9 Into the Radius VR Tips and Tricks to Help You Survive the Zone
Into the Radius is a surreal VR Survival Shooter where you take the role of a Stalker tasked by the UNPSC to explore the Pechorsk Zone, complete missions, and return with valuable artifacts. Pechorsk is, however, covered with hostile entities and dangerous anomalies, which means any new Stalker has a pretty short life expectancy. So increase your odds in Into the Radius by using some of these Tips and Tricks.
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Use Your Whole Body’s Inventory
Into the Radius gives you more than the usual amount of storage slots on your body, so be sure to make use of them. It’s a good idea to keep a knife on one of your arm slots so that you can quickly access it in case you need to stab something, like the Orbs left behind by Fragment enemies. Probes can go in the other arm slot, so that you can quickly whip them out when travelling in anomaly filled areas.
You also get two shoulder slots, and your artifact detector should go in at least one of them so that you can easily hear it click when an artifact is nearby. You can put one of those old soviet style pocket flashlights in the other, and when it is turned on the light will move to match the direction of your body. It you have a headlamp you can always replace the flashlight in that shoulder slot with something more useful, like a grenade or a monocular.
Being able to quickly access the items you need can be the difference between life and death in the Pechorsk Zone, and at the very least is really convenient. The pouch on your hip can also store items you might need during your travels, or can be a nice place to quickly store loot while on the move.
You will also notice the four magazine pouches you have on your chest. You might want to leave one of them empty so that when you reload you have a place to put the empty magazine that you are taking out of your gun, so that you don’t have to drop it on the ground to free up your hand so you can pick up a fresh one.
2. Feed Yourself
When looking at your watch you might notice a blue bar underneath your red health bar. This is your energy bar. It will deplete when you run, and over time it will get shorter and shorter, with the right half of it being replaced by yellow dots.
These dots represent your character’s hunger, and they will accumulate faster when you are carrying a lot of weight and sprinting a lot. So make sure to always bring food on long expeditions, one can’s worth should be enough to keep you sprinting as much as you like. So keep an eye on your energy bar, you don’t want to run out of energy trying to sprint your way to cover in the middle of a gunfight.
3. Virtual Stock Can Help Keep Your Gun Steady
Though opinions vary on this tip, some have said that enabling the Virtual Stock option in the Settings Menu has made their aiming, especially when sniping, more steady. Whether or not you have an actual physical Gun Stock for your controllers, this setting is worth trying out. You may or may not aim more steadily while using it, so give it a try!
4. Maintain Your Equipment
In Into the Radius you need to take care of your equipment if it is going to take care of you. So make a habit of checking periodically if your equipment needs to be maintained. Armor that’s full as holes won’t protect you, and neither will a rifle that is constantly jamming.
Anything you wear, like Gas Masks and Armor, will also lose durability as you take damage, and will completely disappear if it runs out. Those you can only repair by using the repair bay in the trailer at your base. The same goes for knives, which can deteriorate pretty quickly if you use them often enough.
For your firearms it is especially prudent to repair them sooner rather than later, as they can be repaired easily in the vice by using the ramrod and cleaning paper. Wait too long and you will need to use expensive lubricant spray and the brush. Magazines also need to be maintained, though the lubricant and brush is all that will work on them.
Of course you can always use the repair bay if you don’t want to bother with any of that, but it will cost you more.
5. Anomalies Are Not Always Visible
While anomalies will leave traces of their presence, and sometimes outright show where they are, don’t depend on seeing these before you wander right into them. While you’ll still need to keep an eye out for some like the Web or Black Grass anomalies, generally you should always test the ground in front of you with probes while walking through open spaces.
Sometimes you might walk directly into a Distortion or Electric anomaly if you don’t throw a probe in front of you. No matter how vigilant you are with your eyes and ears, it’s always safer to throw a probe.
6. Artifacts Are Good Money
Money will get you all of the equipment, guns, and bullets that you will need to survive deeper and deeper in the Pechorsk Radius. The first way you will discover to make money is by doing contract jobs for the UNPSC. While you can definitely make good money by doing those, you can make even better money hunting for artifacts. The UNPSC will buy them off of you, and they are plentiful and easy to find.
Just look for large fields of anomalies and pull out your detector, artifacts will generally be nearby. Keep in mind that there is always a safe path through a field of anomalies that leads to the artifacts inside. Just take it slow and use your probes to find the safe route to those delicious goodies, and you’ll practically be printing cash.
The more you hunt for artifacts, the better you’ll get at it. Combining artifact hunting with contracts from the terminal is a great way to make more money in less time. Artifacts will also respawn with each Tide, so your income potential is unlimited.
Scientific items like Weather Monitors and Sample Containers are also profitable to get your hands on out in the zone. Try not to waste your time lugging back food items and flares, they don’t sell for much.
7. Always Be Ready To Fight
Not all enemies make a lot of noise before you see them, or they see you. Even approaching each new area methodically, you can sometimes be surprised. They might see you while you are in the middle of something else, like hunting for an artifact with your detector, or doing inventory management. So in general always make sure that at least one weapon you have is loaded and ready to go.
You also don’t have to pull out the entire magazine and empty it to see how many rounds are inside, just hold the weapon in your hand and hold down the B or Y button (depending on which hand it is in). This will not only display the weapon’s durability and statistics, but also the amount of bullets in its magazine.
This also means not getting caught with your safety on or running out of ammunition. No matter what you should always be ready for a fight in Into the Radius, if you aren’t then you better get back to base and get ready for one. Otherwise you might end up fighting with nothing but a knife.
8. Get Important Equipment ASAP
There are a few pieces of equipment that, no matter what weapons you have, you should get as soon as you can. While what guns you use in your loadout is pretty subjective, and there are a lot of choices, you cannot go without these things.
When you unlock Security Level 2 make sure you buy a Gas Mask and a Head Lamp. The Gas Mask is a must have for traversing gas anomalies, and will also give you some general anomalous protection when you have it on. Some anomaly fields will be impossible to traverse without the gas mask. All of the artifacts you’ll be able to get with the Gas Mask will make it pay for itself.
The Head Lamp sits on your head, never needs to be repaired, and give you light instantly by putting your controller on your head and pressing trigger. The light follows where you look, meaning you no longer have to bother juggling pesky Flashlights anymore, and save inventory slots for more important items.
At Security Level 3 it is extremely beneficial to buy body armor, and the helmet. These increase your protection against claws and bullets a lot, and will save you from death more times than you will even realize. Always wear body armor when out in the Zone, and always wear your helmet when you don’t wear your Gas Mask.
9. Don’t Get Caught in the Tide
Time is strange in the Pechorsk Zone, and can move very quickly. So always take a look at your Tidemeter before every raid, and if you have less than half a day or so to pop in and out of the Radius, maybe just sleep through the tide instead.
If you get caught inside Pechorsk during the tide you will be transported to a random place within the zone. Since the Tide also respawns all of Pechorsk’s enemies and shifts all of the anomalies around, you may find yourself very far away from home and with no cleared path back to your home base. So make sure to keep an eye on the Tidemeter, and make sure you get home before it hits zero.
That’s all of the tips we have for now. Good luck out there in the Zone!
Into the Radius is a fantastic VR game inspired by the book Roadside Picnic which also inspired the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games. It is 29.99$ on Steam and the Oculus Store, and will soon get a port to the Quest 2, so stay tuned for that.
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