15 Pro Tips for Total Chaos in 2025
Master the unforgiving world of Fort Oasis with essential survival strategies from the combat system contributors
🎮 Expert Guidance
These survival tips come directly from Under the Mayo, a contributor to Total Chaos's combat system development. Total Chaos is a hardcore, unconventional survival horror that demands mastery of its mechanics to survive the unforgiving world of Fort Oasis.
🚶 Movement & Resource Management
1. Walk, Don't Run
While tempting to spam dash for speed, resist the urge. Frequent dashing increases your hunger meter, eventually limiting your maximum stamina. This prevents dashing, weapon swings, and heavy charge attacks.
Walking speed allows for better secret discovery and ambush avoidance in Total Chaos
Pro Tip: Maintain walking speed to discover secrets, find items, and avoid ambushes. Food may seem plentiful early, but starvation becomes a real threat later.
2. Efficient Healing Strategy
Both taking damage and using syringes cause bleeding, which reduces attack power and chips away at health over time. On Survivalist difficulty, this is much more severe.
Bleeding Effects
- • Reduced attack power
- • Continuous health loss
- • More severe on Survivalist
Healing Items
- • Bandages (craftable)
- • Blood clotters
- • Scientific med kits
Optimal Strategy: Use blood clotters first, then address hunger. Wait until already bleeding to use syringes - you'll need to stop bleeding anyway, so maximize efficiency.
3. Creative Crafting System
Discover recipes by guessing correct combinations at crafting tables or through exploration. Early game, craft glass or metal shivs for excellent multi-enemy management.
Recommended Early Recipe: Metal scrap + tape OR empty glass bottle + tape = 2 shivs
Shivs offer fast slashing, throwable capability, and stun enemies - perfect for handling groups and creating openings.
⚔️ Combat Mechanics
4. Master the Stun System
The stun system is absolutely crucial to navigating combat. Hit enemies with shivs or throwable items (bottles, bricks, rocks) to the torso or head for stun state.
The stun system is essential for handling enemy groups and creating tactical advantages
Stun Methods
- • Shiv throws
- • Bottle/brick/rock throws
- • Dash into enemies
Tactical Uses
- • Handle enemy groups
- • Create attack openings
- • Control dangerous enemies
Fire Strategy
- • Alcohol bottles + fire
- • Soak enemies, ignite
- • Use dash to push into fire
5. Weapon Durability Management
All melee weapons eventually break, but breaking boxes with wooden boards causes no durability loss. When a weapon is about to break during combat, throw it instead of swinging.
Don't Underestimate Light Weapons: While less damaging, their fast attack speed prevents enemy counterattacks, making them invaluable during enemy stun states.
Use heavy charged attacks to break boxes (single contact saves durability) and preserve valuable weapons for combat.
6. Weapon Hot Bar Setup
Configure your hotbar for versatility: Heavy weapon + Light weapon + Shiv + Emergency firearm.
Covers most situations when mixed with throwable items. All slots should be weapons, not consumables.
7. Optimize Key Bindings
Default G (throwables) and T (throw weapon) are awkward in combat. Bind these to mouse side buttons.
Note: Hotbar currently hard-bound to number keys 1-4, but side button binding makes throwables much more accessible.
🎯 Advanced Strategies
8. Reusable Projectiles
Harpoon and rock save ammo. Track where they fall for recovery until they break.
Start fights with these, collect later. On Survivalist, you may only have these weapons available.
9. Conserve Ammunition
This is survival horror - ammo is scarce. Guns are for emergencies and high-pressure situations.
Use melee when possible, switch to firearms for special enemies like spitters.
10. Master Parrying
Parry negates damage, perfect parry boosts stamina, and can reflect projectiles/explosives.
Not parry-focused, but mastery helps in boss fights and survival situations.
11. Inventory Quick Select Mastery
Right-click (or controller equivalent) instantly consumes food, uses healing items, and equips weapons. This is crucial for intense combat moments.
Quick inventory management is essential for survival during intense combat encounters
Combat Tip: While escaping, you can keep moving and strafing with inventory open, giving you precious moments to equip needed items before turning to fight.
12. Stamina Boosting System
Consuming food builds a boost meter for faster stamina recharge. Chemical compounds provide major boosts with side effects, while energy drinks offer good boosts with only slight hunger.
Strategic Timing: Build boost before fights, not during. When boost is several bars long, it temporarily increases maximum stamina for more swings and dashes.
🗺️ Exploration & Survival
13. Secrets and Madness Areas
Total Chaos features hidden areas in crouchable vents, breakable barriers, and locations that change during madness state. Some areas are only accessible when madness is active.
Secret areas are crucial for resource acquisition and finding powerful weapons early
Exploration Tip: Grounding at save stations deactivates madness. While risky to progress without saving, madness-exclusive zones often contain valuable resources and weapons.
14. Multiple Save Strategy
Keep multiple save files. This is essential for survival horror, especially on Survivalist mode with limited saves.
Survivalist Challenge
Complete Chapter 1 and half of Chapter 2 (at least to graveyard) before first save to preserve precious save records.
Readiness Check
If unable to progress that far without saving, you're not ready for Survivalist difficulty yet.
15. Weight Limit Management
Base limit is 50kg, increased by 3kg per CTSM pill found. Some pills are hidden in areas requiring heavy weapons for access.
Secret Bonus: There's a secret armor set that provides significant weight boost - Resident Evil 4 players should find it easily.
Ditch redundant items: duplicate pickaxe heads, nearly broken weapons, empty harpoon guns, heavy medkits. Overweight status severely reduces movement speed.
🏆 Mastery & Success
Core Success Factors
1. Master Stun System
The stun mechanic is core to combat success and group management.
2. Understand Crafting
Maximize resource utilization through creative recipe combinations.
3. Smart Decision Making
Tactical choices and resource management determine survival success.
🎖️ The Total Chaos Experience
Total Chaos is hardcore, unconventional, and demands mastery. The unforgiving nature creates genuine desperation, but that's exactly the point.
Second playthroughs will do wonders for your understanding. Once you figure out the stun system, crafting mechanics, and make smart decisions, you can make it through the suffering and find the fun.
*These tips come from Under the Mayo, who contributed to Total Chaos's combat system development. The game features one standard difficulty, with Survivalist mode recommended only after mastering the mechanics.*