Basically, don't spend your cash! Loot everything you're going to use. Do a lot of covert ops and use your 5 free quick kits every week, at the start.

I used to go into every normal raid with a knife only and you'd be surprised by the kind of loot you'd end up with in the end. Aim for the head and you can one shot people, even if they have a helmet!
With a knife only, you get the freedom to go anywhere, or attack anyone you want, with no fear of losing anything. The higher risk aggression definitely increases the amount of loot you get. Do this a few times to start building up your stash.

Once you have a few sets of armor and guns, start going into raids with just the bare minimum (cheap helmet, cheap armor, cheap gun, cheap ammo, some meds AND a medium camping backpack) so you don't get the gear de-buff, and so the loot spawns are MUCH better!

Check out the map website here: https://maps.tcno.co/abi and pay special attention to the AIRDROPS. They have really good stuff, usually a lot of good rigs, backpacks and armor. You can spawn in and just try an airdrop only run or 2 and see how it goes. Also, the ABANDONDED CRATES on the north side of farm (see map) are severely underrated. Some of the best loot I've ever gotten was in there.

Remember that bosses do spawn on farm and they're pretty easy to kill. Check inside the grain center for the woman, or the motel, stables and loading area for the guy. They'll sometimes have t4 armor and pretty good guns, to get you started.

I would avoid lockdown for a while, unless you can play with other players and only when you can comfortably put together a burner $100,000 kit, without fear of losing it. The loot is better and the bosses spawn more frequently.

I saved the best tip for last. Once you unlock Armory, you need to turn into a rat. Follow these exact instructions: Get the cheapest tier 1 helmet, tier 1 armor and crap gun you can find. Then bring your best back pack. Next, go into armory and follow the routes on the picture I'm attaching. Once you get to a safe space, just don't move, stay quiet and wait until the last 10 minutes or so before you go to loot. I'd recommend going into the actual armory and looting the dead bodies. Usually, there's a bunch of players there that were killed in PvP for you to loot. Even the NPCs in there have really good weapons and gear. Loot the first NPC you find and replace your armor ASAP, btw!

Once you start getting a little more experienced, you can maybe come out of hiding at about 15 minutes and loot the out skirts of armory. While you're looting, pay attention to the top right alerts and see if anyone's extracting. Pay attention to the armory alarm sounds. And especially to gunshots. This will let you know if people are still active. If it's all quiet around 15 mins, then loot the whole map and head into armory with about 5 mins left. There's a good extract inside armory.

Eventually, after you get more seasoned and once you get some throw away gear worth 300,000, I recommend heading to Northridge on Forbidden with a team or even by yourself. Preferably during off hours (around 1-6am with the Low ping setting selected). PLAY IT SAFE if you're on Forbidden. Avoid ANY contact with Operators. And loot ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. There's golds and reds to be found, literally, everywhere.

P.S. I'm level 30, I have 100m+ and I STILL don't spend cash on anything but meds and occasionally a t1 helmet and t1 armor and I only bring purple ammo. I'm so stingy I even spawn in with the ammo and meds in my case, so I don't lose them if I die quickly. Do I die a lot of times in PvP if I come across another operator? Yeah, sure! But, at least I don't beat myself up because I just lost another 350,000 gun with attachments, gold ammo and a 600,000 set of tier 5 armor. That's just crazy.


Hope you enjoyed the guide and I hope this helps. If you need a friend to play with, just let me know, I got you.