Running Out of Water
Running in Contractors Showdown ExfilZone comes at a cost
It seems you can’t have an extraction shooter without food and water survival mechanics. ExfilZone is no exception. Without energy and hydration (EzfilZone’s terms for food and water), you begin to take penalties and eventually die. Let’s look at hydration and energy in three situations: being alive, running, and jumping.
Being Alive
Just being alive in a raid consumes your hydration and energy. Every 16 seconds you consume one energy and one hydration. That’s 3.7 each a minute. The 100 hydration and energy you start with lasts only 26 minutes and 40 seconds.
Running and Jumping
Running in ExfilZone is like turning on the afterburner. You move 30% faster but burn through your resources. Running increases hydration usage by 154% and energy usage by 93%. Instead of lasting 16.1 seconds, a unit of hydration is gone in 6.3 seconds and a unit of energy is gone in 8.3 seconds.
Jumping consumes hydration and energy at the same 5:3 ratio. Each jump consumes 20 stamina which is equal to 5.6 seconds of running. This works out to approximately 0.3 energy and 0.5 hydration per jump. So two jumps cost one hydration.
Tradeoffs
Good survival games have tradeoffs. In ExfilZone, running gives you tactical advantages at the expense of hydration and energy. If you are a geared contractor, you can get away with running and jumping like your favorite streamers. If you spawn in as a scav with 27 minutes on the clock and a poor loadout, securing food and water is necessary. Otherwise you will need to exfil early.
Jumping is often an unnecessary tradeoff. Each jump is worth 8.6 seconds of normal hydration drain. If you are in single digits of hydration with no water on hand, jumping can put you in peril. This is especially true if you are injured with a blacked out abdomen and can’t drink.
Things get tense when time, energy, or hydration are so low you think you aren’t going to make it. Do you run even though your hydration is low? It depends. If you walk, you need 3.7 energy and hydration per minute. Ignoring weight and penalties, marathon running with stamina recharging needs roughly 6 energy and 8 hydration per minute.
Look elsewhere for solutions too. Do you have any water or food hiding in your bag? Can you get rid of a weight penalty by discarding gear? There have been times I started stripping my gear because I could tell it was going to be down to the last second and that pesky yellow indicator was on my screen. Now that you’ve got that picture in your head and you’re thirsty, here’s a reminder to stay hydrated!