ZERO Sievert – Beginners Guide (Forest Map Only)

Just a simple guide for new players to hopefully make your experience easier. Guide only contains information on the Forest Map. Tips come from personal experience in the game.

Guide for New Players

All credit goes to Antartican!

Spawning In

You can do these in any order just make sure you do all of them.

I recommend doing this first Go to the bar (Middle Left) and trade with the barkeep to buy rotten bread and non-purified water. These can be crafted into bread and water that aren’t irradiated.

• Talk to the barkeep to get his quest (Middle Left).
• Talk to the doctor to get his quest (Bottom Right).
• Go outside of the bunker and talk to the train conductor for his quest.
• Head to your base/room (all the way to the middle left) and putting extra items into the stash/storage. You only need one food item (bread), one water, and all the meds you spawn with. Put the rest into the stash.
• When your ready talk to the train conductor to head into the zone. Make sure you have meds, food, and water!
• Choose the forest map (Makeshift camp is not worth going to).

People/Animal/Creatures

People

The people you encounter when killed will always drop the gun they’re currently using and sometimes have meds, ammo, or food/drink.

Green Army (Neutral)

Human with Green Helmet and Armor. Will shoot creatures/enemies. Will turn Hostile if shot.

Scientist (Neutral)

Human with yellow suites that spawn in or around anomalies. Will shoot creatures/enemies. Will turn Hostile if shot.

Stalkers (Neutral)

Looks exactly like you. Will shoot creatures, enemies, and green army. Will turn Hostile if shot.

Bandit (Hostile)

Human with Gray clothing and helmet. Run if you see one as they’re never alone. Pretty easy to take out from a distance.

Hunter (Hostile)

Human with red-ish/tan clothing and helmet. Typically I would run away as they usually have snipers/rifles that do alot of damage. Often alone.

Animals

Rabbit (Passive)

Brown bunny that runs away from player. Good source of pelt and raw meat to sell.

Wolf (Hostile)

Gray wolf that runs away from the player when alone and towards its pack. (4-5 wolves) Good source of raw meat and wolf pelt. If you encounter a pack stay far away and shoot as they just stand there for some reason. I recommend a weapon with high mag size for them.

Boar (Hostile)

Big pig with large tusks that will charge the player. Very fast and high damage. I recommend running away unless you have a good amount of ammo and sprint bar. Drops raw meat, boar tusk, and boar pelt. I recommend a weapon with high damage (sniper/marksman/shotgun) for them.

Creatures

Ghoul (Hostile)

White ghoul that only spawns in the town. Very fast and hard to shoot. Hard to deal with without a weapon with high fire rate. They’re the reason why I would avoid the town early in the game.

Buildings/Anomalies

Buildings

Be very careful when approaching buildings as sometimes they may have enemies nearby (Enemies are never inside surprisingly).

Abandoned Shack/Shed/House

Run down shack in the woods. Sometimes has a fence around it that you can’t see over. Sometimes has loot inside or outside in a box. Good source of materials and food.

Note: You might bump into a passive human named Igor who will give you a quest inside one of these buildings. Doing his quest will have him loot for you and place it in a box in his house. Very useful friend as he gives some high quality materials, food, meds, etc.*

Bandit Base

Typically guarded by 2-3 bandits (Usually two inside and one outside)

Green Army Base

Usually 3-5 Green Army dudes patrolling around. You can walk in and loot their stuff and they won’t care.

Town

Location marked as gray lines on the middle of the map. Has quest items inside but very dangerous without good equipment. Avoid until your ready. Inside the town there’s ghouls running around the outer perimeter and a bandit leader with elite guards at the center.

Sawmill

A large light gray box on the map. Guarded by lots of bandits avoid until your ready.

Anomalies

Honestly not worth going to as it uses alot of meds and crystals aren’t worth that much.

Red Crystal

Area where there’s a red crystal surrounded by invisible flame mines essentially. You can sometimes see them flare up so know where some are. Also radiates the crap out of you so have anti-rads or alcohol ready.

Green Crystal

Area where there’s a green crystal surrounded by invisible poison mines essentially. The poison mist is always visible but sometimes there’s poison mines that flare up as well. Also radiates the crap out of you so have anti-rads or alcohol ready.

Tips for the Zone

General Tips

• Do not walk in front of the train as it’s leaving it will kill you.
• Car wrecks, concrete blocks, debris, and anomalies increase radiation when near them (Makes the radiation sound).
• Personally I turned off dynamic grass and decrease grass amount to zero (video settings) so I can see movement better.
• Make sure you listen carefully as you can sometimes hear enemies nearby. (Wolf howl for example)
• Pressing J (default key) will bring up a pip-boy for you to see tasks.
• You can hold right click to aim now sights (makes gunshot spread tighter) and see further away.
• Starting out I would avoid the town (gray in the middle of the map) and sawmill (light gray rectangle) until you have at least two guns and a decent amount of ammo.

Looting

• You can unload guns from corpses by right clicking.
• If you happen to find any of the EC guns they’re very good with good accuracy, mag size, and fire rate. Ammo is more common for them as well.
• If you come across a gun fight stay back and wait for the people to finish. Then slowly head in and take out the enemies. This is a good way for safe looting.
• You don’t have to loot everything! Being greedy killed alot of my runs. Being slow (encumbered) in this game is a death sentence.
• Use the mouse scroll wheel to loot multiple bins/corpses next to each other.

Meds

• Make sure to equip meds into the hotbar. (3, 4, 5, etc).
• Bandages stop bleeding.
• Improvised Medkit and T-300 heal health.
• White Medkit closes wounds for health that can’t be healed (wound closure).

Combat

• You can’t shoot while sprinting.
• Enemies do react to gunfire and will take cover or slowly push you.
• Stay behind cover and peek corners is my general tactic for fighting multiple enemies.
• It is ok to run away! If you die all progress and loot from that run is gone so playing safe is always better!

Extraction and Back to Base

Extraction

When you decide to leave you need to head to the green circles on the map (m key) to leave. Take your time getting there and don’t just run. Upon reaching the circle text should show up saying extracting in 5 and count down. Just stand still and wait. Make sure to watch your surroundings sometimes enemies pop up out of nowhere.

Back to Base

Once you get back to base put loot into the storage, sell items to the barkeep, and have the doctor repair your armor.

You actually have multiple tabs in the stash!

Good items to sell are raw meat, pelts, and technology (USB drives, power banks, watches, etc). Everything else you can scrap.

Buy some items if you need them you gain alot of money just from selling items.

You actually have multiple tabs in the shop sorted by category!

Use the beds at the top of the bunker to sleep and recharge your energy.

I do recommend making sure that you sleep the night off as entering the zone at that time is just a death sentence (Dark and low vision).

Nighttime is from 8pm – 8am (20:00 – 08:00)

There’s a person outside of the bunker entrance to the right that can you more about the different maps and what they contain.

The game auto-saves in the safe area so you don’t have to worry about saving. Just quit the game and your good.

Don’t kill Igor! The quest reward is not good value compared to Igor’s loot everytime you visit him. Plus he’s a nice old man.