I'm making this post to create a comprehensive post full of tips, tricks, and hints along with guides for the .12 wipe and for new players. Ill be including other people's posts (with credit) and will be adding any added by the community.

The .12 patch update and wipe

Here is what we know:

• The .12 patch will include a wipe. Many therioze that it will be a soft wipe. Do Not Expect a soft wipe. With the huge size of this update, expect a Full Complete Hard wipe.

• According to Nikitia the wipe is aimed for roughly 2 weeks from his post. "The only question and you know it – when? Let's say that we need 2 weeks approx from now. It could be more or it could be less but slightly. There will be pre-wipe events before it for sure."
  The community expected date is roughly is October 11th. This is NOT a hard set date.

• There will be a pre-wipe event as stated above. What is known of the pre-wipe event is that it will be to test out a secured container change. They will be locking the container from being able to put items into it DURING the raid. They will not be taking the SC away. This will be affecting every single container. (Alpha, Beta, Eplison, Gamma, and Kappa container) You will still be able to use items from the container during the raid. This is a test. So please go test it when it is out.

• There will be a trailer. There is no information at the moment for when that will be released. This is the same with the prelim patch notes. I will be updating this post when each is released.

• Here is a post with a rough timeline explaining how wipes have happened in the past. This proccess could be changed or differ in what happens with this patch.

• Here is the rest of the update posts from Nikitia if you wish to go back and read them. Update 1, Update 2, Update 3, Update 4, Final Update

Advice and Suggestions for IRL life at or near the wipe.

Warning! This section contains opinions and is NOT to be taken to heart. You can hear what I say if you wish. Source: Myself. Played since the .4 update and have roughly 2200 hours in this game.

• DO NOT REQUEST TIME OFF FOR THE DAY OF THE WIPE We have 0 idea how well or not well this update could go. Aim for the day AFTER the wipe if you are able to. Expect delays, issues, bugs, and server instablitly to delay you getting on and having a good experience. To the new players, expect issues. BSG has been getting better (ish) at releasing smoother and better major patches. This is not an AAA dev studio. (Source: Personal Opinion, take with grain of salt.)

• When the update is being released to the servers, but before you can download the patch, uninstall your game. Completely uninstall the game, the launcher, and make sure to clear your cache of any extra files. With how much is changing in the game, your game and your experience will be better by having a fresh install with no old files to potentially corrupt or bug out on you. (Source: Personal Opinion, Also as a network IT student that have had lots of software classes. Fresh installs are always best case.)

• Get water ready and food. If you are addicted to this game (like most of us) You will be playing for HOURS and HOURS once you can log onto the servers. Also set up a timer or system to get yourself up and moving at least once an hour (recommended) or even once every other hour. This will help prevent alot of things. Frustration, tiredness, and medical issues too. Medical issues such as DEATH and other issues Also includes clots.

Information that we know for content in the .12 patch.

This section has information on what will be in the content of the .12 patch. I will miss things. If there is something that I did miss, please post it in the comments. I'll keep updating this post as more is released/found. Ill be covering the main things in this list. But ill add links to user submitted posts/links.

• Pictures! lots and lots of pictures

• NEW MAP! The military base

• 2 New Scav Bosses The Woods Boss Shturman and The Military Boss Glukhar

• New guns! Known are the FN 5.7, P90, Ash-12, M9A3, Mounted Machine gun (probably a PKPKORD Utes), Mounted 40mm grenade launcher (KORD systemAGS). There could be more. Will update.

• New game mechanic, The Hideout. Basically an ingame representation of your stash. Many new things to do with and in the hideout.

• A new medical kit that willl allow you to repair a blacked limb Unknown if how it is shown is how it will work in terms of speed or how much it heals it. (Personal opinion: Will repair blacked limb to roughly 1/2 hp and that is the new max hp until out of raid)

• New Rigs, armors, and helmets. Not that much info yet about them.

• Gun Build system. Basically presets for guns (and guns only as far as we know) that will buy the mods and such from the traders automatically as long as you have the funds and the trader rep to do so. Thanks u/Dunngeon1

• Also some rigs will be modular (Avs and Blackrock known atm). Ability to put in armor plates into rigs. Apparently pushed back to a later patch.

• Quest reworks. Not much known about this.

• .12 will come with an engine update. What this means is that BSG replaced the groundwork of the game to allow them to fix issues faster, easier, and (hopefully) break less things. It doesn't mean that this game will run with 0 stutters, no network lag, and can get 144hz all the time. It mainly makes it easier to work towards that goal. Also opens a few newer features of the updated engine too.

• Texture streaming. This process reduces the amount of strain that the game puts on your RAM by a large amount (compared to old ways) and your overall system by a little bit.

• New grass rendering. BSG claims that they went to a different way to render grass at up to 200m in game with less performance drops from rendering grass. Big if true.

• 2 new anti-aliasing. I do not remember the names of them at the moment.

If i missed any major thing please let me know.

Tips, Tricks, Hints!

This section will contain all kinds of tips, tricks and hints to help out new and old players alike! Alot of it will be links to user posts.

• 10 Tarkov Rules to Live By by u/DopyWantsAPeanut

• 10 More Tarkov Rules to Live By by u/DopyWantsAPeanut

• New players: ALWAYS go through the traders and flea market examining stuff! by u/Smashly992

• Beginner's Guide to EFT | New to Tarkov? Start here! by u/Rainlyte

• Remember that AFTER you log in and make your character, that you log onto the EFT website and claim your christmas gift. but only AFTER you make your charater. Thanks u/wiserwithReddit

• New players and Old players should ALWAYS check out the WIKI Those guys do great work!

• Check out BSG's twitters to keep up on information and leaks! https://twitter.com/bstategames https://twitter.com/BetaEFT

• This is a personal list of Tarkov streamers that you can watch for entertainment or learning. (Mods if you have issue with all the links to them, ill remove them. just message me.)

–DeadlySlob Youtube –DeadlySlob Twitch

–Pestily Youtube –Pestily Twitch

–Veritas Youtube –Veritas Twitch

–TweaK Youtube –TweaK Twitch

–Anton Youtube –Anton Twitch

• And keep checking here at this subreddit. This community is VERY speedy when it comes to posting all the new things that they find or figure out.

I hope that you can learn something or get connected with this community more!

To new players! This game is BRUTAL. It has an almost vertical cliff learning curve to it. But it has some of the BEST firefights and combat out of any game out there right now. Stick with it. Find a discord group. Keep going at it. And above all else with this game, Knowledge matters. Take the time to learn the maps, the spawns, the extracts, call outs, how mods work with guns, explore. The wiki is the best for learning all the basics.

To the old players! Ah shit, here we go again!

And here is the Most secret of secrets about this coming patch!

Its to have fun!

See yall out there!

Edit: Reposted due to bad title and flair.

Edit: Thanks for the silver! I think this is my first reddit award.