A beginners guide to GTFO

GTFO is a hard game to learn, so I'm going to walk you through the basics

Basics of stealth

I personally like to show stealth as 4 phases
1. Asleep
2. Stretching
3. Pulsing
4. Awake

Phase 1 is the phase that enemies will be in most of the time. While an enemy is asleep, they can only be put into 2 different phases. The phase can change in many ways, like:
1. Random chance (after a certain amount of time)
2. Standing up near an enemy
3. Jumping near an enemy
4. Moving while not crouched near an enemy
5. Shining your flashlight on an enemy (there is a range to it thought, excluding the Long Range
Flashlight)
6. Sprinting near an enemy
7. A loud noise happens (gunfire, scout screaming, tripmine exploding etc)
8. An enemy is killed too close to another (it has to be very close, basically enemies have to
be touching)
9. A player accidentally touches them
10. they take damage or are staggered by a player
Situations 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 will only put a sleeper into phase 2. Situations 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 will automatically put a sleeper into phase 4.

Phase 2 can change in multiple ways too. Such as:
1. A certain amount of time has passed (not sure the exact amount)
2. A player makes any movement near them
3. A player shines a light on them
4. An enemy is killed while the sleeper has a line of sight on them (this range is about the same as
a flashlight making a asleep enemy stretch)
5. Either situation 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 from phase 1.
I know this is kind of confusing, but situation 1, 2, 3 or 4 will set the phase to 3. And situation 5 will put the enemy into Phase 4.

Phase 3 can turn into phase 4 if any of the previously mentioned actions happen, and a sleeper will never exit phase 4

While none of these sound too dangerous, many rooms you will enter will have lots of enemies, and with the scarcity of resources in GTFO, things can get overwhelming quickly. However, you have many options to take out these sleepers. There are lots of more advanced techniques for dealing with some enemy times (we will talk about those enemy types later). However, for dealing with standard Strikers and Shooters, your best bet is to kill an enemy with full charge from any melee weapon. For a general approach, try to hit an enemy with a full charge to the back or head (or back of head). The most important thing to be aware of is to keep track of your surroundings to make sure you aren't going to accidentally wake an enemy up.

Enemy types and how to deal with them

This section will use a video from a GTFO YouTuber that actually talks to community members. I would recommend joining his discord server. And if you want to, I would watch some other of his guides, since he does a much better job of explaining things than I do. All rights go to Scalers channel here

Security doors and Zones

Security doors are special doors that always lead to a new zone. Security doors can be locked by keycard, by a terminal or by an alarm (see next section for alarms). Security doors can also be covered in blood. These "bloodied" doors usually have either lots of small enemies (R7B2) or a couple large enemies (R7C2 Secondary).

Zones

A "zone" is an area that contains items (resources, objective items, and doors). Each zone usually has multiple rooms, or "subzones". Each subzone has a letter on it, i.e. Z100a, Z100b.

Alarms

The basic info you need for an alarm is that the first scan is a full team scan, meaning you need all of you team members there. Then, there are a bunch of smaller scans, sometimes full team scans, after that. The amount of scans is tied to the "class" of the alarm. Personally, I like to define the class of the alarm as the number the alarm is tied to. This number is a roman numeral, might sound daunting, but there are only a few you need to worry about. Here is a list:
I = 1
II = 2
III = 3
IV = 4
V = 5
VI = 6
ERROR = (special)
The class of the alarm defines how many scans are in an alarm. Some alarms, like cluster alarms, will only split alarms into many different small scans. So let me explain the different types of alarms:

• Sustained (S): Creates 1 very long scan or multiple long scans
  
• Diminished: Spawns smaller waves more frequently than normal (a wave happens when you hear a loud "roar" during an alarm. This roar spawns 12 enemies "2" rooms away. Sometimes, levels will spawn only 1 room away, however)
  
• Cluster: All scans split into multiple different groups of scans
  
• Mixed (M): Contains multiple different types of scans
  
• Traversal (T): Contains a single scan that moves in a set path. Traversal alarms can not have a class tied to them
  
• Surge: Is comprised of entirely team scans and spawns lots of enemies very quickly

You might notice that I left the "ERROR" class of the alarm undefined. A ERROR alarm is an alarm that "cannot" be stopped. Actually, you can stop the alarm. At the top of your screen, you will see a terminal that you need to navigate too in order to stop the error alarm

Conclusion

I hope this cleared up some confusions! If this guide didn't teach you enough, then you can check out the GTFO Wiki here[gtfo.fandom.com]. If you want a much more in-depth guide, check out this one