This game is not fair.
You will face people wearing armor that you cannot pen. You will face people using thermal optics that can spot you through 2 bushes from 150 meters away flawlessly. You will face 5 man squads that can surround and destroy you.
But you are not helpless; you can still empty a mag into your enemies' legs. You can still stay hidden until that 5 man squad passes and then huck a nade their way. You can still shoot it in the face.
Many new players myself included felt helpless entering raids only to lose your expensive gear over and over until your bank balance reaches 0. Many hated grinding the seemingly impossible quests and opted simply to not bother with the traders and use the flea market exclusively. Many resorted to strategies such as hatchet running and exit camping just to stay above broke.
Do not despair, do not get angry and scream. Instead of breaking your monitor when you die, think about what you could have done better.
And remember that eventually, you will be the angel of death wearing class 6 body armor and stalking a hapless squad with a thermal scope.
A few tips and tricks:
Do not be afraid to lose your equipment. Gear left in your stash forever is already lost. Sell it or use it.
Keep a stockpile of a couple million roubles around, but don't hoard money. Invest it into cases, keys or your hideout.
Night raids are the time to get shit done. If you have a quest that you can't seem to complete, get some cheap nvgs (PNV10T's are good) and go after dark.
Night scopes are best used on maps with a mix of light and dark areas.
Some modifications and equipment require certain mounts or adapters or whatever to use. When you unlock the flea market, rclick the item and go to linked search to find out what mounts it's compatible with. You can also inspect an item and hover over the arrow next to the compatibility parameter to see if there is anything in your stash that it is compatible with.
If you are going without a helmet, at least get a balaclava to cover your shiny dome.
Traders have multiple requirements to level up. To see what they are, go to the trade menu with them and look above your inventory.
Before selling, check the flea market to see the prices. If the traders sell equal to it, sell to them first as it's faster. Therapist gives the best prices followed by mechanic. Ragman buys clothing/armor/bags etc. and peacekeeper buys most stuff but pays in dollars.
Always insure everything. It only costs 1/10 the price of the item, so if you die to a scav and noone loots you just once in 10 times it's worth it. Just don't insure your keys(or melee weapon) in your secure anal cavity because you won't lose that anyway and insurance on that is expensive af.
Some trader quests are kind of impossible to complete in the current state of the game without an outside guide. For now, just look it up on the wiki.
When you reload, you need an empty spot in either your pockets or chest rig to put the unloaded magazine into or it will be dropped. Double tapping r quick reloads, which dumps the magazine on the ground but is faster.
Bullets need a little bit of lead at long distances but not much, bullets are fast.
You can adjust the range your sights are zeroed at with pgup and pgdown.
If you are using iron sights and they are not aligned, you will not shoot on target. Press alt to steady your aim.
Quick and dirty armor guide: class 1 is useless, class 2 stops most shotguns and some pistols, class 3 stops shotguns, pistols, and low pen rifles, class 4 stops mid-tier rifle rounds (this is the baseline pvp armor), class 5 and 6 are thiccboi armors.
General rule of thumb on ammo: every 10 points of pen can go through 1 class of armor i.e. 30 pen goes through class 3, 50 pen class 5 etc. And for the love of god don't use 5.45 PRS.
Suppressors muffle the sound of the gunshot, but not the crack of the supersonic bullet. Subsonic ammunition is very weak, but very stealthy, exception is 9×39 which is both very powerful and subsonic, also very expensive.
Always use the best ammo you can. Nothing hurts more than dying in a firefight and seeing 658 damage blocked in the results screen and remembering that buying the best ammo would have only been 40k roubles more. Look up the latest eft ammo chart, more pen is usually (but not always) better.
Grenades are super useful and the cheap ones (RGD-5's) are only 10k roubles a pop. Always carry at least one.
On the topic of nades, you might want to rebind your nade key. Dying to a fatfingered nade sucks.
Grenades are thrown in the order of: pockets first, left to right, followed by rig top left to bottom right.
The AI-2 is the only medkit that doesn't stop bleeding, carry bandaids with it.
Don't forget to stay hydrated after a long raid.
Make a habit of being a difficult target. Walk in shadows and near cover, never walk in a straight line, clear the area before looting, etc.
O opens the time left in raid. Double tap O opens potential extracts, ones with ??? next to them are uncertain or require a condition. The wiki has extract maps, or you can use the maps in game if that feels too meta.
Marked circles are loot spots that can spawn anything. You can find a bottle of apple juice sitting next to a 1.2 mil rouble weapon case. If there is nothing there, it means someone got there first. There is one on woods, one on customs, and two on reserve. Woods is the only one that does not require a key to access.
While this is a KOS game, some players are legitimately friendly (usually other player scavs when doing scav runs). Wiggling with q/e is the usual sign for friendliness. F1 mumbles and double tapping y opens an interaction menu. Make some friends and they might drop you an 800k rouble key (true story).
On the topic of keys, some of them are worth millions of roubles. They spawn mostly in jackets and scav pockets/bags and also have a few fixed spawns. If you are ever unsure about a key, yeet it into your secure anal cavity and ask questions later.
This game gives you an incredible amount of control over your character. A few things you can do includes but is not limited to: holding c + scrolling can let you crouch at different heights, scrolling lets you change walk speed and capslock goes from max to min instantly, alt holds breath when aiming and alt+a/d leans slow, q/e lean and alt+q/e takes a step out. L looks at your gun and alt+L folds/unfolds it. T toggles tactical device, ctrl+T changes mode on tactical device, shift+T checks the chamber of your weapon and alt+t checks the magazine. Alt+rclick changes the mode of your optic and ctrl+rclick changes which optic you use. Double click opens an inventory or the inspection panel and middleclick folds a weapon in inventory.
Know how to rush, know how to creep, know when to do which and always check your corners.
You should look up maps and guides for the different areas but in general the maps go like this:
Customs has lots of chokepoints and hotspots as well as many quests on it. Lots of pvp and questing, but not much in the way of loot. Scav boss Reshala and his 4 goons pack quite a lot of loot if you can take them down. Mix of long range combat and cqc with most of it being mid range.
Woods is very open, lots of long range sniping and a few quests notably the jaeger quests. The sawmill at the center of the map is a serious hotspot and there can be some cqc in the dense undergrowth of the forest to the southeast. Watch out for snipers on top of rocks. Scav boss Shturman inhabits the sawmill with 2 guards, picking off players from afar.
Factory plays less like arma and more like quake. Extremely small map with almost exclusively cqc combat. With very little loot and tons of pvp this map has a meta all it's own, recommend watching videos to learn it.
Interchange is a huge shopping mall and the surrounding area. Lots of loose loot that sells for a good amount on the flea market, most notably the 2 tech stores and the back shelves of OLI (the green one) but there is tons of loot literally everywhere if you know where to look. The KIBA arms store in the center of the mall requires a 1.5 mil key to enter plus a key from a mechanic quest but can fill a bag with loot on it's own. Scav boss Killa stalks around the center of the mall and butchers anything that looks at him funny. Mostly mid-short range combat with some long range outside the mall. Lots of Ragman quests.
Shoreline is a large open map with a few land marks, most notably the health resort in the center which is host to a lot of pvp and a metric ton of high-value loot. Only problem is that most of the loot is locked behind keys, most of which are over 500k roubles a piece. There are some cheap keys that give very good loot though so make sure to pick those up if you see them. Long range combat in most of the map with cqc in the powerplant and health resort. Lots of Peacekeeper quests.
Reserve is an enormous military base with a mix of long range sniping and cqc combat and tons and tons of loot guarded by dangerous scav raiders and scav boss Glukhar with his squad. The map really is incredibly complex and varied so a full guide is recommended, but know that all of the extracts for it have special conditions before you can leave. And don't walk in the minefield.
Terragroup Labs is without a doubt the most valuable place in the game, with the potential to leave with millions of roubles in loot. It is also filled with the most dangerous AI enemies in the game, scav raiders. With a 200k rouble buy-in just to attempt it most of the other players will be geared to the teeth and packing friends. This map's extracts also have special conditions, and again, a guide is recommended.
Have a wiki link:
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EscapefromTarkov/comments/eisjph/an_open_letter_to_the_new_guys/
