Field Manual — Tutorials
Everything you need to know to survive and grow your operator.
1. Carry Layout — Pockets, Backpack, Security Pouch
Open Hideout → Operator. Under your equipment you'll see three carry zones:
- Pockets — 4 quick slots, plus 1 locked slot that unlocks when you buy the Multiplayer DLC. Drag in water, bandages, snacks, throwables before deployment.
- Backpack — only visible when you've equipped a bag. The slot count depends on the bag (Sling 4, Scav 6, Tourist 6, MBSS 8, Tribal 10, Pilgrim 14). Drag items in or out from stash.
- Security Pouch (★) — 4 slots, upgradable later through bundles. Anything stowed in the pouch cannot be lost on death. Use it for keys, found-in-raid quest items and rare loot.
2. PMC vs Scav — How Deployment Works
You have two characters that share a stash but nothing else:
- PMC (your operator) — uses your real gear, food, water, and skills. Wounds, hunger and thirst persist between raids. If you extract bleeding, you'll keep bleeding back in the hideout until you treat it.
- Scav — a throwaway secondary character with a 25-minute cooldown. Spawns with a random trash kit (pistol, knife or worn shotgun + 0–3 pocket items, and a very rare chance of a low-tier bag). Scav runs never affect your PMC's hydration, protein, health, equipment or wounds.
- On scav extract, everything you carried lands in your PMC stash (except quest items — scavs can't bring those back). On scav death, you simply lose the throwaway gear; your PMC is untouched.
3. Wounds & Medical
Heavier hits inflict wounds that follow you home. Bleeding ticks HP loss in the hideout — slow if light, fast if heavy. Build the Medical Station to reduce the bleed rate.
Treat wounds from the Operator panel — each "Treat" press consumes one medical item (Bandage, Army Bandage, Salewa, IFAK, or Surv12) and clears the worst wound first.
4. Loot Progression — What Drops Where
The grind is gated on purpose. Better maps = better loot. Here's the realistic ladder:
AKM, AR-15, M416, M4A1, SVD, Frag Grenades, tactical helmets and heavy armor will NEVER drop before Military Base — the grind to get there is the point.
5. Combat Math — What Actually Counts
The Encounter window shows the inputs that drive each shot. Each row really feeds the calc:
- GUN — base damage by class + rarity bonus.
- AMMO — class bonus added to per-shot damage (pistol +2, SMG +3, shotgun +5, rifle +6, sniper +10).
- ACCURACY skill (+0.01 hit chance per point) and Weapons skill (+0.015) and the matching gun-class skill (+0.008) all stack into hit chance.
- STAMINA — calm under load, +0.004 hit chance per point.
- DEFENCE skill — small armor cushion on top of equipped armor/rig.
- Wounds — Pain reduces your hit chance by 8%, Heavy Bleeding drains hydration fast.
Firing also trains Accuracy, Weapon Handling and the gun-class skill in tiny increments per shot.
6. Tips
- Stash rare keys (Lab Key, Punched Card, Looted Map) in the Security Pouch — they survive death.
- Bring at least 1 Bandage on every raid; heavy bleeds will kill you in the hideout otherwise.
- Train gun-class skills by firing them — pistol-only stretches teach you Pistols, not Rifles.
- Scav runs are the safest way to farm hideout materials (planks, nails, screws, rags).
- Treat the Tavern as your social hub — meet people, add friends, chat from both forum and game.