You’re thrown on an island with no escape, only your orange prison jumpsuit, a chip implant on the back of your head and the chance to fight for survival.
SCUM is one of the latest survival games that has been getting a lot of attention and rightly so.
This is a survival game that is taking the genre to the next level, with a lot of interesting mechanics and ways to give players an experience to remember.
Whether you play alone or with a group of friends, offline or online, SCUM is one of those games where you’ll have the ability to explore a large map (12 x 12 Km), loot some interesting locations, have some epic fights, build a camp and go for a stroll through the forests or in the open fields.
One thing is certain, through all the survival you’ll have some serious fun playing it.
After playing it a while, I went and created this post on some basic SCUM game tips to help you get started.
The game is still only in Early Access so it will constantly be changing and evolving, but this is a general guide to help you understand what to expect when choosing to play it.
1. Starting A New SCUM Game (With a new character or after you died)
At first you’ll need to create a character and choose your skills, but it’s still very limited so I’m not going too deep into that.
I assume that you just dropped into the game, so now what?
When you start a new SCUM game or have died, you will respawn again with zero items or loot other than your orange jumpsuit.
That is if you don’t have a camp to respawn to or don’t have enough Fame points to do so.
So the basic things that you could do is to craft a few basic items to get you going again.
This includes a stone knife, a spear or two and maybe an improvised back back. This way you’ll be set to loot towns and defend yourself against the zombies or wild animals roaming the massive open world.
After you crafted your basic items, it’s also a great time to establish a campsite where you will be able to cook food, store loot items and respawn whenever you die, given that you have enough Fame points.
Stone Knife
Crafting a stone knife is very simple! You look down at the ground and search for some rocks.
You only need two small rocks in order to craft the knife.
Now you can cut stuff like clothes, bushes and meat.
Crafting Spears In SCUM
Craft a spear or two so you can defend yourself from the dangers of the wild.
You can also use the spears to hunt animals for meat or kill zombies and loot them.
Aim for the head to kill the zombies fast, but it’s best to craft three spears just to have a backup (two on your back and one in your hand).
An Improvised Backpack
Your next goal is to craft a small improvised backpack so you can carry more items. Depending on what you choose to do, you can either kill zombies, cut up their clothes into rags to get items for your backpack.
Or you can go hunt some animals to also get the required materials to craft your backpack. This is what’s great, you can create the same item with different combinations of loot.
Establish Your Campsite
Building your camp at this stage is not mandatory, so you can go loot and explore the massive map.
When you do decide to build a camp in SCUM there are a few things to keep in mind.
Do you want to be in the middle of the map, where many other players will be, or somewhere closer to the borders.
Your items can be stolen, so it’s best to build it somewhere that doesn’t have too many players around.
The advantage of being in the middle is that you can go basically anywhere, whereas if you start more to the edge you will always have far to go to move to central areas.
If you are a group of people playing, building a large camp somewhere far away from the center will help keep it a bit safer.
What do you need to craft your shelter and loot box?
2. Crafting
Like in most survival games, crafting is usually a big part of the game and also makes it fun to create different items to survive.
SCUM is still only in Early Access so the crafting are still basic, but will most likely get a lot more interesting as the game develops over time.
There are three crafting categories you can use, Tools and Weapons, Survival Items and Food.
On the left hand side of your screen you’ll find what you need to craft each item.
You can use items and materials in your bag or in the vicinity around you to craft something.
Tools and Weapons
For basic tools and ammunition you can craft items to help you harvest resources, like the stone knife or an axe to cut down trees faster.
There is a variety of melee weapons you can craft, from a simple wooden spear to bob wired baseball bats. Just don’t cut yourself!
Furthermore, you can craft bullets for the weapons you find. You just need to find some gunpowder, scrap metal and a lead plate. Crafting bullets are much easier than looting for ammo, so keep an eye out for scrap metal.
General Items
These items are the basic things you’ll need like clothes, bandages or a backpack.
The other items you can build are for your camp, things like shelter, a loot box and fire to cook your food (At the moment you can still eat raw meat).
You will also find some items in this category that can be used as tools to craft other items for example a bone needle can be used to craft a backpack at the beginning of the game.
Food
Food is the 3rd category for crafting and is quite difficult, because to craft food you’ll need to have all the ingredient which can be hard to find.
Most meals require salt or some kind of spice so finding these can take a while.
Not to worry, you won’t die if you don’t eat any meals.
Meals will just give you a more balanced diet, giving you more minerals than just eating one item at a time.
It is still a very underdeveloped part of the game, so will definitely become more useful in the future.
Disassembling items
With all these crafting going on, it’s also important to know that you can disassembling or bundling some items to make it easier to carry.
Clothing can be cut into rags and be used for bandages for example.
When building your camp, make sure to bundle your sticks!
Otherwise you’ll run around carrying one stick at a time, which is time consuming.
Also read – The 20 best open world games to play
3. Looting
Looting is a big part of SCUM and if don’t loot, well you’ll have hard time surviving the wild.
Looting can also take a lot of time, but it’s really one of the fun parts in the game.
So where do you loot?
You’ll find generally find any items everywhere, because the spawn happens randomly, but there are areas that will have a higher chance to have specific items you’ll find quite useful.
There are various areas you can loot like towns, farms, military camps and more. Here are an overview of where you can look for certain items.
Towns
Towns will have most of the basic items like clothing, food, raw materials and basic weapons.
Search Police stations for firearms, ammunition and some decent clothing or even a large bag in some cases.
Grocery stores will be the most likely place to find food, but food are very scarce so don’t bargain only on getting food in towns.
Garages usually have workbenches you can search for tools or scrap metal. These items can be used for crafting items like melee weapons and ammunition for when you find a gun.
The houses will have the most basic loot and are mostly used to get started after you respawned.
You find general clothing items, maybe food if you’re lucky and other items that can be used in some way or another.
Farms
Farms are the best bet to find lots of food and give you the ability to try and maintain a balanced diet.
There are different types of farming settlements all over the map that have vegetables, fruits and a lot of other food types.
This way you’ll not only keep your belly full, but will also keep that minerals on target to avoid getting sick.
Military Areas/Bunkers
When you’re finished looting a town for necessary items and have enough food to explore the island a bit more, you can find a Military camp with bunkers.
These type of locations have the best loot in terms of military gear, guns clothing, ammo, bags.
You will most likely get a few guns and ammo to defend yourself against other players and wild animals. But high rewards have high risks!
These military location attract a lot of dangerous players and don’t forget about the Mechs.
Robots that will give you a give warning and then fire at will, so best to sneak around them if you can.
Other Interest Points
Other than the areas listed above, you’ll find a number of interesting locations around the map.
These locations will also attract a high number of players, either to loot valuable items or kill other players on sight.
The most popular locations of this kind are the Dam, Prison, Train yard, Bootcamp, Factory, Gun range and the Port.
Be sure to check these out for a unique experience and just remember that the chance of you getting killed it quite high, whether playing online or offline.
4. Weapons
Here are a few things about guns you can keep in mind:
High Reward = High Risk
Most non-melee weapons will be found at high risk areas. Another way to look for weapons are to find hunting cabins or hunting towers throughout the forest.
They usually have either a Hunting rifle or a Kar98 you can find.
Craft Your Ammo
Crafting ammo is the best way to get bullets other than running through bunkers to hope for bullets that fit your gun.
When you have the materials to craft bullets, you will have the option to choose the kind you want to craft.
The materials you need are lead plates (found in cars and batteries), a toolbox, gunpowder and scrap metal.
Loading Your Weapons
You found bullets and your gun is in your hands but why does it only load one bullet at a time.
Well, in SCUM you’ll be manually loading your guns. It doesn’t automatically loads the gun whenever you find bullets.
You will have to find a magazine for the respective gun and load it into the magazine, which then goes into the weapon.
So if you’re new to survival games, that’s definitely something new to learn early in the game.
Scopes & Rail Attachments
You can also find scopes for weapons, like the AKM/AK47 and Dragunov sniper rifle.
Also important to note, you will need to attach a rail to get the scope on the weapon.
So the first time can be tricky if you have no idea what you’re doing, but is really simple to understand once you get going.
Also read – The Ultimate PUBG Weapon Guide
5. General SCUM Game Tips For Survival
SCUM has a very interesting survival system which can make the game much more enjoyable and sometimes harder, but that’s what survival games are all about right.
There are also a few general survival tips you will need and information you should just take note of to stay alive and have the ultimate experience.
Fame Points
Remember to smile, your on camera!
You earn Fame points which can be used for certain things.
Fame is the metric SCUM uses to track your actions and give you a score according to everything you do.
For now you can you it to spawn at different locations if you die, for example when you have a camp you’ll be able to respawn there for a certain amount of Fame points.
It will probably be more useful in the future as the game develops.
BCU Monitor
Knowing what you’re doing right or wrong in terms of your character’s physical condition can make a huge difference.
The BCU monitor will show you the overall condition of your character and help you keep track of what you need.
You can find information like how heavy your gear are, if you have some form of sickness or need any specific kind of mineral in your diet.
Another important aspect is that when you get hurt in any why, like getting shot or hit by a zombie, you’ll slowly lose health if the injury is not treated.
That is why you should have some bandages, to patch the wounds. If you don’t have any, you can always cut some of your clothes into rags to then use as bandages.
Skills
There are not too many skills to choose from and when creating your new character at the moment and will definitely get more in depth when the game get those upgrades.
The most important things you should know about skills are how they work within the game.
For example, a large fat character will run slower, drain stamina more and can find it hard to vault over obstacles. Whereas a thin character can run faster for longer, but will struggle more to handle powerful weapons like the AK47 or Dragunov due to the lack of strength.
The best would be to find a balance between all the stats that will match your play style.
As you play more, your character will automatically evolve and improve skills when they do the same things more over time.
These are the skill categories you can currently change when creating a character:
- Strength
- Dexterity
- Conditioning
- Intelligence
Each of these has skills that are related to that category.
Balance You Diet
A balanced diet is also quite important, although it wouldn’t necessarily mean you’ll starve, but could develop a sickness or deficiency like getting diarrhea in the middle of a fight.
It’s something that happens!
A balanced diet can be for example eating meat, fruit, vegetables or meals you cook.
Hunting
You will be able to do some hunting in SCUM which is fun when you are trying to get some food desperately.
Most animals are harmless, but you should look out for bears and goats.
Yeah, the goats run you over and can hurt you quite badly!
Animals in SCUM:
- Deers
- Wild Boars
- Donkeys
- Horses
- Bears
- Goats
So happy hunting!
Zombies / Puppets
Fighting the zombies, or puppets like they are called in SCUM, are not that difficult unless you find yourself against a few of them.
Try to take them out one-by-one if you need to get past them. That means using stealth tactics and not using your gun.
Spears and melee weapons work good for this. If you have enough bullets, then you can also just shoot them all.
They can not get into houses with closed doors, so use that to move from building to building when you are looting through a town.
Mechs
Mechs are those huge robot things walking around most of the high loot areas which kill you very easily.
So watch out when you approach these areas and I will advise to stay out of their sight whenever possible.
The best way to get past them is to stay out of their direct sight and run to cover when they are not moving in your direction.
When they spot you they’ll give you a brief warning and move to the location they last saw you.
Well, after that if they spot you they will shoot on sight.
Be careful especially after you have looted a military bunker and found some awesome loot items.
Conclusion
What part of SCUM do you like the most?
Is it the looting, playing online with friends or just exploring the massive open world map?
I hope you found something helpful in the post and that you will use some of the tips to enhance your gameplay experience.
As stated at the beginning, the game is still in Early Access, so this guide is to help you understand what SCUM is, how it works and why you should play it if you are into survival games.
Happy hunting, looting, crafting and surviving!
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