Above: the physical in-game model of the computer, as seen in the Operational Guide.

As the pre-round countdown comes to a close, you awake to find yourself looking at a room from the perspective of a camera, and down below you see a box computer on a table, surrounded by a fence. You have now become the AI which inhabits that computer, and you now hold near-absolute power over the facility of Site-02. You know one thing for certain: your objective is to bring an end to the pitiful humans which inhabit your domain.

However, if you are new to the game, or have not played since before the Mimicry update was implemented, you may not be entirely familiar with how to utilize these powers, what exactly you need to do to accomplish your overarching goals, or how you'll be able to use the strengths of your eldritch accomplices to achieve victory. Fret not, as a computer main with significant in-game experience is here to tell you everything you'll need to know to become a truly feared technological terror!

The first thing any new or inexperienced player will need to know before anything else is of course knowing how to control your abilities, as well as what all of your abilities do.

The Operational Guide
One of the biggest improvements made in the mimicry update that makes this significantly easier to figure out is the implementation of the Operational Guide, which has essential information on every single role in the game. Most importantly for our purposes, the guide is particularly useful for learning the basic controls and functions of the playable SCPs. These pages can be accessed immediately from the main menu, and also have a secondary page where you can change your SCP preferences, which affects the likelihood of you spawning as certain SCPs when you become an SCP.


Above: The Operational Guide page on SCP-079, as seen in-game.

Additionally, there are ways to alter the specific inputs for performing certain actions in the main menu settings if you aren't satisfied with the default inputs, under controls and gameplay:


Above: Settings for changing 079's basic input controls.





Above: Additional settings for 079 found under gameplay settings in the main menu. Affects view mode controls and display as 079 respectively.

Basic Controls

With that being said, there are some basic controls you will want to quickly familiarize yourself with that have remained similar to pre-mimicry mechanics:

• Move your mouse to look around the room you're in.
  
• To look around the room much faster, press and hold Space to snap the camera to your mouse (If "toggle view modes" is on, you only need to press space once to turn it on, and press it again to go back to default view mode). Getting used to the camera-snap viewmode will be crucial to quickly moving through adjacent rooms in camera mode, as well as looking to interact with doors quickly.
  
• WASD or click on camera symbols to move room to room in camera mode (I generally stay in camera-snap mode and press W when looking at the room I want to go to so I can get between adjacent rooms quickly).
  
• Left click on electronic icons in the room to interact with them (firing teslas, sending elevators) for a certain amount of power. Right click on doors specifically to lock them if you have power.
  
• Press F when in a room to initiate a blackout (Tier 2, more info below).
  
• Press G when in a room to initiate a lockdown (Tier 3, more info below).
  
• Press Space when in the Tab map to look at the Breach scanner menu, from which you can toggle breach scanners for every zone in the facility (Tier 4, more info below).
  
• Press and hold V to speak to all players in your current room through the speakers.
  
• Press E to ping something in a room that you are looking at, visible to all other SCPs (3 maximum, last for 5 seconds, 3 second cooldown).

The TAB Map

One of the most important assets the computer has as one of its core abilities is complete knowledge of the map layout. This information can be pulled up by pressing TAB, which opens a screen which looks like this:


Above: The map of the facility which computer can use. Not included is the player tracker. (Note: the current version of these maps show heavy containment and entrance sharing 2 checkpoints instead of just one. Also, the target tracker and SCP tracker are not displayed here)

This map is absolutely crucial for navigational purposes, as it allows you to more quickly determine where your SCP teammates need to be at any given point in time. On top of that, clicking on any of the rooms displayed on the map will instantly take you to that room at the cost of power, and the map will display any currently living SCP players (not including zombies), which also means that this map is necessary for being able to find and assist your SCP team in a time-efficient manner.

Auxillary Power and the Access Tier System

You may have noticed a few times that I mentioned certain actions costing "power". "What exactly does that mean?" you may ask. This is actually in reference to one of the most important mechanics behind how the computer works: Auxillary power and Access Tiers.


Above: The XP and AP bars, which are present in the bottom right of 079's display at all times.

In essence, these bars are the lifeblood of what allows the computer to actually interact with the systems of the facility. Respectively:

• The XP bar is the top bar in the display, and is an indicator of how much you have assisted your SCP teammates in the game, be it helping them hunt human players down, or protecting your SCP teammates from harm. It also indicates the access tier you currently have unlocked, with each successive level of access providing you with greater maximum AP, greater AP regeneration, and new/improved abilities.
  
• The AP bar is immediately below the XP bar, and indicates how much Auxillary Power you currently have, and the maximum amount of AP you can have at your current access tier level. If you know the AP cost of certain actions, this is the bar that indicates how close you are to being able to actually perform certain interactions. However, if you do not have enough AP to perform an action, the you will get a prompt which informs you how long you will need to wait before you can perform the action.

Nearly every action you take as computer will cost you AP. More specifically:

• No cost - Speaking through speakers to players in a room
  
• Increasing cost - Keeping door locked
  
• 5 AP - open/close Non-Keycard Doors/Gates
  
• 10 AP - open/close Checkpoints; HCZ/EZ Checkpoint Side Area, switch between levels (nuke, 049's room (stacks)), Zone-skipping penalty in TAB map
  
• 15 AP - Blackout ability (Tier 2)
  
• 15 AP - operate Elevators
  
• 20 AP - change zones (stacks)
  
• 30 AP - open/close Intercom Broadcasting Center
  
• 40 AP - open/close SCP-096/SCP-106's Chambers, TC-01 Control Room, fire Tesla Gates
  
• 50 AP - open/close LCZ/HCZ Armories, SCP-914's Chamber
  
• 60 AP - open/close Armory in SCP-049's Chamber
  
• 70 AP - open/close Micro H.I.D. Storage
  
• 80 AP - open/close Gate-A/Gate-B
  
• 100 AP - Lockdown ability (Tier 3)
  
• 200 AP - Zone Blackout Ability (Tier 5)
  
• Halves AP regen while active per zone - Breach scanner ability (Tier 4)

As for the XP system which determines how you reach higher access tiers, there are a number of things you can do which contribute towards your XP bar. This includes:

• Cutting humans off while being chased by SCPs: 5 XP
  
• Protecting SCPs from damage (guns, SCP takes at least 100 damage to real HP bar, close/lock door between SCP and attackers to prevent furter damage): 1 attacker (10 XP), 2 attackers (15 XP), 3 attackers (25 XP), 4 attackers (40 XP), 5 or more attackers (60 xp)
  
• Protecting SCPs from Micro HID (similar to guns, with micro charged 80%+ or more, door closed/locked between Micro user and SCP, one-time award): 50 XP
  
• Termination assist (interacting with electronics in the room, and humans get killed by other players immediately after): Scientist (50 XP), D-Class (40 XP), MTF or Chaos (30 XP), Guard (25 XP)
  
• Termination Witness (watching human die, without interacting with electronics): 50% XP from termination assist values
  
• Direct Kills (Tesla Gate kills): 150% XP from termination assist values

This leads us to the access tiers themselves, which provide you increasingly more powerful abilities and greater AP capacity and regeneration. Specifically, the details on what you can do with each access tier is as follows:

Tier 1 (starting tier on spawn)


Above: The SCP tracker and human tracker respectively, in their most basic tier 1 forms. The human tracker is present in the top left corner of the TAB map. Also pictured: the ping ability when it is used. This is visible to SCPs only.

• 100 max AP
  
• 1.2 AP generated per second
  
• Door interactions (open/close/lock)
  
• Send elevators to be sent up or down
  
• Firing Tesla Gates
  
• Talk to humans via Speakers
  
• Basic Target Counter
  
• SCP Tracker on their map
  
• Ping System (Press E to ping)

Tier 2 (80 xp(equivalent to roughly 4 kill assists on guards))


Above: tier 2 version of the human tracker, which now displays civilian and military humans remaining. Also shown, a blackout active in 914's chamber.

• 110 max AP
  
• 2.5 AP generated per second
  
• Blackout ability (press F in room you are currently in, kills the lights in the room for a period of time, inflicting humans in the room with a severe vision debuff)
  
• Target Counter upgraded to show different types of humans.

Tier 3 (130 xp from last level(equivalent to roughly 6 kill assists on guards))


Above: The human tracker and SCP tracker, in their tier 3 forms. the human tracker displays how much of every different specific class of humans is alive, and the SCP tracker now shows where in the room SCPs are, as well as the direction they are facing and the number of SCPs in the room.

• 125 max AP
  
• 4.1 AP generated per second
  
• Lockdown Ability (press G in a room with more than one door, closes and locks all doors for a set period of time, halts AP generation during use)
  
• Blackout 2 rooms simultaneously
  
• Target Counter shows specific human classes
  
• SCP Tracker shows position of SCPs in a room and the direction they are facing

Tier 4 (250 xp from last level(equivalent to 10 kill assists on guards))


Image 1: The SCP tracker in its tier 4 form, which now displays which SCP is in a room. Image 2: View of the breach scanner menu, accessed from the TAB map by pressing space

• 150 max AP
  
• 6.8 AP generated per second
  
• Breach Scanner ability (Passive togglable ability in the Tab map for each zone in the facility, which reveals humans who have stayed in specific rooms every 20 seconds, pinging in your TAB map and playing a loud alarm in the room itself. Can have breach scanner active in any of the 4 zones, however every breach scanner active halves your AP regeneration).
  
• Blackout 4 rooms simultaneously
  
• AP regenerates at half speed during lockdown
  
• SCP Tracker displays SCP names below icons

Tier 5 (500 xp from last level(equivalent to 20 kill assists on guards))


Above: Zone Blackout button, as seen in the TAB map

• 200 max AP
  
• 11.2 AP generated per second
  
• Zone Blackout (button next to zone names in TAB map, blacks out every single room in a zone for 60 seconds with a very long cooldown)
  
• Warhead Detonation (not implemented yet)

Threats to your life

Lastly in this section, we need to be aware of the things that can threaten your life as computer. There are three ways you can be re-contained as 079:

• All your SCP teammates die, which automatically induces heavy containment overcharge
  
• Alpha Warhead detonates when you haven't triggered it (an active warhead countdown also prevents you from using doors, which is a massive disadvantage)
  
• 3 generators are activated in Heavy Containment, which opens the door to your room, inside which there is a button which can be pressed to initiate overcharge and contain you.

For the latter method, the key factor is a series of 3 generators which can spawn in a number of locations throughout heavy containment in any given round. When they start, both a visual and audio prompt are activated for computer and the room the generator is being activated in begins flashing red in the TAB map.

When a generator begins activating, you have roughly 2 minutes to have an SCP run to the generator and shut it off, which stops the countdown for the generator activation and begins to slowly reverse the countdown the longer the generator remains off. Keeping these generators from completely activating is existentially important for computer to avoid being recontained prematurely. Especially make sure to keep generators which are in secure locations from activating, to make it significantly harder for any humans to actually attack you.

If nuke is being activated, you also cannot operate doors, which severely limits what you can do. Make it a priority to prevent nuke detonations which you do not initiate.

Now that you have learned what your controls and mechanics are, the next very important section of information regards your SCP teammates and what they can do (SCP-096 is not included in this specific guide, as computer and shy guy are now mutually-exclusive spawns). Without further ado, allow me to introduce you to your SCP crew:


SCP-173 (AKA the Peanut)
The Peanut is one of the best synergies with the computer of the other SCPs, as its abilities are much more effective in enclosed spaces. More specifically, when you black out rooms he is no longer frozen when looked at unless the humans in question have flashlights, which allows peanut to easily chase the human down and kill them instantly by left-clicking on them to snap their neck. If the room isn't blacked out or the humans in the room have flashlights, peanut needs to hold right click which will show a hologram copy of peanut in the location it would teleport to after letting go of right click. If peanut teleports on top of a human during this, the human dies instantly. Peanut can also increase his speed markedly with the breakneck speed ability by pressing shift, which also allows it to teleport much further and much more often than in his regular form. However, teleporting on top of a human during breakneck speeds does not kill them, and you have to press shift again in order to get out of breakneck speeds to attack the human. Peanut also runs out of breakneck speeds 10 seconds after a human views it. If peanut is not being observed, it can also deploy up to 6 AOE debuff zones called "tantrum" by pressing F, which involves peanut leaving filth on the floor which slows down any humans that are walking within its radius. If peanut kills someone affected by tantrum, it regenerates a portion of its hume shield.

Overall, Peanut excels at the early game, as its high speed and instant kill mechanics paired with the fact that it spawns in light containment in close proximity to where all the light containment humans spawn means it has a lot of opportunities to kill humans early on, and this makes peanut an excellent candidate to follow around and rack up kill assists with. With a computer to help peanut is highly lethal in the early game and this early lethality provides an excellent source of XP. However, peanut is not nearly as strong against the MTF, as becoming a stationary target with 10+ guns trained on you is a recipe for getting melted, bullet resistance or not. Once the MTF are spawned in the nut is best for hunting down strays in heavy and light, as well as applying tantrums near the checkpoints to create a zone of favorable combat conditions for the SCPs against the MTF.

SCP-106 (AKA Larry)


Larry is a very interesting case, as while he is not as bullet-resistant as he was prior to the mimicry update, he has a very interesting new teleportation and stalk ability set. If he clicks on a human twice he abducts them, sending them to the pocket dimension where humans will usually die (although humans can and most likely will escape his dimension a few times through the randomized exits). Larry's abilities are based around an energy system similar to computer's AP, called "vigor", which is refilled by Larry walking around. If he has enough vigor and the cooldown for teleportation and stalk are refreshed, he can use either ability. The most interesting of these abilities is Hunter's Atlas, which is used by pressing and holding tab. When holding tab, a small map of the rooms immediately around Larry is shown, a map which increases in radius the more vigor he has. If you click on one of the rooms shown on this minimap, Larry will immediately teleport to that room, starting the cooldown for his abilities (his teleport is particularly precise, as he will teleport to the specific location in the room you click on). His other ability is Stalk, which you can activate with shift and acts effectively as a sprint mode for Larry where he is underground and can be canceled before running out of vigor by pressing shift again. This is also the only way which Larry can regenerate his hume shield, so make sure to have a good supply of vigor at all times.

Larry is arguably the strongest SCP on the team, as stalk and hunter's atlas in particular give him potent flanking potential, and stalk allows for excellent dis-engage from combat situations as it is a method of regenerating hume shield at will in a safe way. As long as the player using Larry is careful not to recklessly push armed groups when he's out of vigor, he is an incredibly versatile member of the team that can fill many different roles.

SCP-049 (AKA Doctor)
The doctor is the glassiest SCP on the team, and also generally isn't very fast. However, he has the unique and very useful ability to resurrect fresh human bodies into 049-2 zombies by pressing and holding E on the corpses, which are excellent scouts and in greater numbers can be quite an intimidating fighting force. The doctor also has a way of buffing any zombies in close proximity by pressing R to activate The Doctor's Call, which generates hume shields for any zombies that linger near the doctor, and the ability also generates a light visible to zombies through walls from great distances to allow them to find the doctor. He can also boost his speed when a human target is sighted by pressing F to activate Good Sense of the Doctor, which also applies a target aura on the human. If doctor kills and resurrects this human, the resulting zombie has greater HP than a normal zombie, and the doctor regenerates 100 hume shield. any zombies that have been damaged can also heal themselves by consuming human corpses by pressing E on them. If any zombies die, the doctor can resurrect them again if they haven't spawned back in through the spawn wave system yet, up to a maximum of 3 times.

The doctor is a very great source for reinforcements for the SCP team, and if he follows other SCPs that are killing humans and leaving bodies on the floor, he can very quickly amass a large army of zombies which can soak up bullets for the main SCPs and provide more sets of eyes to scout the facility more efficiently. However, similar to peanut the doctor is not very good against the MTF waves by himself, due primarily to his relatively low health and generally slow speed. He'll need a good deal of protection for his abilities to be utilized to maximum effect, and similarly to the peanut he is much more effective in claustrophobic spaces where humans have less room to juke, so locking doors on humans helps doctor greatly.

SCP-939 (AKA Dog)
The dog is an excellent ambush predator, with silent footsteps when walking and a focus/pouncing attack which kills the targeted human instantly if it lands (hold C to focus which causes dog to anchor in place facing a direction while also being more aware of the sounds around it in a greater radius, and pounce by clicking or pressing space). It is also quite good at rushing down targets, as it has a very fast sprint and a clawing standard attack which can very quickly kill most humans in 3 hits. 939 can also deploy a cloud of amnestic gas by pressing and holding F, which causes humans to stop perceiving the dog, as well as losing their ability to reload their guns or use their inventories and item hotkeys, providing a potent debuff effect (however the humans can see dog during this effect if it attacks players under the effect directly, or said players physically touch the dog). It can also mimic the voices of prior victims and environmental sounds using a menu of sounds by pressing TAB and selecting sounds from a menu.

It isn't a wise idea to attack armed groups alone however, as dog can pretty quickly get melted by them. ESPECIALLY don't try to pounce on someone if there are a lot more people with guns within line of sight that can burst you down, since getting into your "ready" stance puts you in a very vulnerable position, as does the recoil from the pounce when you stand back up.

Before we discuss the specifics of how to strategically approach the game to secure victory, we need to know what it means to actually win the game. Your goal is to kill the humans in the facility, but what does a win actually look like? To answer this question, we must examine Secret Laboratory's win conditions, which are what determines the result message at the end of a round and in turn will heavily influence your strategic approach to a match. Luckily for us, we just so happen to have a table to help us memorize this:


Above: win condition table. Source: https://en.scpslgame.com/index.php?title=Victory_Conditions

Based on the information presented here, there are 3 important components to achieving victory as team SCP:

• There are no more foundation personnel (D-class, Scientists, Guards, MTF) alive at the end of a round.
  
• You must prevent as many civilian (Scientist and D-class) escapes as possible.
  
• You must do everything in your power to keep all of your SCPs alive.

In other words, if you want to win as the SCPs, you need to try to completely wipe out the Scientist and D-class population as quickly as possible, and then keep your team alive until you can kill the last Guard/MTF holdouts in the facility.

While the Chaos aren't technically on the list of targets you need to kill to win, it can still prove to be a wise idea to kill them if there are still living D-class out there, as the chaos win condition involves assisting D-class in their escape, which is directly at odds with your goals. If there are no longer D-class alive however, it may be beneficial to leave chaos alive and avoid them, as this will provide you with more pairs of eyes to find the remaining security forces in the facility.

Now that you have a good feel for how you and your SCP teammates work, as well as a better understanding on what it takes to officially win as SCPs, It's time to discuss strategic approaches to the game that can maximize your chances of winning.

First and foremost, you need to prioritize the light containment zone humans over all other humans, since their continued survival is at direct odds with your win condition. As soon as you spawn in, take note of the SCPs you have on your team and immediately inform them on the shortest possible path they need to take to get into light containment, and also take time to make sure your SCP team knows the mechanics of their SCPs. It is ill-advised to have your SCPs push entrance, since it takes extra AP to actually move into entrance to assist them, guards are significantly more threatening to your team's overall HP than the civilian classes, and even if you do kill them and get the assist XP, you're getting much less XP for your buck.

Once the heavy containment SCPs know where to go to get into light and if there's a peanut in the game, go to light and waste no time in cutting humans off from escape in order to get as much kill assist XP as possible. Especially prioritize scientist kill assists at first as they have keycards and give you more XP per kill assist than any other human in the game. Have your SCPs call out when they see humans and where they are so you can quickly travel to them and get the kill assist XP. Do your best to not let a single death go to waste (if your SCPs corner a lot of people in 914, make sure the door out of the room in general is closed prior to opening the blast door so no one leaks past, and occasionally lock/unlock/relock the door leading out so the kill assist timer never runs out and you get XP for every single kill assist). If you are able to be very efficient, getting up to at least mid-tier 3 should be a breeze.

In most situations you need to be able to anticipate where your human prey is going to try to run, and try to close the door right as they're about to get through the door and lock, as if you are able to get it right they will subconciously run into the door before they attempt to course-correct, which could give your SCPs that crucial second or two to catch up and kill the human. This is why you want to have your view mode in camera-snap as much as you can, so you can look to the door you wish to operate extremely fast and be ready to close it on the humans when they're getting close to the door. Keep this up in light until only a few humans are left (5-7), and then begin to transfer to heavy containment for the latter stages of the game. If your generators start getting activated prematurely, be sure to send a faster SCP into heavy to make sure your generators aren't activated extremely early.

Once the majority of the light containment civilian humans are dead and you have around 5 or fewer targets left to target, you need to have your SCPs head up into heavy containment in order to catch any possible stragglers that may have made it out of light containment. You could also choose to send your SCPs up earlier if a large portion of the light containment humans made it into heavy containment very quickly.

While your SCPs are scanning heavy containment, be sure to occasionally check the important rooms in light containment every once in a while, since a lot of the smarter players wait for the SCPs to go into heavy containment before they use 914. You need to be looking for these last humans so you could potentially end the round early, however, if you aren't able to end the round early, you also need to make sure the SCPs know where the checkpoints are so you can prepare for the armed spawnwaves.

If you have tier 4 access by the time there aren't many humans left alive, the breach scanner ability significantly streamlines the process of finding stragglers humans since every 20 seconds when the scanners in the zones are active they will ping you when it detects any humans which have been idle in a room. It will also play a loud alarm sound, effectively giving the humans camping there away to anyone within earshot. This saves a significant amount of time that would have you or your SCPs manually checking rooms otherwise, and could allow you to end the round early. When spawnwaves occur though, you'll want to turn off your breach scanners, since each active scanner halves your AP regeneration, and you want to have as much AP as possible when fighting armed spawnwaves.

Once a spawnwave spawns, your entire team needs to get ready to combat them. The fewer armed personnel that survive for very long, the less likely it is for the armed groups to terminate you or the other SCPs. When it comes to fighting armed spawnwaves in SL as the SCPs, there are a few important points to keep in mind when determining your combat doctrine:

• The spawn waves are much more dangerous if they are able to stick together; separating them into bite-sized chunks will be a necessity if you want to survive battles against them.
  
• You need to pick your battles wisely. Rarely if ever should you charge guns blazing into entrance zone, as the rooms are wider, brighter, and the MTF and Chaos are more likely to still be together in entrance. You want them to be fighting on YOUR terms.
  
• Confusion is one of your greatest assets against their organization. The more disordered the MTF and Chaos response to you is, the better.

The first thing you want to be doing once the MTF or Chaos wave spawns is to have your SCPs start making battle preparations nearby the checkpoints, be it dog and peanut deploying their debuffs, doc getting his zombies hume shield, or Larry charging his vigor prior to any engagements. When the spawn waves are coming to the checkpoints, you need to make it a point to add your own debuff effects by blacking out the rooms around them as well as physically separating them by closing and locking doors so your SCPs can attack the spawn wave in smaller chunks to reduce the risk of taking major damage in battle. Be on standby to cover for your SCPs' escapes as well if they begin to get lit up, as remember, you get a lot of XP for providing said cover for your SCPs in the heat of battle. If you can, have an SCP move to flank the spawn wave from a different direction to redirect fire so no single SCP is being overly focused, and push as a team (Larry especially should be doing this as his teleportation and stalk abilities provide him a very reliable way of flanking opponents, cutting off escapes for pincer maneuvers, and leaving if the fire on him gets too intense).

Ideally, strategies of causing panic and confusion among the ranks of the MTF and Chaos and keeping them separated, debuffed and under pressure will allow you to gradually and fairly safely whittle down their numbers to a manageable few, at which point you'll be more free to liberally push into entrance as well as continue sweeping heavy and light (if it isn't already decontaminated) for the last few survivors you haven't rooted out prior to the spawn waves occuring.

At this point, you can start to check all of the major keycard and elevator rooms (049's chamber, nuke, armory) to eliminate the possibilities of where humans could be hiding from you, which as mentioned before breach scanner will be a massive help with. If at all possible, try to avoid allowing multiple spawnwaves to happen, as even if everything goes according to plan your SCPs only have so much HP over the course of a match. Keep this up until you are able to kill the last available targets, and embrace your victory message at the end of the match as you sit on your throne of corpses.

On that note, the process of updating this guide into the modern age was quite something, indeed. With the reception of the original guide I wrote 2 years ago, that many more years of experience in the game under my belt and having been able to see the game evolve as it has, it was quite a blast seeing how much my guide helped you all last time, and I hope that this guide will be able to help you just as much, if not even more so.

A special thanks to all the knowledgeable people who regularly play on the official Northwood Canada servers, who I've played with for so long, have taught me much of what I know about this game, and have even brought their input for the process of making this guide (including Just a Blue who provided me with all the original artwork shown).

Until we meet again,
-MeargleSchmeargle