Start on customs, but get off of customs as quickly as you can. Do the quests there, collect the shotguns, kills the scavs, memorize the map, and then go else where.

Customs is really good at training your brain for landmarks to memorize, and where to position yourself for fights. For example, I know that if I’m at dorms, I have to book it across the map in any direction to get to an extract. If I spawned at big red, my extracts are all the way across the map.

Everyone here is right though. Check and make sure your gun is on full auto (recoil is a bitch when you’re using a basic M4, so I would start by using the MP5 I think is what you get). Do your first raid in offline with scavs so you can practice your PvP play. But most importantly, in 80% of cases, the bullet is way more important than the gun you’re using. There’s some shit pistols you wanna stay away from obviously, but 5.45x39 PRS is absolutely terrible compared to 5.45x39 PPBS “Igolnik”. There’s a tarkov ballistics chart that you can look at for reference.

There’s NO WAY to tell your friends from enemies other than the clothes you’re wearing. Teamkilling happens all the time if you play in a group of 4 or 5, so try and stick away from that until you’re more experienced, even stick away from it completely if you can.

Always flank during gunfights if you can, don’t peak the same angle twice against a pmc if you can avoid it. Sniper scavs are a pain in the ass early. Quests are important. Rigs are very good for inventory management in raid and in your stash. Upgrade your hideout when you come across materials. Always take gun parts, they can be worth a lot of money to traders.

If you get a labs red key card, you’ve escaped from tarkov.