Games
Money can't buy you happiness, but it will buy you guns. Lots of guns.
Getting started in Tarkov is hard. Keeping that momentum is harder. It’s all too easy to throw some money at some nice guns and supposedly impervious armour only to lose them without firing a shot. However, once you get the money rolling, those expensive guns become far less precious and losing a few doesn’t matter when you have the funds to pick up a brand new loadout no matter what happens.
To help you overcome your Escape from Tarkov "gear fear" and get yourself firmly in the black, here is a guide to making sure you keep your bank account healthy.
1. Life as a rat
In Tarkov parlance, a rat is a player who creeps their way around raids. They avoid firefights, pick up everything they can see, and load their backpack Tetris style to be as profitable as possible. It might not be filled with exciting gunfights, but the way of the rat life can lead to some fat stacks of roubles. These are the players who set their movement speed to the lowest possible option and creep their way around a raid. The players who hear gunshots in the next building and go prone, skulking back into the foilage and some measure of safety.
Does this sound like you? No worries. When you are sticking to the shadows and losing most of your one-on-one gunfights, it can be disheartening to drop a nice set of armour in a raid. But you can also use those shadows to your advantage when you’re trying to make money. Raids have many locations that are seldom looted by those with high tier gear. While the Killa killers are hunting bosses and fighting with other players, the door is wide open for you to slide into the side rooms and gather some high-value junk.
A good example of this is the map iInterchange, where you can easily move into the warehouses of Idea and Oli. (Note that Oli generally has better loot lying on the shelves.) Getting in and out without engaging other players can be hard, especially given how popular areas like the Oli escalators can be for PvP combat, but as you play the maps you’ll soon learn the timings of fights, routes to and from spawns, and the roads less travelled; perfect for when you need to wriggle out of a jam.
Once you have a backpack full of loot, you need to get out. Take your time and keep your eyes peeled for players that are also moving to extraction, but in general, you will be full of gear and leaving far quicker than most players who are committing to long stints in the area of operation.
If you must fight, then know the limitations of your gear. If your armour can’t take many hits, or your weapon has a slower rate of fire, then ensure you manoeuvre yourself to an advantageous location. Look for bushes to give you concealment, or routes of escape that can easily break sight lines. Sometimes your best option is to allow the enemy to pass by and ensure you keep the loot in your overstuffed backpack.
2. Life as a Chad
On the opposite end of Escape from Tarkov's playerbase, there are the Chads. Hey, we didn't come up with the silly name. Chads hear distant gunfire as a call to action and move in with violence in mind. They carry the best gear they can to ensure they can win the fight, tag the bodies, and get out with someone else's prized equipment.
You’ve run a few raids, got a good stash of guns, you’re ready to fight with other players over top tier loot zones and want to make a few roubles while doing it. The first thing to do is to know the hot zones. These usually tend to be near the bosses, such as Reshala on Customs, or Shturman on Woods. The bosses themselves, and their bodyguards, will usually be wielding some of the best gear, and at the very least, a high-value loadout that will sell well.
Each boss has a unique item, such as Shturman’s key, that works once and opens a box in the centre of Woods’ lumber yard. Bosses and their henchmen can be formidable foes but taking them down is only half of the goal. The rest is besting the players also hoping to claim the reward. Being prepared to fight them is more important than the bosses themselves, and you’ll want to avoid getting bogged down in a fight against the numerous AI scavs while also taking fire from other players.
Staying on the fringes of boss fights and being able to dip in and out of combat as you need is key to ensuring your survival. Allowing other players to get entangled in a firefight can make easy pickings for you and your squad. Even if you don’t get the boss’ loot, the players who came for a fight will be equally well geared, if not better, so salvaging some equipment from them can be the key to a profitable run.
When gearing up for your combat-heavy run, make sure to spare no expense when it comes to your ammunition, as having a cheap gun is far less of a problem when your bullets chew through everything in front of the barrel. Just make sure to balance your bullet expenses with your income from the raid.
3. Selling your wares
Once you’re out of the raid, it is now time to deal with the spoils. At lower levels, there will be a trader willing to buy every item you have, but at a fixed cost. For extra profit, you can use the Flea Market after you reach level five. The Flea Market is a player-run trading system where you can offer items for cash or barter goods. In general, people will look for the cheapest offer, which can be a problem if your AK is nicer than the low-cost ones. People will buy the pre-tuned weapons, but it may take longer for them to find your offer. However, if you want the items gone quickly, you can strip it down to the most basic version and sell each attachment individually.
Getting the hang of which items are worth money, and which are pointless, takes time and experience. But after a few runs, you’ll learn how much more you can get by looting the full fuel tank instead of five sets of screws. The more runs you do, the more efficient your looting will become, and you’ll rapidly find yourself raking in the roubles.
Another key part of making fat stacks is to utilise your Scav runs to their fullest. These runs allow you to go into a raid with a random set of gear. Make sure you check your inventory because they sometimes have rare items like lab keycards that can net you a lot of money very quickly. Factory is a good choice if your plan is to escape without spending much time looting, as the map is small enough that you can reach any extract in a few minutes. Just be aware of exit campers – players who sit near the extract to get a quick kill on someone carrying lots of gear with only a short distance between them and escaping. You can use your Scav to practise your combat skills, picking fights with AI and players, which can sometimes be as profitable as a fully geared PMC run.
Regardless of where you are at within the game, there are plenty of ways for you to make some money with every run. Whether you’re still sticking to the shadows and shuffling away from suppressed gunshots, or running in with highly tuned rifles and a pocket full of grenades, maximising your profits will ensure that shiny new gun is never far away
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