A Scav's Comprehensive Guide to Scavving

A beginners guide for new scavs. Contains info to assist in early quests, and other nice knowledge to have.

Introduction

Welcome to Forever Winter, New Blood.
If you're reading this you have just delved into the grim dark world that we live in. You, like many others, probably have many questions, and I hope this guide will help you get started.

This will go over the first few quests that are necessary to get into the meat and potatoes of the game. With time I hope to add more to this guide or perhaps start others to assist you on your journey.

Remember to stay safe out there, and may Terry bless you.

Clearing out the Innards (Your First Mission)

Welcome to Los Angels! Or what's left of it. Whether you are new here or are returning from afar, you'll need a base to get started with. Can't have you camping out in the open, you'd make a quick meal for Toothy.

Now my buddy Slade is gonna help you out a bit here to start. He's you're quest giver, if that's what you like. He's got the deets on a nice little place for us to call home. You, him, and the other scavs. You just gotta clear it out.

This is a hard mission to mess up, seeing as you only have to drop off water. But I gotta start us at the beginning. Once you spawn go straight just a little, till you see loot icon on a container. This has a lot of ammo, so you best grab it. Then continue on and drop off the water.

After this a bunch of the cyborg zombies will start spawning. Whip out the shotgun and blast the nearest two or so, then book it to where you started. BUT WAIT! Blast a few more to clear the optional objective and then extract. Gotta get you some more XP.

Doesn't matter if you get KO'ed here kid, so long as that water is dropped off it's all good. Slade'll send a runner to grab you.

Who Are You?

Before we begin in earnest, we need to go over Scavs.

Each Scav is unique, offering different bonuses and playstyles. For example you start off as Old Man. He is very much a team sort of character. He's slow, uses rifles and machine guns, heals well, and gets access to other rigs down the line. Old Man 'aight.

The two most popular Scavs at the time of me writing this are: Scav Girl and Shaman. Shaman tends to be the more popular for three main reasons. Extra carry weight, extra sprint speeds, and he buffs shotguns. He is very good for scavs who are fine with combat. Scav Girl is loved because she has an increased base speed (at the cost of 200 hp), and has sprint upgrades. She fast as ♥♥♥♥. She also has access to more rigs, like Bag Man. She favors pistols and SMGs, but ♥♥♥♥ that we shotgun gang regardless. She is great for loot hungry rats who care more about looting than shooting, and want to be good at scooting to boot. Both see loot 2x as far as most others.

The other Scavs are good too, Bag Man is very combat focused, as is Mask Man. So choose whoever you want, except Gunhead as he is locked as of this moment. No Techno-Heresy today.

Once you have your chosen Scav, get to playing.

Helping out the Scavs (The Real First Quest, kinda)

Now that you have your base, you gotta start doing quests. Open up your quest tab and grab the only one available. You can do this by using the terminal near the loadout station, or by hitting ESC and navigating to the quest screen.

This quest will have you go to Scorched Enclave. Its a wide open map and very orange. This wide open nature works heavily in your favor. Seeing as this is just a get in and get out quest, do so.

You're gonna spawn in in Cemetery. Walk like 20 feet and the map will open up. If you hug the left hand side [see picture] and sprint most of the time, you should easily be able to make it to the pipe. Do not worry about looting just yet, we'll cover that in a minute.


If enemies are around, crouch and hide behind cover. So long as you don't engage them or get in their line of sight, you can make it through. Simple right?

Collecting Your First Barrel of Water

Glad to see you made it back from your first run. Now we have our true first quest, where you must do something other than run and hide. Not that we won't be doing that too.

We spawn in at Scorched Enclave yet again.
NOTE: You do not have to do this run on Scorched Enclave, but we are familiar with the map so it is easier. If you want you can run this on Mech Trenches for some guaranteed water, check the latter end of the guide for that.
From Cemetery head right. Follow the blue arrow on the picture. Note the giant cross near the green arrow, this is our goal.
Before you reach the bunker with the <01 on it, hang left. You'll see what looks sorta like a mortar pit, or at least battlements. If you look at the picture you can see them facing us, it has a 2 on it.

Check the right hand portion of this set, there is often times a storage box full of ammo.

Once checked you will look for a green light just on the other side of the wall, and I mean directly on the other side.

There is a little hole you can drop into. Turn around and enter the bunker, there is often water there.

If water is not there hop the wall to the ground again.

You'll be behind a sandbag wall. This is the second area for water and loot. If not, fret not, we have one more. Directly across is the cross and light I pointed to in the picture. The area illuminated by the spotlights almost always has water.

Once we have our water we are breaking left, just like our previous run. Skirt the bunkers and use them as cover, then haul as to the pipe. If you die it is ok! The water almost always spawns in the marked area. Just try try and try again.

Europan Drones and You! (Our First Faction Quest)

Once we have turned in our water we will be given our first faction quest. Slade wants us to bring him 3 Europan Drone Parts in order for him to connect us with the Eurasians and Euruskans. I know I know, they are both smelly loser factions, but we gotta do them to reach our glorious goal of Europa.

There are many places Europan Drones spawn, Ashen Mesa and Elephant Mausoleum are two popular ones. For sake of this guide I will use the former. Partially cause they often spawn near your starting position, and partly because EM tends to crash if you spawn in via the main spawn, aka Pipes.

When you spawn, hang around for a few seconds. There is a good chance both Europan and Eurasian drones will spawn. The Europan ones look like floating bombs or buoys. The Eurasian ones look like Robo-Shrimp. It should be noted that You Do Not Have To Shoot The Drones. They will often just kill each other off. If the Eurasian Drones lose, they will likely have taken one Eurpoan one out and the other will be wounded. At that point, pop a shotgun shell or two into the survivor and loot all the wrecks. You will need to find the wreck and run up to it, its loot icon is a little wonky.

Once we have our cores we can go down two paths. Path 1: Keep looting. Path 2: GTFO. I recommend GTFO as these cores can be a pain in the ass to get, and we'll cover looting Ashen Mesa next.

Whatever the case may be, we have to leave at some point. I highly recommend the Southern Extract. The East one is a pain to get to and is usually guarded by many soldiers. Damn exit campers. So instead we book it across the wide open plane. Do. Not. Stop. Sprinting. Keep your ass running till the extract. Run your ass across the field, into the bunker (try to enter from the East, near the burning big ass mech) and to the extract.

I should note you won't be alone. Right before the extract the AI loves to duke it out. Usually its a Euruskan and Europan patrol and nothing more. Sometimes there is a turret or two. Find a wall to hide behind and let them sort it out, or just sprint past.

Meeting Our Final Contact

Now that we have met the stinky factions, we best meet the cool kids. Talk to Slade yet again and he'll give us a milk run. Explore Ashen Mesa (Hey we were just there!).

If you have followed the guide you should know how to easily extract. Well... maybe not easily but easier than the Eastern one. Anyways, this is where I impart some true knowledge.
Spawn at the cliffs and immediately hook it left. We are gunning for the shanty town.


Almost as soon as you enter, look right, There is a passage marked with green lights. Its a catwalk that wraps around. This is our goldmine.


Walk down the passage till you see a small shack, its like 20 ft to it. This shack area is our blessing. It usually contains an ammo container and a medical container. Sometimes a storage/weapon mod one too. There is always a large lockbox (large item, sell at any vendor), two explosives (same deal) in the shack. Right across the shack, near a container, usually sits a water.

Once looted continue east along the catwalk, watching our left. There is usually two more waters sitting on the catwalk not far down. Once nabbed keep making your way east till you can exit the town. Then just make your way to the Southern extract as before.

Please note that there are at times enemy patrols on the catwalk, usually Eurasian Cyborg soldiers. If they are before the shack they are a trio. Gun em down. If they are at the shack, its five of them. Fall back a little ways and find a roof to climb on. Once they double back, run to the shack, loot everything without looking, and double back again.

Once you make it out the quest is done and you now have access to every faction's quests.

Scavs, EXP, and Prestige

By now you've likely noticed you've picked up a large amount of exp. But what to do with it?

Well first things first, each Scav levels up independently of one another. So if you have been playing Bag Man, no one else will have that experience. So it is important to find the one you want. Hopefully my section earlier helped.

So now we have this scav with exp and the options to put it in skills or prestige. Skills grant us boons, duh. You have played games with skill allocation before, I won't treat you like some freshy. But Prestige? Oh Prestige is where it is at. Every time you earn enough exp to rank up in Prestige, and do so, you will gain +5% health and a speed boost. This is very useful, for obvious reasons. More health means more chances, more speed means more... uh speed.

When you Prestige you will also lose any skills you had, this is why I say focus Prestige for a few levels. Most of the skills are minor. +10-25% to certain things, like sprint speed or gun accuracy. Some do allow you to wield new rigs, which is nice.

Guns also have their own set of exp, though this just increased handling of the weapon. The more damage done, the easier it is to handle. Much like Scavs, guns level up independently. Leveling up the surplus shotty (my beloved) wont upgrade any other guns, even other shotguns.


TL:DR Focus on Prestige

Water Water Everywhere (Water System and Vendors)

Now that we've gotten our hands dirty and have a good amount of water, lets discuss the water system and vendors.

Each barrel of what is 24 IRL hours of supply. So seven barrels is a weeks worth of water. This is a point of contention for many people, I won't lie. Hopefully if you're reading this down the line, this is obsolete. But its the day of release right now, so it isn't.

If you run out of water, it is game over. All the vendors and scavs leave, you lose everything, do not pass go, do not get 200 credits. You gotta start again. So prioritizing two or so barrels a day is a good idea.

With the increase in water comes an increase in vendors


When you start you will only have access to Slade; our quest giver and granter of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ai help, Heisenburg, supplier of all things narcotic save for blue crystalsl; and Bunco... ♥♥♥♥ Bunco.
As you get more and more water, more vendors will appear. When you hit 16 days of water, Bundleton arrives. He gives you access to better rigs, for a price. So more water, more vendors.


At this point you likely have access to Aramaki, the Eurasian weapons vendor, and Grillo, the chad Europan vendor. Both, like Bunco, will sell you faction specific weapons. Unlike Bunco they will not offer you only half price for anything you wish to sell. You get to sell things at full price baby, woo!

As you increase or decrease favor with factions, their prices will increase or decrease as well. At Untrusted everything is at a 25% markup, while at Neutral its no markup or discount. Except Bunco, who charges an extra 25% regardless if you are neutral with the Scavs.

Addition 10/2/24:
Something I missed up until today. Near the water station, just to the right of it, there is a special vendor that is unmarked on the Vendor screen. This vendor allows you to purchase upgrades to The Innards. This includes increases to the water tank, some cosmetics, and the ability to craft certain ammos and weapon mods.
These upgrades are pricey, often more than 500k. This isn't hard to get, it just takes some time. They also have a water requirement, but 20 days isn't hard to get.
The cosmetics do nothing, but a dog house for the robo-dog is nice.

Weapons: How to customize and acquire.

As previously stated there are numerous weapons for you to choose from. Rifles, SMGs, Pisols, LMGs, Grenade Launchers, the blessed Shotguns, etc.

While you can level each gun up by using it to increase its handling, and buff weapon types via skills, you can also customize them! Assuming you have been picking up weapon parts. You have been picking those up, haven't you?
When you are in the loadout screen click on a weapon you want, then hit the customize button at the bottom left. Note: The base two surplus guns, the shotty and SMG, cannot be customized.


With our customization screen open we can click on each box and see what we can modify. Some parts add more damage at the cost of stability, such as the Kala Gas Tubes. Others increase magazine size, or optics or... you've played CoD, you know how this works.

Addition 10/2/24:
Can't believe I didn't know this tidbit, but there is a very easy way to acquire lots of new guns, such as SCARs and P90s. This is an ingame feature, its just not well documented. All you need is the Gunrunner pack.

As you know with the Gunrunner pack you can now pick up weapons from the fallen. The vast majority of these will say "Destroyed (Weapon Name)," or occasionally "Disabled (Weapon Name)." They are much more useful than just money. If you take a Destroyed Weapon on another run with you and successfully extract, it will be upgraded to Disabled. Disabled weapons become normal weapons when you return to the Innards.
So pick up three random weapons on a run, extract, take them with you on another run, extract, and you now have three new guns to use.

Quests of All Sorts

Now that you've unlocked access to all the different factions, you've likely noticed there are more quests than just the ones Slade gives you. You have noticed that, right?
If not when you are in the quest screen hit the BACK button on the bottom left hand side. This will take you to the faction screen. Then click on the faction you want.

In this section Ill go over a few of the quests, just to give you an idea of what needs to be done and/or how hard/annoying they are to do.

A Light In The Dark [Europa/More?]
How about we start off with a charity mission. We do enough looting and sometimes shooting, lets do some good. Here's the goal, find some cigarettes, probably off some poor soul you or someone else shot, and bring them to a wounded soldier. Nothing like a final smoke for a dying man, right?
Easy peasy, 10k credits and some water as a reward. Oh and the faction will be pleased too.

Aerial Scavenge [Any]
Remember when you gathered all those drone parts? Yeah? Do it again.
Don't bother trying to be smart by saving up drone fragments for quests down the line, apparently those aren't good enough (at least for now. Maybe the factions will change their minds about that later *wink wink*)
You'll likely get a small reward for this. A pistol and some water most likely.

Bring Her In [Scav/Europa]
Here is our first doozy. In theory this should be an easy quest. All you have to do is rescue a downed EXO Suit Pilot. With how much fighting their is you'd think it would be simple. WRONG!
So here's the issue. EXO Suits are notoriously strong. Now to the point of Mechs, but they can go toe to toe with Euruskan Grabbers, and those things rip squads apart like it was nothing.
Then lets say one does get destroyed, by the enemy or you. The chance for the pilot to spawn is limited. You'll know because similar to the HKs, a little prompt will show up and tell you. So all those bullets you wasted or time spent waiting might have been all for nought. Guess the Europans need to work on their suit autoeject system more.
But lets say you do manage to rescue her, what do you get?
100k creds, some fat relationship bonuses, and the Pilot as a potential recruit. Not bad.

Connecting The Dots [Scav]
See Discover The Truth for why this one sucks.

Cull The Herd [Europa]
Now contrary to what I've been personally telling you, this is a guns blazing mission. Europa needs you to kill a certain number of Eurasian soldiers in a single battle. Personally. Pack some ammo for this one, okay Scav?
Reward is a new rifle, and some water.

Cybernetic Heist [Europa]
Easyish mission. Just kill a Eurasian Brawler, that's all. They are pretty tough so bring some ammo.
Nice rifle, 5k cred, and some water.

Data Heist [Any]
This is an easy one. Just go to location, do thing, get out. Simple.
About 10k cred and some water as a reward.

Discover The Truth [Scav]
Another tough one, though this isn't due to bad pilot eject rates. In theory this is another easy one. Get in, grab data, get out. You can find the data in any container. The problem is the map. Scrapyard Nexus is notoriously hard. Its small, very linear, and has a timed extract.
Timed Extracts suck, for two main reasons. First is that you have to survive for a minute before you can leave. The second is that even if you stealthed the whole thing, enemies will spawn nearby. Usually, for that location, its Eurasian Cyborgs. Both melee and gun versions. You don't have a lot of room to maneuver, and heading deeper in will just have you meet the rest of the Eurasian/Euruskan forces you already dodged.
Best way to do this is with a team, be it other scavs or some hire-ons.
And what do you get for your troubles? A dinky pistol, 10k creds, and some water. Scavs will like you more though.

Elephant Mausoleum Sortie [Europa/More?]
Easy mission, just like our first for the Scavs and Europa. Europa must have a thing for recon, who knows? Anyways they just need you to pop down into Elephant Mausoleum, have a look around, and extract. That's it.
10k creds and some water for this.

Food Chain Interrupted [Europa]
Europan's need you to deliver a spare part to one of their Grinders. If you read the Mech Trench Water Cache section this should be easy for you. Head to where the water was stored the guide and look around the room. Use your ping to find the Spare Parts. It will be labeled as Object on your ping. Its a large item so make sure your slot is empty.
Once you have your part make your way back to the Infirmary. That's the place with all the gurneys I mentioned Europan Patrols like to hang around. To your right you'll see a red light glowing from the floor.

Drop down the hole and climb down the pile to the other side of the room. You should see a sparking box (imagine this was sparking)

Hug the box and drop the Spare Parts onto the floor. Quest should be done!
10k creds and some water for your troubles.

Momento Pt 1 [Scav]
One of the few multipart quests so far. This one is easy. Slade needs you to head to Ashen Mesa and find a picture. That's all it is. Very easy, just loot containers till you find any picture and then extract. Job done.
2.5k Creds and 2 days of water. Also Slade appreciation.

Sniper Sweep [Europa/More?]
Another search and destroy mission. This time we are targeting a sniper. Unlike the Commander mission, this one isn't too bad. Just sweep the map a few times till you find him and then blast him. Mine was on Ashen Mesa and he was up in the Shanty Town walkway the second go around. One shot with the surplus put him down.
Make sure you have room in your bag, the sniper rifle you need to grab is a little large.
Rewards are some water and a sniper of your own.

Target Locked [Europa]
This one is a hard mission for one reason: Toothy.
If you haven't met Toothy, he is this guy.
He's got a cannon, a machine gun, and he likes to grab. =
The guy we are specifically looking for is called Euruskan Rider Commander. He's usually on the ground near Toothy. He sorta has a semi pointy helmet, but mostly rounded. He himself isn't too tough, but Toothy is always nearby.
Best way to kill him is from afar or wait till Toothy gets distracted. All you gotta do is shoot and then scoot.
You get a nice Grenade Launcher and some water.

Terror On Display [Scav]
Slade needs you to recover a Corpse Tank Control Panel from a Europan Corpse Tank. Seeing as unless it fights another tank or a mech, the tank will likely survive, you'll probably have to kill this thing yourself. Bring an Anti-Tank rifle or something to take down this beast.
Sorry Europa, I may love you but my loyalty is to the Scavs.
100k Creds and a bunch of EXP.

Mech Trench Water Cache

As I mentioned a while back, Scorched Enclave isn't the only area to get water. Mech Trench has a beautiful cache of water that is safe and easy to get to.

Step 1: Spawn at elevator.


Step 2: Take the middle path till you see a door (and I mean a door) on your left. Be careful for patrols.



Step 3: Open said door and RUSH to the back, then hide. Opening the door alerts both the patrol outside, and the patrol inside. Hiding for a few second will deaggro.


Step 3A (Optional): Loot the medbay you are in. If you stick to the rear where you hid, you can easily avoid the Europan Patrol that comes by every 20 or so seconds. There is a cheeky water in there too.


Step 4: Facing the back wall, as if you just entered, you should see a door on your right. Its along the back wall, not the wall to your right. Go through it and hop over the railing.


Step 4a: Turn right.


Step 5: Loot the room and double back the way you came. Facing the door you came in from, turn left and you'll see another door. Go through it and hope the barrier.



Step 6: Get to the exit. The exit is straight forward, across the roadway. But be careful, patrols like to hang around that area. Book it to the end of the hall you can see and hang left, then down a ramp and to the exit.

Cheers to The High Priest of Enuggets (66xl) on Discord for this

Misc. Section

This section is for info I can't put anywhere else atm.

Pinging
So we didn't talk about this and the tutorials don't mention it either, so ill mention it here. If you press Z you'll ping an area directly in front of you. That by itself isn't too great, though it can help coordinate movements with fellow scavs. What is truly useful is what happens when you ping an enemy or an object. If you are close enough pinging an enemy will tell you who they are and what faction the belong to. That's how we know those floating bomb drones belong to Europa. Pinging objects will tell you what they are. Especially useful when your pack is full and you want to know what the dark object in the darker corner is. Is it water or just another explosive?

To Scoot, Shoot, or Loot? That is the question.

Determining the correct response to a situation is critical to making it out alive. As per the tagline, you are not him. You are not the protagonist. You aren't the hero. You won't save the day. Your goal is to make it through the day, alive.
So when you're on a mission and you see an enemy patrol what should you do?
Well considering they can gun you down faster than the ATF when they see a dog, its best to scoot and hide. Dont piss them off and they'll leave you be.
When they are gone, or at least distracted with a firefight, then you can loot.
"But Europa's Strongest Rat, you beautiful rat-tastic scav of a man, you..." I hear you cry, "I want to shoot gun, when can I shoot gun?"
Two scenarios come to mind, though Im sure there are more.

Scenario 1: The Quest demands it
Sometimes the quest needs you to kill a certain enemy, or several. If its not a loot quest there may be no way around it. At that point you need to judge your situation. Can you take them all? Will backup arrive? Can I easily GTFO if need be? If you answered Yes, No (hopefully), and Yes, go ahead. If not, I say wait for another opportunity.

Scenario 2: No choice
Sometimes you get no choice in the matter. You turned the corner only to be met with a squad of cyber zombies. No way back, no way around, guess you'll have to go through. Gun them down as quick as you can and then run. The sounds of you slaughtering them are sure to bring more enemies.


Desperate times

Occasionally, or if you are like me and don't take ammo, frequently, you will find yourself out of ammo mid firefight. If you're in a firefight, I doubt you have an easy way out, or you wouldn't be in one. So what should you do? Just lay down and die? NO! Fight back! Punch them in the face!
By clicking Middle Mouse you can smack the ♥♥♥♥ out of anyone in front of you. Usually takes two or three punches to down a soldier, so be careful.
Its not the best option, but its better than nothing.


Bugs, crashes, and queries.
Seeing as this is an early early access game, bugs and glitches are rampant. If you run in to any, do not hesitate to check the Forever Winter Official Discord [https://discord.gg/435hRVNt]. Once you verify you own the game you'll get access to the channels regarding bugs, finding groups, and chatting. Use the "Feedback and Bugs" channel to find your issue and hopefully resolve it.

Hunter Killers
Hunter Killers [HKs] suck. When they spawn they spawn nearby and know generally where you are at. Its still unsure what causes them to spawn but grabing Neuro Chips tends to piss them off. They are pretty tough, taking 4+ shotgun shells to the upper body to kill. If they spawn, just keep running. They are armed with LMGs and are nothing to scoff at.
Errata: So it may not just Neuro Chips. A couple of the other scavs and I collated data on the local net about the HKs and what causes them to show up. We think its one of two things. First is grabbing high value items like the Neuro Chips, Data Caches, and Precision Tools. The second is that there is some hidden limit they go off by. Grab too much loot and they get angry. Who knows, just be careful.

Explosives
So as you know by now Explosives are one of the large items you can pick up. A few quests require these to be extracted with, but beyond this they aren't worth it. Right?
Well if you grab an Explosive, place it on the ground, and then shoot at it, it will explode! Maps like Elephant Mausoleum are full of Explosives, which could be useful in taking out Europan Mechs to try and get the mech pilot for the somewhat bugged quest to spawn.

Conclusion

As time goes on I shall be updating this guide, to help introduce new players.
If you have any suggestions, put them in the comments!
Happy Scaving!

[Lizzo]

And dont forget to claim ur free daily weapon in the donation box!

[Lizzo]

Can you do a video of the mech trenches water run? I still cant find that water room.

[Espio0]

Update, it appears the ability to extract with destroyed guns to upgrade them into the disabled status was a bug and has been fixed recently, according to the Forever Winter reddit.

[Espio0]

Is the weapon extraction system bugged? i extracted with several destroyed weapons, redeployed immediately with them in my gunrunner pack, but none of them went up to disabled status upon entering the second round of bringing them in, or extracting successfully.

I did find a disabled AK in the field, that immediately upgraded to normal when i returmed to the innards.

[SDgamer]

Only asking since i couldn't find any real info on it after looking at the Wiki, what is the "Hidden Vendor"? Trying to figure out if it was made up or not

[arrogantandaflame]

damn explosives to spawn the pilot, smart

[Europa's Strongest Rat]

69 current favorites, nice. Also cheers!

[MarissTea]

@Europa's Strongest Rat
Yea I managed to figure it out, an issue I've found is I run 'The Rack' Rig which of course has 8 Large Open Containers, and the EXO Pilot supposedly takes up 1 of those slots however You cannot pick her up with the rack, but rather the gun runner works just fine...

[Europa's Strongest Rat]

@MarissTea
The smaller guys with the 20mm cannon. I'll add a picture for reference! Though I believe spawn for the pilot itself is bugged.

[MarissTea]

When refering to the EXO Pilots, do I target the Big fuckoff bots with like 20 guns attatched to the frame, or the smaller dude with the 20mm cannon on its right arm? I can't really tell the difference cuz every time I get the heads up that she may have spawned its when both the Big dude and the lil guy got blasted.