Casualties Unknown beginner guide

The game tells you that survival chances are near zero and that you should expect to die a lot. confirmed Dying is how you learn here, so treat your first few runs as lessons rather than attempts to win.

How do you start your first run in Casualties Unknown?

Do the tutorial. The game prompts you to, and it was reworked in 6.0 with several courses. confirmed Two advanced courses unlock as you progress: reach layer 2 for First Aid and layer 3 for Crafting. The developer locked them so new players “don’t spend an hour straight on tutorials”. confirmed

Then pick a run setting you are comfortable with and descend.

What should you do first after landing?

This order comes from a beginner crafting guide. confirmed

1. Plastic. Break the rubber floor of your pod for plastic.
2. Rope. Two foliage make one rope.
3. Bio-chem fluid. Craft it from a glow fruit.
4. Canteen. Combine them. Fill it with groundwater when you find some.
5. Foliage bag. Eight foliage in total, including the canvas and rope.
6. Dressings. Three foliage make a canvas, which becomes ripped dressings.

Keep your first canteen for crafting liquids, and store it in the bag. Falling into a pool will fill anything loose with water. confirmed

Press F on any item you want to protect from crafting recipes. confirmed

Which Casualties Unknown controls are not obvious?

Input	What it does	Status
Hold Left Ctrl	Shows labels for all nearby items	confirmed
C	Crafting recipes	confirmed
F	Favourite an item	confirmed
Q	Swap hands	reported
X	Ragdoll on purpose	confirmed
Shift-drag	Move a whole container’s contents	confirmed
Mouse over the dark	Your cursor labels whatever it touches	confirmed

You also no longer auto-jump by holding space, as of 7.0. Tap it, and buffered inputs help with frame-one jumps. confirmed Wall jumps have coyote time, so you can start moving away first. confirmed

How do you raise your stats quickly?

Your traits are Intelligence, Strength and Resilience. confirmed The fastest early boost is reading E-PDAs in life pods, 35 INT each as of 7.0. Blueprints give 25. confirmed You can take a battery from the life pod’s ceiling light to power one, at some cost to your reputation with any Survivor there. confirmed

Haggling also trains Intelligence, and working out trains the body, which you can do from the bottom right of the health menu. confirmed

How do you avoid dying in the first few layers?

Forum veterans summarise it in a few lines: glass shards are bad, red lights are bad, keep clean, stay fed and stay hydrated. reported

• Respect falls. A single bad drop causes a lot of the damage you take early on.
• Check ceilings and floors before committing to a jump.
• Fight near walls. Enemies usually bite and back off.
• Eat before you are starving. Hunger and thirst also drag your mood down.

Forum players who repeatedly die by layer 3 are told the same thing: learning to craft well stops most of it, and produce juice and foliage meals save runs. reported

Can you save in Casualties Unknown?

You can save at the end of a layer, choosing to save and quit or to continue. reported Players do not expect saving in the middle of a layer in the full game. Press pause and leave if you need to step away. reported A community console command, saveandquit, also exists, which puts you back at the start of the layer when you return. reported

The pause menu was added in 7.0, and the game keeps running in the background unless you pause it. confirmed Last stand also carries over when saving and quitting. confirmed

If the game crashes, loading your save starts you at the last checkpoint you reached. Back up your saves if you are trying something risky.

What movement tricks help beginners?

Two are worth learning early. Throwing a heavy item during a jump gives you a small boost in that direction. Ragdolling with X lets you wiggle through two-block gaps, but you are more easily injured while limp. confirmed

Scrap can also be placed as a block when held in your main hand, which can save you from a fall. confirmed

What should you read next?

Once you are past the tutorial, these three pages matter the most: bleeding, crafting and enemies and traps.