Contractors Showdown – Basic Guide (Weapons, Maps and Tips)

In this guide you will find not only many useful tips and tricks but also an overview of weapons, M.I.C.A./PDA, maps and much more.

Guide to Basics

General Tips

Play the tutorial

Even though everything in it will be covered here, it’s important to play the tutorial as the game really needs you to do so.

Bandages don’t heal immediately

They heal very slowly, which is why you can carry so many. Use multiple bandages at once for continual and gradual healing. First aid shots take longer to use but quickly restore your health to maximum.

Plates work like shields in Halo

Get hit, lose armor plates, go to cover. Manually insert plates by reaching to the right side of your chest, grabbing the plate from the hotbar, and swiping it left across your body. This restores a lot of health quickly. Expand your plates with an armor plate extension pickup, found randomly in the world, loot crates, or bought at purple vendors. Plates can be stacked in your inventory for tanking damage or kept light for faster movement.

Ammunition is offered in high quantities

Don’t overload yourself; you’ll need one to two mags at most with any weapon aside from pistols to kill a player with base health and armor. Carry one stack for secondary and two for primary. When reloading, don’t throw away your mag unless it’s empty, or you won’t be refunded the ammo unless you drop it into your pouch. This doesn’t slow your reloads. Exception: AK/AK Alpha allows you to kick out the empty magazine with a new mag.

Throwables are powerful

Select grenades using the hotbar on your left chest area, mirroring the healing items on the right. There are various types: Frags (explosive), Detection (marks enemies), Flashbang (blinds/deafens), Radiation (damages health directly), and Smoke (creates a smoke cloud).

Money is extremely valuable and critical to success

Being broke will ensure your downfall late in the match. Cash allows you to buy weapons, ammo, attachments, expansions, plates, healing items, revives, insurance, M.I.C.A. chips, and more. If you can pick between grabbing plates or cash, grab the cash unless you’re totally out of plates.

Revives and insurance can be bought at blue vendors

Revives bring back a dead teammate with a pistol and some rounds. The revived player will drop in from a close area around the vendor. Insurance is a prophylactic revive, dropping you in with a weapon and rounds after death. Basic insurance provides an M9 pistol but doesn’t last until the end of the game. Advanced insurance lasts until the end and provides an AK with a sidearm and rounds for both. Always buy advanced insurance if possible.

Contractors Showdown has a generous movement system: walking (default), running (single click on move stick), sprinting (double click), sliding (flick right stick down while moving), and parachuting (run off a high cliff, throw yourself off a zipline, or use redeploy stations marked with an upward arrow). Parachutes can speed up by pushing your hands forward and slow down by pulling back. Grabbing a weapon or placing a map marker will drop the chute.

M.I.C.A./PDA

The M.I.C.A, or PDA as I will refer to it for simplicity, is an extension of your HUD. It’s more than just a minimap, as it bundles everything together in a convenient way. Your PDA is a general-purpose I/O tool, responsible for maps, markers, planning drops, bringing up your HUD (except team health info), using chips, decoding encrypted chips for rewards, and navigating vendor menus.

Maps, markers, and waypoints

Your PDA allows you to view the map in two ways. Grabbing it off your chest automatically gives you a small map. Pulling the trigger displays it in large form. Both will disappear when you let go of your PDA, which cannot be lost or dropped.

When you spawn into the plane, bring up your PDA in large form. This allows you to coordinate a drop plan with your team by looking over the map and placing markers. The map shows the storm (blue), current safe circle (green), loot hotspots (solid orange circles), and the general layout of the game world. Memorize this map early on to quickly figure out a drop zone when you spawn in.

In the field, your PDA highlights points of interest as waypoints. Redeploy stations, vendors, and loot crates (within proximity) will be shown. You, your team, and any placed markers will be persistent until removed or killed.

To place a marker, pick up your PDA and point it like a flashlight in reverse grip (point the base to your target and pull the trigger). You can also bring your hand to your head, hold the trigger to show a preview, and release to place the marker (generally faster).

Chips

If you find any kind of chip, put it in your PDA. There are three types of chips: attack chips (ACs), passive chips (PCs), and encrypted chips (ECs). Attack chips, like airstrikes and passive cover, are actively placed and used. Passive chips, such as detection jammers, work independently. Encrypted chips are loot items picked up, decrypted over time in the field, and sent back to your home oil rig to be turned into useful things.

To use attack chips, pick up your PDA, press B (on Quest 2) to select your chip, and use the trigger to place/call in. Always pick up chips whenever found, unless it will take up a chip slot in use. Overwriting a chip will make you lose the ability (sometimes good, sometimes not).

If you have an EC decoding and slot in a new one, the old EC will drop to the ground and stop decoding. Generally, let it decode unless you’re in a rush or decoding a grey (common) chip. EC rarities include grey (common), which usually gives timed contracts or currency/XP; green (rare), which rarely gives sprays/skins/charms and more commonly contracts and XP/currency; and blue (unique), which almost always gives something nice for a cosmetic. Once decoded, you don’t have to win the round – it’s sent back to home base for you to use!

Weapons

Contractors Showdown has a moderate selection of weapons, each with different characteristics.

Rifles

RC416 is an excellent all-around rifle with a high fire rate, fast reloads, wide attachment options, and high capacity. It doesn’t excel at anything specific but is very competent in all situations. Pair it with any attachments, ideally a 4x+dot optic. The iron sights are barely usable.

AK is a basic AKM platform rifle with the same capacity as RC416, slower fire rate, same accuracy, but better damage. It only accepts optics and muzzle devices. Best paired with 4x+dot or reflex optic. The iron sights are terrible.

XM5 is an integrally suppressed rifle with a similar fire rate to AK. It’s mostly found in weapon crates. Best paired with a 4x+dot or 8x scope, treating it like a sniper rifle just under the M1A.

AK Alpha is an AK that accepts RC416’s array of attachments. Treat it like a regular AK.

For all these rifles, the 4x+dot is the best optic, allowing you to pick off enemies at a distance with single fire while not being forced to use a magnified optic or “cope tilt” in close quarters. These are rifles meant for magnified optics, so there’s no reason to suffer through 50-75m engagements with iron sights.

SMGs

SMGs are the weapon of total noobs, total sweats, and total desperation. No normal people actually want these weapons, except for the Evo. They’re the gun you have, not the gun you want, unless you’re running it as a secondary (which is an excellent choice for sniper/DMR players).

Evo is an outstanding pick for CQB and low-medium range engagements due to its high fire rate and controllability. You can put it in single fire and plink away at distance to whittle away health/plates if needed. Best paired with a reflex optic or 4x+dot. Irons are serviceable.

Fury V is a cringe stick that fires so quickly it’s just a bullet hose. Great for CQB, but miserable at any other distance. It has no magazine release, requiring you to grab the mag every time you reload, which is often due to its fire rate. Best paired with a reflex optic, as the iron sights are jank garbage.

BX4 is an oddity with a very high rate of fire and controllability like the Evo, reloading as easily as a pistol. However, it’s hard to hit anything with the iron sights, requiring “point shooting.” When paired with a 4x+dot or reflex, it’s accurate and retains velocity over distance, allowing it to be used in place of a rifle.

Shotguns

Flame 12 and S686 don’t need optics, but you can put a reflex on them if desired. S686 is a deletion stick inside a room, with 2 shells guaranteed to down if kept center mass. Double-tap the trigger and swing your support hand down after the first shot. With practice, it’s a guaranteed down or kill every time. Flame 12 is a semi-auto magazine-fed shotgun meant to be better than an SMG in extremely close quarters. Its effectiveness is decided by how fast you can mash the trigger and stay on target. With a reflex sight, it’s easy to get kills, but outside of a room, forget it.

Pistols

Pistols are surprisingly varied but not meant to be primaries. If you’re left with only a pistol, do not engage, as you’re likely to get smoked.

2011 is my favorite pistol. It’s punchy, accurate with irons, has a reasonable 11 round capacity, accepts decent attachments, and is easy and fast to run, making it an ideal backup gun. It needs no optic but works well with a reflex.

G18c is a machine pistol that burns through its extended magazine almost immediately. Inside a room, you’ll get a good kill if you can keep it on target, which is difficult due to the extreme recoil. Semi-auto doesn’t have enough punch to kill quickly and is more of an annoyance or plate eater. It’s a mushy middle between the Fury V and M9. Best paired with a reflex optic and a can or muzzle brake.

M9 is the pistol of all time with middling capacity, attachments, fire rate, accuracy, and everything else. Irons are usable, and I wouldn’t bother using an optic.

Desert Eagle is a classic sniper pistol with high power, higher recoil, and low capacity. If you can tame its recoil, it’s a great option for someone who likes SMGs, as it takes the same ammo but allows for longer-range engagements. Pair it with a reflex sight, as the stock irons are inaccurate.

Snipers

Snipers are my preferred weapon class. They’re slightly underbalanced but afford great range and accuracy while also allowing for decent fire rate or the ability to knock out plates quickly.

M1A is my favorite primary with good capacity, better power than a rifle, semi-auto, and accuracy. Best paired with a 4x+dot or 8x scope. Irons are surprisingly capable.

M40A1 is a bolt-action, high-power, mag-fed rifle. Serviceable irons, but not the best for the ranges you’ll want to use it at. Best paired with an 8x scope.

Kar98K is not a good choice unless it’s all you have. The irons are so abysmal that it’s almost impossible to hit a moving target, and targets are always moving. It also never spawns near optics for some reason. If you can make it work, great, but I don’t bother. Good power and same capacity as the M40A1.

Mk17 is another good semi-auto pick, but it’s confined to weapons chests as far as I’ve seen. Get it if you can and pair it with a 4x+dot or 8x scope.

RFB is imbued with Kel-tec’s space magic, providing great accuracy, range, and semi-auto power. Best paired with 4x+dot or 8x. It’s my second favorite primary.

M200 is Cheytac’s Intervention, making its appearance in C:S with the highest power of any rifle. It’s only available in airdrops and chests.

Useful Tricks and Hints

Parachuting

• Don’t drop too far from your team or hot-drop as a noob.
• Don’t stay in the air for the entire early game. Steer above your drop zone, then fall and summon your chute again to avoid fall damage.
• Don’t lag behind your team by avoiding redeployment or traveling on foot. It’s not faster or safer.
• Use your parachute often, as it has unlimited uses.
• Scout using redeploy stations to mark enemy positions, looting zones, vantage points, and points of interest for your team.
• Use parachutes to drop in on enemies while your team provides covering fire.
• Parachuting makes you almost impossible to hit due to speed and direction, making it safe and effective for traversing wide or hot areas.

Healing and Plates

• Prioritize plates over healing items during a fight, as they are faster and take effect instantly.
• Get through the fight with plates, then heal when you’re safe.
• Use stim packs as soon as you find them for a speed boost, or hold onto them for a quick getaway if needed.

Grenades

• Frags don’t usually kill but can be effective.
• Use radiation grenades for area denial, detection grenades to mark enemies, smoke to cover a push, and flashbangs during a push if available.

Movement

• Slide down hills for faster movement and a smaller target profile.

Sniping

• Hardscoping is not recommended unless engaging at extreme distances, as you can be easily peeked.
• Real sniping tactics like staying inside a room, moving between shots, and coordinating fire with your team can be effective, but are rarely used.

Communication

• Talk with your team, even if you’re the only one talking. Callouts and communication are crucial.
• Your mic is always on, so no extra setup is required.

Loot

• Loot is randomized, and the quality of loot in a specific location can vary between matches.

Remember, these tips are meant to help you improve your gameplay and teamwork in Contractors. Adapt them to your playstyle and the situation at hand.