Escape from Tarkov Beginner Loadouts Guide 2020

This article is over 4 years old and may contain outdated information

Escape from Tarkov can be a bit overwhelming for new players. This Escape from Tarkov beginner loadouts guide can help you understand what you need to buy in the early game to survive raids and start making some money.

Recommended Videos

Escape from Tarkov Beginner Loadouts Guide 2020

Insure Everything

Make sure to insure your kit every single run, which may sound crazy but all items end up being worth more to sell back to the vendors than they are to ensure. This means getting back even some low-end items will yield you a profit.

You will likely be dying to AI scavs in the early game because you won’t be able to afford body armor. For this reason, your corpse is less likely to be found and looted by an actual player and it’s more likely you will get your insured items back.

All our beginner loadout recommendations will be including a sling bag and scav vest because you can pick them up from Ragman for extremely cheap.

Escape from Tarkov Beginner Loadouts 1 – SKS

Required Items: SKS, Sling, Painkillers x2, Splint, 100x 7.62 PS ammo, 2x Bandage, 2x AI-2

Optional Items: Scav Vest, SSH-60, GSSh-01, Pineapple Juice, Balaclava

Cost: ~56,000 – 95,000 rubles

With only the required items, this build comes out to be roughly 56,000 rubles. If you include all optional items which will increase your survivability odds and increase your carrying space, the total cost will be right around 95,000 rubles.

Bring everything except the helmet on your first raid. The helmet will be more useful when you can combine it with some body armor. Utilize your secure container by filling it with some ammo and meds, and swapping the items out into your rig or pockets as you need them.

Quick overview of meds:

AI-2 med kit – 2-second use time that heals up to 100 hit points

Bandages – stops bleeds

Painkillers – allow you to walk on normal speed or run on broken legs. Reduce weapon sway when arms are blackened, and makes your guy quit coughing if your stomach is black.

Pineapple Juice – you will dehydrate quickly if your stomach becomes black, which is where this comes in handy. It’s also very useful in long raids so drink it up to top off hydration and gain some metabolism XP if you need the space in your inventory.

Splint – will not heal blackened limbs, but will fix fractures. A fractured limb cans be restored with a splint and general healing.

Escape from Tarkov Beginner Loadouts 2 – Mosin Infantry

The Mosin Infantry loadout uses the same idea as the SKS loadout where you’ll load bullets directly from your inventory into the gun. The downside of this build is that the Mosin is bolt-action, so has low ergonomics which makes for slow ADS time.

Required Items: Mosin Infantry, Sling, Painkillers x2, Splint, 100x LPS Gzh ammo, 2x Bandage, 2x AI-2

Optional Items: Scav Vest, SSH-60, GSSh-01, Pineapple Juice, Balaclava

Cost: ~70,000 – 110,000 rubles

This is a good loadout choice for larger maps such as woods, customs, interchange, and shoreline.

Escape from Tarkov Beginner Loadouts 3 – PP-19 Vityaz

This is one of the only weapon setups you can get a red dot onto in the early stages of the game. We’re going to pick up 210 ammo here, because after your fill 2 mags and put 1 in the chamber you will be left with 150 loose rounds which is exactly 3 stacks. The ammo is cheap and does a lot of flesh damage.

Required Items: PP-19-01, Sling, Painkillers x2, Splint, 210x PSO 9×19 ammo, 2x 9×19 PP-19 mags, 2x Bandage, 2x AI-2, Scav Vest, Pineapple Juice

Optional Items: SSH-60, GSSh-01, Pineapple Juice, Balaclava

Cost: ~70,000 – 106,000 rubles

Great build for any close quarters combat like factory, customs dorms, shorelines resort, and parts of the military base.

Other Notes

GSSh-01 active headset – this headset is good because it’s cheap and provides a lot of additional sound information which is useful especially if you play solo.

Balaclava – this is useful for covering up your player’s huge bright head, making you more difficult to see.

Author
Image of Cole Andrews
Cole Andrews
Cole is a lifelong PC gamer who loves FPS, RPG, and MMO games. The first PC game that got him hooked was the Counter-Strike beta in 1999. He has thousands of hours in all of the old-school Blizzard games like Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo.