Combat tactics

== Common mistakes ==
OP-2 combat might feel unfair for a player with no understanding of game mechanics. Sometimes it truly is unfair, but most of the time it's a skill issue. Here are the most common mistakes players tend to make:
* Picking huge fights without proper protection. Armor works counterintuitively in SoC, and artifact and armor bulletproofing don't stack up like you think they do. See Armor for the armor mechanics and Noteworthy items for early sources of bulletproofing artifacts. Max out your bulletproofing with artifacts first (60% is sufficient), and wear an exoskeleton or nanosuit/SEVA+. Before that, any large gunfight is going to be hard and frustrating and you'll be wondering whether this game is just one-shot-fest (far from it!).
* Standing in the open. Always corner peek from a cover in a precise manner - if the enemy can be seen fully you're already peeking too much. That's a skill that needs to be learned. Or run around, so NPCs can't hit you.
* Camping at a chokepoint, waiting for the enemies to come at you. This works, but they'll pin you down and eventually overwhelm by numbers because you are killing them slower than they arrive.
Not making any mistakes above is guaranteed to reduce your death/reload count at least in half. Relocate often to disarray and confuse enemies. Sprint under the fire so they either miss or don't hit the head (even the basic stalker armor without artifacts is already enough to stop one AK-74 bullet in the body - but it doesn't have a helmet!). Kill them more aggressively, so they don't rush you all at once. Each quick kill weakens the crowd that's going to stomp you moments later, don't let them accumulate. This turns big fights from impossible to easy.
See the video below that demonstrates all that. In this mission, 90% players tend to camp in the corner, just to end up frustrated from dying each 5 seconds or trying to bruteforce it with save/load. You can play far more aggressively, making it far easier.
== Ranged NPC combat ==
=== Movement ===
NPC AI can't hit fast moving targets. This is also true for any mutant ranged attacks - controllers, turrets, etc. You can sprint 90° to the line of their fire and get out unscathed. This is useful when either relocating to confuse the NPCs, or escaping from being pinned in a corner.
Obviously this doesn't work when too close to the enemy, or when the enemy uses gauss guns (almost instant bullet flight, so they can aim at you directly and still hit).
=== Grazing hits ===
You have to hit the center of the enemy model to deal the full damage; hitting the edge deals less damage. This is true for the player as well. Since NPCs can't hit fast moving targets, strafing sideways makes NPCs miss the center of your model just enough to do less damage.
This doesn't work when you're too close to the enemy, or when enemy uses weapons with huge muzzle velocities (e.g. gauss guns).
=== Corner peeking ===
When leaning out of cover, NPCs still think that you are behind it. That lets you peek just enough to pick NPCs one by one. This peeking has to be really precise; peek too much and you'll expose your entire body.
Leaning has less reach while crouching, you have to be standing for it to work well.
=== Grenade panic ===
Throwing a grenade makes NPCs panic, even if it's a flash or smoke one. Panic also makes them lose your tracks. This is super useful when escaping from being encircled by enemies or blocked by friendly NPCs (use a smoke grenade in that case as it doesn't deal damage), saving a friendly NPC from enemy fire, etc. This is also insanely useful to escape from being pinned in the corner.
Several missions are much easier with this trick, see Meet Kruglov and Disc for Panther.
=== Flanking ===
Despite appearing superhuman to some, NPCs actually follow the typical "Game AI" pattern with attacking and moving to the last seen enemy position. You can easily confuse them by flanking them.
They still can see you doing this through various gaps and slits in level geometry (gaps between concrete fence sections, your legs under the train, etc), and also hear you running.
=== Eye area ===
Every human NPC has an extremely small eye area with huge damage multiplier. This is true for both player and NPCs, and you can both kill armored NPCs in one shot with a precise sniper rifle, and they could kill you accidentally that way even if you have one of the late game artifacts (for example when a random shotgun pellet hits the eyes).
The eye area is really small, you have to be pixel-precise, and most non-sniper weapons don't even have the accuracy to reliably hit it from 10m. Hitting it is usually more of an accident.
=== Armored NPCs ===
Early in the game, you will sometimes encounter particularly tanky NPCs that seemingly survive anything you hit them with. This is just a perception: no hostile NPC in the game can survive more than 3 headshots with a 5.45 rifle. If you don't want to aim for the head, you can use large caliber guns. There are a few available early on:
* Shotguns reliably put them down at close range, even basic sawed-offs are good. Don't bother with slugs, use birdshot/buckshot.
* Desert Eagle Mark XIX you can buy from Barkeep one-shots them to the body at up to 70-80m. Ammo is expensive though, and can be bought from Suslov at Swamps.
* Good machineguns like M60 or PKP "Pecheneg" will need 3 or 5 body hits to kill them. The ammo is dirt cheap at Akim after Walking dead, the box capacity is 200 rounds, so in practice that means mowing them down without lots of precise aiming.
* 9x39mm Isomorph ammo used in any gun will kill them in 2-3 body hits. This ammo is scarce though, and there's no reliable source of it outside of quests. 
Many other big guns will be available later - miniguns, elephant guns, flamethrowers, and so on.
=== Exploiting large fights ===
In some battles, you can find glitchy spots where you are invisible to NPCs but still can shoot at them. For example, when fighting Joker in the Missing expedition, you can hide behind the green wooden boxes and shoot incoming mercs while being invisible to them. Corresponding wiki articles usually have tips about such spots.
== Mutants ==
Certain mutants are less vulnerable to bullets, and shotgun ammo is better to be conserved; you can use melee weapons to kill them and save plenty of ammo. At Akim, you can buy Fight gloves for 7700RU. They can be used to one-punch most ordinary mutants like bloodsuckers or boars. Always carry a pair of Fight gloves with you, and a spare one or two, because they eventually wear down and fixing melee weapons in OP-2 is a pain, it's easier to buy a new pair.
Tougher mutants that require multiple hits with gloves, like pseudogiants, are easier killed with the Crowbar that has much better reach. It can be bought from Suslov at Swamps for 60000RU, and is totally worth it. When in good condition, it kills most tough mutants like librarians in one hit.
Certain mutants like zombies are particularly susceptible to explosive damage, so using grenades is preferable. Zombie gopniks are weaker than ordinary ones, and can be easily killed with bullets. See the mutant spreadsheet (also available from the navbar) for preferred ways to kill various mutants.
"Typhoon" Turret can be indispensable at killing certain hard to hit mutants, like sentient Comet anomalies in X-10 and other places.
== Armored vehicles ==
Armored vehicles like BTRs and junk creatures at the Construction Site landfill are only vulnerable to explosive damage. You can't kill them with bullets unless they deal explosive damage (e.g. Fenrir's Cheytac M200 and PTRD blow them up instantly). Grenades work, but can be hard to throw accurately. RPG-7 and RPO-A also work, but their projectiles are heavy and can detonate while flying through bushes and other foliage, making the PTRD far more convenient.
Large helicopters (Mi-24) can be easily taken down if shot in the tail rotor. Smaller helicopters can be taken down by shooting the pilot, but they're also easy to take down with small arms fire into any other part. All helis can be downed with a single PTRD shot.
For turrets, aim for the tripod and the swivel, not for the main part of the turret. It takes about 40-60 hits with a 5.45 gun, depending on range. (or 1 hit with a PTRD!).
Category:Core mechanics