How to play Marauders beginner’s guide

Last Updated: May 4th, 2022

This Marauders beginner’s guide will teach you how to play Marauders as a complete newbie to the game, but lay down some wisdom on you from those that have already put some hours in to help make you more of a competitive player (so hopefully you won’t get completely wrecked from the get go).

How do you play Marauders?

Marauders is an extract-type game, similar to Escape From Tarkov in its first-person PVP and PVE combat, looting and weapon mod focus (albeit less hardcore) but also with third-person spaceship piloting and combat.

Each map is an area of space with at least one raidable hub area, occupied by AI enemies and loot there for the taking. Players have 25mins (before their oxygen runs out) to get in, kill and loot whatever they can (including enemy ships), then get out alive with their booty. Timed contracts can also be taken to collect certain items or kill certain numbers of targets, for a reward of money or items (or both).

The main goal of the game is to level up your character through gaining XP (through killing enemies, completing contracts etc.), unlocking and upgrading your gear along the way, until you get to the max level (35), at which point you gain permanent upgrades to your character that continue on to the next wipe (when everyone’s gear and level resets).

You can play solo or set up your own crew of up to 4 people (you set this up in the main menu, picking a crew name and password that you give to those you want to join). One member of the crew is designated the captain, and the crew will always use the ship that the captain has equipped in the hanger when starting a mission.

General tips for new Marauders players

Maintaining ammunition supply is important. If you’re in a crew it’s less of an issue because you can bring in ammo for the other members of your party and visa versa depending upon what each of you have or don’t have, especially if you’re all running different gun loadouts that need different ammo. If you’re flying solo though you may end up with lots of nice looted guns but no ammo for them. Read our Marauders ammo chart & crafting guide for more info.

You can never lose the Rust Bucket, your starting ship, so starting a match in this then just boarding people is a valid tactic, though it becomes seriously outmatched mid-game onwards by the other ships. Read our Marauders ship guide for more info on how to pilot ships, their stats, what you need to craft each ship type.

If you’re playing solo, ships are hard to defend from boarding actions by groups of people (fairly obvious but worth pointing out). You’re better either trying to blow them up as quickly as possible if you have a powerful ship, or just flying around the map in your boarding pod and boarding the enemy ships if you have a weak one. Entering the map in a Rust Bucket, immediately hiding it somewhere then just cruising around in your escape pod is a solid tactic. Pods are hard to shoot down, particularly with slower firing guns, though it can be done.

Inventory management becomes important fairly quickly as space is limited. Consider crafting small containers (which cost 3x Synethic Scrap, 2x Metal Scrap, and 1x Tool Kit to make once you unlock them) when your inventory starts to fill up to store your more valuable items, as these provide you with more space (one small container takes up 6 inventory slots but you can store 30 slots worth of items within it).

How does armor work in Marauders?

Armour can be split into stuff you wear on your head (helmets/hats/berets) and things you wear on your body (vests/body armour etc.).

When looking at a piece of armour in the inventory, there are two stats you need to be aware of: Armour class (top left) and Durability (bottom right). Durability is essentially the healthbar of the piece of kit (how long it will last before it breaks) whereas armour class determines the damage you take when attacked.

We don’t yet know how armour penetration works exactly, in terms of the caliber of the ammunition used against it and/or the power of the weapon vs the armour class (weapon damage – armour class = damage taken perhaps?), but shooting your opponents in the face whilst protecting yours is always a good tactic, as armour is usually lower here and so damage is much greater.

Some vests have special bonuses e.g. the Leather Jerkin comes with extra inventory slots, which you may consider worth the tradeoff for its lower armour value in the early game if you want to maximize your loot space.

Which is the best gear in Marauders?

We’re in the process of putting together an in-depth weapon guide for Marauders, as well as a full crafting guide, but in the meantime here are some choice tips:

• Knives are not good (though bring one anyway).
• The full Panzer armour is the strongest armour in the game, however it takes up a lot of inventory space. You’ll probably want to craft a storage crate to stash this in for more efficient inventory management. Similarly the STG-44 is one of the best guns in the game, but it fills up your inventory considerably.
• Certain weapons, which you think would be powerful are actually less effective in combat. This includes the flamethrower (which is hilarious but not very useful given its short range), the MG42 (though powerful, the blinding blue disco light effect is quite distracting in combat and should come with an epilepsy warning) and the M1941 Johnson (which is just garbage).
• Other weapons, accessible early on, continue to be great weapons until at least the mid-game, this includes the 1911 Stamp, and MP40.
• Some weapons are a lot better once upgraded, this is particularly the case for the BAR once you extend the magazine capacity to 40, add a suppressor and improved stock to help reduce the recoil, and also the case with the Mauser M712 once you add an extended mag, stock, and go fully automatic.

Trading in Marauders: how does it work?

There are four vendors in total that you can trade with between raids: one from each of the three major in-game factions, plus the pirates. Each tends to trade items favored by their faction. Every 15mins a vender will leave and a different one will take their place with new stock. You can improve your reputation Level with each faction by completing contracts for them, this will improve the discount offered by the corresponding vendor. To trade, simply drag and drop between your inventory and that of the merchant to sell gear, and visa versa to buy.

Final Word

We hope this how to play Marauders beginner’s guide has been useful. Do be sure to check out our other individual guides mentioned above to make sure you’re fully clued up and ready to loot fools and get nasty in dystopian space.