7 Escape From Tarkov Tips You Need To Know Before Playing

These Escape From Tarkov tips are essential if you want to avoid the confusion, headaches, and death that new raiders are bound to succumb to. It is no secret that Escape From Tarkov is a brutally difficult game, providing very little hand holding or information to unsuspecting players. So, have a read on for our seven essential Escape From Tarkov tips and you’ll be equipped with all you need to know to hit the ground running.

Run Scavs For Risk-Free Loot

The single most important Escape From Tarkov tip you can receive as a new player is to run scavs as much as you possibly can. Scav runs in Escape From Tarkov are essentially the game’s way of giving you free stuff without the risk of losing it. Part of why Tarkov is such a punishing experience is that if you die in a raid as a PMC you lose everything you had on you, but scav runs give you the opportunity to build your stash - and your cash - with little penalty.

The key to scav run success however is to have a routine. Pick a map that you know, and a section within it to loot that you know has a chance of getting you good and expensive items. You usually only have about 15-25 minutes per scav run depending on the map so you have to make it count and make sure you get out.

Learn Prices So You Can Prioritise Expensive Loot

Leading on from the last Escape From Tarkov tips entry, knowing your prices is an essential part of maximising the efficiency of runs. To say that there are a lot of items in Escape From Tarkov is an understatement and knowing the sale value or quest value of each of them is a herculean task, but understanding what types of things sell well is a great start.

In terms of weapon attachments, sights, tactical devices, and silencers are always a good bet, but often if you’re not sure and it looks fancy it might be worth something. You’re always going to want to be on the lookout for purple items - especially those on the larger side - alongside keycards, keys, and certain quest specific items like flash drives and gas analysers depending on how far into the wipe you are.

As tedious as it sounds, it is always a good idea to check each item you bring back on the Escape From Tarkov wiki to see if it is used in any quests, barters, or hideout sections you might want to go for as having it for when you need it is often worth far more than the roubles you’d get from selling.

Optimise Your Stash To Free Up Space

The trade off from keeping certain items for quests or barters is that you’ve got to have somewhere to store them. If you’ve opted for the standard edition of the game you’ll only have a basic stash of 10x28 cells to work with which can be quite tricky once you start building up a collection. 

Space saving tricks like folding your weapons by clicking the middle mouse on them or storing spare attachments on weapons are a good start but bag stacking can make or break your stash early game. As simple as it sounds, putting a bag inside another bag can save you so much space and money, and it can be done as many times as you can fit.

Another game-changing item is the Lucky Scav Junk Box which can be bought from Therapist level one for 1106138 roubles. This is a lot of money and is over double the 500,000 roubles you start with but once you get a bit above the amount to feel comfortable it is an invaluable purchase. It provides 196 inventory slots but only takes up 16 in your stash, and can store most quest and barter items, saving you so much space, time, and roubles in the future.

Don’t Have Gear Fear Because Then Your Gear Will Be Useless

Gear fear is a phenomenon quite unique to Tarkov in that it is one of the only games where you can - and are quite likely - to lose everything you own. To have gear fear is to be so afraid of losing the high value guns and armour in your stash that you never actually bring it into a raid.

The most important thing you can do to get over gear fear is to realise that no matter how much you value that modded out M4 in your stash, it’s value is sat at a negative if you’re never going to use it. It is only taking up valuable space so either gear up and enjoy it or sell it to the highest bidder.

Even Bad Guns Are Usable With Good Ammo

It is easy to get caught up in the complexities of the weapons, focusing on recoil numbers and ergonomics before considering the item that actually does the damage. The single most important factor in defining a loadout is the ammo that you bring in with it, as a bad gun with great ammo can still get you kills but a good gun with bad ammo will barely scratch your enemies.

Unfortunately there is not a lot of information in the game about the different types of ammo, so using ammo charts like EFT Monster to find a good balance between damage and penetration is an excellent start. Just make sure to always have the right ammo in your gun as you could be left sandwiched with a jammed weapon.

Do Your Quests To Level Up Quickly

Another thing that Tarkov somewhat hides away from the player is the quest system. If you click on any of the traders, you will find a ‘tasks’ tab at the top where all the available quests will be stored. One thing that can trip you up - as obvious as it sounds - is that you need to accept and complete every quest manually, which if not done can lead to a lot of wasted time and effort. Importantly, if you have any quest specific items you need to hand in, make sure to do so as soon as you return from raid as you will lose the item if you return to a raid and die.

Quests are not only a good way of increasing your reputation with traders or getting nice rewards, but they are also the best way to climb the levels early so you can get to the flea market or trader level caps quicker. The more quests you do, the more items you can unlock and the better your loadouts become.

Run Offline Raids To Learn Maps

Like most things in Escape From Tarkov you aren’t given a lot of information about how to navigate the maps, where the hot spots are, or where you can extract. Being thrown into an online raid and trying to figure all that out with the constant threat of scavs and other PMCs is a recipe for disaster, but that’s where offline raids come in.

In offline raids you can explore the maps freely, with the choice to remove scavs completely or use some for target practice. Furthermore, you don’t lose anything you bring into an offline raid, so you can wander or fight without any gear fear at all. Sadly this also means that you don’t get to keep anything you pick up, but at least it lets you know where the good stuff is.

So there you have it for our seven essential Escape From Tarkov tips to get you started. If you need some more help on the performance side of things, don't miss our guide on the Escape From Tarkov best settings in order to improve your FPS and visibility.