Escape From Tarkov: 5 Things You Should Know Before Playing

Posted: Feb 16, 2023

Source: IGGM

If you're someone who's thinking of buying or has just bought Escape From Tarkov, you most likely saw some gameplay or read about the game before realizing that it's much more complicated than the majority of other FPS games. Every mechanic, which is normally a single click of a button in other games tends to consist of multiple steps in EFT. Some people love this complexity and some people hate it. Either way, you're gonna need to memorize and adapt to these systems if you want to excel in the game. So, today I'm bringing you a list of five of what I feel are the most important things you need to know.

1. Reloading

Let's touch on how reloading Works in EFT. Reloading in other games is fairly simple. You usually have two ammo counts, the amount of ammo currently in your gun's magazine and the amount of backup ammo you have on hand. If you shoot a few rounds then press the reload key, your magazine is filled from your stack of backup ammo subtracting from its total and allowing you to shoot again.

This is kind of how EFT works, except much more complicated and with many more steps. There are two primary ways loading weapons is done in EFT.

First, if you have a gun with an internal magazine, such as the stock SKS grounds are top loaded into the gun without requiring the removal of a magazine. This means rounds can be kept loose either in your PMC's pockets or as rig. Your PMC will not have direct access to rounds in his bag or secure container. When you press the reload key, he'll begin loading rounds into the gun until it's full for guns that have removable magazines.

The process is slightly different, you'll need to keep full magazines in your pockets or rig when the reload key is pressed. Your PMC will unload the current magazine into his rig then insert the most full magazine into the gun. If there are multiple full magazines, the leftmost magazine in your rig will be chosen first because this reload is a two-step process.

You need to make sure that there's space available in your rig for the magazine being removed from the gun or else your PMC will drop it. You'll also need to make sure you keep loose rounds on you in order to refill magazines. Refilling can be accomplished by simply dragging the rounds onto a depleted magazine. This topic like everything in EFT gets a bit more complicated than this. But those steps are the basics. You'll need to know to at least get by in your first few raids.

2. Ammo Determines Damage, Not Guns

In many other games, the amount of damage you deal to an enemy is typically determined by the gun you choose, but this is not how damage is calculated in EFT. It's actually the ammo itself that determines the damage you deal, not the gun. Each type of ammo has many different stats, but the two most important are Penetration and Damage. This math here gets very complicated, but I'll keep it simple for this article.

In short, Penetration Value determines how much damage is dealt to armor and the chance that the round will pass through the armor while Damage Value determines how much damage is done to the PMC.

Since the ammo itself holds these values, you could have 10 different guns, which all deal the same amount of damage. As long as they're running the same round as each other.

For beginners, I recommend focusing on memorizing what caliber ammo each gun you encounter takes as well as learning to tell the visual differences between each caliber. This will help you later on when learning which rounds you should keep and which ones you should drop when in your rates.

There's some great resources online, which lay out the stats for every ammo type in the game. My favorite is eftmo.com. I highly recommend bookmarking this site, as you'll need to refer back to it frequently during the process of learning the 100 plus different rounds in the game.

3. Insurance

EFT has an interesting system, which you can utilize called the Insurance System. Before E-Trade, you'll be given the option to ensure your gear. You can ensure anything which isn't consumable. This means you will not be able to ensure ammo meds or food. If you choose to insure your gear, you'll need to pay a few EFT Roubles to whichever trader you decide to insure with either Prapor or Therapist.

EFT Insurance System

Therapist services are significantly quicker than Prapors, but are also significantly more expensive. The point of ensuring your gear is that if you lose it while in raid, you'll be able to receive it back from the trader you insured with later on, but only if another player didn't pick it up and extract with it.

But losing your gear due to death isn't the only time you can benefit from insurance. If you kill a player while in raid, you can utilize the insurance system to drop and hide your gear somewhere then run the opponent's gear the rest of the raid. This process is often called Insurance Fraud in the Tarkov community and is especially useful during the early levels of the game when you don't have much gear at your disposal.

So, while insurance does come with a price, it can definitely help you with maintaining a constant flow of gear back to your Dash if you properly utilize fraud.

4. Important Status Effects

Tarkov has many health related status effects in the game, which will take a bit to learn for beginners. Think of it, like how many combat systems are handled in MMOs, certain attacks can cause you to receive a certain status effect. You'll then either need to wait on it to go away or counter it with a consumable. This is pretty similar to how Tarkov works.

The most essential status effects you need to learn are Bleeds, Blacks and Breaks. Bleeds can exist as either light or heavy and slowly drain Health until they're stopped.

Light Bleeds are stopped using bandages and Heavy Bleeds are stopped by using tourniquets or hemostats. Bleeds can also be stopped using most Mega hits. But a significant amount of their durability will be consumed in the process. A black limb is the result of a particular limb on the body reaching zero HP at which point you'll no longer be able to heal it using Mega hits. You'll need to use a surgical kit on it either a CMS or serve 12. Doing so will repair the limb, bringing it back up to one HP but lowering the maximum HP.

EFT Heavy Bleeds

Each time surgery is done to the same limb in the same raid. The max HP for that limb will decrease further.

Breaks can happen to arms and legs usually from bullet damage but also to the legs by falling from a significant height. Aim will be shaky with broken arms and movement will be slowed with broken legs. Breaks can be resolved by using splints in Tarkov, either the immobilizing splint or the multi-use aluminum splint.

Bandages, tourniquets, surgical kits and splints can all be purchased from traders, mainly Therapists or the flea market. In my opinion, it's essential to keep at least one consumable for resolving. Each of these basic status effects on your PMC every rate.

5. Level Up Your Traders

Lastly, you need to level up your traders in order to be successful in EFT. With each of the game's traders, you'll have what's called a Loyalty Level. This level is influenced by three factors, your current PMC level, the amount of EFT Roubles paid to and values sold to that trader and your current reputation with that trader.

Reputation can be increased by completing tasks for traders, either main tasks or operational ones, like dailies and weeklies. By hitting the requirements for each trader Loyalty Level, you'll level up the trader increasing the amount of items, they'll have for sale. The more you level up your traders, the more options you'll have for weapons, gear, meds, ammo and more leveling.

Your traders is essential for effective progression in the game despite not necessarily being obvious when you first start playing. While you can get by with a lot of the equipment available to you at lower loyalty levels, you're definitely at a bit of a disadvantage. Start to focus on which trader you're closest to leveling up, next trying to trade with them more often and completing their tasks.

Some tasks from a trader may be blocked by another trader's task as well. So, it's important to make sure you're progressing each trader as much as you can. If you hit any tasks that are too difficult to figure out upon receiving them, I recommend utilizing the Escape From Tarkov Wiki as it has walkthroughs for every task in the game.

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Next: EFT: How To Quickly Complete Disease History Task?

Previous: Escape From Tarkov: Ways To Kill Reshala

Recommended Article

EFT: A Rookie’s Guide To BP Depot Quests
For some Escape From Tarkov players, there is never a shortage of EFT Roubles during the expedition. Because during the player’s adventure, they often encounter Russian arms dealer Prapor to provide players who continue EFT Roubles with a lot of jobs that can pay quickly, as long as the player can work hard for a day.

If the player wants to do some relatively stable work, such as graffiti and the like. This BP Depot mission is definitely to your liking. Especially in a world like Tarkov where illegal transactions are everywhere and dangers may appear at any time, which player can refuse such a task?

Get Task

Prapor is an arms dealer from Russia who often trades with players in other areas such as Verkneye Urban Settlement in Tarkov world. I believe some players must have cooperated with him before. Because many of Prapor’s tasks are aimed at players who are temporarily short of EFT Roubles and want to improve their equipment quickly.

Players will receive a BP Depot task from Prapor, which mainly requires players to use MS2000 and other equipment to track and mark some fuel tanks on Tarkov Customs map so that they can collect them later. Players need to mark 4 fuel tanks on this mission.

This mission differs from some friendly Modern Warfare 2’s DMZ mode games. Players lose all uninsured items upon game death. Therefore, it is very important for players to be careful not to lose any valuable equipment while knowing the map at hand and completing the mission.

Mark Fuel Tank

The four fuel tanks have the same appearance and are extremely easy to confuse. Players can mark the fuel tanks they find in any way. Players can find fuel tanks in four places:
- Near the road between Trailer Park and Crossroads Extraction points
- They parked one up-front at New Gas Station location
- They parked one at the back of Old Gas Station's location
- Parked inside Construction Site location
These fuel tanks hide in the open industrial area of Tarkov Customs map, and enemies will attack players when they find the fuel tanks and want to label them accordingly.

Players should be able to guess that they need to deal with some enemy players hiding on the roof of buildings or windowsills, or some NPC Scavs with weapons and equipment. Players need to move carefully to avoid entering the enemy’s weapon vision.

Players should also be on the lookout for some extra loot while moving from one fuel tank location to the next, particularly the gas station location. Generally, there are fuel tanks hidden in gas stations, which are crucial for some players to maintain power while hiding.

Once the player has successfully marked all the fuel tanks, the most important thing is to get out of this area alive. Most of the extraction locations on Tarkov Customs map are open, where the player will be vulnerable to another attack, a common hallmark of Tarkov worlds.

Mission Rewards

After the player completes BP Depot task, Prapor will give the player certain rewards. But the player will also lose the reward of Jaeger, another arms supplier in Escape From Tarkov. Players who choose to help Prapor will receive these rewards:
- 2,800EXP
- +0.03 Prapor Reputation
- -0.01 Jaeger Reputation
- 30,000 - 34,500 EFT Roubles
- 2 Expeditionary Fuel Tanks
EFT: How To Quickly Complete Disease History Task?
There are many factions in Escape From Tarkov who want secrets and information. Fortunately, Therapist is only willing to hand over important, even life-saving, medical information to the player.

The game is to let the player enter a dark and closed corridor, and the player must find the correct and locked door inside. Players can get richer rewards after completing the dangerous but simple level of Disease History. Escape From Tarkov is as simple as if the player had spent a day at the office without thrills.

Players must reach Level 15 to accept quests from Therapist, who is actually a drug and aid supplier in Tarkov City. Players must find two keys, RB-KSM and RB-SMB keys. Only with these two keys, the player can open the locked door and get the file. It generated these two keys on RNG.

Players can find Dorms on Customs map. Clothes and dead bodies in Dorms may hide keys, or you can look for them in crates or wooden boxes. .

After players meet these requirements, they can find two medical records on a Reserve map with vast land and tall buildings. Reserve, like other maps in Tarkov, is a rich place with rich item spawns and vast lands. Here, players can plunder other people’s bitcoins, weapons, fuel, and first aid supplies and other valuables.

At the same time, here is also full of danger. Players who want to go to White Bishop Medical Building must be well prepared and armed. Prevent hostile players or hostile NPCs from snatching all the supplies and weapons of unaware players.

If you don’t have proper contents insurance, you could permanently lose your device, and these circumstances make Tarkov an extremely difficult FPS by traditional standards.

When the player arrives at White Bishop, the folder hides in a separate locked room on the second floor. At this time, the player must use RB-SMP key to unlock the door.

Among them, it placed the medical folder on a floor cabinet with a folding door, and in order to prevent players from easily discovering it, it piled a lot of sundries up in front of the cabinet.

The second locked room needs to be opened with RB-KSM key. After opening the door, there is a pile of wooden boards at the door, and it placed the folder at the bottom of the wooden shelf on the left side of the room.

After collecting both folders, players just need to extract their auto-cached folders from the map. After the mission is complete, players can finally feel happy that they managed to save these secret folders. But at any time before the task is completed, the player cannot let down his guard.

As with most quests in Escape From Tarkov, the rewards players receive will vary from quest to quest. Completion of more advanced missions will provide players with more EFT Roubles. After completing Disease History quest, players can get generous rewards, including:
- 7,200 EXP
- +0.3 Therapist Reputation
- 30,000 EFT Roubles (31,500 Intelligence Center 2) (34,500 Intelligence Center 3)
- 5 CALOK-B Hemostatic applicators
- 1 Grizzly Medical Kit
- 1 Ibuprofen Painkillers
Escape From Tarkov: Ways To Kill Reshala
In Escape From Tarkov, there are many Scav bosses, and Reshala is one of them. Usually, he appears on Customs maps and is called the Dealmaker. For your The Huntsman Path, you need to kill Reshala once. And in The Huntsman Path, there are Trophy, Justice, and Relentless quests given to you by Jaeger.
On the Customs map, some of the locations he's in have about a 38% spawn chance. Usually, Reshala is surrounded by some of his guards. Here are some tips on how to kill Reshala in Escape From Tarkov.
Reshala Usually Spawns In These Places Of Customs
- Usually, on the map, he'll spawn in one place, with some of his goons, in a three-story dormitory on any floor.
- Near construction sites, he will spawn.
- He spawns next to the truck on the west side or at the new gas station facing south. In addition to that, he spawns near the front of the sandbag.
- Another possible place is on the channel between Checkpoint and the Sub-Station.
Some Ways To Kill Reshala
If you compare Reshala and his 4 goons with other bosses in the game, Reshala and his 4 goons are actually not difficult to deal with. When goons spawn, they usually wear armor. Moreover, the levels of these armors are all different. Sometimes, the armor they wear may be class 5 or 6 armor and Altyn helmet. Usually, Reshala's guards will stand in front of him to protect him. So, if you want to find Reshala, you have to fight his guards and kill them to find Reshala. Once the guards are under attack, Reshala and one or two of his guards find a place that can cover them and take cover. Then, you have to kill other guards first. Here, there is a situation that needs your attention. If you are a player scav with low scav karma, there is a chance that Reshala's guards will shoot you when you get close to their units without attacking them. Sometimes, Reshala's guards may warn low karma player scavs before becoming hostile.
Since they're likely to have advanced armor when they spawn, you'll want to make sure you have and use high-caliber weapons. Such as 7.62x39mm BP gzh ammo, because it can penetrate 5th class armors and Altyn helmet with only one or two shots. Because Reshala's guards are usually very close to the guards next to them, the best way to deal with them is to bomb them with grenades. So, you can use EFT Roubles or Items to get the grenades or other powerful weapons or equipment you need to improve your strength and make the fight easier. However, you also need to be aware of your surroundings and proceed with caution when dealing with them. Be careful as they will also throw flashbangs and grenades at you.
In the dorm, if you run into them and try to fight them. Well, you can try to move around without being noticed and spot them one at a time. You can clean the dormitory room by room, kill them all, and loot their valuables later.