Opinion + tips for beginners + comments for devs

[Iko]

First of all i really like this game. It has a really good atmosphere and the whole randomness of what happens is really nice. Not being at the centre of the game, but just a sidenote on a battlefield is rather refreshing. But the game kind of misses the point of being only a scavenger. It gives us a lot of weapons, which is still appreciated, but very little else. As if it expects us to mainly fight. We should have more customisation for the stealth and traversal mechanics. Even the scavenging ones. To allow us to build strategies around that instead of fighting. As a scavenger, strategizing and equipping myself for a "run the hell out of here" situation should be possible.
The game starts as a hard game, but in time it becomes easier. And this is when you start dieing. Because you become overconfident.
I saw the minimum requirements for the game and thought i wouldn't be able to run it on my old computer, but it works. I have a i7 4790 4Ghz, 32gb ddr3 ram and a rtx 4060Ti 16gb and on a 1440p monitor it runs at a stable 45 fps on medium quality.


A few tips for those who are beginning:
- You don't need to shoot. At all. But if you do, get silencers as soon as possible.
- Consider this more as a stealth game than an action one.
- If you have to fight, go for head shots. Shooting in the body wastes a lot of ammunition and can attract attention when they start shooting back.
- Soldiers are always in groups. If you see one alone, pressupose there are other of his group probably nearby and you are just not seeing them.
- When moving around the battlefield, be mindful of corners. Soldier groups can be moving around and you will get a whole group right in front of you. If you hear shooting nearby, presume there are some soldiers running towards it.
- Use headphones. If you can hear soldiers, they are likely somewhere near.
- If soldiers are engaged in a fight or are running towards one, they will be less interested in you and often times ignore you. Unless they get right in front of you. Then they may attack you.
- Big things like big robots and tanks are rather uninterested in you. Often you can just sprint around them.
- The more you use your weapons, the more you level them up. This opens up new slots for new weapon mods. But because shooting is really not a primary concern, it can take some time.
- Soldiers tend to patrol the same area, untill they hear shooting, then they leave. For a while. They will either return or respawn. Use it to your advantage.
- You can pick up singular items from a dead soldier or click the pick all and it will pick everything, but you won't know what you picked up. It is good if you are in a hurry.
- If you get Hunter Killers on you, that is a good time to leave towards the exit. You triger them by either being in the level for too long, over 20min i think, or if you pick too many intel or soldier/vehicles parts, components. The hunter killers have a very good aim so it is good to run in a way to get something solid between you and them. If a big black cyborg cat spawns, it can be avoided by running through tight spaces. But they are very nimble and fast. If you triggered Hunter Killers, don't panic, just start moving towards the exit and if someone is hitting you from a distance it is probably them. If you triggered a big cat, you are totally allowed to panic and should start running. They are much harder to deal with than the HK.
- Vendors sell mods and ammo. But in limited quantity. Their stock replenishes after a certain time.
- When beginning, pick a level and play a dozen rounds only on that one, so you learn quicker the game mechanics. And soldier dynamics like detection. Also look at the map to get a vague understanding of the main zones you will go through.
- No matter how many times you die, you will always have access to the basic assault rifle and shotgun.
- It seems that whenever you get close to the exit point some fight will begin at that location. Don't run into it. Stop, study the battle and wait for an opening. Then run. If it is a timed exit, start it, go and hide a bit away from the exit because soldiers will come there, and when it is near zero, sprint towards it while praying no one notices you.
- You can buy better and bigger rigs when you unlock the rig vendor at 16 days of water. But you can also buy better quality rig components that double your carry capacity. Other can give you added defence from behind. Read the descriptions. Know that different character have different rigs capabilities. Scav girl can't use most rigs without proper upgrades, the Shaman can' use the biggest rigs.
- You can jump and climb on many places. Even more with a jetpack jumper. Good to get a look at the environment and to set traps.
- Zombie cyborgs can run faster than you. If they lock on you, lure them into a group of enemys. They usualy change targets. But make sure it is their enemies, not their human buddies.
- Your light from the gun and rig is not detected by the enemy.
- Gathering water is not as problematic as it sounds. After you will play for several times a level, you will recognize certain places where it can usualy spawn. If you get a better rig that can carry 2 or even 3 water it becomes much easier.
- If you die in a level, go replay the same level next, on the top of the screen there is a compass that points to the location of your death (an icon of a tombstone). If you recover it and finish the level you get your rig equipment and both your weapons with mods back. But you still loose all else, including ammo.
- When selling or buying from vendors, their prices are based on the trust level they have towards you. More trust means you buy cheaper and sell for better money. Trust can be gained by completing quests (though some seem bugged at this time) or by killing soldiers on the battlefield. Whenever you kill one you see the changes in relationship with them on the left side of your screen.
- There are gocha boxes that if you extract with them, they are full of loot and sometimes free weapons. There are 4 large items you can pick in the level: water, gacha box, large loot box and bomb. The last two are for sale. Apparently you can shoot at the bomb one and it explodes.
- You can hire bots for the mission and bring them instead of players, but they are a bit too trigger happy in my oppinion. There is also a rather large spider robot that helps you carry stuff, but it gets destroyed pretty easy. There is a button you can use to direct them if you want them to move into specific positions. As of now, i don't really like using them.
- Learn what items have a good price and what is a Hunter Killer stimulant. Manage your scavenging strategy according to that.
- More quests you do, the more factions you unlock for new quests and vendors. Quests get you good xp and money and also one or two days of extra water.
- If playing alone or with others you can aim at something and mark it for everyone to see with the "Z" key. If you do it on a nerby enemy unit it colors red and gives you their name. Useful for identifying units in quests.
- If you press the alt key it changes the camera position and the aiming style.
- If you want to play with others by joining their squad, wait a while for the list to refresh.

A few things for the devs:
- In the loadout menu, it would be nice to be able to separate ammo from weapons with a filter or an additional tab.
- I understand that when you run out of water, you loose everything except your character level. It would be nice if we could also retain weapon levels. In a game where we are not suppose to shoot too much it can get tedious levelling them up all over again.
- In the quick selection for the healing item after you run out of them, the game chooses items from your inventory. Would be nice if i could change that quickly, like with the press of the mouse wheel. Now there is only drag and drop.
- I like the selection of weapons, but as a scavenger i was expecting more non combat equipment. Maybe even moddable. To go for a stealthier run, maybe instead of two guns i would carry only one gun and one equipment, like special boots, that could make me more silent while running or walking backwards quicker, special gloves to make climbing quicker, some kind of jacket pattern so if i stand still i would be less visible, a cloaking device to prolong the time before HK spawn sacrificing a weapon slot for added time. No need for any of this to be visible on the character in the game. Maybe, like with weapons make them levelling and modable for additional customisation for new strategies. It would just be nice to have an alternative to two weapons. Something that would help with the actual scavenging.
- A large item that would take away a large space but give me the opportunity to scavenge more intel and components before triggering HK.
- When sprinting i can't sprint in a 45* direction, like i can when walking. Would be nice to.
- When i return from a mission, selling everything is long and tedious, having to sell each item separately, what about a button to mark items for sale(the whole stack) and then i sell once and everything is gone.
- The sniper mission seems to be bugged. I killed and brought back the rifle several times and it doesn't complete the mission.
- Dropped items dissapear way too quick. Sometimes i will wait out a fight to then get the goodies and they will dissapear.
- Sometimes the message that i triggered HK or the big cat doesn't appear. It should be more clear, and seen even over the inventory screen. So you can't miss it.
- It would be nice to get some throwable devices to distract soldiers, maybe even hand grenades. You could use them to "direct" the flow of soldiers through sound. Throw a few grenades somewhere, and attract two groups of soldiers together to fight and in the mean time you loot around until they are distracted.
- When i prepare a trap for a group of soldiers that patrol an area, they respawn too quick. Sometimes they literally appear out of thin air in front of me.

[Vinny♿]

I was really intrigued by this game so I pulled the trigger on it regardless of the EA and all the jank that comes along with it and so far I think I made the right decision. I knew it was going to be hard but wasn't expecting it to be this brutal lol. These tips were helpful and taught me a lot of info that isn't obvious in the first couple hours of playtime. Thanks

[Iko]

It gets somewhat easier after you understand how things work and get better equipment, but then you can become overconfident and greedy, which can be deadly. I have about 20 hours in the game and i was dying less in the first 10. With good equipment, knowledge of the map and enemies, you can quickly overplay your hand. Despite all the guns, this is more like a stealth game that requires good planning and patience.

[DazaKiwi]

Thanks for the tips, some good ones there. I didn't know you only get your stuff back if collect it and make extraction. I thought it was just gun parts you get back.

I think this is quite a hard game to play solo. But playing with randoms (haven't tried yet) could also be a waste of time if the other player(s) are trigger happy or like to mess with other players or are impatient. And of course the risk of one of them PK others for their loot near the exit. On that note; there should be a bonus incentive for everyone still alive to make it through. Extra water each or something. And player kills have their name red in the lobby (if they have killed 2 players in the last 3 days or whatever).

Btw what did you mean by prepare a trap?

I agree there should be some options to carry equipment you can use in a weapon slot. But gameplay balancing would be needed, but worth it if it invites different playstyles and some maps do need a different way to approach them.

I wish we could get target info in terms of what faction they are and unit type. I know there is a large rig gadget TacScan(?) or whatever it is called. I used it once before losing it. But I think the ability to see who is who (enemy type/faction) should be avail at all times when you are aiming at something, or at least be unlocked, but isn't needed to be equipped everytime. Especially how we have factions we want to keep happy and not kill their units.

[Sherman]

dont forget you can raise faction rating by selling a bunch of junk to them i maxed both europan and eurasian that way

[zombygunner]

Im just running and hiding most of the time and imo weapons are just in case and not an actual thing you should use. I skip even the loadouts and i dont evn use med kits because anyrthing will kill me anyways so i dont see the point really. What i do like is trying to get some great gear ( when i actually make it ) across the map without getting killed that is fun as hell in this game but other than that i dont even look for crates i look for an exit. Also i havent finished one mission yet so who knows what im missing lol.

[Iko]

If you collect your stuff you get your guns, mods for guns and mods for rig back. you loose everything else.

I have played with randoms on a few occasions, and it was ok. I think people understand that it is a hard game, so they play it carefully. But many in my experience don't even know you can get silencers, which makes a big difference. I don't know about friendly fire, but except for one occasion where maybe i was killed by accident by another player in an intense firefight in a tight space, i didn't really get the feeling people want to just kill you on purpose. Also the whole space/weight mechanic of scavenging and the randomness of the stuff you get, i mean i don't really see a valid reason to be killing other players for their loot. I don't know there are any super valuable items that would make PK worth it and i don't think they can pick your gun and mods. Regardless of deaths it is always good to finish the mission and extract. You get to keep all the loot you scavenged. I think that is a good enough incentive. The only real problem i found with randoms is the lack of silencers.

By preparing a trap i simply mean that you observe the routine path of a group of soldiers and you find a good location to surprise them and if needed so you can quickly escape if things go bad. you also have a placeable turret and a deployable mine.
There is a place in the ashen level where there are usually on a tight scaffolding two water bottles and a group of soldiers patrolling. You can get quickly the water and run, or loot other things there, but if they get to you it is a tight place to fight. Setting a trap by just getting in a better position gives you the advantage in the fight and minimises health loss and bullets waste.

As an early access game i think they can and probably will add lots of more cool stuff.

When you select a map you can select a different entry point, which may also change the exit point. Some entry points are dependant on your faction trust. It is not much, but it gives a little more variety.

I think that when it comes to the infantry their silhouettes are in many cases not easy to distinguish. At a distance, some are bulkier than others. I still have a problem distinguishing the factions myself at a first glance, especially the infantry.

The rig gadget you are talking about is for seeing through thick fog and to see items/soldiers/robots through walls by highlighting them. Kind of a wall hack. It makes spotting enemies way easier, especially if you are following a quest to find someone specific. But it doesn't tell you any info.

If you need to know who a unit belongs to, aim at them ad press the "Z" key. it will put a red triangle on them if they are not too far away and give you name and faction

[zombygunner]

Routine would work if they had one lol mine are bouncing all over the place then i go in and try to get the droppings left behind.

[Iko]

There are places where they have a routine, and places where they get spawned just for the battle. Those are more random. And they break routine quickly if they hear sounds of fighting.

[Iko]

More tips i found out, good for beginners:
- opening doors is very loud and can attract attention
- big cyborg cats are really tough. I shot one with 80 svd rounds and 130 rpk rounds and it did nothing. Will have to try it with a granade louncher. Previously i tought they are an alternative to the Hunter Killers, but as it seems they are just heavy units that can spawn randomly. They are quick and can hit hard. Better to avoid.
- In your base there is an upgrade for weapon parts. It is bugged. If you buy it it will give you the one with ammunition instead, so for now, don't waste money.
- There are 3 factions in the game: Russinas, Asians, Europeans. The Asians and Russians are allies.
How to distinguish the units at a first glance:
Flying mosquitoes = Asian, flying tubes = European, helicopters = Asian.
Big mechs with big turret on the back = Europeans, big mechs wearing a "skirt" = Russian, small mechs = European, big cats Russian.
Tanks with two red lights on the front of the turret (T-90) = Russian, tank with no red lights on turret front (Merkeva) = European.
Apparently Europeans have some kind of anti-air land vehivcles as well.
Cyber zombies = Asian, standard female soldiers with thin body frame usually in a group of bulky armoured units= Russian.
Hunter Killers = European,
Turrets = European
Knowing who is who, makes it easier to understand and predict who will be fighting who.
- The SVD is a good rifle, that can be silenced, and at lvl 9 you can buy an upper assembly part (upper reciver mod slot) that has a scope making it an actual sniper rifle. You get it at the Aramaki vendor in the parts tab.
- When shooting smaller and less armored units like ordinary soldiers and zombies with auto weapons, use auto or burst mode (you change it by pressing the "F" key). If you can't get head shots, when the enemy is facing you form a short distance, aim at the neck in auto mode, the first two are body shots and the third ussualy a head shot. Getting headshots is obviously easier if you shoot them from above or at least at their level than from below.
- It takes a little while to go into full sprint. If you are over the weight limit it gets even slower into a full sprint. Be aware of this in high risk situations.
- Some doors have a keypad with a puzzle to open them. One door (the med bay door) has two keypads, each on either side. You must do both to open it.
- If you shoot a soldier and kill him with a single headshot, nobody notices. If you don't kill him in the first shot, the whole group gets alerted.
- If you want to quickly raise your trust level with a paticular faction, sell them your stuff at the vendor. You may get a bit less money initially but can raise trust decently quick. Having a high trust level gives you better prices with the vendor, more weapon choice and in the battles their soldiers seem to be slightly less interested towards you.
- There are only Asian and European vendors in the game, no Russian one yet.
- You can get over your weight limit and move somewhat slower, but you can not get over your inventory space limit
- If you abandon a certain quest, it can show up again.
- Hunter Killers are European faction and can be engaged and even killed by enemy units.

[slxpress]

You spent a lot of time typing up that post. It was very thoughtful and has already helped some people.

On the healing part, default is to hit 3 and it should cycle through everything in your inventory that are considered healing items. That includes things like food and alcohol. Alcohol will induce a camera shake affect (like you’re drunk) so be aware of that.

Cigarettes are considered a healing item but what they actually do is drain your health exchange for lowering your recoil. Under no circumstances is it worth it. But be aware when you’re cycling through healing items cigarettes are in there.

Healing items you pick up are only available if you view them. So anything picked up before being revealed with the Loot All button won’t be available. You can change that by hitting Tab, which opens up your inventory, and then either right clicking or left click dragging items to the ground. They’ll be revealed and you can pick them up again to place in your inventory.

Another way to loot all is to hit tab and the space bar.

Pressing the mouse wheel is the default button for a melee attack, which attracts less attention. Especially good for attacking zombies.

There is a quest called Aerial Something (I can’t remember the second word). It wants you to collect 3 Eurasian drone parts. Those are collected from the remains of the insect looking drones flying around. The parts aren’t there every time, but they’re there most of the time.

Completing that quest gives you a hand held genade launcher which can be equipped by all the characters except Bag Man (who can equip regular grenade launchers with an investment of 2000xp). These use 40mm ammo. The gun is a single shot but the reload is extremely fast. When you first start using it you’ll end up hitting a wall or the ground too close to you injuring or even killing your character, but once you get used to it, it can be used to make you a killing machine on different maps, taking out vehicles and exo’s with some ease.

If you go to the rig vendor once he’s been opened up he’s the only vendor with a couple of tabs for his sales list, so it’s easy to overlook. The main list is the rigs for sale, but the other list is large items. Here you can buy extra tac cams, rig lights, pneumatic jumps, and IEDs (these detonate when enemy vehicles and exos get near them). It’s not readily apparent this option is available.

[kknd]

Originally posted by DazaKiwi:

I think this is quite a hard game to play solo. But playing with randoms (haven't tried yet) could also be a waste of time if the other player(s) are trigger happy or like to mess with other players or are impatient. And of course the risk of one of them PK others for their loot near the exit. On that note; there should be a bonus incentive for everyone still alive to make it through. Extra water each or something. And player kills have their name red in the lobby (if they have killed 2 players in the last 3 days or whatever).

I wish we could get target info in terms of what faction they are and unit type. I know there is a large rig gadget TacScan(?) or whatever it is called. I used it once before losing it. But I think the ability to see who is who (enemy type/faction) should be avail at all times when you are aiming at something, or at least be unlocked, but isn't needed to be equipped everytime. Especially how we have factions we want to keep happy and not kill their units.

There's basically no risk of being PKed for loot, since people can't take your stuff from your body. Plus, friendly fire utterly wrecks your reputation with the Scavs, and that's most of your merchants, so pretty strong disincentive.

Marking an enemy tells you the unit type and faction of that enemy. On keyboard it defaults to Z. Big help in learning who's what and so on. But it's worth knowing that there is some variation within enemy types. Example: Not every Europan GRINN is carrying a shotgun, some are just using SCAR's, but I wouldn't take the risk of betting my run on that.

[slxpress]

Here’s a great video on the enemy types:

https://youtu.be/UVAIaVGdx1s?si=8yJcy3nkrKAKVsO8

[DazaKiwi]

Any rule of the thumb for weapon parts lettering? It always says 'will work on most guns' etc. Which means you are buying blind. I think it should tell you what it works with exactly as ammo does. Eventually someone will have a table for all of this on a wiki so why don't they just tell you in game. Hopefully they will. I think also perhaps some of these parts will not show when customizing your weapon because the weapon lvl is too low. So there is that I guess.

Another thing I have found with the default rifle, the one with only 10 round mags. On two occasions it discharged by itself. I am sure I did not touch the lmb. At first I thought I had. But then when it happened another time I wondered if this was because I was using surplus ammo? Has anyone had this happened to them? or is this me lol. It would actually be interesting if you could use a malfunctioning weapon on the battlefield and have the risk of a ND.

[slxpress]

Originally posted by DazaKiwi:

Any rule of the thumb for weapon parts lettering? It always says 'will work on most guns' etc. Which means you are buying blind. I think it should tell you what it works with exactly as ammo does. Eventually someone will have a table for all of this on a wiki so why don't they just tell you in game. Hopefully they will. I think also perhaps some of these parts will not show when customizing your weapon because the weapon lvl is too low. So there is that I guess.

Another thing I have found with the default rifle, the one with only 10 round mags. On two occasions it discharged by itself. I am sure I did not touch the lmb. At first I thought I had. But then when it happened another time I wondered if this was because I was using surplus ammo? Has anyone had this happened to them? or is this me lol. It would actually be interesting if you could use a malfunctioning weapon on the battlefield and have the risk of a ND.

The weapon mod system is completely opaque. Most of them appear to be there for cosmetics only at the moment. It's unclear what each one does until you buy them. It's completely unclear what level you need to get your weapon at to buy the mods that are level restricted from the vendor. It's even a mild challenge to figure out what screen to get to in order to sell off your excess mods. It took me a while to figure out it was even possible.

I don't give it a lot of thought because there are going to be so many changes to weapons and their damage modifiers prior to the actual release of the game. And every one of them is going to produce crying from one segment of the community or another. Including me. I just think of the current system as more of a placeholder than anything else.

[Piet3rtje]

Idk if i just missed something but i cant even get to my first extraction. i wait for the right moment. but the second i walk towards something that could be an extraction (which i dont know because i havent gotten further that the first point of interest before getting targeted by everything eventho im hiding in a corner) i just die. am i missing something and how do i get better. because ive died 4 times without any new knowledge i could use not to die the next time