This game doesn't do a great deal of hand-holding while you are playing it and while this is great for a lot of stuff it kind of sucks for others. There isn't a whole lot of indication as to what you are supposed to be doing much of the time and the game doesn't attempt to remind you about what you are supposed to be doing.
one thing that becomes pretty evident really early on though, is that you have to collect various energies from these things called "anchors" that are strewn all over the map. These are an essential part of the game because by looting one of them, you will get a type of energy from them that is essential to upgrading almost everything in the game.
The first couple of times that you encounter one of these things are probably going to be kind of scary, because just like most things in this game, you don't really know what you are getting yourself into. You are just told to walk up, grab the, cylinder that is nicely put right there at arm's reach, and then return it to your magical device in your car called the ARC device. At that point you have now collected it kind of like how ghosts in Ghostbusters were stored in that containment device.
You will still lose if though if you die or your car is destroyed in the zone so the fun isn't over yet!
They are indicated on the map by these yellow circles and normally they are a bit off the roadway. When i first started collecting these things I was driving my car up very close to the anchor and then collecting the energy contained inside and then driving off. I think the game takes it easy on you the first couple of times you collect this stuff but after a while it decided to throw the kitchen sink at you.
You see, the anchors are protected in some capacity and as the name would suggest, they are anchoring this strange world that you find yourself in and the spectral energy that this world contains apparently is tied to it.
When you remove the energy capsule from an anchor, the anomalies become upset and will come after you once you remove it.
This can be kind of bad news for your car because once the car is damaged in the field it can be time-consuming to repair it. one thing you don't normally have a lot of in the field is time, and repairing various parts of your car can involve multiple trips to the back of the car all the while you have a storm, or radiation, or some other nuisance that might be coming for you.
On the other hand your body can take a lot more damage than you think and food, MRE's and first aid kits are pretty plentiful in the game and I have found that it is much more simple to repair damage to my person than it is to my car.
Therefore I have determined or as would be somewhat indicated at this point that the anomalies will only latch on to the canister within a certain perimeter of the anchor original location. It has been my experience that if I park my car about 50 meters or a bit more from the anchor, I can usually run all the way back to the car without the anomalies following that far since most of the anomalies that are summoned when you steal the energy, are stationary.
These fuckers, called minutemen are very common to pop out of the ground after you grab an energy container. They will shock you a bit but the damage is nothing major. But if they get a hold of your car they will damage the panels, doors, and tires, but also cause one of the most annoying aspects of the game, electrical damage to the battery as well as the headlights. These two things are extra difficult to sort out on the road and you are much better off just getting your body electrocuted and then using a first aid kit later. I tend to want to save all the structural damage that my car can handle for the mad scramble out of a zone once a deadly storm sets in and I have to throw caution to the wind and skedattle, even if by fleeing that means I have to drive blindly off of a cliff. At that point you are normally fleeing the zone in a one-way trip back to the base, so the amount of damage you cause isn't that much of a concern anymore.
Getting your stuff damaged by anomalies really early on in a run though, that can ruin the whole thing.
So seriously, do yourself a favor and park 50 meters or maybe even more further away from an anchor if you intend to loot it. The energy cell is radioactive and this will slowly drain your health, so it is important to not park seriously far away.
Best of luck exploring!