Beginners Guide

Just a simple guide for new players to hopefully make your experience easier. Tips come from personal experience in the game. Currently some tips are outdated: pre-v0.29, I might update it in the future to current content.

Spawning In

You can do these in any order just make sure you do all of them.

*I recommend doing this first* Go to the bar (Middle Left) and trade with the barkeep to buy rotten bread and non-purified water. These can be crafted into bread and water that aren't irradiated.

Talk to the barkeep to get his quest. (Middle Left)

Talk to the doctor to get his quest. (Bottom Right)

Go outside of the bunker and talk to the train conductor for his quest.

Head to your base/room (all the way to the middle left) and putting extra items into the stash/storage. You only need one food item (bread), one water, and all the meds you spawn with. Put the rest into the stash.

When your ready talk to the train conductor to head into the zone. Make sure you have meds, food, and water!

Choose the forest map. (Makeshift camp is not worth going to: too much rads)

People/Animal/Creatures

People:
The people you encounter when killed will always drop the gun they're currently using and sometimes have meds, ammo, or food/drink. Neutral people when turned hostile will turn the entire map of that faction hostile. Ex: If you shoot a Green Army Soldier at one area ALL soldiers on the map become hostile. (I don't know if this continues to the next run)

Green Army (Neutral)
Human with Green Helmet and Armor. Will shoot creatures/enemies. Will turn Hostile if shot.

Scientist (Neutral)
Human with yellow suites that spawn in or around anomalies. Will shoot creatures/enemies. Will turn Hostile if shot.

Stalkers (Neutral)
Looks exactly like you. Will shoot creatures, enemies, and green army. Will turn Hostile if shot.

Bandit (Hostile)
Human with Gray clothing and helmet. Run if you see one as they're never alone. Pretty easy to take out from a distance.

Hunter (Hostile)
Human with red-ish/tan clothing and helmet. Typically I would run away as they usually have snipers/rifles that do alot of damage plus take many shots to kill. Often alone.

Animals:

Rabbit (Passive)
Brown bunny that runs away from player. Good source of pelt and raw meat to sell.

Wolf (Hostile)
Gray wolf that runs away from the player when alone and towards its pack. (4-5 wolves) Good source of raw meat and wolf pelt. If you encounter a pack stay far away and shoot as they just stand there for some reason. I recommend a weapon with high mag size for them.

Boar (Hostile)
Big pig with large tusks that will charge the player. Very fast and high damage. I recommend running away unless you have a good amount of ammo and sprint bar. Drops raw meat, boar tusk, and boar pelt. I recommend a weapon with high damage (sniper/marksman/shotgun) for them.

Creatures:

Ghoul (Hostile)
White ghoul that only spawns in the town. Very fast and hard to shoot. Hard to deal with without a weapon with high fire rate. They're the reason why I would avoid the town early in the game.

Buildings/Anomalies/Events

Buildings
Be very careful when approaching buildings as sometimes they may have enemies nearby. (Enemies are never inside surprisingly)

Abandoned Shack/Shed/House:
Run down shack in the woods. Sometimes has a fence around it that you can't see over. Sometimes has loot inside or outside in a box. Good source of materials and food.

*You might bump into a passive human named Igor who will give you a quest inside one of these buildings. Doing his quest will have him loot for you and place it in a box in his house. Very useful friend as he gives some high quality materials, food, meds, etc.*

Bandit Base:
Typically guarded by 2-3 bandits (Usually two inside and one outside)

Green Army Base:
Usually 3-5 Green Army dudes patrolling around. You can walk in and loot their stuff and they won't care.

Town:
Location marked as gray lines on the middle of the map. Has quest items inside but very dangerous without good equipment. Avoid until your ready. Inside the town there's ghouls running around the outer perimeter and a bandit leader with elite guards at the center.

Sawmill:
A large light gray box on the map. Guarded by lots of bandits avoid until your ready.

Anomalies
A field of radiation and a dangerous element with a (green or red) crystal. Pressing G key (default) will throw a bolt that could help figure out where the mines are. Just spam G all over the field.

Red Crystal:
Area where there's a red crystal surrounded by invisible flame mines essentially. You can sometimes see them flare up so know where some are. Also radiates the crap out of you so have anti-rads or alcohol ready.

Green Crystal:
Area where there's a green crystal surrounded by invisible poison mines essentially. The poison mist is always visible but sometimes there's poison mines that flare up as well. Also radiates the crap out of you so have anti-rads or alcohol ready.

Events
These are game generated events that could happen while your exploring. They happen at random and sometimes don't happen at all.

Airdrop:
You will hear a helicopter fly overhead and then the general area of a airdrop gets marked on your map. If you don't have at least two guns and a good amount of ammo ignore and avoid the area. If you do decide to go for the package, there will be at least 5-6 bandits surrounding the area guarding the package. They will be spread out and not bunched together.
Airdrop is a blue box that contains high quality guns/meds/ammo/electronics.

HUD Stats

From the HUD - Top Left Corner
Health: HP
How much health you have. Heal using meds. Grayed out health cannot be healed without a wound closure med kit.

Stamina:
How much you can sprint. Changes by carry weight, hunger, and thirst.

Energy:
90 - 100% / Recharges stamina faster
10 - 90% / Nothing happens
10% and under / Stamina recharges 15% slower

Carrying too much weight will decrease energy faster.

Hunger and Thirst:
90 -100% / Increases carry weight
65 - 90% / Nothing happens
65% and under / Decreases carry weight

Radiation: The lower the better
0 - 2 rads / Nothing happens
2 - 5 rads (yellow icon) will cause bleeding randomly until treated.
5 - 10 rads (orange) higher bleed stacks
10 - 15 (red) damages health directly

Gun and Armor Stats

Armor
Durability:
How much damage can be taken before item breaks

Melee:
Protection against melee attacks (Ghouls, Blinks, etc)

Anomaly:
Protection against anomalies (Red, Green, Blue crystal fields)

Fragility:
How quick the item loses durability

Class:
The higher the number the more the armor blocks bullets

Gun
Durability:
How much damage can be taken before item breaks

Damage:
How much damage the weapon deals

Accuracy:
How accurate the weapon is when hip firing or aim down sight (Higher the number the less the bullet spread)

Recoil:
How much the weapon is to control (High recoil makes the cursor move more = less accurate)

Ergonomics:
How fast you move with the weapon when aimed down sight

Firerate:
How fast the gun fires

Magazine:
How many bullets in a mag the gun holds

Caliber:
What ammo type the gun takes

Tips for the Zone

General Tips:
-Do not walk in front of the train as it's leaving it will kill you. (I tried it :P)

-Game pauses in esc menu. Does not pause in inventory.

-Car wrecks, concrete blocks, debris, and anomalies increase radiation when near them. (Makes the radiation sound)

-Radiation seems to get healed a little when extracting so don't bother healing it unless it turns red

-Personally I turned off dynamic grass and decrease grass amount to zero (video settings) so I can see movement better.

-Hunting rabbits, wolves, and boars are a good way of earning money.

-Make sure you listen carefully as you can sometimes hear enemies nearby. (Wolf howl, footsteps, etc)

-Pressing J (default key) will bring up a pip-boy for you to see tasks.

-You can hold right click to aim now sights (makes gunshot spread tighter) and see further away.

-Starting out I would avoid the town (gray in the middle of the map) and sawmill (light gray rectangle) until you have at least two guns and a decent amount of ammo.

-If your asking yourself whether or not to heal that sliver of hp the answer is always yes. I have lost so many runs because I didn't heal to full.

-Don't worry about radiation under 2 rads as it gets fully healed upon getting back to base.

Looting:
-You can unload guns from corpses by right clicking.

-If you happen to find any of the EC guns they're very good with good accuracy, mag size, and fire rate. Ammo is more common for them as well.

-If you come across a gun fight stay back and wait for the people to finish. Then slowly head in and take out the enemies. This is a good way for safe looting.

-You don't have to loot everything! Being greedy killed alot of my runs. Being slow (encumbered) in this game is a death sentence.

-Use the mouse scroll wheel to loot multiple bins/corpses next to each other.

Meds:
-Make sure to equip meds into the hotbar. (3, 4, 5, etc)

-Certain meds allow you to move while healing while others force you to stand still.

-Bandages stop bleeding.

-Improvised Medkit and T-300 heal health. Makes you stand still to heal!

-White Medkit closes wounds for health that can't be healed (wound closure). Makes you stand still to heal!

-Cancel healing by left clicking (will still use the med)

Combat:
-You can't shoot while sprinting

-Enemies do react to gunfire and will take cover or slowly push you.

-Press Y to change ammo type

-You'll be surprised how quick you can die to gunfire even with the best armor the game has. Just stay back and wait.

-Stay behind cover and peek corners is my general tactic for fighting multiple enemies. Never push forward unless you're sure there's only one left.

-It is ok to run away! If you die all progress and loot from that run is gone so playing safe is always better!

- In a drawn-out gunfight, don't keep sniping from the same angle. The enemy tends to focus their attention in the direction they last saw or heard you. Change things up by moving to their flank and then taking a few more shots. You can patiently wear them down with a scoped rifle as long as you're not constantly pressing them from the same angle. credit to @moat

- Watch where you're going! It's easy to over-focus an enemy that you're flanking by looking ONLY in their direction while strafing at them. You could easily blunder into another enemy. credit to @moat

- Carry at least one unscoped weapon for close combat and to peek ahead while travelling. credit to @moat

Extraction

When you decide to leave you need to head to the green circles on the map (m key) to leave.

Extraction zones are always on the borders of the map.

Tip: Go to the extraction point first and then work your way back to your mission goals. Doing this means you have a clear retreat path (no running into packs of wolves or boars as your're trying to get to extraction. It also makes walking while overloaded significantly safer, so you can loot that extra gun or two. @Mnemovore

Take your time getting there and don't just run.

Upon reaching the circle text should show up saying extracting in 5 and count down. Just stand still and wait. Make sure to watch your surroundings enemies sometimes pop up out of nowhere.

Back to Base Tips

Once you get back to base put loot into the storage, sell items to the barkeep, and have the doctor repair your armor.

-You actually have multiple tabs in the stash

-Good items to sell are raw meat, pelts, and technology. (USB drives, power banks, watches, etc) Everything else you can scrap.

-Buy some items if you need them you gain alot of money just from selling items plus the money you start with.

-You actually have multiple tabs in the shop sorted by category

-Use the beds at the top right of the bunker to sleep and recharge your energy.

-I do recommend making sure that you sleep the night off as entering the zone at that time is just a death sentence. (Dark and low vision)
Nighttime is from 8pm - 8am (20:00 - 08:00)

-There's a person outside of the bunker entrance to the right that can you more about the different maps and what they contain.

-The game auto-saves in the safe area so you don't have to worry about saving. Just quit the game and your good.

-Trade with the barkeep to buy rotten bread and non-purified water. These can be crafted into bread and water that aren't irradiated.

Tip comes from @Krovus
-Scopes that you can ads (make the screen go black instead of cursor) give better damage, recoil, and makes your bullets hitscan instead of traveling. Enemies sneaking up on you shouldnt be an issue as you shouldnt be aiming down sights peeking corners or in the open. You should always be looking around unscoped unless you have a clear shot on an enemy or want to extend your FOV. And on top of the fact scoping down takes no time at all, its easy to abuse peeking corners. Peek unscoped, scan the area, see an enemy? Quickly scope in and land some hitscan shots and scope out to take cover. Enemy too close? You can always hipfire. As a bonus since scoped shots are hitscan on hit, any weapon can essentially have infinite range as long as you can see your target.

-Invest in the EXE backpack from the doctor. It gives alot of carry weight and some minor bonus stats.

Spolier for one of the quests:
There will be a quest later to kill Igor. Don't kill Igor! The quest reward is not worth it. Igor's loot everytime you visit him is very good for early game basebuilding. Plus he's a nice old man.

Tip comes from @Golod:
-You get more gun scrap based off the weight of the gun no other variable!
-If you need usual scrap metal. dont scrap items that in stacks, split them apart to one item then scrap. For example from 10 nails you can get random amount of scrap metal. 1,2,3, etc. but if you scrap every nail alone you will get exactly 10 scrap metal. (unstack by moving the item and clicking ctrl in the end).

Base Building

So base building is essentially putting down modules into your room in the bunker. (With your stash)

How to build:
1) Press the J key (default) and click the house icon.
2) Click the module you would like. (Infirmary, Garden, etc)
3) Put your cursor/mouse over the hold here to install text.
4) Hold the right mouse button down.

What this does is install the module in your base. However, the module is level 0 so it currently doesn't exist and doesn't give you anything. What you want to do is go to the crafter and look at the modules you can craft. Then when you have the materials craft it. From there the module becomes level 1 and starts benefiting you.

Remember that unless you set the module in your base the game won't let you build it!

-The stash can be upgraded multiple times to give you more tabs to store items. It can be upgraded twice with mark 1 kit then twice again with mark 2.

-The other modules can't be upgraded past level 1 so don't craft another module!

-My personal base and what I recommend is: Shooting Range, Gym, Ammo Producer, Infirmary, Bedroom, and Kitchen.

-If for some reason you want to remove a module just go into the build menu through the PDA (house icon) and click the hold to uninstall button. This will delete the module and it will not be refunded or given to you! You'll have to rebuild it in the crafter again.

Good Luck!

Please give me a like if you found this guide helpful!


*In the future whenever the devs decide to get the steam screenshot working I'll add in images*

[Chuck71302]

can someone point me to a guide for steam deck? the control screen just shows controls for keyboard, s i basically cant figure out anything......says its fully supported,but when controls tell you to hit tab etc,when you usi g a controler, and tutorials just show you crosshairs and enemies, i hqve no clue what to do how to change controls or anything....HELP Please

[JLee112]

Can you add something about airdrops? if you did i cant find it

[=UwG=fredthebadger]

Please Please add some mention of the event in the makeshift camp map where first a swarm of crows fly across the screen, then glowing red orbs spiral across the screen followed by a sequence of two bars of light. Because the second bar of light instakills you, and I didn't even know there was negative weather effects before that.

[Sinuhe1991™]

8 hours here. I didn't noticed the TABS in the Bartender..... Thanks :)

[Doge]

from what i know most of the quest you just get from the networker and bartender

[C4NNI13AL]

This guide isn't current, but most of the information is accurate. Doesn't seem the doctor has any quests when I started up a new save.

[Jimothy The Terrible]

the doctor tells me that he doesn't have anything for me to do, does anyone know why? i just started

[БОДЯКА]

bro how can i use the gym???

[TOWER_AT_NINE]

press G (default) to throw bolts -- very useful to scout out your way in a 'minefield' and crack some crystals for loot

[Antartican]

@IE800S good to know thanks