If you're not too interested in all of the details of this guide, feel free to skim through and just pick up the • Bullet Points!
That's not just a joke, with just one minute to read the titles of the tips in the early sections of this guide, you can probably discover most of the details for yourself as you play the game, if you've got those hints in the back of your mind and explore them.

Some of these tips might not suit your playstyle, and that's fine, you can ignore many or even actively avoid some of these concepts and it's still possible to get by. You might have to dabble in "don't miss" and "headshots", though.

Why me, making this guide? I was one of the testers of CULTIC, and among us, I admit it: I have the least background and am the most out of my element with classic retro shooters, recent "boomer shooters" drawing upon them for direct inspiration, and game development. I've limited some of my feedback as such, not trying to overstep as an outsider pulling CULTIC away from niches I'm not a part of. I've long known Jason shared my general interest in ammo management as a game feature. Habitual excessive carefully considered ammo conservation was always part of my personal playstyle of CULTIC and RE4, which CULTIC is considerably influenced by. But I wasn't initiating a push for nerfing the ammo supply, even though I always would have been interested, before confirming it was a real intention for this game specifically.

Not long before Ch2 release, (and not long after I reported that spare SASGs were failing to give shotgun shells because the ammo situation was loose enough for that bug to have gone unnoticed presumably for a hundred+ total prior testing hours across the team) Jason was talking about nerfing the ammo supply, making ammo management more relevant in practice, and how it was always an intended part of CULTIC. I supported the move to nerf it with my feedback leading up to and after the change, and trying the changes myself on Extreme, I wasn't finding them hugely impactful for play with my ammo conscious mindset, which I'll try to share here, as it seems a number of people are struggling with it.

Updates since Ch2's release may have reduced the significance of all of this a bit, by popular demand, but ammo management is still a factor.

We'll start with general ammo management tips, look at other resources, then get into specific ammo types and their weapons, specific enemies and maps (spoilers!) , and finally, the cursed tips.

• Play an Appropriate Difficulty
  You'll need some more ammo to take down the tougher and more numerous enemies on higher difficulties, but more importantly, ammo management will be extra challenging if you're playing on a higher difficulty and efficiency starts to slip in hectic fights.
  
  When selecting a difficulty, there are descriptions that give a recommendation for who should play which. Extreme difficulty is recommended for players who have "mastered CULTIC's gameplay". The specific detail of "CULTIC's gameplay" is important - players may be generally great at games, FPSs, boomer shooters, Doom, or Blood, and great at aiming and strafing, but mastery of CULTIC's own specific gameplay is also important, including the ammo management (discovering it yourself, more so than reading it here).
  
  Even for the most serious gamers, there's no shame in starting on another difficulty and savoring Extreme as an additional experience of further challenge to come back to later.
  Chapter 2 is further along the difficulty curve compared to Chapter 1, intentionally, as it comes after, so you might want to continue into the next chapter with the same difficulty setting rather than actively stepping up your choice on top of that. Or, if coasting along is more your playstyle, nothing wrong with that, you may even want to opt for lowering your choice of difficulty by one to counteract this.
  If you played Chapter 1 once years ago, got rusty, you're now playing your first run of chapter 2 on Extreme, and it feels insurmountable because you don't have enough ammo left, but that isn't the experience you're happy with, then you probably should go with another difficulty.

• Find Hidden Ammo
  The first step in having ammo is finding it! It's not all out in the open. There's a lot of ammo to find when you search every nook and cranny. Crawl, jump, swim, and destroy to check under, above, inside, and behind things in the map. Behind cracked destructible walls, inside shipping containers, behind destructible boxes, deep down a pipe, inside a vent, in through a window, that kind of thing. I suspect under the stairs is Jason's favorite hidden ammo cliche. Don't worry too much about trying every possibility of advanced parkour techniques or stacking piles of multiple physics objects to climb to weird places, the hidden supplies are rarely a challenge of anything other than observation, speculation, and dealing with the enemies in the area. So look over the environment, take it all in, and then look close. You don't have to habitually break crates out in the open, since items can be behind them, but never inside of them.
  
  
• Grab Redundant Weapons, They're Loaded
  If you find a weapon you already have, grabbing it will give you some of the associated ammo. Depending on the weapon, this might be balance-adjusted away from the capacity, to instead be less, or up to triple as much.
  
  
• Enemies Drop Resources
  Enemies that use the same weapons as you have a random chance to drop some of the associated ammo when defeated. Some enemies without your weapons have a chance to drop healing items. You'll probably always notice it when a big shiny jagged pistol clip of 9mm or a spool of bandages is dropped for you. On the other hand, you might miss the red shotgun shells in the lump of red robes and gibs of a defeated shotgun cultist, the sniper rounds on the distant defeated sharpshooter cultist, or the grey magnum rounds a corrupted cop drops, if you don't keep an eye out.
  Exceptions to random ammo drops include the immolator and axe cultist who reliably drop their weapon itself for you, and the grenade launcher cultist who never drops frag shells... without a fuse going.
  
  
• Clear Them Out
  Your kill count versus the total enemy count is displayed top-right when you have your weapon wheel out. Clearing out the map 100% may mean a few more drops, but more importantly, it correlates to visiting all areas of the map and having a chance at the resources there, whether obvious or hidden.
  
  
• Find the Secret Areas
  There are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ "Secret Areas" tracked in your statistics, you can see these stats on the right of the screen when you bring up your weapon wheel, and when you clear a map. Finding one will give you a message in the top left. They're called "Secrets" in line with classic shooter conventions, but they aren't really "check every single wall" kinds of secrets - they're more akin to exploration rewards in games like RE4.
  Not all hidden ammo is in ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ secrets, and not all secrets offer ammo, but they're hidden in about the same ways, so there's likely a correlation between them: the extent of your exploration. If you're finishing maps while getting 4/8 secrets, you could assume you're missing half the other hidden ammo as well.
  
  
• Lighter Hints at Secrets
  In accessibility options, a subtle hint mechanic for nearby secret areas is described and customizable. With your lighter equipped, entering the proximity to an undiscovered secret will play a flickering sound, and while staying in proximity, your lighter's flame will stay tilted to the right, literally tipping you off that a secret is nearby. But you may have to leave the proximity to get around obstacles and on the path to actually access the secret. Entering and exiting the proximity, you can figure out its shape, and from that, approximate the center position of it, exactly where the secret area should be. In the entire game, this mechanic will only fail to draw your attention from exploring the rooms of the main path of the game to a given secret a few times, by nature of it being a limited proximity, not being as tall as it is wide, and fire liking air.
  
  
• Go Back to Find the Rest of the Hidden Ammo
  If you run short on ammo and get desperate while having access to places to backtrack, consider returning to look again for things you never found, or otherwise left behind.
  
  
• Open the Armory
  Many maps have a particular optional room that either shows you it has a bunch of ammo, or it or its key is in some way labeled "Armory" or "Cache", or such. Trying the locked door may give a message cluing you in to whether you need to come back with a key, or find another way around.
  Either way, these rooms are worthwhile for general supplies and often provide the first chance at a new weapon.
  
  
• Get It While You Have the Chance
  Points of no return mean you can't always go back for everything. There's always the start of each map as one, and some maps have an additional point of no return within them, and there are often sections of temporarily inaccessible return, when you're trapped in a particular fight. So if it looks like one of those is coming up, consider doing some scrounging before proceeding. Some moderate drops look like a point of no return, but can be jumpkicked back up.

• Headshots
  Shooting enemies in the head can give a big damage bonus. With common enemies and weapons, it's +175%, nearly triple damage! You can get this huge reward with less risk than you'd think. On level ground, or especially if you have the high ground, the hit detection is very generous for headshots. Even if you don't have confidence you'll hit the visible head due to your aim or your weapon's spread, just try it anyways. Lots of shots you would expect to be misses over the shoulder will register as headshots. The bonus is big enough that missing headshots half the time is still a net benefit in total damage over always hitting body shots.
  The exact bonus of headshots varies. It's a bonus from the weapon plus a bonus from the enemy. They don't multiply each other, just add up.
  Examples: Infested enemies, magnums, and hatchets have high bonuses, while the shotguns and helmeted Martyr have little to no bonus.
  
  
• HEADSHOTS
  This cannot be overstated: around TRIPLE damage!
  
  
• Other Weak Points
  Other than headshots, some enemies have other weak points, namely bosses.
  
  
• Don't Miss
  Spending ammo to hit nothing... isn't good.
  
  
• DON'T MISS
  This also cannot be overstated. To reduce your misses, you may be able to spend more time aiming, use a more accurate weapon, wait for the target to move less erratically, get closer, or let him come closer.
  
  
• Don't Over-Shoot
  Recognize when something is defeated and don't spend ammo continuing to shoot it. With rapid fire weapons, namely STEN, you may not have the reaction time to consider this between every single shot. Instead of reacting afterward, you could anticipate how briefly you'll want to shoot by knowing your enemies. This guy will need three shots, that guy will need five, etc.
  
  
• Don't Overkill
  Save the big weapons for the big threats. Stick to the common weak stuff for the common weak fights. Get familiar with your handgun or hatchets.
  
  
• Shots to Kill Threshold
  Notice some common weapon/enemy combinations that efficiently oneshot and twoshot, and take a mental note. If one powerful headshot is just barely failing to kill a common enemy with a particular weapon, instead of always shooting them with it twice, consider a mixed attack with something weak and cheap to do the rest of the damage, using different weapon/s for that enemy altogether, using the more powerful of two alternative weapons for an ammo type, or getting a damage upgrade.
  
  
• Use What You've Got
  The best weapons for your situation and preference might be unavailable. Or you might not want to lose what little you have left of it. Use the next best thing, then. Or make due with the next next next next best thing, if that's all you've got.
  
  
• Detonation
  Detonate explosives like red barrels, lanterns, upright oxygen tanks, launched grenades, or dynamite with your attacks to blow up enemies. The free way is to light dynamite, throw lanterns, and throw barrels directly at enemies. The next cheapest option is one or two handgun shots. Whatever weapon you have equipped is quickest, but might be a waste of uncommon ammo. If it's behind an enemy, penetrative weapons help.
  
  
• Environmental Destruction
  When you want to break destructible boxes, a great habit is to hit them with one fully charged hatchet swing, instead of spending the ammo of whatever you have equipped. When you want to explode cracked walls for a secret, consider using the lanterns and barrels that are a hassle to carry to their next opportunity. Failing that, plentiful dynamite might be preferred over uncommon molotovs or launched grenades.
  
  
• Sneak Attacks
  +50% bonus damage on unaware enemies. Does seem to multiply the headshot bonus as well.
  
  
• Skip Fights
  An enemy you didn't fight is an enemy you didn't spend resources on. But rushing by the area the enemy is in is usually counterproductive for resource management, when there's probably something in the area he's effectively guarding, and he might drop something himself.
  
  
• Don't Take Too Much Ammo
  To have ammo, find it but don't take it. Wait, what? If you're nearly maxed on a specific type of ammo, you might want to leave the ammo you find on the ground for later instead of taking it, since you only max your supply and the rest is gone. For example, with 499/500 9mm rounds, touching a big box of 50 rounds will result in you having 500/500 rounds and the box disappearing. That's one round gained, 49 deleted from the world. Instead of that, pass it up. Find more fights, use some 9mm, ideally 49+, then either the path of the game might lead you back to the box naturally, or you could backtrack manually, and then you can pick up all 50. If you don't end up returning, oh well, compared to immediately grabbing it, you lost out on only one round.
  
  
• Cause Friendly Fire & Infighting
  Most enemy attacks are capable of friendly fire against other enemies, especially explosives, saving you some ammo. Most enemies attack you with no concern of avoiding this. If you've never injured a particular enemy, tricking another enemy into hitting him may cause infighting.
  
  
• For Example
  Let's compare two examples by damage numbers, hard difficulty. Andy uses the STEN, doesn't get headshots, and hasn't upgraded it. He's doing 4 damage per hit. But he misses half the time, and keeps firing two extra rounds after the target dies. To kill a 40hp handgun cultist, he's firing 22 rounds. Bob uses the Handgun, upgraded the damage, and always gets headshots. He's killing handgun cultists in 2 rounds.
  Same 9mm ammo supply, but Bob is using eleven times less ammo than Andy.

• Upgrades
  Damage upgrades save you ammo, when the difference doesn't round to zero. Push force damages some targets, so Packed Shells are kinda damage too.
  Accuracy and Deadeye are also ammo conscious upgrades, making it easier to not miss.
  Capacity upgrades mean more ammo loaded, which is slightly more carried in total.
  Rate of fire upgrades can be a great DPS boost, but can make it extra challenging to avoid wasting ammo in cases like the STEN.
  Managing your upgrade parts, you may want to pick a favorite weapon per ammo type to stick with upgrading and mostly using. STEN vs Handgun, Revolver vs Lever Action, Sawed Off Shotgun vs Semi Auto Shotgun, etc. For variety's sake, maybe pick the opposite set from Ch1 for Ch2, or pick the opposite set for a second playthrough of Ch2.
  
  
• Temporary Weapons
  Machine gun, bazooka, flare gun, bb gun. These new Ch2 temporary ranged weapons don't cost you your own ammo. You can't store them in your inventory, climb ladders with them, or take them to the next map, though. Fully utilized, the hundred penetrative rounds of the machine gun can get a lot of work done, but it's inaccurate: suited to short range or large targets. The bazooka hits a huge area for nice damage. The flare gun is like a molotov in bullet form, best for one big enemy. The BB gun offers infinite ammo and non-zero damage.
  
  
• Lanterns & Red Barrels
  Carry and throw these useful incendiary and explosive props to use them against your enemies, instead of needing your ammo. Red barrels need to be attacked or thrown into enemies to detonate them, while lanterns will break on any impact with the environment if thrown, but not if dropped. The upright oxygen tanks on dollies are explosive, but can't be carried.
  
  
• Props
  Throwing inert props at enemies can deal damage to save ammo. Especially soap and the very common eyeball gib. Big props like dark barrels can barricade doorways, be dropped for cover, or block bullets along their way when thrown at enemies.
  Props in your hand are see through, don't block bullets, and don't collide with anything until dropped or thrown.
  
  
• Shields
  Dropped enemy shields can be used to fully block most damage from the front. However, they prevent two handed actions such as lighting your molotovs or firing your sniper rifle. They replace your kick with a shield bash. They can be placed upright on the ground as cover. A tricky move is to kick them as a projectile. As the visible holes will warn you, they eventually break.
  
  
• Healing
  50hp med kit boxes, and 15hp bandages.
  At 98/100hp, if you expect you will/can/care to backtrack, then don't use up a large medkit box to only gain 2hp. Leave it for later to get more of its 50hp potential when/if needed. On the other hand, health regenerates to 25hp, so if you've just survived a fight with 2hp but aren't in a hurry, wait for regen to get you to 25hp first, and then a large medkit will take you to 75hp instead of 52hp.
  
  
• Field Kit
  Meds you can manually strategically use with the left hand. When your health is full and you have a field kit, touching meds will put half their value into the field kit, up to 100. Avoid that halving when you think you will need their full value and be able to come back for them, especially if there is a whole spare field kit around that you can grab to fully replace yours. My playstyle is to avoid the halving of meds by avoiding using the field kit altogether until times get really tough, or there's a spare one about. The two often coincide in boss battles.
  
  
• Imbued Remains
  These ominous purple skulls increase max hp, a resource that makes the rest of the chapter easier. There's one per map for the detective to find. Few are out in the open. Most are in Secret Areas that your lighter can help you find.
  
  
• Armor
  The ballistic vests give 50% blue armor, but only to a max of 100%, while the ballistic plates can over-armor you beyond 100% into having light blue armor. Blast armor gives you 50% orange armor. Blue armor protects you against bullets, orange armor protects you against explosions and fire.
  Skipping plates and coming back for them after vests get you to/near 100% blue armor can be worthwhile.
  Skipping a ballistic vest or blast armor so you have a chance to get fuller use out of it later can be good if you're already near 100% on that armor type.
  
  
• Keys
  The navigation resource that resets on new maps.
  If you're lost and don't know what to do, opening your weapon wheel will display your key items on the right of the screen. The name of the key might give you a hint. For instance, if you get a "Prison Key" and haven't been to a prison on the current map, look for a prison-y barred door within a reasonable distance from where you got that key.
  When you find something important, like a door exiting a stressful area, a key for an optional locked door you passed, or a lever that can activate something you need ahead, don't otherwise dismiss the immediate area you found it in. One small area could be swamped with three important things.
  
  
• Doors
  If you try to open a door but can't, there's a message top left that probably gives a hint.
  Locked: Get a Key
  Won't Budge: Forget It (usually)
  Locked From the Other Side: Go Around
  Blocked From the Other Side: An obstruction on the other side, possibly interactable in some way.
  Some enemies can't get through some doors. Not everyone has thumbs, a brain, and the key.
  You can attack through closed doors in some ways, eg incinerator.
  
  
• Saves
  Saving the game is limited, as some events disable it. If using a quicksave button, the message top left will warn you if it didn't work. Elevators and special doors may disable saves briefly, I assume for ease of development reasons. Otherwise, it's an intentional challenge of some fights, especially bosses and special defense maps.
  
  
• Money
  Survival mode adds a new resource to shop with.
  
  
• Bonus Boxes
  Survival mode's [?] crates can give great supplies, like upgrade parts. Learn the spots to check, or miss out.

• Melee: Reliable
  If you have nothing else, you have your fist, foot, and shoulder.
  Punching... is possible.
  Kicks can knock enemies off ledges and give your jumps a little boost in the direction you're looking.
  Dodging is now limited, but also an attack. Slamming forward into enemies bashes them with your shoulder. Low damage, low knockback, but it has some stun power. This can be done while reloading. This allows ammo-efficient hyper-aggressive tactics like repeated shotgun headshots at contact range or repeated hatchet swings, without backing down or taking damage.
  
  
• Hatchet Melee: Sustainable
  You almost always have this chargeable, upgradeable attack. Combines with dashes and headshots nicely.
  Melee attacks don't cost ammo, or any other resources, but they can kill enemies, so that's great ammo management. But it's never strictly necessary to take it to that level. If you manage your ammo exceptionally well otherwise, it's possible to always stick with ranged attacks, never resorting to melee, even on the Manor, even on Extreme, if that's your playstyle.
  
  
• Thrown Hatchets: Sustainable* at Range
  Upgradeable!
  Middle Mouse Button instantly throws a hatchet at max velocity.
  You can recover thrown hatchets to avoid using them up: Sustainable ranged attacks! Depending on how/if they hit your target, they might fall down to his feet, or they might slide further beyond him. These thrown hatchets do despawn though, so planning to recover them is not suited to the start of big tough busy fights.
  You can farm a full inventory of ten hatchets from any one axe cultist. He throws, you dodge and gather. They also despawn in some seconds, except the highlighted one he drops upon defeat.
  
  
• 9mm Rounds: Numerous
  This basic ammo doesn't offer any quirky special mechanics to exploit, you pretty much just hit, headshot, or miss with it. But quantity has a certain quality. So the trick for this plentiful ammo is to just make the most of it with upgraded handgun headshots wherever reasonable. My go-to.
  A three round burst fire mode that finishes regardless of you letting off the trigger midway sounds really bad for ammo conservation. But CULTIC's Burst Fire handgun mod works nicely. It leaves you with a simultaneously available semi auto primary fire trigger for your measured shots, it rewards your dedication to shooting three with an appreciable rate of fire increase, the low recoil allows headshots, and it also meshes nicely with very common enemies that demand not two, not four, but exactly three headshots.
  The STEN submachine gun deals less damage per 9mm round than the Handgun, the spread makes it easier to waste rounds by missing, and the rate of fire makes it easier to waste rounds on overkill. For an ammo hoarder, these disadvantages relegate the STEN to a niche role for moments where you aren't willing to burn up other ammo types, but need more DPS than handgun bursts. Not efficient for general usage.
  
  
• Magnum & Rifle Rounds: Penetrate
  These bullets don't stop when they hit one enemy or a shield, they can keep going and hit multiple targets. You should favor penetrative weapons if the enemies are in a line leading to you, or if the environment will soon shape a crowd that way, like a chase through a doorway.
  For these weapons especially, consider the shots to kill thresholds mentioned above. Lever action headshot one-shots instantly and efficiently end so many common enemies.
  Against distant enemies, especially unaware enemies, take an extra moment to get your aim perfect for headshots with accurate weapons. Picking them off from a range where they're no threat means no panicked missed shots. No haste, no waste.
  
  
• Shotgun Shells: Spread
  Shotguns blast a spread of several pellets, which can each headshot and penetrate multiple enemies. To get the most utility from your shotgun shells against powerful enemies, get really close so every pellet is a headshot. Against weaker enemies, the goal is just to get enough damage to one shot them, so a few headshot pellets or a lot of body shot pellets may do just as well, so instead of maximizing damage, you can focus on safer positioning, getting the angle to penetrate multiple enemies, or just plain quick shooting, while still getting the one-shot.
  The choke upgrades can give you the same concentration of damage from further away.
  There's no damage falloff in CULTIC, so you can deal full shotgun damage from pretty far away if your target is big enough to hit every pellet and there are no weak points to aim for.
  The double blast altfire of the sawed off shotgun is awesome, and practical for tough enemies, but don't get in the habit of altfiring when a single shell would do the job.
  
  
• Boom: Area of Effect
  Dynamite, molotovs, grenade launcher, incinerator, barrels, lanterns, bazooka, there are many opportunities to hit crowds of enemies within a radius.
  Higher damage in the middle of the blast, usually.
  Try to get some use out of the barrels and lanterns without tripping yourself up carrying them too far to find the best opportunity.
  Explosions deal bonus damage against soft targets like cultists and zombies, so you don't necessarily need to save your common dynamite for the bigger threats, just medium crowds.
  Molotovs, on the other hand, are the truly scarce ammo type of Ch2, best saved for special occasions with multiple big enemies, or massive crowds chasing through an area.
  Dynamite detonates on impact against an enemy if it's lit and thrown, letting you get full damage with the target at the epicenter of the blast. However, the instant detonation is only with a direct hit, not sliding it along the ground into their foot, where some might kick it back.
  Try throwing dynamite or a molotov straight up. Sounds like a joke, but seriously, the throw angle won't actually be straight up, it will be a bit forward, so an immediate right click max velocity throw as high up as you can angle it will land at a perfect minimum safe distance on the ground ahead. This is perfect outside for bombing the opposite side of a wall or your cover.
  Extinguish lit dynamite or molotovs with the reload key or by switching weapons, if plans change. The dynamite's fuse regenerates.
  
  
• Fire Damage: I AM DEAD I AM DEAD AAAaAaAugGgHHHhH
  Fire damage won't do anything to make it easier to finish off a non-boss enemy with non-fire damage afterward. On the other hand, normal damage will make it easier to finish an enemy with fire damage. Some tough enemies can be one-shotted by a lantern or molotov if they stand in it for a long time, but if they get out of the fire just a little quicker and you don't follow up with more fire, that one-shot becomes zero-effect. Fire damage is usually consistent, but can feel very inconsistent without knowing burn threshold is separate from main health. Which is intentional.
  Most enemies will stop to shoot, so if you want to trick them into walking into fire and staying in it, hide or reveal yourself as such.
  When an enemy starts screaming and flailing and the fire is incorporated into his sprites, he's toast. He'll soon keel over without any further damage, so save your ammo, but he has a few seconds to burn/melee you or save himself with water... or you saving/loading, which resets the fire threshold.
  Bosses lose main health from fire, no separate burn threshold. Damage from fire may be multiplied, though, especially on blue armor bars. Spreading fire to hit multiple parts of bosses' bodies deals more damage than concentrating it, supposedly.

This section includes spoilers, in roughly encounter order.

Chapter One

• Axe Cultists
  These guys throw an infinite supply of hatchets that you can take. They have particularly little health and pose little threat, so try not to spend the good resources on them.
  
  
• Shield Cultists
  These common enemies are a frequent opportunity to waste loads of ammo. Instead of breaking their shield by shooting them a lot, try bypassing the shield, through it or around it. Shooting through it with high penetration weapons like magnums, shotguns, and rifles to land normal hits and headshots despite the shield in the way is pretty quick, simple, and easy.
  Low penetration weapons can shoot around the shield, but the gameplay mechanics of doing that aren't a great match to the visuals. For instance, the shield blocks the visibly exposed leg on your right, and usually the visibly exposed head as well. When they face you on flat ground, firing well above their visible head, like 30cm/1ft above the 2D sprite's head, can register a headshot, by going above the big separate 3d shield collider to hit the big generous headshot collider. You'll rarely get an angle below/side/back of the shield. So my main trick is death from above. On high ground, or using one of the detective's great jumps from even ground, you can get a more favorable angle over the shield, popping the few needed handgun headshots over the shield in an intuitive way where you are aiming at or near the visibly exposed head.
  Hatchet melee attacks to the head typically bypass the shield.
  
  
• Shotgun Cultists
  These red guys throw dynamite instead of blasting shotguns sometimes, and it can be used against them and their friends. You can trick him into throwing it poorly in the first place with an obstruction in the environment, or you can shoot it midair, or kick it back, dash attack it, or pick it up and throw it wherever you want if you're really fast.
  
  
• Infested Corpses
  These lunging zombies take bonus damage from several things. Hitting their head deals lots of extra damage. They take extra hatchet damage, for cheaply defeating them individually. Shotgun blasts with a few pellets on the head is the easy way to deal with small crowds or urgent individuals. They're vulnerable to explosions as well, making dynamite perfect for bigger crowds, and lanterns/molotovs are good for narrow paths those big crowds will soon take.
  
  
• Grenade Launcher Cultists
  These orange guys can be a menace against your other enemies. You can trick them into making bad shots that bounce off the environment and blow up themselves or other enemies. You can shoot their grenade out of the air the moment they fire to blow them up. When considerably injured, the cult has trained them to approach you to initiate a devastating suicide cluster bomb attack by shooting the ground at their feet with their grenade launcher. How sad! If only someone cared about them more than the cult does, and gave them a friendly shoulder to lean on in those moments when they're feeling down...
  
  
• Adepts
  The elite cultists decked out with gas masks, armor, a STEN, a shotgun, and dynamite cluster throws resist explosions and bullets, but are very flammable. When you get the incinerator, never empty it, save a little and give any adepts a brief spurt to burn them up. A costlier but also fairly easy way to deal with one is a close range rapid magnum headshot stunlock.
  
  
• Devourer
  The mouthy monster has nothing for you to headshot. Maybe he ate it? Fairly flammable, though.
  
  
• Immolators
  The flamethrower guys are immune to fire damage. Bullets in the fuel tank is the efficient kill, but tricky.
  
  
• Infested Armor
  The medieval suits of armor are quite fire resistant.
  
  
• Chosen
  Glowing eyed variants of various cultists don't die as easily and pose greater threat, making them more worthy of your better ammo types than normal.

Chapter Two

• Afflicted
  These spiky handed, consistently running zombie-like enemies love to pour out of a door in hordes. They hope you'll panic and waste ammo, but instead, you can take advantage of their common lined formations and headshot vulnerability using penetrative weapons. Or you could retreat to confuse their hyperactive twitchy pathfinding. So excited to see you, like a little dog.
  
  
• Peacekeepers
  The big cops with tanky white armor and an auto shotgun are fairly flammable.
  
  
• Martyrs
  These helmeted suicide bomber cultists double fisting dynamite bundles can cost a lot of ammo to always kill normally, or their explosions can be a utility in your favor.
  Run away after they light up, and they'll eventually blow up without you getting close or spending ammo, killing themselves and maybe nearby enemies while posing little threat. Their flawed pathfinding helps you with this; maybe those helmets make it hard to see. Choosing to do this whenever possible instead of exploring the other options might get boring.
  Get really close to initiate their faster detonation attack, then dodge it. This is quicker, still uses no ammo, and gives you more control over where/when the explosion is, but it's riskier.
  Just a little fire will stun them in place and cause a quick detonation.
  High knockback weapons like a sawed off shotgun altfire with the packed shells upgrade can launch their corpse and lit dynamite back at other enemies like a mortar.
  Killing them before they light up results in them dropping their two dynamite bundles unlit so you can take them as ammo. They'll light up quickly after seeing you at medium proximity or after taking damage, so you want to one shot them with a powerful weapon to get the goods. The explosion of your bounced or distant dynamite or launched grenade one-shotting them won't detonate their unlit dynamite, but explosions afterward will.
  
  
• Rotten
  These nasty slow tanky swamp zombie things like to attack in tightly packed crowds, and suddenly relocate. A lit dynamite thrown with max velocity detonating instantly due to a direct hit on one in the middle of the crowd is perfect when you want all their flesh to turn to dust before they get away. Fire is bad at killing them, but it does stun them in place.

This section includes somewhat vague spoilers, in encounter order. Hidden text is more serious and specific spoilers.

• Chapel
  You can't come back to the little starting area, so grab everything before going out. When you beat that big thing, the map is over. Collect all the ammo and other resources available in the main area earlier, preferably before the grand entrance takes your attention. There's some pretty special stuff you could get distracted from finding and miss.
  
  
• The Asylum Grounds
  You might not notice the map was updated otherwise, but there's something new up there to have a blast with.
  
  
• The Ritual Chamber
  You can keep a cooler head if you notice when you're catching a break.
  When you get a chance to do real damage, no rush, your opportunity isn't primarily time limited. You can take a moment to clear out the other little enemies and reload first, and then blast the weak point. This can relieve the pressure of the fight immensely, since the small threats do not respawn infinitely.
  A crazy overpowered option here is an all-upgrades grenade launcher with 30+ frag shells. Blasting that altfire 5 at a time per phase and fully reloading between can finish the job quickly enough to outpace all threats.
  
  
• Newbrook Shopping Center
  Fear of missing out on brief limited opportunities for resources that make lasting changes to your life, is that a detriment to your health, mental and otherwise? If you don't double down on checking things out, this mall might escalate a completionist concern of yours into a nightmare!
  
  
• The Swamp
  The closest position to a certain enemy, and best for hitting it with inaccurate weapons, is straight below. At the same time, you'll be introduced to the powerful but inaccurate temporary machine gun. The bazookas are worthwhile too, post buff. These temporary weapons don't use your ammo, and can be difficult to carry to good future opportunities.
  
  
• The Farm
  You may want to stock up especially for what comes after this map. Full magnum ammo and dynamite could particularly help, along with something exciting you can unlock with a dusty key.
  
  
• Old Town
  Grab everything from the little starting area, you can't come back. But this is different from Chapel and Arena, you get the chance go around in peace to collect everything from the main area of the map before and after all the action. Don't miss the stuff in the final building afterward.
  Saving the game yourself is disabled during the action on this map, so if you'll struggle with that, having a pile of ammo you previously saved will help.
  To avoid using too much of your own ammo, try to make the best use of the temporary weapons: the bazookas, flare guns, and especially the machine guns. This might mean finding them and repositioning them before the action, and then saving some of them for the guest of honor.
  
  
• The Arena
  Same story as Chapel, your chance to collect resources ends when you defeat that thing. Temporary weapons, as always, are a chance to avoid using your own ammo.
  
  
• Manor
  Uh oh! This is where your ammo management skills specifically get put to the test. There isn't much to work with, so you may have to warm up to some weapons you don't always use. Upgrades don't apply here anyways, so don't regret it if you spent them on the weapons that aren't showing up as you scavenge this map.
  The hatchet tips will especially help. The biggest ambush can be flanked in an amusing and practical way to save some ammo. Don't bolt towards the exit when you get that last skull, because there might be something that you wouldn't want to miss.
  
  
• Bunker
  This close quarters map with hundreds of enemies, including tough enemies, chosens, and tight crowds, is full of opportunities for penetrations, explosions, and namely molotovs. The machine gun way at the beginning might be more useful if left behind until after you've turned the four cranks to clear the four sludge pipes to open the big important flooded door in the center of this map.
  Specifically, one crank is in storage, one is in devotee quarters' prison path's section you submerge, and the path behind barracks goes past one crank surrounded by spiky guys to eventually lead to another at the bottom of a caged yellow ladder.
  
  
• Bunker's Final Fight
  General tips that involve multiple enemies, namely penetration, area of effect, and friendly fire, apply here. As always, remember those temporary weapons, the bazookas, machine guns, and maybe even a couple bars of soap if you care to bring them, could save you some ammo. As far as spending mainline ammo goes, try to conserve your molotovs and about half your shotgun shells, but otherwise, blast away. Resupplies after, during, and before this fight are quite a spread. The grenade launcher and magnums might shine here more than anywhere ahead, so feel free to deplete them in this fight.
  After you clear Bunker's finale, you have access to backtracking the whole map to recover missed and skipped supplies. What could particularly help ahead is some blast armor. Maybe find and use a wet key.
  
  
• The Gate
  Making the most of your time can be the way to make the most of your ammo.
  He has a blue bar of shield. When the shield is gone, you immediately have a primarily time limited opportunity to do REAL damage before the shield fully replenishes in a potentially endless loop. If the fight seems impossible because you don't have the bullets to break the shield eight times, only taking an eighth of his real health per opportunity is your issue.
  So get the shield low, but before finishing it off, be prepared to do lots of damage shortly after.
  Get really close and give that weak point all you've got.
  Amazing weapons are molotovs for wrecking the shield. For doing the real damage afterwards, apparently the canon choice, and plenty effective, is simply repeated double barrel altfires and reloads. If using other weapons for the real damage, it's great to avoid reloading by using multiple other weapons: dump one, leave it empty, and switch to dump another quickly, leaving the reloads for the shield segments. FG42's full auto mod finally gets a chance to shine. In any case, whatever you're dealing the real damage with, you want it upgraded for the job and easily equipped, so you might even consider rebinding a hotkey just for this fight.
  If you do very well, there seems to be a damage cap per stun to skew the fight to 3 shields minimum.

• Scene Select Loadout Options
  Scene select allows you to start fresh on a map with some extra options. You can replay a map you're interested in, or quit your progress through a chapter and pick it back up on the same map with some changes. Changing difficulty is the main thing that leads players to try this, but it also gives you control of your loadout. If you want to start each map with full weapons and ammo for a minimal resource management experience, or the opposite, or somewhere in the middle, or with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ baseline, or a standardized resource challenge, you can!
  
  
• Map Start
  This loadout type is the default baseline. It will start you on the map with supplies as if you had been playing the chapter up to that point collecting the usual weapons, keeping a spread of decent ammo for them, and finding quite a few weapon parts without applying them yet, but finding no imbued remains. If you've worked yourself into a serious hole with your upgrades and ammo management, you could switch to this to improve your situation to a baseline, and still think of yourself as playing fair.
  
  
• Pistol Start
  This option will always start you with a loaded handgun, 5 hatchets, and 50 spare 9mm. On most maps, this provides a standardized extra challenge that puts your ammo management to the test, and makes those spare weapons you normally just want ammo from more important. A few maps normally start with even fewer supplies than this, though, making Pistol Start easier than Map Start or New Game for those maps.
  
  
• Custom Loadout
  This scene select loadout type option is the big one, enabling its own menu, which gives you completely unbalanced control over the equipment you start the map with. You can enable or disable each weapon, including the unusual bolt action rifle. Spare ammo of each type can be set wherever you want with an incremented slider. Imbuements and unapplied weapon upgrade parts have incremented sliders, too.
  
  
• Get Loadout From Game Save
  This a powerful option for Custom Loadouts, it lets you transfer an inventory over to a different part of the story, which can effectively provide many different features.
  It allows you to change your difficulty while retaining your loadout.
  It's almost a "New Game+" feature: there's no save after a chapter's completion to select, but you can get the loadout from a save very near the end of a chapter.
  It allows the detective's Ch1 arsenal to be effectively recovered at the start of Ch2. The maps aren't balanced for this, and it's a few police station locks away from being canon, but it's a popularly requested feature.
  It can function as a custom loadout preset. Customize your loadout, start the game, save the game, and then get the loadout from that save every time you want that same loadout, instead of doing all the sliders and checkboxes again. You can't rename the saves, so it may be hard to find the same one again later if you have a bunch, but what can help your preset stand out from your other saves is putting it on the unusual RD21 Demo map.
  
  
• Limitations
  Armor, the field kit, the pocket lamp, and applied weapon upgrades aren't available through scene select, but you can manually adjust the upgrade parts supply and apply those when you reach a workbench.
  The imbuement slider snaps to increments of 5, but that's 5 imbuements, not health, so those increments are +25 max hp, but max health caps at 200hp, or 20 imbues, unlike the 70 max imbues on the slider. So what appears to be 15 options is only 5.
  If you get zero ammo instead of what you chose after doing custom loadout once or a few times before and exiting to the main menu to do it again, try restarting the game and then doing your custom loadout once more.
  The map Interlude will override any loadout options. I assume this is intentional and partially necessary. The visuals of the rookie's arms and sleeves handling all the detective's weapons probably don't exist, and the rookie is presumably canonically incompatible with using imbued remains the way the detective does.

Get carried away by following these cheeky strategies that optimize your ammo management in the wrong way, likely being a detriment to your enjoyment of the game, your sanity, and/or being opposed to the developer's intentions.

• Depend on Frequent Saves
  Bind quicksave and quickload to convenient buttons.
  Save before starting any fight. Lose. Load. Win. Load, win while missing fewer shots. Load, win without missing. Load, win without getting hit. Load, get that double kill shot. Load, make it a triple. Load, tap that chosen adept with one singular incinerator ammo. Load, load, load. Turn coulda woulda shoulda into gonna. If you weren't perfect, don't accept that it ever happened.
  
  
• Rapid Save Scumming
  Save mid-fight after every satisfactory action. Did you know you're invincible for a brief moment after loading a save?
  
  
• Let Loose When Saving is Disabled
  The parts of the game that disable saving are meant to be a wake up call to players that over rely on saving, forcing them to do better, overcome a greater challenge. Instead of that, you can reap the reward of excessive ammo management in the prior parts of the game by finally letting loose and using that big ammo supply you worked for as a crutch to get through the unsavable sections without getting too good at the general gameplay and without learning too much, except for how powerful that grenade launcher you've carried and never fired is.
  
  
• Save Scumming Random Drops
  The random chance for an enemy to drop ammo or health doesn't have to be random. You could reroll that sharpshooter cultist that didn't drop anything to shake an extra 3 sniper rounds out of their corpse.
  
  
• My Precious
  Keep that temporary machine gun, lantern, or bazooka, you might need it later. You can't climb a ladder with it, but maybe you can drop it mid jump to wedge it between ladder rungs and reach down to pull it up a short ladder, or stick the tip through a wall while dropping it to pull it out on the other side. Oh, but it's not suited for this fight, so set it down, use something else, and come back for it, and keep carrying it to the next fight. And the next. Okay, map complete makes you drop it, but uhhh maybe Jason will change his mind about no future chapters, and you'll be glad you brought a full machine gun to this spot when you're playing Chapter Four [Dev note: No] which revisits it and adjusts it by your Ch2 save file?
  
  
• Frequently Change Hint Range
  You don't have to decide on one range for your lighter's hints. In accessibility options, you can adjust it over and over to help you initially notice a secret easily with a huge range, and then pinpoint its exact location with progressively smaller ranges. This way, you're never looking at, thinking about, or appreciating the map design too much while you get your secrets.
  
  
• Enable Damage Numbers
  In gameplay options, enable damage numbers, get all the information, know exactly what you're doing. Dwell in regret on each failed headshot, since now you know for sure. Do the exact math to find the objectively best weapon for each enemy in each situation. Write a guide more thorough than this one. Get immersed in subtraction rather than the action.