Insurgentips – A Beginners Guide To Insurgencys Co-op Modes!

Overview

PSA: Please rate the guide for visibility. Thank you!A simple collection of gameplay tips. Get an injection of FPS common sense and improve your co-op game right away!Intended for new players! – At the time I’m not playing a lot of Insurgency anymore but the information you find in this guide should still hold up just fine.

Table of contents

Here’s what you’ll find in this little guide for new Insurgency co-op players:

• Introduction to the game
• General co-op
• Checkpoint
• Conquer
• Hunt
• Outpost
• Survival
• Official maps – Available game modes
• Feedback, Suggestions & Corrections

Every section has a description of the game mode in its title and a handful of tips that apply mostly to that game mode.

It’s possible we might be throwing in a little more information about maps, perhaps doing a little (video) guide per checkpoint map, for example.

Introduction to the game

What’s the deal here?
Does this game have a story? I don’t even know. It’s the age old concept of good versus bad. In modern times, soldier versus terrorist.
You play as either a member of the security forces or the insurgents. You have lots of shoot outs over some sandy places in the middle east.

The basics
In Insurgency you, after joining a server, choose a role in the squad which determines the equipment available to you. There’s a maximum of eight roles available (depending on wether you play the security forces or the insurgents) and each role can be taken by a single player, meaning ofcourse that a co-op game will consist of no more than eight players.

There’s a generous five game modes available for fans of co-op action! Besides that you can play on a few different difficulty levels.

Equipment
Players can choose their own load-out by spending equipment points. You acquire points by completing objectives. Alternatively you get a set amount at the start of the game which does not increase.

Everything costs points. Primary, secondary weapons. Armour, thrown items/equipment. With a limited number of points comes a forced choice, you have to decide what’s more important and spend points to equip yourself with those items.
Some items are ofcourse cheaper than others. Choosing to focus on your primary weapon will mean you’ll have to compromise in other areas.

Additionally, you have a maximum carry weight! So combinations including several heavy things are impossible in an unmodified game. Keep an eye on the bar at the bottom of the load-out screen to see how much you can carry.

-Press M to open the load-out screen. From there you can also open the squad (so role) selection screen.

General co-op

Some tips that apply to all co-op modes in the game.

Load-out

• When playing hardcore or elite mode, try to have AP ammo on all equipped weapons.
• Don’t always go for the scope with the biggest zoom, it’ll make aiming with your primary weapon indoors next to impossible. Find a balance!
• Pick a scope suitable for the map. In small maps with good visibility, you don’t need a big scope on an accurate weapon.
• If you are out of points but can carry more stuff, always bring along a free pistol. Even without any modifications like AP ammo, it’s good to have a back-up weapon besides the knife.
• A laser attachment can be useful when you’re caught off-guard by an enemy at close range. If you see well enough in darkness, you can also take this instead of the flashlight.
• When using a sniper rifle or light machine gun, a bipod is extremely useful when defending an area. It gives you great stability – just make sure that a teammate has your back when you’re sitting still.

Movement & positioning

• Crouch whenever you’re leading the pack at a low speed.
• If you have your back against the wall, allow others to move in front of you by standing up.
• When moving through a hallway into a new room, having one player sticking to each wall and facing the opposite direction (still forward, ofcourse) is a good way of clearing it.
• Hit your crouch button while running to slide forward on your knees. This is incredibly useful when you’re running and getting shot at, use it to slide behind cover before returning fire.

Combat

• Single shot firing mode is your friend! Experienced players do well with auto and burst fire modes, but many beginners don’t handle the recoil well. Change that fire mode and control your shots!
• Avoid moving into the firing line of other players during combat, especially that of a support player using a light machine gun. If they have plenty of targets to shoot at, they’ll fire often and you getting in front of them will result in you dying and possibly the enemy NOT dying, which can ofcourse result in more player deaths. Listen to teammates (esp. support, sniper, designated marksman players) giving a heads up about their position.
• Need to reload while having a weapon mounted on a bipod in a window? Take it down and hide behind cover if you’re being shot at! Reloading takes relatively long and not being able to fire back at enemies just makes you a sitting duck for them.
• If you want to throw a grenade, try pulling the pin while in cover before moving out and throwing it, to avoid being shot at during the lengthy motion/animation.
• Use smoke to get through an area without cover. Just be careful when you leave the safety of the smoke!
• RPG’s are the bane of your existance, but they’re also pretty useful in clearing out areas from a distance. If you have the opportunity to (for example) fire one into a window of a building filled with hostiles, do it!

Teamplay

• Explosions are big in this game. Be safe and give your teammates a heads up before you use any, unless you are sure that they’re not in any danger.
• Don’t rush to objectives with the whole team every single time. Rushing makes it easy for you to miss an enemy lying in wait or to be taken out by a single explosive easily. Can’t blow up that cache when you’re dead, now can you?
• Get out of the way of a teammate attempting to use a grenade! They’ll go off after a few seconds and have to be thrown. If you’re in the way, you could get (for example) burnt and killed instantly.
• Watch your teammate’s back when he’s reloading! By sheer coincidence, bots often take advantage of a player’s downtime.
• Tell teammates of grenades lying around. Not everyone has them in their load out and they can come in handy pretty often, especially the incendiary grenades and molotovs for blowing up caches. Additionally, don’t forget that a player’s C4 can also be picked up! Don’t let them go to waste.

Enemy behaviour

• Bots are crazy about RPG’s. You will be killed by these often if you’re actively supporting your team. Get used to it!
• Listen carefully for audio cues indicating that enemies are throwing grenades. If they don’t use the word “smoke”, assume it’s a fragmentation grenade and run out of harms way.
• Bots become almost completely harmless while in smoke. Look carefully to distinguish silhouettes and you’ll have the easiest time killing them.
• Enemies will sometimes walk around with live grenades (also molotovs). They’ll drop and go off when you kill them, so keep an eye out for any enemy not holding a rifle or sidearm.

Checkpoint

Right, the first mode. Move to objectives and capture, defend or blow them up.
After spawning you move to objectives in order (alpha, beta, charlie, delta, etcetera!). Some will be capture points, others will be weapon and ammo caches. The next objective will appear on your screen with the letter and type.

Capture: Move into the area, make sure it’s clear and simply wait until it turns blue. All players in the area get credit for the capture, as indicated by the message that the objective was captured by <list of player names>. If you’re not seeing the blue line going around the icon, you’re not at the actual objective yet.
All deceased players will respawn when an objective is captured. Unless it turns into a..

Hold out: Some capture objectives will become hold out objectives. Indicated by the mission timer temporarily making place for a countdown timer (between one and two minutes long) and often also by one of the player’s characters saying something about insurgents coming.
Players do NOT respawn when this happens until the end of the hold out, as long as there is one player still alive.

Destroy: In every checkpoint game, there will be a couple of caches that have to be destroyed. Use explosives or fire to get rid of them. Once destroyed, everyone who died will respawn again. What can you use to take care of these caches?
-Two frag grenades.
-One incendiary grenade or molotov.
-One C4 charge.
-One RPG. (direct hit only!)

——————————

Checkpoint tips

• There are no infinite enemy spawns in this game mode. As long as you work within the time limit, you can go slow, efficiently clearing areas and hunting down your enemies.
• Insurgents can drop frag grenades, molotov cocktails, RPG’s as well as smoke and incendiary grenades. With a lot of enemies assaulting your team, you CAN rely on these drops to acquire explosives rather than spending supply points to spawn with them.
• Don’t rush to blow up caches. When that turns into a contest, players more easily overlook an enemy and get shot, or (more than) half the team gets blown up by a single grenade or RPG.

Conquer

Now here you’ll be doing something different. Here you will be taking three objectives and attempting to keep them.

Cover the bases!
Instead of progressing through an area on a set route, you now have complete freedom in moving about a map. Three objectives are active permanently and it’s your job to capture all of them. You win when all three are held by your team. So basically, when the letters A, B and C are blue (captured by your team) on your screen and NOT flashing (uncontested), you’re done!

The teams
The insurgents will not stop respawning. They’ll be scattered around the map initially but will also group up into clusters to assault the objectives you’ve captured or are trying to capture. Your teammates on the other hand, only respawn when an objective is captured. You can decrease the amount of insurgents’ respawns by blowing up caches that you may find at random locations scattered around the map. Blowing up a cache does NOT respawn dead players!

——————————

Conquer Tips

• If you’re the last survivor, don’t defend a captured objective until death. Go out and capture another objective to respawn your teammates.
• Since some objectives are harder to capture or defend than others, consider picking specific orders for taking them when with a smaller team to accomodate for player respawns and such.

Hunt

This game mode will, depending on the map size, usually see you ending the game quite quickly. Definitively recommended if you want to play a shorter game.

Ssshh, we are wooking for tewwowists!
In Hunt, you’re hunting down two things. The first one is a single weapons and ammo cache which is located at one of three objectives. It will be placed at one of them randomly so you will have to check them each time you play. The second thing is a limited amount of insurgents. You actually have a counter now that tells you exactly how many insurgents have been spawned (no respawns) and how many have been killed by you or your teammate(s).

——————————

Hunt Tips

• Try to be silent to avoid attracting a large group of enemies at once – don’t become the hunted!
• Don’t rush to the cache and risk getting killed, the game doesn’t end when it’s destroyed.
• If a couple explosions don’t lure in the remaining enemies, you will have to actually hunt them down. They tend to be scattered across the map.

Outpost

Find out what it’s like to be on the other side! While being on the same side as normal!
Defend a cache with your life. Insurgents will flood into the area, trying to get to the cache so they can destroy it. Try to find a good position and make sure the terrorists don’t touch your stuff.
You gain a level with your team by beating a wave of enemies. Every few levels (check) your dead teammates will respawn so you can keep going.

Defend the goods
The key to victory here is positioning. Since you’ve just got one object to defend, you want to simply cover all the entrances and make sure that players can support eachother without having to turn a blind eye to any direction.

——————————

Outpost Tips

• Set your light machine gun up using the bipod. This is a game mode for campers.
• Change your load-out to suit the situation. Do you need that laser sight when you’re camping? Perhaps you’d prefer C4 over the grenade launcher, or maybe you just want a smoke or incendiary grenade which you can resupply and use to deny enemies (easy) entry into the area.
• If your team is large enough, don’t put yourself in a situation where you have to move around to cover two sides by yourself. Ask a teammate to change their location to divide the workload properly.

Survival

The only co-operative game mode where you play as the bad guys. You are an insurgent and you have to not only survive, but (re)take objectives as well. You start off with next to no supply points and acquire more by capturing objectives.

Hit, cap & run!
In Survival, you are almost constantly moving around the map. A captured objective disappears and activates another objective. There are always two objectives active on the map. Only one can be taken at any time, and to capture one you have to be on the spot with the majority of living players. Because objectives disappear when taken, there is no point in defending those locations for very long.

Gear up
Unfair as it might be, you start with a single supply point. Want to get more stuff to shoot/throw at the security forces? You gain an extra point every time your team captures an objective while you are ALIVE. There is a maximum of 30 supply points, though. So when you’ve captured that many objectives and picked a load-out that you’re happy with, you can save some time by not going into the equipment selection screen anymore.

——————————

Survival Tips

• Don’t bother camping unless you’re trying to take an objective.
• Don’t take crazy risks! You don’t get supply points when you’re dead, after all.
• If there’s a bunch of people at one objective and you’re at another, try to move to their location so your team can capture it with the majority of living players.
• With few supply points, focus on what’s most important. I recommend picking a decent weapon and getting AP ammo for that first before going for a sidearm, thrown items and armour or a vest.

Official maps – Available game modes

The maps that come with the game! Most maps have day and night versions and have different game modes available to them.

-Checkpoint only has the day time versions of maps available.
-Siege is only available as a day time map.

Feedback, Suggestions & Corrections

Thanks for all positive and/or helpful feedback and critique!
Corrections are ofcourse very welcome.

Additional tips from commenters are going to be added in another section soon and assuming everyone is okay with it (I don’t see why not, we can see it in your comment anyway), the name as a link to the poster’s steam profile will be added along with them.

Please hang on!