EFT Tutorial and Guide
THE TARKOV CENTRAL
Weight
EFT is a hardcore simulation game, so movement and physics are realistic, including inertia that increases as you get weighed down by collected items like weapons, gear, or loot.
Effects and penalties
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The heavier you are, the slower and noisier your movements will be. Your footsteps will be audible from a greater distance, making you easier to locate, especially in online raids with other players.
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The slower you move, the easier a target you become for enemies.
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The heavier you are, the faster your stamina will drain while running. Beyond a certain weight limit (determined by your Strength skill and temporary boosts from stims), you won’t regenerate stamina while walking.
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Additionally, with more weight, you won’t jump as high, and if you jump from too great a height, you’ll take more fall damage, with a higher possibility of breaking your legs.
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Lastly, the heavier you are, the more you’ll feel the effects of inertia on your character. It will take longer to reach maximum running speed and longer to stop. It will also be harder to turn.
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At extreme weight, you won’t be able to jump or sprint, your maximum speed will be reduced almost to zero, and your stamina will deplete very quickly, even while walking.
For these reasons, learning to quickly drop your backpack on the ground is essential (just be careful where you throw it and remember where you left it!).
This trick is vital if you’re about to face enemies while carrying a heavy backpack (to move faster, be quieter, consume less stamina, etc.) or if you need to perform actions like jumping over a gap or jumping from a height (to reduce fall damage).
Note: Your weight, by influencing movement speed and inertia, will also affect your character’s turning speed, requiring you to move the mouse differently to center your target, effectively altering mouse sensitivity.
All weight penalties are mitigated by your Strength skill (and consequently by stims that boost it).
Green, yellow and red
You can check your weight in the inventory screen. When the weight value turns from green to yellow, it indicates you are overweight and will start experiencing some penalties. If it turns red, you are severely overweight and will face the most significant penalties.
In addition to that, you can also see you’re overweight by the icon shown on the top right of your health status HUD. That icon too turns red when you become extremely overweight.
Tip: Determined and persistent players, when critically overweight, instead of dropping some of their valuable loot, or crawling at the minimum speed, use a creative technique to reach the extraction point faster. They utilize the "drop backpack" function by throwing the backpack ahead, taking a few steps forward with no weight, turning back to pick it up, and repeating the process. This method allows them to move faster than carrying the backpack on their shoulders. It’s a gruelling tactic, but it gets the job done.
The weight thresholds depend on your character's Strength skill value, so the exact points where changes occur varies. However, it's important to note that penalties are gradually applied even within each level as your weight increases.
You can monitor your maximum speed in the lower-left corner of your screen, over the legs and arms stamina bars. The arrow indicates your current speed and adjusts automatically when your maximum speed decreases. It also changes when you press CAPS LOCK to toggle between maximum and minimum speeds, use the mouse wheel to adjust speed, or alter your stance.
Green Zone (less than about 26 kg) - Underweight
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You will move with the lesser penalties, but as weight increases, you will still get gradually slower and make more noise.
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You regain legs stamina while walking
Yellow Zone (more than 26 kg, les than 77 kg) - Overweight
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You make significantly more noise and move slower.
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Your jumps are shorter both in height and distance.
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Walking drains your stamina. Until a certain weight, around 45-47 kg (determined by your Strength skill), you regain stamina faster than you consume it. So it still increases. As you increase your weight, the maximum speed is reduced even more, you regain less stamina than what you consume, so your character will start to deplete stamina also while walking.
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If you move in the prone position, you can still regain stamina while moving.
Red Zone (more than 77 kg) - Critical Overweight
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Your character cannot run any more, the maximum speed is severely reduced, and it will start to consume a great amount of stamina when moving in any stance.
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You won't regain stamina even when moving prone.
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You can't fully stand up. You're slightly crouched all the time because of the wight.
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You can regain stamina only when not moving while crouching (at the lowest height) or prone.
Currently, these thresholds are approximate, but I plan to test further and provide updated values soon. However, the most important things to know are the effects and penalties that are brought by weight and the 3 zones.