reacquire weapons, their attachments, as well as rig parts you had on you when you died.
  
• The recovered items do not go into your inventory. They magically spawn at home, waiting for you with tea and cookies.
  
• Weapons marked with the word "surplus" are free. You can lose them as often as you want, they never run out and don't cost anything to get/equip. The surplus shotgun is decent enough actually for a starter gun.
  
• There is a "donation" box in your Hub that grants a free weapon per day, which is usually above the level of "surplus" weapons.

There is a range of missions to choose from, which follows a specific task type. There are missions to simply collect stuff, some ask you to kill something, some just ask you to scout a sector.
Until you are beyond the "insta-die at spawn" state, you can safely ignore the missions.
There is a guide on here that explains where and how to find mission items for the fetch quest, so I will not go into that further.

Missions are not, in any way sort or form, tailored to you and your progress. You can take kill mission as your first objective but you will probably just get smoked as soon as the target sees you.
Other missions are perfectly doable from the get-go:

• Fetch something. All you have to do is not be seen while you go through containers.
  
• Collect enemy drops. Nothing says that you have to kill the things that drop stuff. Collecting cyborg parts or drone parts is doable by just letting them get killed, although with these enemies you can actually kill them yourself most of the time with the starter guns.

For more info, especially about the first few missions, check this guide out! I think it is well done but I would not recommend bothering with missions at all as a totally new player.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3337448262

Water

The most infamous feature that seemingly attacks people's very innermost core. What is it really about?

• Water "powers" your base.
  
• You gain it as mission rewards and you can pick it up during your runs as a large item.
  
• It "ticks down" per 24 real time hours, yes, even when you're offline.
  
• The more you have in your base, the more functions get enabled.
  
• You can buy upgrades that allow you to passively collect water while offline.
  
• The more you store, the more options you get to defend it and delay the decay.
  
• Running out will trigger an "invasion".

Invasions

The water thieves have come to steal the water you just ran out of. What now?

• You get a warning when you log in.
  
• You are allowed to freely equip your character, change your character, use the merchants and use the vault.
  
• Whatever you can not live without goes into the vault. It has limited storage capacity, so you can just sell anything you don't need and store the money, as you can store infinite money.
  
• Once you start the raid 3 enemies spawn. Kill them and you win a bunch of stuff as well as maximized rep with the scav faction.
  
• Get killed and lose everything that is not in your vault.

Water-Trickery

• If you know you won't be able to play until you run out of water, you can back up your save locally. Google how to do that, I believe in you! You can then just restore it when you come back.
  
• There are "program" options that even do that for you.
  
• Water-Bots collect water while you are offline, significantly increasing your "time limit" before you run out.

They kinda forgot to explain that, like, at all.
Your character emits a certain amount of "threat". If you've played Army of Two, you know the red glowing aura all too well (it doesn't actually glow in this game).

• More Kaboom in your guns means more threat generated.
  
• Enemy soldiers shoot at the highest threat first as well as from greater distance.
  
• Big guns = More threat
  
• Characters have diffferent base values, Scav Girl being the lowest.
  
• At low threat (for example scav girl with pistol & smg) you can sometimes casually stroll inbetween moving squads for a second before they even realize you are there.
  
• Enemies tend to look for things that are about as "threatening" as they are. A three-story high mech will disregard you entirely, unless you actively try to annoy it by shooting at it or running between it's legs like a cat on coffee. Soldiers will target soldiers first, tanks target tanks and mechs. You can use this to your advantage!
  
• Exception: Mother Courage. She hates loves you especially and will express that.
  
• Hunter-Killers are made just for hunting you personally, so they will do that.

Where did he come from? Where did he go?
Unfortunately, you can't soothe their temper with old classic songs. They are meant to make your life harder than it already is, kinda like governments.

• They spawn once you picked up too much valuable loot, picked up too much in too short a time, attacked / killed too much, etc. Basically, whenever you overdo it.
  
• They can not be killed permanently (as far as I know), they respawn infinitely.
  
• Solution: You run away.
  
• They trigger earlier the more people you have in your squad, as every player's individual actions count to the same "pool".

If you think, you live longer.
If you plan ahead, you will have an easier time.
As a new player, you do not have anything worthwhile. You are next to defenseless, despite the surplus smg and shotgun. So what do you bring on your first (few) run(s)?

Nothing.

Why, one might ask?
You will die.

"But I am super good in CoD! I never die in shooters!"
You will die.

"Dude, I have played games like this before, I know what I am doing."
You will die.

See the pattern there?
That is simply because that is how the game is designed. If you read the store page, you'd know what you're in for. Is it unfair? Yes.

So how do you have fun in this game then? By employing your actually greatest weapon:


On your first few runs, all you should be focusing on is taking in the world. Run around aimlessly to get a feel for the map. Stick to one map after you found one you seem to like the style of.
Recommendations for good starter maps are:
Ashen Mesa
Scorched Enclave

Ashen Mesa
If you played the demo, you already know the map. It has wide open fields that allow you to not turn around a corner and step on a cyborg's toes accidentally. Enemies aren't really interested in scanning half the map just for you.

They are fighting a war and are looking for enemy assets, not malnourished lone scavs. This is evidently on this map. Very often, enemy groups engage each other, allowing you to casually stroll past tanks, mechs and soldiers.

Another plus for this map is that most, if not all exits are regular non-timed ones, allowing to actually get out alive.

Scorched Enclave
Wins a lot of votes because it is relatively small and "easy" to navigate. If you start at the cemetery, you can easily wiggle through some trench lines and bunker hills to the exit while at the same time passing dozens of loot locations.

Also, provided you started at the cemetary, the exit is non-timed as well as shielded from 3 out of 4 directions, providing relative safetly to walk up to.


Which ones are a threat to you?
All of them.
Yes, you can die to a legless cyborg quite quickly.
In your first few runs, treat everyone like a dark souls boss. Only after you get to know their behavior, weapons and quirks, you will be able to take on most of them.

• Red-sparking cyborgs come in masses. If they can't reach you (you can jump, they can not), you can quite easily kill a squad of them, as most don't have weapons. Even without a vantage point, you can just shotgun them in the face and likely win.
  
• Drones have a nice, rapid shooting gun that minces you, but they aren't very smart or durable. A few well placed rifle shots during their reload is often enough to kill them even when they are not damaged.
  
• Regular soldiers (not as bulky as the... well, bulky soldiers) can end your journey instantly, as they know how to use a gun. However, they can be surprised, they can be hurt already from fighting, they still step in IEDs and better guns hurt them just as much as they hurt you.
  
• Bulky soldiers (think power armor) need a lot of work to kill. Beginner weapons make them tingle most of the time. I am not saying they are unkillable, but you have about a tenth of their health so you do the math.
  
• Tanks need, who'd have thought, anti-tank weapons. They have machine guns to turn you into goulash, should their main cannon not vaporize you.
  
• Mechs come in different forms and sizes. Are you in a Mech? No? Then don't annoy them. Same as tanks, you need special equipment for these. Also, you are not meant to attack them. You are a scav and not spec-ops, remember?
  
• There are a lot more types of enemies. You will find out how they tick at some point. These are just the most likely to run into as a new player.

Don't take anything with you and don't expect to make it out alive. Get to know the maps, get to know the enemies. You aren't bad at the game and the game is not badly made, it simply is not expected that you survive. I know, we all think when the apocalypse hits, we will be the strong independant mysterious survivor that leads humanity into a new golden age of rebuilding but the reality is, that most will not even see the second day of it and those who do, likely won't see the second week. That is the setting of the game. That is, what makes it different from all the other "be the hero" games.

• The maps are far from perfect. You will get stuck on invisible walls or over-ambitious pebbles. These are also things you can learn to avoid. Sure, that is metagaming but until the game is no longer early access, it simply is what it is.
  
• Enemy spawns are not random, as many believe. Every map has been divided into sectors. When you enter a sector, you trigger the events within, be that battles, patrols or fancy ambient animations.
  You can use that to your advantage, if you're smart enough to remember what triggers where.
  
• Why? Funnily enough, that had to be done due to the battle simulation being so intricate, its system demands were just too great. Nowadays, everyone wants 300000 FPS, even when playing on a moldy potato, so that system was slimmed down massively. And no, most people still don't get a gazibillion fps like they'd want. Optimization is not the first step of development...
  
• Exits are based on where your entry point is. Timed exits are, in my experience, unwinnable.
  
• The "time of day" can change and drastically influence which enemies you meet as well as make for other nice surprises.

...was covered in the previous topic and the answer is knowledge.
Now, I am assuming you actually know the layout of a map you find particularly enticing. Ashen Mesa has nice curves, just saying.
You need to know what spawns where and when, which passages you can walk and which you can't, where endless pits are, where forces often clash etc.
If you know all this, you are ready for some actual scavving!


You get free stuff! Yes, the apocalypse is nice like that. You get "surplus" weapons and those are your go-to choice during your first few hours. You can't afford the good stuff anyway and even if you could, you'd just lose it, uncoordinated as you are.

The surplus shotgun is actually quite decent, especially considering that it is free and that is a very misleading statement.

You will die

This is not CoD. You are not a soldier, you aren't even a hobbyist airsoft player. You are a malnourished, frighted and dirty civilian that has just learned which end a gun has to be pointed at the bad guy. I mean, one of the characters is literally called "old guy" ffs.
Even the surplus shotgun, as good as it is, will not change that. No, it is not crap. It is still a shotgun but unfortunately the enemy soldiers wear actual armor and not an assorted collection of dishrags like you.

So why bother then?

In a fair fight, you will lose. That being said, what about unfair fights?
Some already malfunctioning cyborgs?
A damaged drone?
A lost, half dead soldier?
All good targets. All good loot.


This game is about knowing which battles to pick. You can not defeat an entire patrol of terminator-like super soldiers. You can, however, finish them off after they got roughed up badly by the other group of terminator-like super soldiers.
A nice tactic is to simply wait out battles and pick over the remains.

MORE!

I know, boring as hell! Who'd thought being a regular person could be boring?
Once you know patrol routes and "close but not quite" encounters of enemies, you can actually play matchmaker. Enemies will always be attracted by noise, especially gunshots from someone not in their squad. That can very well be used to lure groups into fighting each other. You might want to vacate the spot you shot from though before they arrive.

MORE!!!

Once you have some actual gear (that takes some time!), you will be able to take on more and more variants of enemies or bigger groups. If you play with other people, you can set up ambushes (provided you know the patrol routes), plant IEDs, set up turrets and make the poor soldier's lives even more miserable.
These things take time so do not expect to do these kinda things in your first run.


We all love loot. There is a really nice guide on here that focuses on what to grab and what to leave, so I will not cover that extensively. My general rule of thumb is "Medkits yes, Ammo no" and everything else depends on the situation, meaning "do I have space", "do I expect to make it out alive" and "why am I here in the first place".

There are two main sources of small item loot:
Chests and remains of enemies. If you are just scavving without any express purpose, you can just grab everything that isn't categorized as a healing item or ammo and sell it.
Big loot is found on the ground. The places are always the same, if not always "filled".

There's one exception: "Gacha" boxes spawn randomly anywhere apparently. They contain some nice stuff but you don't know what it is until you open it after the mission. They are mostly worth taking, unless you need something else in the "large" slot more urgently.

Look here for more in-depth info.
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3337364053


You can't carry much when you start out and runs feel agonizingly slow regarding loot accumulation.That changes drasticly as soon as you get your first rig upgrade.
You will need to think about which kind of stuff you want to mostly haul, but overall the "Equipment runner" is a really good choice.
Suddenly, you can rob entire squads blind and still have space.

Personally, I select my loadout according to the type of run I want to do. I am pretty sure many do the same but new players might not be aware of how much or how little you need to achieve your goals.


The scav run is my go-to run version which I do to have fun and enjoy the atmosphere. It is also what the developers seem to favorite as a play-style.

• No equipment needed. I literally pack nothing, just surplus guns, no ammo, one medkit.
  
• Goal is to grab whatever stuff you can find with no specific item in mind.
  
• Almost entirely stealth-based. With no means to defend, your only chance to not die is to not be seen in the first place.
  
• Scavenge battle remains, go through containers, watch the beautiful post-apocalyptic scenery. The burning corpses are especially beautiful this time of year.

Once you are sufficiently comfortable with the map, your character and which enemy kills you in the most creative way, you might want to move on to bigger things. While I think the scav gameplay is nice and although the devs seem to focus it, I am quite sure it won't hold the attention of most people for long.

This is were the Scav becomes an operative for either a faction or their own mysterious goals. A good way to guide your journey are missions given by the different factions.

"Dress for success"

• If you intend to kill something, you NEED a silencer on your gun. The entire map will converge on you if you shoot without one, which most likely leads to death.
  
• Choose the correct rig! You do not need carry capacity when all you want to do is fulfill a kill mission. However, larger rigs do allow for more bullet ricochet area, potentially saving you. You will have to experiment a bit and find out what works for you.
  
• Advanced Medkits only. Other types do not exist if you want to get serious. I usually bring about 4, which seems plenty.

"Choose attainable goals"

• As with all runs, it helps to think it through beforehand. What is your goal? What missions do you want to complete? Can they be done all at once or do you have to do multiple runs?
  
• Missions are a great way to get faction rep. Kill missions are a great way to lose faction rep!
  
• Chose a faction you want to stick with beforehand. Avoid killing their troops as best as you can. We are currently hoping the rep system will get an overhaul.

"To each their own"

• Different characters can use different weapons. Different enemies can be eliminated easier by different weapons.
  
• Naturally, all armed enemies like Tanks or Mechs are very hard to take down. You will need high caliber stuff, which of course can't be silenced.
  
• I think it is rather hard for solo players, but in a team you can assign roles to take care of different threats or mission aspects.
  
• The enemy of my enemy is... also my enemy, but they still kill each other! You have to get the killshot in order for the mission tracker to count it. However, other NPCs can still wear them down first!

Don't get greedy. Collection missions can not be completed without extracting alive!

Kill missions used to be completed even without a successsful extract, but not anymore? That might be a bug at the moment though. (10.3.25)


Just for completion's sake. However, it is one of the most vital activities in your early scav days!

• No gear at all.
  
• Fast character.
  
• The goal is to get to know the map, the spawns, the loot.

No, it is not the relaxing, low-intensity run in your workout routine. Whenever you die, you "lose everything", If you complain about that on the forums, you will be told to "git gud" so just save yourself the hassle and just pick yourself up.

• You can NOT recover anything you had in your backpack when you died. That applies to ammo, meds and anything you might have collected before you died.
  
• Your Rig (and its upgraded parts) as well as guns (and their mods) can be recovered.
  
• All you have to do is reach the point of death and activate the little floating box.
  
• You do NOT pick the things up like salvage. They get transferred to you base by magic.
  
• What should you bring for this run? A single medkit. Nothing more is needed, as you shouldn't be seen anyway! You are a scav, not an exo-pilot.

If you are desperately low on water or just want a quick refill you can try this simple run.

You need: Nothing. Go in empty, maybe a medpack if you're so inclined. A fast character is always good, I usually play Scav Girl or Shaman.

Map: Ashen Mesa
Insertion Point: City Ruins

1. Once spawned, go along the ridge and follow it into the shanty town.

Possible enemy spawns are drones behind/besides you (ignore them, they aren't there for you) and regular soldiers a bit down to your right (ignore as well, they get attacked almost instantly and have better things to do than look out for you).

2. At the shanty town, climb on top of the first roof bit that is to your right. Don't stand too close to the wall or the climb animation triggers wrongly, allow half a body width. You will know which one, as it is the only one that looks low enough to climb.

Possible encounters here are soldiers ahead (they just stand there, don't bother them, maybe crouch until you reach the roof).

3. Once up, climb towards the other side. You will see the walkway and stairs below in front of you. WAIT.

Possible spawns include some cyborgs coming from the end of the walkway ahead. They will ignore you like the little pigeon you are.

4. Once the coast is clear, jump over the little gap to the other building and onto the walkway. Follow that to the little hut at the end, you will find at least one water keg. Pick up as much as you like from there.

If you had cyborgs spawn there, they will come back, so be quick! If not, it is safe to linger.

5. Follow the walkway further, down some stairs and turn right. Ahead of you are several drops which can be safely executed even when sprinting.

6. You are in the semi-open ruin field. Looking towards the broken highway and open plains, pick the exit marker to your right. Beeline for it, almost everything on that field has better things to do than to be bothered by you anyway, just don't get to close.

Encounters there vary and can be dangerous. Use commom sense, don't get close and don't stop.

7. Pass the huge burning mech and go into the bunker entrance behind it, in the general direction of the exit marker. DO NOT STOP.

8. Up the stairs to your left, along the edge, ignoring everyone up there, keep running up the stairs and along the bunker wall until you reach an entrance. Immediately dive into it, go up the ramp again. Now you can breathe.

Encounters spawn on the first bunker roof bit. They might shoot at you and follow you but are unlikely to kill or stun you. Once you reach the entrance further back, a group of enemies will spawn in front of you, engaging your persuers.

9. Gauge the situation. If the two afrementioned groups fight, it is most likely safe to run straight to the exit. If there were no encounters, you are up for a fun surprise: A power armor dude standing next to the exit.

If that is the case, just run past him. Yes, it is that easy. 9 out of 10 attempts, he is to slow to react to your presence. The exit is not timed so you are safe immediately upon reaching it.
If he does react in time, you get shot. If you are lvl 1 scav girl, you are dead. Everyone else should survive and make it to the exit anyway.

Congrats, you got at least 1 day of water.


Notes

Ashen Mesa can appear in its "eclipse" form. If you spawn and there's a huge solar ecplise on the sky, you are the lucky winner of a tea party with Mother Courage.
However, little changes for this particular run. Most notably though, you must use the exit that is over the long bridge hanging over the bottomless pit. The more "left" one, when you look at the field.

The one described earlier will spawn a nice little kitty cat to play with you. It will not be fun (for you).

Once you no longer feel the urge to complain in the forums about how hard the game is you are ready to transition from Scav to Operative and be, in fact, "that" guy.

• Some missions are a chain and have several parts.
  
• No, you are not too dumb to find the follow-up parts. They simply do not always spawn and the entire system simply doesn't work as well as it should.
  
• By simply closing the mission interface and re-opening the ESC menu, you can re-roll the entire pool of available missions. At least for now, as that is likely not intended to work that way.
  
• You might want to focus on a specific faction to work for, but you do not have to.

Some things you can consider:

• You can set up traps with explosives AND the IEDs combined. If the IED doesn't kill it, shoot the explosives.
  
• Most mission areas have parts that are size-restricted. Learn the maps! You can even outrun a grabber, if he simply can't fit the path you took. (Be aware that exo-soldiers can clip into small corridors!).
  
• It is perfectly fine to let others do the work for you. Lead enemy troops into each other. The other faction is always more interesting to shoot at than some scav, if you just move out of sight for a second.

• Yes, there are anti-armor weapons. Most of them are given as quest rewards and can not be bought.
  
• You can destroy medium mechs, even more so when you have other people with you.
  
• An exo-soldier can be taken down by just the grenade launcher pistol.
  
• Several weapons can be modded to fulfill a variety of roles. I use an SMG as a sniper.
  
• Different weapon PARTS allow for different ATTACHMENTS to be put on. You unlock new parts from vendors through weapon XP (use gun, kill with it).

The more you know, the less you die.
Employ knowledge against your foes, not bullets.

Even more tips and tricks can be found here:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3337450095

And also here:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3345521734


You can become one. A lot later in the game. For most of it, you are "unnamed background character #24"


Ever tried it?
Try to enjoy the art and style as well as the atmosphere. Try to feel the tension, feel the risk.
Pray it will be your only "immersive" contact with a global war because the real thing will definitely be a lot more "unfair" than the game.



Comments are disabled on my guides by default. Consider everything in the guide to be a subjective opinion, impression or experience of mine. There is no guarantee that it is accurate and it is up to the reader to evaluate that, which does not require exchange with the author.