Welcome to the dark souls of first person shooters. The game is not perfect right now, the servers are kinda a hot mess ( recent thing….. kinda ), and you are probably going through major gear fear. That's what everyone calls the fear of going into a raid and losing all your stuff. This game is complicated and very difficult so do yourself a favor and pay attention to these very handy tips.
Play in offline mode to learn all the maps. the in game ones are garbage.
Turn on PVE in offline mode to get good at dealing with the AI.
Youtube is rapidly filling with people creating how to's and guides. Seriously go watch pestily.
Until you get used to a lot of recoil, Stay away from 7.62 AK's if you intend to use full auto. 7.62 is a fantastic damage dealing round but is more for single fire usage. 5.45 has much lower recoil making it easier for newer players who want to mag dump.
The rubber butt pad for the AK series rifle is your best friend, USE IT.
Unlike most games, damage is not determined by the weapon but by the ammo used. Go to the EFT wiki and figure out which ammo you can afford to use and which (even if you can afford it) you should avoid like the plague.
YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. A LOT.
Keep playing, push through your losses and figure out what you did that got you killed.
Presets. There is a tab at the bottom of the screen called presets. You can mess around with any gun and mod in the game. Pay attention to the info window while messing with the weapon you're interested in to see what is really effective and what is bling. If you're curious how much something costs and you have hit level 5, You can then click find parts to see what they cost on the flea market. Just be sure to turn off traders only from the preferences.
Here is a really simple ammo chart for those just getting started. There are more in depth ones but if you just want a good reference so you can get in the next raid, this is perfect. https://tarkovtools.covertgg.com/?ammo
::Edit:: – This got a down vote which is kinda surprising to me, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. I only wish the person had commented what could have been made to improve the post since they didn't think it had relevant content. I'll keep my eye on this and update it with good tips for new players that should be added. See you out there in Tarkov everyone.
::Edit 2:: – Wow, This post got all these awards. I'm kinda blown away. Thank you so much for that. As someone who just wanted to share some useful information, all this is far more than I expected. I'll make sure to keep trying to add more content to this post to make it really helpful for new players.