Teamkilling is very annoying for both ends of the barrel. Sometimes it will bring many complications and it will always weaken your chances to survive. There are many ways you can lower chances of such mistakes and many techniques which will help with identification your teammate. Witch ones are best you will need to find out with your team.

Armbands are introduced to players on start of the game. You can buy them from Ragman LL1. This few hundreds of rubles give you some chance to recognize your teammates. But there are only five standard colours which will be more or less distinguishing form clothing or environment. Some parts of gear might cover armbands which will make them useless. As an example, we can use Gen4 Assault or Full, but there is more gear which covers armbands fully or partially. You need to remember that standing out the colour of armband might be easier to spot for you but the same rule applies to your enemies. Often we were able to spot PMC in bushes thanks to white or red colour of the armband. Additionally, you give up the element of surprise by your teammates since armband gives such clue instantly. We don’t advice such a technique but if this helps someone, feel free to use it.

Wearing similar clothes or unique pace of gear is a better option but often might be limited by budget or availability. A good example we can use here Eberlestock F4 Terminator load bearing backpack. It’s not often used by many players and its easy to spot and recognise from distance. It’s not available on the early stage of the game and it might be not best fit for someone due to specific storage divider. But any easy to spot peace of gear would work just fine. Helmet, upper or lower part of clothing.

Trying to memorize look of a teammate. Recent changes in lobby for creating team gives you time and possibility to see your teammates loadout and gear while the group is waiting to start the raid. I wish this feature would be available while the map is loading but hopefully this will become an option in future.

Battle baddy rule is probably best for big teams. Try never to leave or stay alone, keep your battle buddy close and make sure that you keep track of him. When you see the unknown creature on his own wandering around in close proximity to your team location it will increase the feeling of danger. Keeping close with someone will double chances of recognition and reaction for your questions and checks.

Identity checks are the most common practice. Wiggling of your character, crouch checks, jump checks or voice line are good but it depends on many factors like visibility, time to react or positioning. Voice line will confirm and at the same time give up the location of your friend. It might put your team under unnecessary risk if the enemy is closeby.

Try not to overcommunicate and avoid too useless questions. Spamming coms by not critical information will make a mess even in a small team. Useless questions will make it harder to keep clear communication. For example:

A: Who is next to the tree?
(silence)

Someone might be holding angle being concentrated on point of aim and not realize that behind him there is the tree. Another case might be that everyone knows that “he is not next to the tree” and no one will speak out but you naturally will wait for answer losing precious seconds of advantage. Whenever you’re trying to form a question make sure that you keep common sense and try to make it in a way that answers should be: Yes, No, Friendly, Me. Make sure that your questions are as short as possible and can’t be miss interpreted or misunderstood. This will come with practice and time.

Try not to panic and keep common sense in any action or decision. This rule should apply not only in Escape from Tarkov but in everyday life. We understand that game might be overwhelming, exciting and terrifying at the same time, but rush in decisions or panic reaction will not make it easier for you and your team. The emotional state might radiate on members of your squad and cause unnecessary conversations, disorientation and weakening of your group in general. This will lead only to lower performance and