Sound

Sound is the most important clue in Tarkov. This rule is crucial for new players. If you’re a new player in a financial struggle with gearing yourself up for the next raid try to use these priorities as a guideline.

  • The best ammo you can reasonably afford, as ultimately
  • Medical supplies which will stop the emergency of bleeding or broken bones.
  • Armor which will protect your thorax from scav weapons and ammo (as they deal high flesh damage but low pen).
  • Gun which you have probably can be a little better for a little more and it might make a big difference in the outcome of your firefights.
  • The headset which you find best for you. In my opinion, ComTacs2 are the best middle ground for comfort and sound profile. GSSH are the cheapest and loudest but annoying and painful over time.
  • Helmet
  • Backpack but if you’re not going for loot mainly you can trust me your opponents will supply you with not only backpacks.
  • Stimulants if you can afford them. A propitol in your container or pocket might just save your life.

Sounds

Close to the enemy avoid distinguishing sounds like:

  • wood
  • metal
  • broken glass
  • barb wire
  • water
  • jump
  • run
  • prone
  • don’t change your gunfire mode
  • don’t aim down if not needed
  • don’t inspect your weapon
  • don’t reload or check your magazine or chamber
  • don’t do any rapid moves

These sounds are easily heard and noticed by advanced players. They will not only be able to pinpoint your location but this might give them clues about your loadout or current status. For new players, it’s difficult to hear some sounds due to background noise or weather conditions. “A good player will be able to hear the rapid turn of a Mosin man hidden 50 meters away in bushes while he himself will be running through woods in a storm with few of his teammates.”

Quiet as a ninja you can only be in the lowest level of your crouch and your speed needs to be the slowest possible. In any other state, you will be much louder than you expect.

Sounds of gunshots or grenades use to create a virtual model of all puzzles of your raid. Remember that there are only so many enemy players or teams and usually everyone likes to keep his gun of choice. Try to virtually allocate locations and recognize gunshots you hear. Assign them to virtual teams and try to keep track of their movement. Once you get used to it it will become natural and obvious to not only predict their next move but to recognize the quest or possible level of your opponent. In case of a firefight between two different guns try to memorize which gun made a final statement. This is usually a winner and he might be your next enemy.

Multiple shots treat as an argument or conversation. Try to figure out how many parties are taking part in it. Who initiated it, who replayed, or who just got surprised. By how rapid shots where or how long where bursts, you can estimate how precise a shooter is or how big magazines are at his disposal. This might give you a clue of how fast he will get ready for another engagement of how fast he can correct his aim.

The biggest of all treasons is this one unsuppressed single shooting ADAR casually walking across the map popping in distance. When you finally meet it unveils the full rage of the deadly beast which well-controlled M4A1 trigger might be in trained hands.

In close range with your teammates while prepare for an unavoidable firefight, a good idea is to pre-announce your destined sounds, shots, jumps, or grenades. Remember that this rule should be applied only when you’re within a hearable distance of your team. When someone is flanking or simply wandering around, he should keep his communication to the necessary minimum to not distract his teammates in their coms. Over-communication is the same bad or even worse than not giving any information at all. The way of giving information to your team should be laconic and absolute. If you don’t know how to express yourself take a few seconds and try to build a short understandable message. This is more useful than ongoing conversation trying to endlessly precise your initial thought. In a few cases with teammates natively speaking Russian, polish or English we were using the German word “Achtung” to make it obvious for everyone that something needs our attention and everyone should be in an alert state.

Callouts or terms can’t be ambiguous. This is the reason why we use terminology which is unique for each event. For example:

  • minus – enemy dead
  • (Name) dead- friendly dead
  • frag out – grenade thrown by friendly
  • nade – incoming grenade.

More in details about it you can read in article unit cohesion.

Silence should be your biggest friend but it might be the worst of your nightmares.