After living in the Checkmate CZ for the last month (mostly alone), I’ve picked up on a few things that have kept me alive and helped get me to the loot room, and in the process made me a paranoid lunatic scrambling through any nook and cranny I can find. From this vent induced psychosis I’ve come up with some tips that will help you get through the Checkmate Contested Zone starting with a whitesuit and a pistol (and a multitool if you really think you’ll make it to the loot room).

• Leave it how you found it: Moving quietly through the CZs requires more than crouching. Avoiding fights with NPCs, setting off automatic doors, and blowing up mines leaves the space looking like no one has been through. It’s also a great alert system for anyone trailing you.
• Inconvenience them: Sometimes leaving a footprint is unavoidable, so the best practice here is to make it worth it. The main example I’m talking about is to take the time to print every blue security card to buy more time (15 minutes of time exactly) to not worry about anyone behind you. It’s risky (especially the first two) but it pays dividends.
• Bait: Players seem to be magnetically attracted to dead bodies, especially if they look like other player bodies. They’ll skip clearing a room and drop any sense of self preservation for that sweet, sweet loot. Use that to get the upper hand when you are outnumbered, which you usually are. Be the example Miller was warning about. Doors and corners, kid.
• Close the damn door: Players get too excited when they get a door open, and I get it: flipping the fuses around with a tractor beam is tough. But getting that door shut behind you keeps any followers from following a little too close while also possibly locking them out until they find a fuse and/or a tractor beam. Also, until the fuse burns out, the door can still be reopened. (Thanks MurphyJack and Cadoyle for…pointing that one out to me)
• Med-pens mid battle, med-gun when safe: Too many times after the start of a gunfight, I’ll hear someone switch to their med-gun and heal. This is so much slower than a med-pen, and it usually gives me the time to close the distance on their cover and finish them off.
• MOVE: This one in particular is for the central room when you’re in the vents. Take some shots, then move to another location. Gamers don’t look up, so you should be fine if you’re moving through the vents. Those first shots usually get them to hunker down and definitely confuse the hell out of them, so you’ll have enough time to get to the next position. Remember the ambush scene in The Patriot?
• Don’t get attached: If you’re white suiting, you’ll always be outgunned and you’ll usually be outmatched, even after a lucky find. Don’t expect to get that loot out. So you just looted a full set of subscriber gear, two rare guns, a couple of blue cards, and 40 mags of FS9 ammo. You also hear a group of four behind you absolutely tearing through the NPCs that just respawned. If you’re lucky enough to find a hiding spot, stay quiet and hope they’re in a rush. Or take the fight, either way don’t expect to have that gear on you until it’s in your local inventory.
• Set. Your. Spawn.: You’re going to die a lot. Like a lot. You’re going to die walking into the airlock, you’re going to die walking into the loot room. You’re going to die to a player with a grenade launcher, you’re going to die to an NPC with a Deadrig. Take it in stride, backspace, and go again. Whitesuit runs aren’t for people who are used to winning.

Stay safe, good hunting, and don’t trust that Sinkhole backpack you see laying in the middle of the room.