I’ve been playing for about 1-2 weeks of tarkov, and I know there are already tons of guides on YouTube and reddit provided by superb content creators, but for myself, I found myself having a hard time going through them at first, since they almost always assumed a certain degree of knowledge about the game mechanics or map awareness, which I lacked completely at the start of the game. In fact, I didn’t even know there were 2 factions or skills or secured containers or whatnot to begin with.
As such, I’ve decided to write up a super dumb guide that answers some of my early dumb questions which I now have answers to and some newer tarkov players may find helpful!
Q.1: Whats a secured container?
A: Everything you put in there are secured. They won’t be lost even if you die. I recommend putting any keys/ keycard or dog tags you find early game into them!
Q.2 How do I win? Why does some extraction points work and some don’t?
A: So there are a number of extraction points in each map, in which only a certain of them will activate, while others will not be available to you for that session. You will have to know the map pretty thoroughly to know where you need to go. I recommend doing a few offline raids while watching a YouTube video as it would help you identify the locations. You can check your extractions by double tapping “O” by default. Scavs runs are guaranteed certain extractions point normally, while PMC may have some different extractions. Some would even require keys such as the gates in Factory.
Q.3: When I play as a scav, does attacking a scav player who is already being aggroed by scav boys trigger scav bits aggro on myself?
A: yea it does, I tried helping out my fellow bots once but they turned on me as soon as I shot the player scav who was already in a fight with them.
Q.4: Whats a wipe?
A: everything in the game gets reset and all your progress is lost. You basically start the game anew along with all the other players just like when you bought the game.
Q.5: What do greyed out items mean?
A: they are items you haven’t scanned/ examined yet. You can examine them with middle mouse button. One thing worth noting is that without scanning weapon modifications, you may not even have them show up when you try modding your gun.
Q.6: What guns or armor are the best early on?
A: basically anything you can get your hands on. I’ve seen many videos recommend getting a set of Helmet vests and stuff, but for me I spent the first 5-10 raids just fooling around and basically never managed to escape. You don’t really need good gear at first.
Q.7: what maps should I play?
Customs, Factory are both great beginner maps from my experience, the former being a slightly larger map but offers a lot of exploration and characteristics of tarkov with plenty of loot, the latter being a smaller map and offer more CQB experience honing your skills, as well as a much easier map to remember.
Q.8 I have so much stuff that I don’t know what to do with in my inventory. what should I buy or sell?
A: for me at the start, just sell everything you don’t have an immediate need to use. That includes unknown cards, keys, dog tags, random weapon attachments, cigarettes, crickets, junk etc. they all have their uses in your hide out and for quests, but you don’t really have to worry about them early on. I spent most of my time worrying about heals and weapons.
Q.9 I get shot and I don’t know how to heal in raids. What should I use or do?
A: So there are a couple of meds you can use: Bandages, splints, and a number of first aid kits, all with designated charges. You have several limbs and core body parts each with separate health pools which you can access when in your character stash. Your limbs can get fractured, or worse, destroyed.
When your body parts takes damage, assuming you don’t suffer from additional status effects (tiny icons below each of your body part in your health tab), you should use your first aid items to heal. You can drag the first aid to the limb or part you are trying to heal, or just right click and choose use. You won’t be able to use bandages or splints to increase the hp of that body part.
If you are BLEEDING out, your health would have a (-40.00/-80.00 or even more) next to it, meaning that you will continuously lose health unless you stop it. This is when you can use your BANDAGES which stop your blood loss. CAR First aid kits can also do the same job, as well as other first aid items which you will find later in game. Early on you don’t really get much choice.
If your limbs get FRACTURED, you suffer penalty to movement and action speed. This is when you should use your SPLINTs.
That’s all for now, you probably know all of this already but if you are new to tarkov hope this answers some of your questions which you may feel too dumb to ask!
