Your little book of tricks to stealing and keeping the upper hand. Manipulate noise, traps and socially engineer your way to fame and fortune... Intro Hey Raider, I'll be covering how you can find the upper hand or diffuse a fight before it even begins, for nice or naughty, up to you. Leave your ethics at the door and let's get creative. Noise Your bread and butter. Both ARC and fellow raiders respond differently, best to use that to your advantage. How Does Noise Work?Every action screeches in some way, sprinting and jumping are announcements for trackers, opening and closing powered doors act as a guide for where you are in buildings. Noise travels between floors as well, be wary. Mitigating your Noise Move faster over soft surfaces (sand/soil), slowly over metal. The skills offered in conditioning and survival trees make a massive difference to how loud your looting is. Suppressors. Cameras and metal detectors need violence and doing that relatively silently is a blessing. They are rather hard to find though. Context, there are times to sneak, walk and run, use that initiative that got you Topside and trust your gut. Making NoiseWell maybe making a ruckus is part of your plan huh? Think you're clever? You are. Dragging ARC your way on purpose is bold but a great tactical option to have when done carefully. Or tricking a raider with impact grenades to chase you off towards some wrong direction. Couple that all with a lure and you're masking your noise giving you even more opportunity to get out of danger. Take a knee somewhere and just listen, you'll be surprised how much the world communicates to you. Light and Shadow The raider eye is drawn to two things: Movement ContrastContrast is going to be your biggest ally and enemy. Standing in light and looking into shadow causes you to lose a lot of perception in those dark areas, this works from shadow to light too but it's not nearly as scary. You can test this out for yourself in the buried city, it's got a wealth of dark rooms for you to stalk around, if that's your thing. Movement however, aside from noise, is the next best way to spot anything potentially hostile, an old-world trick that anti-special forces used was simply to move slower than the enemy. Your own sense of urgency will get you dropped more times than a contrasting outfit will. Creeping across a region however will also mean you miss out on a lot of the good stuff. Just like everything else, situational context and awareness are key here. Day RaidsNot only are you competing with bright and dark contrast here but you're also at the mercy of whatever neon accent your outfit has. Some weather effects naturally change how you'll move through the region but I trust you can work it out. Night RaidsThese are much easier and much more forgiving when you consider what we've covered so far. As you can guess, colour contrast isn't going to be as much of a factor here. Instead we're presented with the opposite problem, some extracts that used to feel somewhat safe are now shining beacons in a field of darkness. That said though, for most of your raid the same dynamic in day applies in night, shadows and light fight for your retinas. Discerning Intent An introvert's nightmare I know. Simply use a microphone. Not only does it make it easier to intuit intent for both sides, just using it triggers an empathy response and helps your chances at avoiding a fight, at least for now. The emote wheel is fine too but much less flexible, when chatting with someone using this it's best to ask simple yes or no questions. If you're not getting a response at all and they're not leaving, not even teabags, assume a fight is about to start, whether you take that shot is your choice, in my experience silence has almost always meant shots are about to fly. The weapons we carry can also be used to make a first glance guess of intent, some weapons are clearly better against ARC, but some are much better against raiders. It's stated when you take a look at them, make a mental list, hell make a real one but remember not everyone with a pistol is out to get you, use you intuition. Making Friends Let's say you've made a friend, you both agreed to team up too perhaps, go help each other out, chat about your adventures, do quests, hunt raiders or make more friends, or just watch each other's backs and get your bags off Topside. But I urge you do not let your guard down. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. You could also just be helping collect that raider's loot for them before they off you, maybe not, but maybe is enough to be careful. Or do let your guard down, people tend to respond to trust with trust, see what works for you. In your travels as a pair, you might encounter a third. Create space for them to feel safe, agree or don't on teaming up, if a third party agrees to join, the team suddenly becomes very socially solid. Then it's time to flex a little and do some fun stuff. The Trickster's Arsenal You have a wealth of different ways you can gain the upper hand when raider on raider fighting does start. There are a lot of item synergies here if you're willing to get creative, here are some fun ones to get your ideas cooking. Disclaimer, purely for educational purposes: Tossing a couple snitch scanners and a lure directly on a raider's position will scare the ♥♥♥♥ out of them. Use an explosive mine coupled with a trigger grenade on a fancy loot spot, toss in a flare as bait. Gas traps have big red lasers so they catch the eye. Use them to funnel approaching raiders down a certain path, you can use it as well to make friends by getting behind them and scaring them with a "DON'T SHOOT". Blocking doors throughout facilities to either funnel towards your ambush, or force a raider to breach through them making noise, giving their position away for ambush in either case. While we're on gas traps, use them to create a kind of laser maze through a tunnel, not necessarily to hunt people but it could be fun. And I ♥♥♥♥ you not this actually works: Use a showstopper or hornet cell to ground a rockie, climb on and you can throw lures to travel around the region. Turning a building into a fortress can be done fast, and in parallel to gathering loot. Since the trap sounds are much quieter and less familiar to raider ears, you can often get away with this while someone else is in the building. Look raider we're fighting a guerrilla war against ARC and ourselves, people are desperate and fights are scrappy, unfair and lethal. There's no honour Topside and sometimes you need to fight that way to get supply back home, no shame in it. In the End I'm not going to tell you how to explicitly drop other raiders, we're all trying to support Speranza and Toledo in our own way. But if your way is with a fight, take these new tricks and skills and wreak some havoc, it's entirely possible to win outnumbered against both raiders and ARC with a little wit, tenacity and luck. You're never truly outmatched. In the end, as long as the supplies reach the demand, Speranza lives a little longer. Just don't lose yourself chasing wealth and power, raiders are human and they're in short supply. And if you have a colourful story of whimsy or wrath, I'd sure love to hear it... Stay safe out there, Raider.