Doors. What has a door ever done for you? They’re a conspiracy manufactured by the weak to keep the strong in check. In the real world, doors are evil incarnate.

In Quasimorph, they’re a skill check. If you can’t enter a room, alpha strike the first moron to raise their gun at you, then proceed to clear the room one ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at a time, then I’m afraid you won’t make it very far in this game. I suggest a game like Forged Alliance if you want to see everything you own turn to ash right before your very eyes.

What used to be a messy and insanely fun game, however, has been turned into a clean, less fun experience. Regardless of my personal opinion about the new update, I’m going to teach you how to die less in a game about dying a fair bit.

Sneak: Only use this to check where people are behind a room BEFORE you enter it. Getting into combat with sneak enabled is essentially a death sentence. People will tell you to traverse the game in sneak; these people are ignorant, don’t let their ignorance spread to you.

Walk: This is how you play the game. You get two action points and can essentially play double the moves as your opponent. If you pain lock them, then you can play much more. You are more hindered by your magazine size than your action points. ALWAYS ENTER A ROOM WITH AT LEAST ONE ACTION POINT REMAINING. This is how you don’t get turned into Swiss cheese by every single mook in the room with a gun and basic training. Optimize your reloads so that when you’re not shooting at them, they’re not shooting at you either.

Run: This is your desperation move. Now that accuracy has been completely reworked, a -20% accuracy penalty is far too destructive to use in combat effectively. Essentially, you switch to Run when you’ve been cornered, set on fire (don’t ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ move), or need to pad out reload time by running away. Running gives you three action points, and if you’re armed with a shotgun with the magazine size, running to a corner and firing blindly at the unnatural hordes that claw towards you is preferable to standing your ground. I’m looking at you AR.

It's extremely simple– use sneak to see enemy positions through walls so you get a rough understanding of where the enemy is. Then switch to walk, open the door, and look. The first enemy who looks at you is your target, because that one will shoot you as soon as your turn ends. I absolutely recommend either throwing a melee weapon at them, or using anything above 9mm. Before the most recent update, 9mm was a solid choice against most enemies in the game. Today, it is outclassed heavily by even the most basic armor.

Look at your target and see if you can kill them. If you can’t, close the damn door. You’ve got no business going there. If you can kill them, then do it. To no big surprise, shotguns, assault rifles, and automatic laser weapons are extremely good at alpha striking people. Submachine guns chambered in basic 9mm have better use against unarmored targets like quasimorphs, and any single fire weapon you have needs to be complimented with an automatic ASAP.

Like in the real world, shotguns are the best weapons in the game. Look at any of your favorite weapons in the game, then look at the Jeffhammer. I rest my ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ case. However, pay attention to the stats when comparing individual shotguns from each other. The Crash is one of my favorite weapons because it can’t be fired out of burst-mode, so you’re almost instantly killing anything with a single action point.

For those who don't know what the term alpha strike means, its when you dump your entire DPS into something before it has a chance to respond. Greater range and short reload times enhance the capabilities of your alpha strike.

There is a bullet economy in this game– how much ammunition you take to kill a single target dictates your efficiency. This game doesn’t set you up to miss a lot of shots, so if you miss three shots in a row, that means YOU, the PLAYER, is doing something wrong, and you need to fix that. Here are easy ways to fix your bullet economy:

Lead enemies that hard aggro you (ARs, melee, idiots with shotguns) out of the firefight so you can fight them separately, then finish off everyone else in the room. Be careful not to take too long, as the entire map seems to know where you are as soon as you start a gunfight as of the new update. (Edit: they fixed enemies getting aggro'd from across the universe). Did I mention I don't like the new update?
When melee enemies conga-line to attack you and you have a shotgun (especially slugs) aim for the furthest one that’s still within your effective range. Your shot will pass through their frail bodies like a dart cuts through the air.
Use a shotgun; ‘nuff said.
Don’t use two shotguns, or weapons that use the same ammunition in general. You’ll eat up all your ammo, obviously, but if they’re the same TYPE of weapon, then you’ll be screwed. Always check the type of DAMAGE your weapons do. 9mm being blunt hard caps its damage because a lot of armor types have at least SOME blunt resistance.
Reload often, but never risk your life for it.
When fighting quasimorphs, don’t instantly attack them– they might just help you destroy the people you were hired to do so yourself.
Melee is overrated unless you build for it, but knives have an inexplicably high mortality rate. Throw them and watch your enemies perish.
Barrels are stupid because you shoot them thinking you’re cool and then the explosion slaps you across the face and now you have two broken bones and are on fire. However, shooting a barrel with one round can often save you an entire magazine.

These tips are exclusive to fighting human beings. Fighting anything with more than two legs as tactically as you can threatens your own life, and the credibility of your employer. Somebody out there is laughing at you while you carefully maneuver a level while a single quasimorph with an insta-kill crossbow is waiting for target practice.

Think of a gun as a middleman to damage. Ammunition can be ranked with damage potential. A decent gun (such as the 9mm submachine gun) is hindered by the fact that it's chambered in such a useless cartridge. The same can be said for .270; although its mildly more useful, it has low damage potential in the first place.

Buckshot and 7.97 are insane calibers. I recommend hoarding weapons of all kinds, but have extreme preference for laser weapons, medium to high-end shotguns and any automatic weapons chambered in 7.97. Nails, fuel, and razor blades are cool, but extremely random in availability. Quasimorph ammo, such as the nails of pain, can be safely ignored until later. Always take grenades. Melee weapons are under-powered unless you build for them. Quasimorph weapons swing wildly in effectiveness, but they deal Cold damage, which is countered by wearing armor that won't protect you from bullets. As a rule of thumb, any enemy with high cold resistance can get annihilated by real calibers and not the schizophrenic energy cells that quasimorph weapons normally use, and vice versa.

BREAKING NEWS: MAN KILLS BARON WITH A SHOVEL. HAVEN'T MET AN ENEMY WHO SURVIVES ONE HIT FROM A THROWN SHOVEL. GO MY CHILDREN AND MAKE THE ELDER GODS PAY.

Stop bringing all your best loot into a mission. You will get filtered instantly if you do; them’s the rules, I don’t make ‘em.

Dying is part of the game. Excessive dying means you're doing something wrong. I have never lost hours of progress because I don’t bring MAH STUFF to the most dangerous places in the solar system. Equipment, in my personal opinion, is best used when you’ve acquired duplicates, or have the ability to manufacture more. As soon as you can manufacture the 9mm submachine gun, start bringing that with you on every mission. When you use the emergency care package after dying and you can reliably make better guns, disassemble the Hydra they give you, as it serves no purpose except being 14 extra free bullets.

Getting one-shotted is life because everybody can get one-shotted. You’re not a super-soldier, you’re a dude/dudette with above average firearm handling, and if you take this guide to heart, then above average training.

Although I hate hearing it when I’m suffering in a game, a lot of deaths I've experienced in the game are simply skill checks. Except flamethrowers and infection. For this reason, I recommend taking 10x sorbent with you on missions you’re uncertain you’ll survive in (eg, every mission). Besides, if you find something else worth taking, just ingest all of them– you can make more for free at the Magnum. Fight flamethrower turrets at long range, or don't fight them at all.

Speaking of the Magnum….

As Sseth once said, “Pick a side, and stick to it.” Don’t go accepting missions willy-nilly because you will dig a grave for yourself without actually knowing it, and you’ll be confused when you’re ordered to jump in, gun pointed into your back. Fates worse than Prometheus’ await those who dare betray their employers.

This is mildly advanced content, but its necessary to minimizing the amount of time you kill yourself repeatedly on a mission.

Figure out what the hell you want to do with your life. For a quick rundown in the beginning of the game, look at the stock market (press H at the Magnum screen). The ones that are at the top (I’m looking at you Tezctlan) are the strongest ones, and if you leave your computer alone for like an hour on the fastest setting, then those corporations have the best chance of surviving and/or taking over the solar system. DON’T ♥♥♥♥ WITH THEM UNTIL YOU’RE READY. It goes without saying, but when you take a mission, your hard work doesn’t go into a vacuum– you are actively shaping the corporate politics of the solar system, and if you take three SBN missions, then you turn your back on them to work with their enemies, you’re going to get shafted by guards with moderately higher pay and firepower. When you go ahead to back-stab a friend for whatever reason, bring your best ♥♥♥♥ or else you will die a quick death before even the Quasimorphs can get to you.

What you need to pay attention to more than the company is the place you’re taking a mission from. Cities have needs, and they will reward you handsomely depending on the market valuation of the thing you’re trying to trade to them– what they give back to you is dependent on the company that owns the place. So if you want all of SBN’s shiny lasers, and you’ve got hella blood packs, that means anywhere that accepts blood packs AND is SBN property, you need to protect. Until you don’t want their lasers anymore, at least. Taking a mission against a corporation will decrease your score with them, and they will shut down ports and prevent you from trading with them.

Of course not, but the first part of the guide is essential for anybody who keeps dying to those pesky doors. More will come soon, but the best mindset you can adopt is that you know absolutely nothing in a universe that was designed from the ground up to kill you. Your best bet isn't your weapons or your firepower, but your wit and your tactics. All the guns in the world won’t save you from the horrors you’ve yet to witness. You are still young, infant amongst the ancient stars. You are prey, and knowing that sets you free.

A reviewer on the game (one of the top reviews in fact, before the OP said distasteful things towards the dev team and anyone attempting to contact them) stated that one-shot mechanics are an incredibly lazy way to implement a damage curve. In many cases, I agree. I agree that chess is a worthless game because everything is tapped instantly, including the queen.

You can almost taste my sarcasm. All deaths, except those relating to bugs, can be attributed to the overestimation of one’s skill. As stated before, you’re not an unstoppable super soldier, and to carry yourself like one will surely piss off the ACTUAL super soldiers, who are armed with machine guns, flamethrowers, and explosives.

The post in question referred to a specific enemy armed with the Quasimorph crossbow, arguably the highest damaging weapon in the game, apart from the flamethrower and laser carbine. Per my observation, only a single enemy type can carry the crossbow, and they are incredibly rare– only three have appeared in the 200+ missions I’ve undertaken that have quasimorphosis enabled. One of them killed me, the other two I killed extremely tactically because I was afraid to lose an entire run’s worth of equipment.

The debate that one-shotting equals laziness is an argument mired in laziness itself because it proposes an if-then statement that's too broad- Quasimorph and chess have a lot in common. An example of laziness in game development in a fantastic game is Elden Ring’s Death Rite Bird. If you know you know, and if you don’t, it was essentially a random miniboss that was over-tuned for its area. The result was a creature designed to counter someone being above-level for that portion of the game, but destroying anyone who wasn’t (most people).

Quasimorph doesn’t have that issue because you, the player, also one shot enemies. It is the nature of the game. Something I dislike about the newest update is that EVERYONE is much tougher to kill, resulting in an ugly shooting fest where both sides out-DPS each other instead of tactically maneuver and, if push comes to shove, messily fighting yourself out of a ♥♥♥♥-storm you created.

The quasimorph crossbow can only instantly kill if it is loaded with Nails of Pain, a unique ammo variation of nails that’s found randomly on these same crossbow-wielding bastards. Shotguns, lasers, flamethrowers, and even one time a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Galand that penetrated my skull can one shot. The game is extremely manageable, and there is proof of that– in only my meager 30+ hours of game time (I bought this game almost a month ago) I’ve managed to murder about 30 barons before the update wiped my progress. How do you stop these threats?

GET CREATIVE.

If you’re not a creative individual, I doubt you’d survive long in this game (and I question your ability to survive in firefights generally) because looking at it from an analytical perspective, everything is stacked against you. 30 baron kills, however, says otherwise. It's possible. Everything is counterable. I’ll be charitable and offer you my cool tip.

You know those doors and walls that we hate so much? Well unleash your inner plumber and DESTROY THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ WALLS. Yeah, you heard me. Take an automatic gun, a laser rifle, or a shotgun, go into sneak to find the enemy, stand next to the wall or door adjacent to them, and blast through it. The bullets will pass through, hit the other person, scare the ♥♥♥♥ out of them, and you can land easy hits, as well as have easy access to a new flanking route. Talk about taking alpha strike to the next level.

More will come, depending on the comments I get from this, but until then, stay safe.
Or as safe as you can when the whole world wants you dead.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: SEAR PACKAGES (the boxes you get for dying) ARE CURRENTLY BUGGED. YOU MAY HAVE TO ABANDON YOUR RUN IF THEY STOP SPAWNING IN DUE TO GETTING SOFT-LOCKED :(
This has been fixed to my knowledge :)

[/strike]SECOND PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: PCPU MAY NO LONGER TRIGGER EVACUATION. IF THIS HAPPENS, ALT-F4 BEFORE PROCEEDING SO YOU RELOAD THE MISSION AND POTENTIALLY FIX THIS BUG.[/strike]
Fixed once again, the dev team are on top of it :P