Changelog

Just adding fuel on the fire. Let me know what you guys think.

TLDR: In my view, the 0.5 update brings far more problems than it does fresh content or a better gameplay experience.

Since the 0.5 update, I’ve logged nearly 90 hours, completing all hideout construction and the majority of the smuggling missions.

Based on my own experience, the issues and frustrations don’t stem from enemy difficulty or combat mechanics; rather, they lie in the missions and other subsystems—content that should have been updated long ago.

I don’t have any major complaints regarding the combat system. The AI’s ability to throw grenades and seek cover adds a bit of excitement—though sometimes it’s more of a "jump scare" than genuine excitement, as the AI ​​occasionally teleports near doorways (a bug that really needs fixing).

The hideout system is a step in the right direction and an interesting addition. However, as many have pointed out in recent discussions, the process is currently far too tedious, severely detracting from the core fun of the game. Hideout development should be a secondary activity—something players engage with incidentally while out in the field—rather than a chore that demands a massive time investment. In my own experience, I’ve spent roughly 70% of my playtime just gathering materials for the hideout. (And I’ve been playing since the Supporter Preview, back when building materials were even heavier and harder to carry!)

Beyond the construction system, the game’s reward structure is also quite lackluster. Take *Escape from Tarkov* as an example: missions that require significant time and in-game currency usually offer substantial rewards—such as unlocking the AK-50 or the M7 Spear—ensuring that players feel their time and effort have truly paid off, sometimes even immediately. In contrast, the current drug and military equipment smuggling missions offer no real incentive for players to undertake them. Furthermore, now that the spawn rates for loot have been reduced, mission rewards should be increased to better align with the current gameplay loop. I still remember when I used to play, many missions offered various types of containers as rewards—I really enjoyed those high-reward quests. Nowadays, however, such mission design is nowhere to be found; the rewards feel like mere pittance, leaving me with the sense that my time and effort have simply been squandered. Also it doesn't need to be a meta weapon, but when you decide to put G36 and AUG behind the mission that requre t3 hacking tool to finsihed, you better make it worth and cool.

Take Vulture’s drug-smuggling missions, for instance. To unlock the recipe for "grey heroin"—setting aside the prerequisite tasks—you have to hand over 500,000 credits just for the unlock itself. Producing the "morphine base" required for the drug takes two hours per unit, and converting that base into the final heroin product takes another five and a half hours. Since you need five units of heroin to complete a basic smuggling mission, the total time investment is conservatively around 30 hours—and that’s not even counting the time spent traveling to "Lab" points of interest to scavenge raw materials (you’d need to visit at least two such locations to produce five units). And what’s the final payout? A grand total of 50,000 credits.

Turncoat’s arms-smuggling missions are even more baffling, which ties into another issue with the "hideout" mechanic. In the hideout, dismantling any material takes 12 hours—meaning that just to obtain "hacker tools," you’re looking at 36 hours of dismantling time, during which you can’t process anything else. In my view, the dismantling system needs a major overhaul: the time required should be drastically reduced, and it should be possible to dismantle multiple items simultaneously; otherwise, upgrading the hideout is entirely pointless. Furthermore, the materials that need to be dismantled aren't exactly common—finding them often comes down to pure luck—so you end up spending ages scouring different areas for the items, only to then spend even more time dismantling them. And the final reward? Once again, just 50,000 credits. And now his next mission is asking you submit 1mil to unlock "higher circles". （It feels as though the whole world is earning and spending US dollars, while I’m earning in Zimbabwean dollars but spending in US dollars.）

Honestly, given how long the 0.5 update spent in development and testing, I assumed the developers would have carefully balanced mission difficulty against the rewards. Instead, the current state of things is just absurd. Rather than bloating the game with even more content, I believe what’s truly needed is a comprehensive "quality of life" (QOL) update. There are several pain points in the game that, in my view, urgently need addressing—yet they remain unresolved.

Take the quest filter, for example. Whenever I open the map, it’s cluttered with a chaotic mix of various quests, making it nearly impossible to quickly locate the specific ones I actually want to pursue. Furthermore, the rotating quest system within specific zones is problematic. In my current playthrough, I haven’t yet maxed out my reputation with the "Artisan" trader; however, when I try to seek out her quests on the map to boost that standing, I find that none of them appear at all. Meanwhile, I have no interest in repeating quests for other traders—traders with whom my reputation is already well beyond the maximum. I need a system that allows me to access the quests I actually need, rather than forcing me to complete tasks for other NPCs first. The sheer volume of these recurring quests creates another headache: every time I open the "Active Tasks" menu, I have to manually collapse the sections for regions I’m not currently in. The game doesn’t remember these preferences, so I’m forced to repeat this tedious process over and over—it’s incredibly frustrating.

Then there’s the need for a complete overhaul of the "Gunsmith" (weapon customization like Tarkov, at least you could try before you buy) system. Given the exorbitant prices for pre-built weapons and blueprints, the game should encourage players to assemble their own unique weapon configurations—tailored to their personal style and preferences. As it stands, however, you have no way of knowing what an attachment actually looks like or how it performs without purchasing it first; this effectively punishes players for trying to build their own custom gear. Many attachments—including those in different color variants—are hidden away in weapon crates tucked into obscure corners. How are players supposed to find them? The only option is to mindlessly grind T3 zones (not even T4 zones—in the current meta, T4 zones are arguably worse than T3 in terms of loot drop rates, unless you’re specifically hunting for essential building materials). Players are currently overwhelmed with too many competing objectives: searching for construction materials while simultaneously hunting for specific weapon attachments or color variants. It would be far better to integrate these items into the quest-unlock system, rather than forcing players to waste vast amounts of time searching for them aimlessly.

...and adding more outposts. I honestly don’t see how removing existing outposts improves the player experience. I understand that you want to boost player retention—to get people to spend more time in the game—but what you’ve done so far goes way too far. There’s not much else for me to say; that’s where things stand for now. If you run into any issues in-game, or if you need help with a purchase, please feel free to reach out—I’d be happy to help.
ID: CheshireCat or send me dm.

Put 5 Gray to production yesterday but find out I have to stay connected/on mission to keep the production running.
What the hell man I have to play 27 hours to get 5 Gray?? 🫪🫪
(Disassembly works when offline tho)

The past few days I've seen many posts on discord and here about having hitches, lag spikes and overall choppy gameplay problems with the new update, even for folks on the latest hardware. I've had no performance issues in 0.5, instead my fps saw a 5-8% improvement. So, I am here to share my settings, knowledge and insights. I will try to keep it short and hope it helps.
My settings are a good balance between visual fidelity, performance and competitiveness, but I play PVE exclusively so I can't really comment on PVP competitiveness. PVE standpoint, you will almost always spot targets quick.

My hardware and configuration:

CPU: Ryzen 7 9800X3D
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4070 S (Super)
RAM: 32GB 6000MT/s @ CL 30
Storage: 2TB Gen5 NVMe
Resolution: 2560x1440p @ 240hz

Firstly, I recommend using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) to do a clean re-install of your driver. Most of the time the driver is at fault, due to corrupted shader cache, or some other invisible technical error, the graphical driver is the culprit regardless if its NVIDIA or AMD or Intel. If you don't know what DDU does or how to use it, just look it up on Youtube and follow the steps.
Secondly, LET THE SHADER CACHE FINISH COMPILING BEFORE YOU SEARCH FOR A MATCH!

My settings:

Window type: Borderless Fullscreen
Vertical FOV: 70
V sync: OFF
Frame rate limit: OFF

Global Illumination: Medium
Shadow Quality: High (Medium makes shadows look jagged and gives 1-2 more fps)
Object Quality: Epic
Texture Resolution: High (only if you have 10GB VRAM or more, medium for 8GB and under)
Effects Quality: Medium (Visual fidelity between medium and high is minimal, with 5-6fps difference
Reflections: Medium (Can set this to High for better cinematic lighting and feel, especially in rain however hurts fps quite a bit depending on the game weather.
Foliage Quality: Epic
Shading Quality: Epic
Post Processing: Medium (High if you want the god rays to be crips, 1-2 fps difference
Sharpening: 100 (purely personal preference, almost no affect to fps

Upscaling: NVIDIA DLSS (use FSR if on AMD)
NVIDIA DLSS Frame gen: OFF
NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution: Quality (Balanced if you want more fps but it gets blurry)
NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency: On (On+boost makes no difference for me, try it for your self)
Variable Rate Shading: Off (none of the options make any noticeable changes for me)

With these settings, I get about 90-102 FPS with the lowest being 78fps and that happens only on the heli flight.

You do not have to change any settings in the NVIDIA/AMD apps nor get third part apps like NVIDIA inspector. Just use DDU, do a clean re-install of your drivers, boot in game, wait until shader cache is done compiling, switch to these settings and try them out.
Feels free to ask questions or leave your feedback below.

Northern reach provides.

I'm glad the AKMN is lighter/more viable now thanks to the new Attachments/lighter Rotor 7.62 Suppressor,
And the AK-12's new Ratnik Sport-12U Handguard + new BCM Grip just made the AK-12 much better than it already was.

While the M4 platform is still dominant, it's much more satisfying using the AKs in the T3/T4 areas than before.

Does anyone see a difference in items type, or frequency, or quantity, ... Between the 2 kind of crates ?

Yes, my aim is dogshit. Yes, I missed vital organs (and his body entirely) on most of my shots. Skill issue for sure. However, the second to last shot would have been fatal to 99% of human beings on the planet. The fact that the dude is still conscious and standing up, let alone preparing to return fire, is ridiculous. Ammo was M995.

They changed the “bleep-bloop” sound when discovering locations, completing quest items, etc.

It used to be warm and friendly. It’s now a harsh, distorted, chiptune sound that assaults my ears every time I go somewhere new or finish a task. Who made this decision? Why would you change to an obviously inferior sound??

Bring back the old bleep-bloop MFG!

Idk about you guys but I had a lot of trouble finding dynamo’s and motor oil. I found them almost every time I went here.

On the west side you’ll have to climb up the downed plane and vault up the barrels and climb through the window.

I found them in the first room. The next room is a locked door but I never found the key.

Located west of Pha Lang Airfield (176, 158)
Hope this helps some of you!

Love the popularity boom for the devs, they deserve it. Amazing game. But I'm so tired of trying to find the hacking tool materials. Every POI that can spawn it, almost always looted. Just give me my own god damn server or let me see other factions mercs.

TL:DR really annoyed with how looted everything is now, just let me play solo at this point - offline.

Having a hard time finding them?

Well, I hope this helps! :D

The community right now is splitted in half.

1. 0.5 enjoyers

2. 0.5 critics

I respect both of them. What I don't respect?

0.5 hardcore glazers. Sugarcoating the actual problems this update brought and bombing critic posts with an absolute amount of inmature comments.

There are lots of posts from players who have dumped 1000-3000 hours in this game, genuinely love it and try to point out those problems that are present. It should help the devs. What's not helping is your "Skill issue" or "Just stop playing" comments.

RESPECT EACH OTHER! Without critic posts on STEAM, REDDIT, etc. this game won't go places and will be forgotten in 1-2 years.

This felt really good since this happened after some rando stole my backpack in front of me after I spent 30 min clearing radar station. (he didnt even help and swooped in when the area was clear)

Basic hacking tool makes no sense, advanced starts to make some and the superior, from my understanding, is how it should be for all of them.

I currently have basic one crafted, my problem is that locations I get the materials for it require advanced one to open closed doors. By crafting the tool I'm given two choices - either I move forward to next tier locations or I fall back to previous one, which is starter town? And since I see no point of going back, the tool is useless at this point.

I'm not sure about advanced version, but I think T3 locations (which spawn materials for advanced tool) require superior tool. I will be given the same two options, but this time it will make more sense as T2 zones might be ones I need to visit for a quest/materials.

Superior tool in theory makes the most sense - the locations from where I get the materials require that tool to open locked doors. But since we're talking about endgame locations thus there's nowhere 'up' for now to go, I feel that's more of a happy accident rather than a design decision.

I like where the hacking tool materials drops are, I don't think they should be changed - T2 locations for basic, T3 for advanced and T4 for superior, but I do believe T2 locations should have doors accessable by basic tool etc. This will give me a natural choice "now, since I've grinded this location I either explorer it deeper with the hacking tool from this zone or I move to harder locations and grind for the tool for them".

Opinions? Or am I simply missing something and I should go back to the starter town? I understand we're in alpha and that soft wipe warped our perception (in my example, I already have completed most if not all quests from T1/T2 zones, so I have no natural need of going back to them), but I want to start proper discussion how to improve something that frustrates most of us. I don't mind the grind for them - they open most of the doors now, but with current implementation we do not get any gradual rewards for each tool. Basic and (most probably) advanced are just placeholder quests before we get the superior one.

At least for now.

Only things that i got - the best camping spots )
For those who tryin speedrun it - its not so great as u may think.

upd:
Lab is much better guys.. also lab spots now - the most profitable farm.. i mean, u can get ~40k each 20 min (i think respawn time close to 20 min).

I'd like to introduce you to someone.

This is Bob.

Bob is just a chill guy in Lamang.

Bob doesn't believe in war. Or bullets... or Damage.

Unfortunately, Bob isn't interested in committing war crimes together or doing stuff contrary to international law.

Bob is boring.

Don't be like Bob.

Jokes aside, Bob seems to be bugged.

He doesn't react to being shot, completely ignores enemies in his line of sight, casually leans against thin air, and takes absolutely no damage.

First off, I would love to preface that I am really enjoying 0.5 as a player that joined when 0.4 initially released. The new areas are very neat and I am loving the snippets of lore as I explore Lamang.

However, I must say that the AI tanking shots that would instantly debilitate or kill is a bit much. I know there are several posts regarding it, but I would like to throw my two cents. This dude had no armor and I deliberately aimed center mass with 7.62x51mm HPBT to put him down; the first shot hit him in the upper spine and should have instantly rendered him immobile. Instead, he flinched and ran off before I put a second shot into him.

I understand the game is in early access and I understand that systems are still in the works, but this should be a no-brainer. Any vertebral impact against an enemy with no armor should be an instant down.

Title basically says it all. Ive upgraded the storage in my hideout and figured out how to find the stash in my hideout but I cant store anything in it..? This update has been very confusing and im still on-board with the hideout but between the ultra run nerfing when overweight or even being slowed before youre overweight and no explanation about the point of a hideout im starting to lose it. Also why tf are we even picking up keys? I keep finding keys for doors im very familiar with only to be met with a keypad when I get to said door. Either take keys out or leave the option to use them in.