How to Behave like a Receiver

This isn't a guide on "wow I didn't know you could use elevators" or "shooting the ammo box off a killdrone before it chambers a round will stop it from shooting at you."
This is a guide of general behaviors for people who, like me, had problems beating the game. It took me a LONG time to beat this game - the original receiver too - mostly because I'm impatient and this game is ALL about patience.

In order of most important to least important (in my opinion) here are rules to live by in the world of receiver, to awaken.

1. And this is DEFINITELY the most important rule... STOP RUNNING. Altogether. Just don't do it anymore. This rule alone will probably be enough to get you to beat the game. Furthermore, go into options and set left shift to run, instead of tapping W rapidly. Yes I know, that's not as realistic and the way the game was meant to be played, but how many times have you been trying to inch up to an edge to look down, tapped W a little too fast, and ran off the edge? Yeah, me too. So I got rid of that possibility.



2. Take your time. There's absolutely no reason to holster / un holster while walking, be messing around with what mag is in what pocket, etc while moving. Slow down, stand still, complete your tasks in a stress free non threat environment.



3. Where there's 1 there's 2, where there's 2 there's 4, and where there's 4, there's more. (actually had a federal air marshal tell me this about terrorist plane hijackings)

In other words, DO NOT TARGET FIXATE. You peek through a doorway, and see a turret. It's behind a box but you know it's there by the blue light. You want an angle on this turret, and you start working out how to get around that box to shoot it. As soon as you step into the room, the other turret looking at that one that you didn't see because it was facing away, lights you up. Aside from running constantly, this is the #1 way I die. When you see a turret you want an angle on, or one you just shot that you want to pick up the ammunition from, stop thinking about that turret and start thinking about how another one could get you, before making your approach. Look up for flying drones. Check corners elsewhere as you move to the disabled drone.



4. Forget safeties when holstering guns, because the glock is a thing. Instead, create a mannerism for when you press the tab key to remind you to hold the key longer than one second. For me, this involves spreading my fingers out, lifting my hand up in the air and pressing the key hard and deliberately. This muscle memory has me now always holding the key long enough to not shoot myself in the leg, regardless of what gun I have. You can decock hammers, put on safeties, or whatever but come the glock, the only way to guarantee safety is to unload the chamber. My method works with all the guns, all the time. (For those of you shooters in real life, this is actually how you get a good safe drawstroke and reholster - muscle memory. One of the many reasons I think this game is so darn neat.)



5. Know your way out. When entering a new room, new area, etc. make sure you know, if you hear a BEEP which direction you're going to run. This includes where to make two right angles to lose a flying drone's tracking on you. They go to your last spotted location, before giving up the chase. Two right angle turns out of the drone's LOS does the trick pretty consistently. Also, remember that flying drone you shot down but didn't disable? Backtracking because you heard a BEEP is when you'll accidently step on that guy and die ;)



6. Consider another angle. Have you just cleared an area, and now you have two levels to approach a room? try the lowest level first, maybe see if you can take out a killdrone or two, or at least attract them to that area and then approach from the top with your new found knowledge. It is a safer approach.



7. When shooting and disabling a flying drone, take a second to holster your weapon and disable it with G. Yeah, it can't chase you anymore when it's on the ground, but you can step on it and it will shock you to death if you do. Won't happen to you? Probably not. But its happened to me a half dozen times. Does it really take that long to just finish it off...? In addition to this, if it spots you while you are still exploring the area, it may startle you into thinking a different drone has seen you, or worse - you may think that a new drone that really HAS seen you was actually the one you just disabled, and you'll ignore the new threat.



8. On stages 3 and up: NEVER shoot a turret you can disable with the G key. Ammo becomes scarce, and that one extra round that's dropped is one more dead flying drone. On lower levels, you can be more wasteful with ammo in the interest of saving time, but if you're down to one magazine (or cylinder) or less, or you're on stage 3 and above, apply this rule.



9. Vertical Development: You clear a tower of turrets and drones from the ground, and you're going to keep moving and not search the now killdrone free area for tapes and ammo? Just like you search all corners of a room for tapes, make sure that includes upper and lower floors, especially if you know you sterilized the area.



10. The chanting when a tape is near is SEVERLY diminished while listening to a tape already picked up. If you're really impatient, shoot a tape instead of listening to it or wait til the tape is finished playing before continuing your search. More relevant on higher levels where the longer you hang around the more likely you are to die.



11. You're not as well hidden as you think you are. Those boxes on a shelf won't hide you. Nor will the curvature of that propane tank. Unless you have a hard wall between you and the turret (sometimes not even that is enough, since bullet penetration is a thing) it can still see you. Refer to rule 5 "know your way out."



Thanks for reading, good luck.

[bollock]

you can also pause tapes with left click, which will make the chanting hearable again iirc

[Camouflage]

This is a solid bit of advice, but I would definitely change point 6 to clearing from highest point to lowest. Shock drones are best spotted from above since their FOV only moves from about equal to their height and below it, and ceiling turrets can't aim up from any position I have seen thus far. By clearing hieghest to lowest you get the drop on almost all of these enemies, and the top position will let you safely clear a large number of threats.

[Blitz]

On the topic of NDs I ahve developed the habit of carrying an empty chamber and dropping the pin before holstering, i only recommend this tho if youre mentally fast and trained enough to quickly rack your gun and clear malfuntions wich might happen