Mr. X’s Tips and Tricks

Overview

A bunch of tips and tricks for Survivors and Traitors from your local mute music man.

Foreword

My name is Mr. X on Steam, and my name is MisturX on Twitch. This is a guide that explains a lot of tropes, basics, and what to do to counter, or help, what others are doing. I hope this can help a lot of people, and perhaps improve their games.

The Main Objective

The primary goal for the Survivors is to escape, and to do this they first have to fix the Power Station, located close to the Cabin, and it’s location is made abundantly clear on the map just outside the Cabin’s exit. Your Job as a Survivor is to get 15 of whichever material it needs, between all six of you, and get the power station running. Once the Power Station is running, the Beacon will be in 1 of 3 locations. Your job, then, is to figure out where it is and fix it. Activating it is optional, especially if you’re low on friends.

The Beacon can be of 2 different kinds. A Material Beacon which needs 10-12 parts, and often different from what you needed originally, or, a Beast Beacon that draws in mostly wolves and sometimes bears. Once either of these beacons is up and running, someone has to go, or be in, the Cabin, and call the rescue vehicle. Getting in the Vehicle guarantees your escape, and that’s your primary concern.

Useful Tips

Never refuse a truth serum if you’re a survivor. Even if it’s clearly a waste, the blowback from not accepting it will delay the game. Your best option is to just stand there and point out why its a bad idea, even if they do it anyway.
If a bunker gets sabotaged, but just gives a 1 minute lock-out, one of the people that opened it is a traitor. If it explodes, it was sabotaged beforehand at the door. The 1-minute delay requires the traitor to be on a console at the time of opening it.
Bridges that cross over gorges can be sabotaged at a console, resulting in instant death for anyone on the bridge. They can also have bear traps on them, but not landmines.
Weirdly shaped ramps at ice walls can often be crossed, but it’s a 1-way trip.
The best time to place landmines is when someone nearby is also placing landmines.
Never make your first Axe, Pick, or Sickle until you know what the power station needs, and what others are making.
Cogs have the unique quality that traitors can’t just turn them into something else. They’re one of the safest items to make for the power station. Since they can’t just be turned into something else, like Electronic Parts or Smoke Bombs. They almost exclusively have to be stolen and hidden.
Fuel is ridiculously easy to make, and ridiculously easy to sabotage at the same time. The berries that make them can be eaten quickly, and the fuel can be turned into smoke bombs.
Fuel can’t be used to restore campfires. Don’t bank on it.
Healing herbs heal HP based on percentage, as do First Aid Kits. A jacked up Traitor with 3 healing herbs can and will easily eat 7 mines before the 8th one sets them down.
Traitor crates and Tunnels make unique sounds. They are also very loud. Don’t get caught.
Don’t be intimidated by guns. Melee weapons are much better in Melee. That’s why they’re called Melee weapons. Also don’t rely entirely on guns because a swarm of survivors will sit your ass down, jacked up on energy drinks or not.
Survivors have exactly 1000 hp. The only weapons that can’t instantly kill a Survivor after getting hit by a landmine are Melee Weapons, Crossbows, the Tranq gun, and the Assault Rifle. Shotguns and Sniper Rifles will set them down, however.
A really good way to cause mass chaos during the Rabbit event is to have more than 1 weapon in your hand. People often call people out based on what they have in their hand. Smoke bombs can also cause mass Hysteria, especially if you swing the first weapon, pop the smoke, and then switch weapons. Everyone that had your weapon type after the smoke is cleared will be suspicious.
As a Traitor, call out anyone that’s being a lone wolf that’s gone too long, especially your Traitor friend. Especially your traitor friend. Exiling the Traitor that stays away removes a lot of suspicion from you.
There is only 1 Mountain Madness event per game. It’s also just called “Rabbits” by most people.
While you’re a Rabbit, Wolves will have an increased aggro range. This can be devastating, and also be a great time for traitors to screw people over during the confusion.
Bears can be soloed by sticking to their ass and throwing half-swings consistently, solely because they’ll stagger and be unable to turn around to hit you. Never run directly from a bear if you don’t want to fight one, because they are faster than you, and 2 hits from them is the same thing as a full swing from a melee weapon.
Dark Snow is a sure sign that White Wolves are present. They’re faster than normal wolves, and hit slightly harder. There’s also usually 3 of them, instead of just 2. They’re often better at killing solo traitors than the Survivors are.
Smokes are easy to make and really good at escaping from a traitor if they’re not already on you with a melee weapon.
As a Survivor, poisoning the Power Station is Devastating to Survivors if you plan on Cabin sitting.
Trapping Traitor crates with landmines can slow Traitors down quite a bit. Poisoning them is also hilarious. It also removes a lot of suspicion.
Getting warm as a Traitor is easy, but surviving exclusively on berries isn’t. Traitor crates never have meat in them, but often have uncooked berries, cooked berries, campfires, and Vodka. Every traitor crate has an Energy drink in it. Traitor air drops almost always have 2 high-quality energy drinks in them, to boot.
The percentage increases in stats should basically say “+70 health, +120 health, or +150 health.” This also applies to Heat and Hunger. A traitor that opens at least 10 crates is almost guaranteed to have twice the health of a survivor. To put this in perspective, that means you’ll have to hit him with a fully charged pickaxe 8 times before they go down.
People with Voice Changers can turn them off and on based on what they wanna do with their Radios. The smart ones will use it in Proximity chat, and turn it off in Radio speak. The dumb ones will do the reverse. Even if the smart ones do do this, if you hear a voice on the radio that you don’t recognize at all, it’s either someone who doesn’t speak, uses text chat, or the person using the voice changer in Proximity.
If you’re running from anyone for any reason, it’s typically a good idea to run across rocks so you briefly lose your snow trail. You can also hide behind trees in a forest. Survivors will often keep running in the direction you were going.
While running in a straight line, throw something relatively useless to stagger the person behind you. If they have a full inventory, you’ll lose them unless they also throw stuff back. Strangely, the prepared-to-throw animation doesn’t slow you down, but a fully charged melee swing does.
Melee weapons, regardless of charge, will always stagger players if they’re hit by it. Use this to slow people down for a real swing, or so your friends can close the gap.
For the love of god, don’t run with something in your hands unless you absolutely have to. You run a little bit faster with nothing in them
If you start with an Axe, it’d be wise to make Campfires. Blizzards can slow you down for an entire minute if everyone’s locked in the Cabin trying not to freeze to death, and screw people over if they’re also hungry during one.

Careful Guidance

Having a defined role in the group is a good thing, but having a Melee weapon is practically a demand unless you’re in a large group of at least 4 people.
Someone dropping a Radio after searching a corpse is extremely suspicious under any
circumstance. Especially if the body is unlootable.
The Truth Serum only reveals the role to the person that uses it on someone. Traitors can get their hands on the Truth Serum. It’s always best to put it in the hands of someone who’s been incredibly helpful and present the entire game, but, Traitors can also be helpful and present exclusively to out someone who isn’t one. Bonus points if they put their radio on the corpse.
Traitor’s bluff is a terrible place for the last objective to be, especially since its the longest bridge in the game. It can have a massive amount of landmines on it. It’s called what it is for a reason.
You should get familiar with the map as best you can. You can easily memorize the Druids Altar, or the fact that there’s a huge amount of bridges over a gorge.
The Druid’s Altar can be fueled with Wood and warm up everyone inside of it a lot like the Cabin. It’s also got a lot of berries and trees beside it. It’s basically a slightly weaker cabin.
Asking people what their objective is a great way of catching Traitors. A long pause before answering is usually a dead giveaway. As a traitor it’s a good idea to have what you’ll say planned for later.
Some Survivor objectives sound super sketchy, such as dealing 700 ranged damage, downing people 5 times, or bear trapping 3 people. Survivors can even have the objective to get exiled twice.
Sign posts drop 2 wood when destroyed, but it’s best to find out if anyone needs them for their objective before you start punching them. It’s the easiest way to make a quick campfire at the cabin.
The fastest way to consistently get a Radio is to mine 1 of the ore veins at round-start, pick up both stone, and then punch the sign to the west of the Cabin. If you’re fast enough and lucky, you can make 2 Electronic Scrap for a radio. Traitors often commit to radio silence after they very hastily make their plans.
The central grid is always the exact same, except for the Power Station location. The Well is to the South west. There’s an extra Ore Vein to the east. A bear to the west. There’ll be moose to the East and West as well. There’s also 4 healing herbs to the Northwest, and just above the Cabin to the North. Lastly, there’s a 2 or 3 man bunker to the west as well with the Bear.
The only use for Mechanical parts, besides objectives, is repairing bridges, and throwing them at fleeing suspects.
If you’re up against the wall and the Traitors are being secretive, Ghosts can sometimes be helpful in deducing who’s who, but you’ll need to have everyone stand still for a moment for them to accurately point out who’s who. Usually, campfires are a good way to do this. Don’t rely on this, however, as Ghosts aren’t guaranteed to know who the Traitor is, and Traitors can throw people off with the cold chill. They also just might be salty.
Traitors are rewarded for delaying the objective. Even if the Power Station gets sabotaged after it gets up, setting it up extremely fast is a great way to stop Traitors from getting that powerful air drop. If a Traitor does get the Air Drop, they’ll usually chug both black energy drinks and get 300 extra health, which is the equivalent of a fully charged melee swing.
All melee weapons in the game do the exact same damage.
Pickaxes are terrible at farming wood and berries. Axes are terrible at Mining stone and berries. Sickles are terrible at mining stone, and just barely better than a fist at cutting down trees. You can also instantly collect herbs with a relatively strong swing with the sickle as well.
Sickles are for Health, Hunger, and Fuel. Pickaxes are for Traps and resources. Axes are for Warmth and resources.
While they’re not suspicious, the Pickaxe is a good option for Traitors, since they’ll go mine an entire Ore Vein for Landmines and Bear Traps. You can also make even more if the Survivors put their Stone in the chest. This’ll also slow down the objective.
Traitors like to trap the Power Station personally with Landmines and Bear Traps to remove suspicion. When they do trap it, however, they can clearly see where they need to walk and minimize the damage they’ll take when they go to Sabotage it later.
Trapping the Power Station early is best done with bear traps, since they’re silent. It’ll slow people down, and you can pump out 5 of them with a single Ore Vein. Just be aware that if you do this, there’s going to be that many bear traps waiting for you when you go to Sabotage it later.
A really nifty little trick to pull on Survivors, while a bit risky, is to find out when a person is placing landmines on the Power Station. If you time it right, you can put a Landmine down beside the western berry bush.
Trapping objectives is reliable, but placing them haphazardly on the way to the objective can be just as effective.
Poison demands that people immediately seek out food. It is better than traps when it comes to slowing people down, since they’ll have to expend resources far away from the Cabin.
You can drop raw or cooked meat while being chased by wolves. They’ll go for the meat instead of you. This is particularly helpful when you’re in black snow territory where there’s triple white wolf packs. You can’t do this with Pot Pies or Berries. Never throw the meat, however, just drop it.
Pot pies can’t be stacked, but they give more warmth than Vodka, and almost as much food as 2 Edible meat for the low low cost of 1 meat and 1 berry.
Unannounced food in the chest is risky business, unless someone announces that they’ve made it. Regardless of whether it gets eaten immediately, some poor desperate fool is probably going to end up eating it anyway, especially if people just throw it somewhere random.
Always get your objective from the map board. They’re always worth 1000 credits, regardless of whether they’re easy or not. Hell, you might just get the “Hunt 3 Animals” one, and that’s practically free money.
Wolves drop 2 meat. Moose drop 3, and are often in packs. Bears drop 4. Human hearts are basically pot pies that don’t restore warmth. Don’t worry about turning into a Wendigo, though. Not yet, anyway.
With the way the reticle works at the moment, if someone is hiding behind a Tree, or structure, you’ll aim at the object they’re hiding behind, rather than just them. If you’re using a gun, it’s best to aim behind them in an open space so that the shot will travel to it and just hit them on the way. You’d be better off full swinging your weapon at them if they’re behind cover, however.
The more people missing during a Blizzard, the less suspicious it is. Just be sure to ask who was where to try and narrow down if someone was alone for it.

Cooperation is Key and King

Traitors have a tendency to be very cold and very hungry at the worst of times, from a Survivor’s perspective.
Traitors that have had the chance to disappear pretty consistently get cold much slower than standard survivors. If you’re with one, but everyone was at the cabin at the same time and left at the same time, consider holding off on the campfire to see if they shiver at the same time as you. Pot pies can throw this off, however.
The Armory is potentially one of the most important structures in the entire game. It always requires 3 people, but it’s practically stuffed to the gills with guns.
Never try to hit someone while they’re in the middle of the “Opening a Chest” animation. They have invulnerability frames while they’re doing it and you’ll give yourself away.
As a Traitor, if the objective is Electronic Parts, it’d be in your best interest to craft a ton of radios that match yours. You can just say you found it in the chest. Also, announce that you just found them. Just make sure you don’t get caught nabbing all the materials. Whoever last left the Cabin will gain some suspicion.
It is in your best interest as a Traitor to jump on the exile train if a survivor is being super suspicious. Just be careful, since you can see who voted for who.
People with guns always have a melee weapon with them. This’ll mean they only have 2 slots for anything else. Usually, pack rats carrying objective resources will be hungry, cold, or both.
While it’s not very well known, the gaps in the Ice Walls can be quickly sabotaged to spray water and instantly freeze into a solid wall that can’t be destroyed. It’s good for getting away during a wide-gap chase where survivors are just following your snow trail.
If you’re outed as the traitor, that’s your ticket to Run and Chug. Try to remember where the nearest hatch is so you can make a quick escape.
Sabotaged 2 man bunkers will explode. I’ve never seen it damage anyone since no one’s ever been at the door when it happens, but they’ll also spawn a single wolf. 3 man bunkers will explode as well, but spawn 2 wolves. This is like this solely so if a Traitor is present, he can start beating the other 2 people that helped him open them to death, as well as just frustrate/injure survivors.
The map with the massive chasm to the northwest has 5 bridges. One of them requires 2 players to be on the other side of the gorge to lower the big bridge. It takes 24 Traitor credits to blow up every bridge (8 traitor crates) and will force the players to make Cogs to even get to the other side. If you get someone to go alone across the last one, it’ll be impossible for them to get back since they’ll be unable to open bunkers and just die of natural causes far out of ear shot.
The giant chasm is a great place to throw useful resources and dead bodies.
You can put resources into the outhouse near the cabin by looking down from behind it. You can either open it up to get them, or retrieve them from behind it.
If you’re behind the outhouse, you can put a landmine down to cause survivors to panic while being completely hidden. As soon as everyone runs off to check the Power Station you can just sneak into the Cabin. Bonus points if someone runs past the outhouse and blows up. It’s also a great time to go inside and yoink all the resources someone’s got in the chest.
It’s in your best interest as a Traitor to make the wrong part and store them back in the chest. Or craft them into something even more useless. Cogs would mean you make Electronics out of the Wood and Stone to make Radios. Electronics would just mean you need to make a bunch of melee weapons, since everyone already has them and they don’t stack to clutter inventories.
While rare, you can find the Helipad in a convenient location where you can get on the upper platform before the doors even open. Use this to landmine and bear trap the hell out of it.
Don’t get into fistfights because of accidental punches at game-start. It takes longer than you’d think, and if a player gets downed by another player they’ll have critical health and hunger when they get back up, forcing them to go to the cabin, as well as go punch berries for food. They’ll also be at half health till they get to herbs.
Never announce that you have to escape without eating berries, or herbs. Poison, specifically, will screw you over severely.
You can’t poison herbs or first aid kits.
“Leader” type players are exquisite targets for Traitors, and should be taken out with extreme prejudice.
A really good way to pick someone off is find the Truth Serum’s farthest point, disappear, and wait there. If you’re with people who consistently do the Truth Serum, especially. If you wanna plan for this quickly, grab both ore at the beginning of the game, make a pickaxe, mine a vein to the east for a quick landmine, head to it and trap the serum point of choice. After it goes off, 2 half-swings with a pickaxe is all it’ll take to kill them. Drag their body off to avert suspicion and say they were running off somewhere. It’s pretty suss, but it’s 5v2 so who cares?
Be very, very careful about when you say you’re super low on health, even if someone’s offering you a medkit.
Offer people medkits if they’re alone and you’re a Traitor. If they want it, there’s a good chance 2 pickaxe swings is all it’ll take to kill them.
Most people call Mechanical Parts Cogs, Electronic Parts Chips, and Fuel, Fuel.
At the start of the game, as Traitor, get your plan out to the other Traitor as fast as humanly possible. Some players like to make Radios very very fast, and even if it’s a 50/50, it can get you outed early, especially with an iconic voice. It might as well be a 20 second window with some people. It can backfire, however, as now you have a Radio on you early and will throw off other survivors if you die with it on you.
The escape pod can be sabotaged and it’s one of the more particularly deadly sabotages in the game. It is an instant kill, and your body is left exactly where you entered the pod. It also still announces that you escaped, so people might not even know you died.
Melee weapons have a particularly wide swing, and if you charge them just before the maximum, you’ll hit people a little behind you and to your character’s right, without the full charge delay. You can do this on complete “Accident” while gathering resources with survivors. Be sure to apologize.
Bears can’t follow you into buildings of any kind, and wolves won’t follow you up ramps or over bridges. Neither will bears.
It’s never a bad idea to carry different kinds of parts on your person when looking for the second objective, since it never needs more than 12 of 1 part. Just 2 people carrying 3, for example, is enough to get it halfway done at least.
You’d be surprised at what you can and can’t climb. Go exploring.

I Ran Out of Section Names That Make Sense

While far from graceful, not elegant, and extremely obnoxious, breathing viciously into your microphone is a great way to mask the screams of someone you’re killing. This works very well if the person being murdered is notably soft spoken. It’s also even better if they’re doing it through the radio, if you have the same one.
If the Traitor’s been gone for a very, very, very long time it’s safe to assume he’s laid at least 8 mines on the last objective, even if he never sabotaged the first one.
You can hold Shift and Click to move a whole stack into another inventory, or something back into yours, rather than dragging or right clicking 3 times.
While it’s incredibly Suss and incredibly dangerous, going out to 2 squares to find the Helipad and actually succeeding will hurt the Traitors, since you’ll at least know where the Helipad isn’t.
If someone picks up a Radio and it ends up in their hand, they already have a Radio. Depending on what time this happens, it can be either uninteresting, or extremely suspicious.
As a Traitor, call out everything you see that’s close to suspicious activity, but never really press it. It’ll cause the group to be less likely to move as a blob during the mid-game, if it’s accurate.
Asking someone to scroll through their inventory doesn’t work against good traitors. They can just pick 3 items and rifle their fingers across 3 specific numbers. Asking them to drop everything is about as effective, which is to imply that it isn’t.
Stowing away random radios in somewhat poorly hidden places is a great way to get random people suddenly on them. People hearing others all of a sudden and having never crafted one can be suspicious. Hell, you can just drop your original radio behind the outhouse at round start to cause the same effect.
Never try to kill a Bear with a gun when you’re by yourself unless its a Shotgun, and even then, you’re better off using a Melee weapon to stun it from behind. Actually, in all honesty, always use Melee weapons to kill bears.
The only things better at killing Dying Survivors faster than a Melee weapon is a shotgun, but it’s very loud. You don’t need to wait too long between shots.
If the survivors are locked in a heated argument, the Traitors are gaining the lead. You can solve this by trying to be constructive while also bickering at each other.
One of the very best things you can do as a Survivor, is to deduce calmly and eloquently. Yelling about people is frustrating, and some folks will outright ignore you just because it annoys them. Besides, instead of arguing, you can just quickly do the Truth Serum to settle an argument. You also get 8 whole crates for your trouble.
The person who has to help open the Truth Serum Lab should automatically pair up with the person that needs to open a bunch of crates.
“I have to kill 3 animals” is a great response to anyone that asks a traitor what they’re objective is.
A really good way to “Tank” the traitor is to hold multiple medkits. There can be 3 in a stack, to boot, which is essentially 3000 hp as a Survivor.
Making pot pies makes you a god among men, because there’s literally no immediate problem they can’t solve. They heal as much as an Herb, restore more warmth than Vodka, and give back a ton of food.
Ironically, one of the best places to kill someone is the Truth Serum Lab, since any sound made inside of it is significantly reduced. Melee weapon noises are nearly nonexistent, and no one’s going to walk in if Truth Serum has already been taken. It’s literally the worst place to get tranq’d and melee’d to death.
Every now and again you’re going to get those games where nothing makes sense, the survivors are brain dead, the traitors are brain dead, and all rational thought has long since abandoned the lobby. The game may as well be constant rabbits. If you know what’s best for you you’ll keep your health, food, and warmth high and stash away parts entirely on your own. The only way to win in a situation like that is to entirely dedicate yourself to being a craft junky. It’ll be incredibly close, but a single person can actually do all of the escape parts entirely on their own.
Don’t get mad at people that are incredibly new at the game under any circumstances. If you’re a Survivor and they’re totally new, simple slip-ups can trip them up, such as “What’s your bonus objective?” and “Hey, what colors your radio?” are all it takes to out them. If they shoot straight, you just bought yourself 4 extra inventory slots. Have them follow you around like a lost puppy, but also explain everything you can in detail. If they are a traitor, kill them instantly so they learn their mistake quickly.
Feigning complete and total ignorance and tagging along like a lost puppy removes way more suspicion than it really should. Thankfully it only works once on a fresh batch of people, till you get Traitor… Remember, there’s a big difference between Ignorance and Stupidity.
It is very difficult to deal with a traitor that’s feigning innocence by staying close to the cabin and nuking your resources whilst the other runs and chugs, poisoning every bunker they can find and laying tons of traps on objectives.
You’ll do a lot better as a Traitor if you can successfully plan ahead, instead of just running around chugging energy drinks and praying for good loot. Creativity is greatly rewarded, and there’s way more than 1 way to skin a cat.

Project Winter Guide