Escaping 'Tarkov': Raid Tips and Tricks

Alright, let's face it: Escape from Tarkov is a difficult game with a steep learning curve, and early on without any experience, you're going to have the floor wiped with you. Let's change that. I want to give you some tips that are going to make your life a lot easier and have you pulling more dog tags than you can carry. Mind you, you'll need to have some innate skill with FPS games to begin with. I can't give you that part.

Attitude Adjustment

First off, you're going to need to change your attitude. This is really going to be the most difficult part of getting better. Too much salt will make anything disgusting, including your gameplay experience. It's a game. Have fun. Treat a loss as a chance to learn from your mistakes. Sit for a moment and remember as much of your death as you can. Where were you when you died? Was there somewhere else you could have been that would have afforded you the advantage? Maybe you were overexposing yourself? Were you optimally equipped for your environment? War games are just like chess—if you come up with the wrong pieces in the wrong places, you're not likely to win.

Map Knowledge

Next is learning the maps. At first, you should probably only play one or two maps and learn your environment with cheap or no gear before you begin raiding in full kit. Save your in-game funds for the more profitable runs once you're more experienced (you'll thank me later). If you know the environment, you can make even cheap kit work against full kit players.

Weapons Knowledge

Get experience with every base gun in the game. Have an understanding of what areas it excels in and where it falls short. Understanding the dynamics of all of the weapons that are available to you is very useful earlier on, so do this as soon as you can. Knowing where weapons are used allows you to understand what your enemy might do, as well as what options your equipment lends to you to counter-attack.

Tips and Tricks

Then it's time to move on to the more interesting things. Here is a list of things I make sure to apply anytime I am in a raid:

1. Make sure you have at least two grenades during any full kit run. Good use of grenades saves lives; an F1 grenade in a room without cover is going to neutralize anyone that may be lurking no matter of their kit.
2. Lay out your Gamma case with your most expensive consumables. If you don't use them before you die, you can bring them into the next raid. If you find one slot valuable objects you can replace them. There is no reason any slot of your Gamma case should ever be empty.
3. Don't carry more than two mags unless they hold less than 30 rounds. If you have one mag in your gun and one mag in a vest you will be able to reload and then pop into your inventory to re-stack that mag without wasting precious inventory space.
4. Inventory timers do not reset when your inventory is closed. If you start applying medical consumables to yourself, or if you're re-stacking a mag and close your inventory, it will keep going without a penalty. This allows you to quickly re-stack mags or apply meds mid-firefight.
5. Morphine and energy drinks increase the speed of which you run and complete inventory actions for a time. If you're ever in a tough spot and need to run, use one of these options on a hotkey and it will improve your mobility for a short period of time.
6. Always insure any gear you'd use again. This allows you to dump gear in combat if you're ever certain you're going to die. Chances are your opponent will not be able to scrounge up every piece of gear hidden in low brush without exposing themselves to gunfire.
7. Bandages and splints are very rarely useful, always carry AI2 kits and multi-purpose medical kits as soon as you can.

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