Generation Zero – Stealth Build Tips

Tips to Do Stealth Build More Efficient

Stealth is wierd in this game. I don’t know how to describe everything, but some notes from someone who’s main character is a stealth build:

• Stealth is best for doing missions and side missions, and getting around. You can do many missions with minimal combat by sneaking past stuff. The same applies with moving around, if you want to get to point A to point B, you can like walk normally 20m away from a hunter as long as it’s not directly looking at you and noise reduction is part of the stealth. I don’t know if it effects bikes, I never tested it.
• Stealth is great for ambushing stuff. You could set mines and traps and blow up a bunch of small enemies. But you can also sneak up behind a harvester for example, get right behind it unseen and then just immediately take out it’s rockets and fuel tanks at point blank, before it has any time to do anything.
• In regards to cover, a full stealth build can hide in a bush and snipe things a little longer than normally. But breaking line of sight is easier and does work: when you run away, consider the position of the trees and leaves, and any other cover. You don’t have to run backwards to be exact, but if you run relatively where you will run through them and they will be between you and the enemies, you will break LoS.
• In regards to suppressors, suppressors do limit the sound travel of the weapon I am fairly sure. However, shooting ‘at’ an enemy, the enemy will notice it’s being shot at, it doesn’t matter how good the suppressor is, it will notice or potentially notice the bullets flying by. Suppressors are good for taking out lone enemies while being stealthy, runners and ticks are easy to kill quick enough that they won’t alert other enemies. Though they will hear the runner die/you shooting if you’re close enough, suppressors in game and IRL are never truly silent, they will hear noise if you’re not far away. However, it will be noticeably closer until that point, because without them they will hear the gunshot in a much larger area.
• In regards to weapons, unless it’s maybe the new Mosin (it’s hard to tell because it’s impossible to get!), don’t consider 7.62mm anything that’ll be stealthy. 5.56 and 7.62mm are sufficient against humans in human fighting games, metal machines however they are not as sufficient. If you’re using 7.62mm ‘sniper’ rifles, don’t consider them sniper rifles, it’s missleading. You can use them as battle rifles effectively, but they won’t kill much more than ticks and maybe lower end runners in 1-shot, and it’s hard to line up 2 consecutive shots against a runner’s fuel tank. You pretty much need a bolt-action rifle, or the .50 cal, for the sniper role (the .50 doesn’t get suppressed but if you get a far away position, it can work).
• 9mm does less damage than the 7.62mm, but it does fire faster. Shooting components does matter, they take way more damage when you destroy their components.
• Additionally, consider damage drop off exists in game, it’s quite a bit actually. So sniping with the 7.62mm makes it even worse, because of damage drop off.
• In regards to escaping, a couple items and skills I would invest in:
  • Consider the run speed skill, both levels, allows you to run away much quicker. (Good for all builds tbf).
  • Not required, but the farther throwing distance skill is very useful for throwing distractions.
  • Flares are really good on a stealth build actually. If you need to escape, the most effective way to do so (for me) is to throw a flair behind or to the side of the machines, then run away at full speed while they focus on the flare. While doing so, make sure you have to break line of sight while they’re doing this. I think it works only for running away, hiding not so much.
  • Fireworks are good as well, but flare is better in my experience.
  • Consider EMPs, which are good for the ambush scenario I mentioned earlier: you can EMP a bot you snuck up to, and get a much longer window to blow them up. EMPs also work against runners and hunters during stealth, you can EMP them to make sure you can kill them, as long as the other machines don’t see it die and you finish it off before it shoots back. If it says you’re in combat, consider it does not always mean all the machines are alerted yet. EMPs can also be used to disable large single machines to escape like the flare.