SCUM – Beginners Guide (Survival Basics)

High-quality guide to surviving on the island.

SCUM Guides:

• How to Find the Sever IP so You Can Play with Friends.
• How to Boost FPS.
• Deficiency / 0% Energy.

Survival Tips

Note: Credit goes to Yodeling Cat

Gear

• If you carry 3 weapons (2 on back, 1 in hand), you’ll likely be dropping the one in your hands on the ground whenever doing an action, so be wary of that. * More formally: when doing an action, if you don’t have enough space in your inventory or on your back to hold whatever was in your hand, it will get dropped on the ground.
• You can gear up quickly at Military Bunkers, Prisons, Police Stations all over the map or at the Airport.
• High-loot areas like the Military Bunkers and Airport are guarded by Sentries; giant mechs that can spot you easily and practically insta-kill you; they can be sneaked-by by avoiding getting in their line-of-sight (hide behind trees, buildings, or make sure they’re turned around).
• Always keep either [Bandages] or [Rags] in your inventory for patching up wounds.
• You can cut a [Rag] into 2 [Rag Stripes] before patching yourself up, so you’ll still have 1 [Rag Stripes] left over.

Combat

• Melee combat in this game is very difficult; you should avoid fighting Puppets when possible.
• The guns have a extremely high recoil, you’re unlikely to hit anything unless you shoot one bullet at a time.
• Some scopes like the [ACOG] are equipped with a Range Finder; tap CTRL to calculate range.

Events

• When playing Events at night, you can use [Night Vision Goggles] with [G].

Crafting Essential Items

Crafting a Stone Knife

As the very first thing you always want to craft a [Stone Knife], as this lets you protect yourself and craft other items and weapons.

• Look at the ground in a forest and you should see an action to “Search for Rocks”.
• Press [F] to do the action, and repeat until you’ve found at least 2 [Small Stone]s.
• Open your Inventory with [TAB] and switch to the Crafting tab at the top.
• The very first item in the right-hand-side panel should be the [Stone Knife], select it and click “CRAFT” at the bottom.
• After its crafted you need to pick it up from the ground; switch to the Inventory tab and drag the item from the Vicinity panel into either your hands or an empty slot in your clothes.

Crafting a Wooden Spear

The spear is a very useful weapon even after you get firearms, as it is silent, can be thrown a long distance, retrieved after throwing and one-shot kills if thrown at the head.

• Look around for a large bush, you’ll know you found the right one if the action says “Cut”.
• Cut down bushes until you’ve found 1 [Long Wooden Stick].
• You can now craft a [Improvised Wooden Spear].
• Craft 2 or 3 of them and put them in your holsters in the Inventory tab.

Crafting a Courier Backpack

The [Improvised Courier Backpack] has 9 slots and can hold 10kg of weight.
You’ll need to salvage your clothes for the necessary resources, but you’ll tripple your storage space and finding new clothes is easy.

• We’re gonna salvage 3 [Rags] and 5 [Rag Stripes].
• Take the [Stone Knife] into your hands, right-click on your [Inmate Pants] and do “Cut Into Rags”, then do the same for your [Inmate Shirt].
• Cut 2 [Rags] into [Rag Stripes] by right-clicking them. We need 5 [Rag Stripes] in total.
• Now go ahead and craft a [Improvised Rope] and afterwards the [Improvised Courier Backpack].
• Take the remaining [Rag Stripes] with you as they can be used for patching up wounds.

Crafting Item Bundles

Bundles are useful for carrying crafting material to the place where you want to craft a [Fireplace]/[Shelter]/[Chest], as you can place 2 bundles on your back and hold 1 in your hands.

You can craft bundles of Rags, Rag Stripes, Wooden Sticks and Wooden Planks;
they can be crafted from the Crafting tab.

The [Bundle of Rags] and [Bundle of Rag Stripes] are useful for saving valuable inventory space:

• [Bundle of Rags] holds up to 5 [Rags] while taking up only 2×1 inventory space.
• [Bundle of Rag Stripes] holds up to 5 [Rag Stripes] while taking up 1×1 inventory space.

* Crafting a [Bundle of Rags] will consume the 1 [Rag Stripes] used to bind it.

A bundle can be unpacked by right-clicking it and choosing “Uncraft”.

Crafting a Fireplace

A Fireplace can be used for cooking, drying your wet clothes and staying warm.

Prerequisites: If you don’t have [Matches] or a [Lighter] then you’ll require the Basic Survival skill.

• Make sure you have any kind of a Knife on you.
• Find some bushes to cut down for 6 [Small Wooden Stick]s.
• You can craft a [Small Bundle of Sticks] and put it on your back for easy carrying.
• Move to where you want to place your fireplace and unpack your bundles.
• Craft [Tinder] and afterwards a [Improvised Fireplace].
• Light the fire with [Matches] or a [Lighter] or by crafting a [Fire Drill] (requires Basic Survival).

Crafting an Axe

• Make sure you have any kind of a Knife.
• Find two Stones and craft a [Small Stone Axe Head].
• Find either 1 [Long Wooden Stick] or 1 [Small Wooden Stick].
• Craft or find any kind of a Rope or [Wire].
• You can now craft the [Stone Axe].

Crafting and Using a Chest

Chests can be used for storing excess weapons and items; they can be easily looted by other players.
It takes a while to craft a chest; you may want to build a [Shelter] first, and place your chests in it’s vicinity.

• First you’ll need to find or craft an Axe (see crafting instructions above).
• Cut down a large tree* with your Axe for some [Wooden Log]s. *Logs from certain small trees cannot be cut into planks.
• Cut the Logs into 8 [Wooden Planks].
• You’ll need some Rope, you can craft 2 [Tree Bark Rope]s from the Wooden Sticks dropped from the tree you cut down.
• Craft the [Wooden Box] – It will be placed somewhere randomly around you, it’s unclear whether it can be moved.

To store items in the Chest, you have to drag them onto the Chest in the Vicinity panel.
To retrieve items from the Chest, drag them from the Chest within the Vicinity panel.

Hidden Keyboard Controls

These controls are not shown in the Options menu.

• ESC – Cancel action. Peeing, Pooping, Vomitting cannot be canceled.
• Shift + LMB – Weapon bash. Does a melee attack with a rifle.
• Ctrl + Scroll – Adjust stance. Fluidly transition between standing and crouching.

Items

Brass Knuckles

Brass knuckles are weapons used in hand-to-hand combat. Brass knuckles are pieces of metal shaped to fit around the knuckles.

• Space: 1×2
• Weight: 0.3kg

Hunting Scope

A hunting scope adjustable to various rifles with correct rail. Default zeroed on 100m, can be manually zeroed to 1000m.

• Space: 2×1
• Weight: 0.9kg

Lighter

A portable device used to create a flame, and to ignite a variety of combustible materials.

• Space: 1×1
• Weight: 0.2kg
• Uses: 20