Tips and Tricks for Thunder Tier One

Some neat tips and tricks that might help

General Tips

1. Please leave people some time between missions in case they need to change loadout. A lot of hosts hop from mission to mission non-stop, which leads to some players sometimes using loadouts that are ill-suited to the upcoming mission.
2. Read the mission description and check the mission settings. If you are playing the campaign, read the mission description, it can save you a lot of hassle by telling you vital information such as where to search for certain things and what to bring.
3. If you are playing a mission at night, bring NVG and IR lasers for your guns. You can toggle the lasers on your guns with the B button and the NVG with N button. These two items will save you a lot of grief at night.
4. Use the UAV to recon the enemy locations. You can use Z to mark out enemy positions and then call them out over mic to your friends. While you unfortunately don't get any xp for the tagged kills, tagging out enemies can really help under default settings. Forewarned is forearmed. Also, if you die, be on the UAV watching over your surviving companions.
5. Use Ctrl to shout to enemies to surrender. While I am uncertain what determines how likely they will actually surrender, having them surrender can save you some ammo since you only have to restrain them afterwards instead of killing them. Plus, you get more XP per arrest as opposed to killing them.
6. Shoot out the lights at night (preferably with your pistol) as taking them out will make it harder for enemies to spot you and hit you, while you can see them perfectly fine with your NVG if you followed my rule of bringing NVGs to night missions.
7. You don't have to run everywhere. Sometimes, slowing down, scout ahead with the UAV then proceed might be better than just running blindly into enemy positions trying to gun everyone down. Also, sprinting drains your stamina and it will be harder for you to aim with your gun.

Loadout Tips

1. Most of the missions encourage using stealth so bring your silencers. Unless it has an integrated silencer barrel, you can always just remove the silencer should you don't feel like it.
2. You will go down quickly in a firefight even if you are wearing heavy plates and heavy helmets. This is (un)fortunately not one of those gun-ho games where you mow down rows and rows of enemies like Rambo movies. Always go look for cover should a firefight break out.
3. Unless you are wielding a submachine gun, you can hit enemies behind wooden cover/doors. If you come across a small room and you hear footsteps/enemy chatter inside, feel free to spray the suspected area with bullets. Better yet, if you/your teammate have the optical fiber camera, you can see where they are first and kill them with accurate bursts.
4. Using common weapons can be more advantageous compared to using more exotic weapons in the sense that it might be easier to find ammunition for them. For example, AKM and AKS ammo will be much easier to find in the field compared to AS-VAL ammo.
5. Having a good balance between protection and weight is important. While you want to go for stealth, sometimes things don't work out and you have to prepare for a prolonged firefight. On the other hand, carrying a heavy load will make it harder for you to aim and shoot after sprinting from cover to cover, thus effectively reducing your efficiency and costing you more ammo.

[The Mogician]

@Dixon Cider:
1. NVGs are kinda heavy as they weigh 4+ kilos, while they themselves don't matter much but if you are bringing other stuff, it will gradually add up.
2. Lasers help coordinate teammates somewhat, but can be kinda useless if you are already in voicechat with your friends.
3. Yeah, seen quite some people who get stubbed.
4. Yes, this. Fibre optic cameras are all but a must-bring if you are on an urban map.

[GayBriel Angelos]

1.Even for a few missions during the Day its vital to bring the NVG for the cave parts of said missions. i pretty much run NVGs all the time since they have no negative effect.
2.in my 70ish hours of play time ive rarely bothered with the lasers the benefit if any is negligible and with the latest patch they all cost 1 loadout point. if anything run the flashlight as when clearing rooms the visible light basically shows your FOV into the room. allowing you to slice across a door way way more effectively
3.you can Melee locked Doors! the tutorial teaches this but ive not seen many people seem to remember that its a thing
4.Use the damn Fibre optic Cameras! seriously me and my buddy figured out on OP Red Sword one of us could sneak to the basement door put a camera under it, and the other one of us could stand upstairs in the kitchen of the house and literally shoot through the floor at the marked enemies without them knowing we were there

[morrid]

@The Mogician alright, thank you very much for the clarification!

[The Mogician]

@Morrid Yes. It is a 1*3 sized item (at least from what I see so far). You can drag it off from your inventory or right click on it in the inventory to detach it. If you drag it back, it will be attached again.

[morrid]

Regarding tip #1 in the Loadout Tips section. Are you saying that the silencer can be detached (and reattached) in the middle of the mission?

[Unbearable Pain]

@The Mogician @Phobeseneos
Guys, don't think of it as an advertisement, but this is the answer to your questions.
Im tested visibility and movement stats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds8yZrpyjQA

[The Mogician]

@Phobeseneos Mobility affects movement speed, fatigue recovery and climbing over obstacles while dexterity affects reload speed, switching weapons and aiming. You can mouse over these terms in the loadout screen and an explanation will pop out.

[Phobeseneos]

Do you know what is diffrence between mobility and dexterity stat?

[The Mogician]

@Gideon Schwartz It lowers the visibility bar and as far as my experiences go, they hit me far less accurately in the dark. Could just be my placebo, but maybe someone can dig up the numbers later to see.

[Unbearable Pain]

Does breaking lighting really make sense? AI sees me even at night at about 80% of the distance of my own vision. If i run or just stand at full height - at 95% of the radius. At night, without lights, in the first mission, AI without NVs.