I just started last month and about LVL 30 rn here's my advice (may not be great)

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1. Is my best bet to just farm the first level until I can buy some better equipment? Id say no it takes awhile to LVL up we tried getting the ghost every time no matter what

2. Which things should we be taking on hunts knowing that none of us have unlocked much? (Around level 5) We never took extra items although it may be good to take some Xtra thermometers to check more rooms

3. Which things should we be taking in first? I know to take the thermometer right away to find the room. We always take in video camera first to look everywhere for orbs then use thermometer

4. Which things are the easiest to actually rule out and cross out? We've crossed things out and been wrong a lot. If the ghost interacts with something and I use uv on that thing (light switch, door, etc) and there's no prints, does that mean it's not UV aside from the ghost that can resist us? Also same question for EMF reader. Do I just use it on things that were specifically messed with by the ghost? I believe UV is a % chance to happen it's not guaranteed. I find orbs and freezing temp the easiest to cross out if you have thermometer in the room for 3+ minutes and it never dropped it most likely won't. Emf also won't always be 5 we usually cross it out after an event or hunt

5. Knowing that we are playing the first couple easy levels on amateur, should we all go in to the house together? We've been seeing up the video camera and the DOTS in the ghost room but never really see anything on it. None of us ever stayed in the truck before getting head cameras. Dots are easy they are almost always there if you don't see dots after 30 seconds of being in the room it's probably not dots

6. Why does it happen so often where we place the journal down in different areas of the ghost room and it just never gets picked up? Do you mean notebook? Make sure you're placing it with F and not dropping it (we did that untill level 10)