Basic UI & interactions

 
The UI, as of now is a bit under-developed, meaning you can easily miss things in the first 20 minutes and then think everything is bad. 
 

So here is some BASIC things to remember.

• During Early-Access everyone gets 200 free chips in the Shop tab 
• Certain things you can unlock will not show what they do in the Research tab (This is most-likely unintentional). Instead go into the Explorers tab, choose your explorer of choice and everything will be written down that you have unlocked. 
   
• You unlock new characters, besides the three standard ones, in the Shop tab by clicking the Explorers sub-tab in there. (Each one costs 1.15k chips, thus you can buy one after 6 days of JUST starting up the game) 
   

Gameplay – Yes you DO suck at this game Mr.John Wick

Basics

• Each round you either match up with random players or play with two more friends. 
• At the beginning you choose a character. I will discuss this later. 
• You spawn randomly on the map fairly spaced out to other teams. 
• You loot chests, shelves, boxes, corpses and toilets for ammunition, scrap, weapons and usables. 
• Looking at the map, decide the best economical route for you and your team to split up, but stay close enough to not screw each other over while looting. 
• Being greedy is unneccesary as scrap and experience are equally shared among everyone in a team, even if they are not present. Only exceptions is items; but having a teammate with next to nothing is much worse than having a little less yourself. 
• Running takes stamina, and lowers it semi-permanently the more you run. 
• You use more stamina and move slower when your weapon is out – press “x” to put it away. 
• Food restores stamina. Other items are self explanatory.

More “Advanced” ideas

• Spread out. Speak with your team. Communicate. This makes the under-average timmy squad that gets whiped by one person and then love to flame about “ugh game bad and unbalanced” to chad that clean the battlegound from lesser beings. 
• Scrap and Experience are the main resources you need, everything else is just nice to have. Make an efford to get AS MUCH as possible EARLY in the game, so you dont struggle for it later on when everything’s already looted! 
• If your team get’s killed, and yes that WILL happen no matter how good you are, just run. They respawn as long as one person is alive. This is MORE important than trying to play the hero and taking fights you cant win! 
• The dropship is a DEATHSENTENCE for as long as you’re not gods gift to shooters. If you’re a w-warrior and play shooters religiously sure go for it, but everyone else refrain from ever going close to the ship before like 30 seconds on the clock! And I mean stay away +200m! 
• Coming down to playstyle shield upgrades or special weapons (wildcard weapons) and equipment may be crafted, but keep in mind your first shield upgrade & signature weapon! 
• Your signature weapon, whatever character you might play, is more powerfull than most weapons you can find; the ability to get the signature weapons from enemies wasnt removed for no reason you see!

Dont try to be shrouds prodigy!

 
You dont have to fight; EVER. It will happen but you can usually just run away. Dont try and force fight, play smart, play defensive. There is no reason in fighting someone with MUCH better equipment than you. Even 3v1s can be hard if you’re underprepared! So take your time; kills dont add much if anything to your progress either way! 
 
 

Progression & Crafting

Progression explained

 
In simple terms, you level up by collecting data, dealing damage, your placement, completed objectives and the time you are alive. 
 
 
As seen in this after-match summary even being first place and doing extremely well with datapoints and damage, you still dont get that much more XP. 
 
Collecting data is the easiest way to do so, alongside completed objectives. 
Killing enemies and getting data stashes (growths, craters etc.) rewards you data points, these are directly tied to the amount of xp you get afterwards. This (apparently) is capped at a fixed amount of XP at round end. 
 
You dont even have to make it to the dropship and “win” -> There is Data-upload stations, where you just stand and save your points, no matter if you die or get first place ! 
 

Crafting

 
At first glance crafting seems counterintuitive, but it’s simple if you get into it. 
Your energy bar at the top right is used to restrict people from upgrading too quickly; same goes for the mobile-game-esque time it takes to craft things. 
 
 
 
For beginners, the SIGNATURE WEAPONS and TALENTS tabs can be ignored, you need 
A) A much higher level to even get something to craft in the first place and 
B) They take a better understanding of the how-to of crafting itself. 
 
WILDCARD, EQUIPMENT and THROWABLES will enable you to get MUCH better equipment whenever you need it, given you have the level and scrap in the match! 
 
Additionally you need to fabricate a set amount of items (10, 20, 30, 40 respectively) to proceed to the next research tier which will give you access to newer and better items. 
 
You gain ressources by leveling up your character, looting in general, and surviving with certain special drops such as Pre-Apocalycptic containers and satchels. 
How to get ressources? Play the game! 
You get ressources automatically over time, this is no different from any other game with such mechanics. Grind for better stuff! 
 
Advanced crafting 
In the REASERCH tab, click on RESOURCES. This will give you a lot of different materials you will need to craft items with. These resources can be left-clicked to MAKE them out of another material called “Nanites”. Right-clicking will DECONSTRUCT a material FOR Nanites. This conversion usually goes in a ratio of 1:2 (Meaning deconstructing gives half of the nanites used to craft the same material) But at times this can be 1:4, 1:8 or even 1:16! 
 
 
 
 

Here is the BIG missconception some people have!

 
Simply having researched these items DOES NOT give you an instant and unbeatable advantage over others. You STILL need to craft these items in a match, using your limited ressources! 
Stronger weapons/Items need MUCH more scrap and much higher levels. So these are LATE GAME. This means that you wont have a notable dissadvantage over others until maybe the last 5 minutes of the dropship landing! 
 
 

Characters, Playstyles and Tips

 
 
I personally enjoy playing support classes. For one because my aim is terrible but that aside I just enjoy supportive characters.So I main HALDEN 
 
I can only really be helpfull with a few characters, those being the main three: Halden, Valora and Tarik. Additionally I have friends who play Cruz and Kali so I’ll be giving a bit of intel on them too in the future. 
 

Tarik

 
Tarik is a strong offensive character, even though his entire stick is being a sniper. 
His Signature-weapon is a very powerful sniper-rifle; the “Longstrider”. This weapon is comparable to the Res.3, Epic sniper “Predator”, but at level 2 and for 250 scrap! (The predator costs 750 scrap at level 4) 
 
A bit weird to me, is his choice of ability: The Stun trap. 
In theory this sounds like a claymore, and it kinda is. But how it is used currently gives me to think if Tarik is not a bit too powerful. 
This ability creates a circle on the floor which, if an enemy steps into it, COMPLETELY restricts movement and BLINDS an enemy for about 10-15 seconds. 
This is NOT used as a defensive measure atm, but instead the “run into 3 enemies. Press Q. Turn an entire team into vegetables”. So this is how he’s played atm. (Dont be that type of person) 
 
You can put this trap in cover at certain power-positions to surprise enemies and make use of this to shut off ways and keep certain places more or less clear! (This is how it is intended to be used?) 
 

Valora

 
Valora is, again a character intended to be used defensively but is mainly played VERY agressively. 
Her signature weapon is a Shotgun; the “Devestator”. It doesnt have a craftable counterpart, most shotguns you find are dogwater in contrast and by god you better hope you never get one-pumped by one! 
Her ability is the Aegis shield. This ability creates a stationary dome that blocks any kind of bullet or projectile. It stays for about 10-15 seconds and can be shot down; decreasing in size after some amount of damage. 
Again, this is currently not used as a defensive play, instead people get as close as possible to a team, use the ability and force the enemy into engaging in close range; thus the shotgun. This is somewhat tough to beat and you should never engage in this scenario. Just wait till the shield is gone! 
Defensively it’s used to create cover where there is none. Protect teammates that have low health or are downed and give extra tankyness to a team in a bad position or to forify a good position. 
 

Halden

 
Halden is probably one of the defensive characters that is actually defensive with some offensive capability. 
His signature weapon is a semi-automatic assault rifle; the Strikerifle. It’s a powerful surpressive tool, but because of the low firerate it’s not as well fit in terms of DPS. 
His ability is the curative aura. This ability creates a dome that heals you and your teammates and can instantly revive downed teammates (if they are already downed and you activate the ability next to them!). It heals entire chunks of health in certain increments instead of healing steadily over time. 
Halden is mainly defensive and heavily supportive. You can quickly revive teammates and keep their health in both defensive and offensive scenarios high, but you’re a quite “underpowered” in DPS duels. Taking down either Halden or Valora in a fight should be top priority! And opposingly you should try and stay alive and watch what your team does to properly assist them! 
 

Upgrade paths

 
Later in your playtime you will be able to make certain upgrades to your character called TALENTS. These upgrades change the way the character is played and can be moderately fit for your own need. Though if you play a certain character for their traits, the upgrades will be your cup of tea. 
 
Here is some tips on how to build certain characters that I PERSONALLY think make the most sense. 
 
Halden 
Halden should be build as a tank as you are supportive. The longer you live the better the odds of your team are. So higher shield capacity over quicker charge for example. Ability cooldown decrease over weapon reload speed. And so on and so forth. 
 
Valora 
Valora is a DPS/Tank hybrid, but her ability already gives her the capability of being tanky. So forcing DPS based skills like reloadspeed, shield recharge etc. will have you benefit greatly over her DPS-Tank role. 
 
Tarik 
Tarik is a sniper so his playstyle is mainly being next to unkillable from longer ranges while being very deadly. Though his offensive playstyle meta atm makes him able to be build either way. I prefer the hybrid of offensive and defensive in case you get pushed and cant snipe people anymore. 
 

Tips & Tricks

• Having both Valora and Halden in a team makes for great survivability. 
• Tariks Long range playstyle makes for a perfect back-up/spotter that can initiate combat from far away 
• Playing hight is very powerful, and so is baiting enemies into tight spaces 
• Use NPCs and Environement to your advantage. Surprising a team that is fighting strong PvE enemies or Boss-Targets for example makes for quick double points & ressources.

Here we come to an end for Scavengers How to (as of Hotfix 13th of May) hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!