Casualties: Unknown beginner's guide
Last updated Unofficial fan guide
Casualties: Unknown simulates your body limb by limb, so small problems grow: dirty groundwater makes you sick, and a wound left below about 80 skin health can get infected. These are the priorities for your first descent, the needs you have to watch, and the common mistakes. Many tips come from a fan guide written for the demo, so they are marked where the 1.0 release may have changed them.
Your character
Three characters: the Experiment (start), the Milky (unlock by finishing any ending as the Experiment) and the Dune (unlock by finishing any ending as the Milky).
First-hour priorities
Do the built-in tutorial first
Basic Training teaches controls; the First Aid course unlocks after reaching layer 2 and Crafting after layer 3.
Pick Normal (or Relaxed/Paradise) for a first run
Run presets change loot, traps and starting kit; Relaxed and Paradise start with a lantern, trash bag, water bottle and dog food.
Move the emergency light to your off-hand and save itFrom the demo; may have changed in 1.0
You start in a drop pod holding a one-use emergency light (Normal); switch hands with Q.
First craft: a canteen
Break rubber flooring for 2 chunks of plastic, get rope (2 foliage) and 10 mL bio-chem (from a glowplant fruit), then craft a canteen.
Explore sideways before going downNot yet confirmedFrom the demo; may have changed in 1.0
Sweep each layer in an S-shape to find loot before descending.
Favourite important items with FNot yet confirmedFrom the demo; may have changed in 1.0
Favourited items are not used up by recipes or ripped by accident (bags, digging tools).
Read every E-PDA and blueprint
They give INT experience; INT unlocks recipes, and crafting below the INT requirement can fail.
Get head protection earlyNot yet confirmedFrom the demo; may have changed in 1.0
Hunt shade crawlers for stiff carcasses to build a makeshift helmet, then upgrade to bicycle and riot helmets; brain damage is crippling.
Throw a glowplant fruit down before jumpingNot yet confirmedFrom the demo; may have changed in 1.0
It lights dark drops and sets off traps.
Survival basics
Keep an eye on these needs and injuries. Each one has its own page with the in-game stages and how to treat it.
- HungerHunger drops about 2.6 points per minute; below zero you starve and limbs lose muscle health until death.
- ThirstThirst falls over time and faster in heat; severe dehydration thickens and reduces blood.
- BleedingBlood loss from wounds; heavy or catastrophic bleeding kills by dropping blood pressure.
- InfectionWounds with poor skin health can get infected; untreated infection spreads and leads to sepsis.
- Cold / hypothermiaLow body temperature slows you and eventually kills; deadly in Frozen Chasm and when wet.
- Exhaustion / sleepEnergy drains over time (about 24 minutes from full to empty by default); at 0% you collapse asleep.
- Mood / depressionLow mood makes everything harder and below -70 can trigger depressive episodes, including self-harm; mood also sets your last-stand chance.
- SicknessNausea that saps mood, immunity and energy and can make you vomit away food, water and blood.
- Brain damageHead hits and lack of oxygen damage the brain, causing dropped items, random ragdolls, mirrored screen and vomiting; at 0% you die.
Staying alive deeper down
Assume a landmine under everythingNot yet confirmedFrom the demo; may have changed in 1.0
Traps hide behind plants, corpses and in liquids; most can be disarmed by breaking blocks under them.
Avoid flowing water and break geysersNot yet confirmedFrom the demo; may have changed in 1.0
Flowing water is very dangerous.
Stop drinking when the sickness moodle appears
Dirty groundwater makes you sick; boil it into clean water.
Bandage wounds to keep skin health above 80
This prevents infections.
Tourniquet big bleeds, then replace bloodNot yet confirmedFrom the demo; may have changed in 1.0
For more than ~1 L/min, tourniquet the limb, inject blood/Ringer's, then bandage.
Keep mood up
Low mood causes depressive episodes and lowers last-stand odds; naptails help.
Stay under ~30% encumbranceNot yet confirmedFrom the demo; may have changed in 1.0
Use containers and drop heavy junk.
Clean up before trading with survivorsNot yet confirmedFrom the demo; may have changed in 1.0
Wash, empty your mouth slot and put away guns before approaching survivors in life pods.
Hurry through layers 9-10
Pressure keeps building and causes barotrauma.
Use run settings if it is too hard
Loot, danger, modifiers and many other values are adjustable from the main menu.
Common mistakes
using a splint on a working limbNot yet confirmed
Splints immobilize the limb (in-game description).
leaving a tourniquet on
After ~9 minutes it rapidly damages muscle.
sleeping wet in Fungal Pools
Sleep inside life pods there or you may freeze.