How do I build up the confidence to actually make plays?

Got ~1000 hrs but rarely play solo, but If I do here are a few tips. Although I recommend you just play trios.

tldr: Don't be afraid to loose your hunter, it nearly impossible to run out of money. Stay silent and be quick between compounds. Build confidence by 3rd parting 2v2 fights and crowd control the enemy teams. Your first loud shot counts the most make it a kill. Whoever has a compound controls the fight. Don't let enemies know you're solo. Get a feeling where enemies are on the map. Always burn hunters immediately.

In detail:

• Get the Silenced Nagant Revolver with Poison ammo, it's the best utility weapon in the game. One-shots all non-boss enemies (at least it did until they buffed Immolators) and all bosses except the spider have a severe poison weakness. Pair it with Fanning and you also have one of the strongest short range weapons in the game, almost outclassing shotguns. Look out for special ammo boxes or bring one yourself. It really let's you get from point A to B fast and quiet. Also because you'll be shooting things left and right with it, it will improve your aim a lot. If you have quartermaster, swap the Nagant for a bow, its a definite upgrade.

• Don't be afraid to lose your hunter. Being solo gives you a massive boost in money rewards if you extract. So just extracting with the bounty token once every 5-7 games should keep your head above water.

• Intervene. If you hear a fight, go there. The server usually has 9-12 people. If there are 2 bosses, and you hear a gunfight on your side of the map, this means that all the players from your side are at that position. If you come out on top of a 2v2v1 this means that your side is now fully cleared of enemies and since people rarely switch sides, you're essentially completely safe. But if it's very far away and you're at the boss lair already, you can kill the boss and escape before they even finish their fight. Also, in a 2v2v1, don't kill off one team completely, cripple them by killing only one, and then use the confidence of the 3rd team to also kill one of theirs. Now both teams are weakened and confused. It's essentially crowd control. Let them kill and revive each other a few times, so they will be easier to kill later.

• Try to make it a 1v1 with your first shot. Winning a 2v1 is difficult, but if you kill the first hunter immediately (and even burn him for good measure) the odds are now even.

• When picking a hunter check their skills and build your loadout around that. Bulletgrubber means you'll take a bolt action or Specter, Pitcher means you'll take more throwables, Scopesmith a marksman or sniper rifle, etc... I recommend you stick with roughly the same tools and consumables every time, but your main weapon should vary. I usually ignore the Bow skills and swap them for something else.

• Meele is strong. Just a single hit from any weapon and the next strong meele attack is going to kill. And people often panic if you try to meele them. I recommend the Scotfield Brawler with fire ammo. It fires faster than other single action revolvers and fire makes people panic even more. Just shoot and punch.

• Be aware of your and the enemies effective ranges. Shotguns have distinct sounds, so do long rifles. If you know at what range the enemy is good at you know how NOT to engage. A silenced Nagant with Fanning and a bolt action rifle, means you're effective at essentially every range, so you can pick how to engage.

• Don't stay inside the boss building after you killed the Boss. The Boss building isn't really designed to be defendable by a single person. Rather check the map to see which direction the enemies are going to come from most likely and set up an ambush on the edge of the compound. Most people don't rush the boss area, but rather try sneaking into position before engaging. Those slow moving sneaking players are an easy target for you. Ideally you don't let them into the Compound at all, that way you'll always have more cover than them.

• Traps, for solos should be used differently. Usually you'd be inclined to place traps on doors to deny entry. But in a big building the traps will usually be spread out to far apart for you to profit of off them. Rather use them for ambushes. Place them close to cover you'd expect the enemy to use. Instead of denying them entry, deny them cover. Cortina traps remove enough health to make any weapon a one-hit kill shot.

• A couple of rules regarding the boss. If you spawn on the boss and he's close to an exit kill him fast and extract. If the exit isn't close, kill him fast and brace for combat. If you stumble upon the boss later in the game, don't kill him at all, rather prepare for a fight and kill the boss afterwards. If the boss got killed by another team, don't engage, stay outside the compound (about halfway to the next one towards the exit) let them come out and engage shortly, before running for the next compound for proper cover. The "half way to the next compound" is important, because usually people check for enemies with the Bounty Darksight once right after killing the boss and once before entering a new compound.

• This one warrants a separate point. If the enemy is in the process of killing the boss, either let them kill it and wait for another team to arrive and push in a 2v2v1. Or use the confusion during the boss fight to slip inside the lair. As long as you don't engage the boss it will mostly ignore you and focus on the enemies. Most people neglect healing during the boss fight so all of them should essentially be one-hit kills even with meele. If they suddenly stop fighting the boss, they most likely noticed you and you should disengage.

Here are some equipment recommendations:

Main weapon:

• Whatever fits your Hunters traits the best, preferably Long Rifles and Shotguns

Sidearm:

• Silenced Nagant with Poison Ammo (best paired with Fanning)
• Small Crossbow with regular and poison darts Bow (with Quartermaster)
• Silenced Bornheim with Fire Ammo Scotfield Brawler with Fire Ammo (Don't use Fanning on this one, to much spread)
• Caldwell or Lemat Uppercut for extra Long Ammo

Tools:

• Knuckle Knife or Throwing Spear (essential)
• First Aid Kit (essential)
• Flares or Flare Gun (essential instead of chokes, can burn hunters easily, flares can kill armored, don't use flare gun on mobs, its quite loud)
• Throwing Axes or Throwing Knives (If no suppressed weapon)
• Cortina Razor Mines (good but optional)
• Exploding Decoys (optional, to fake a duo instead of solo)

Consumables:

• 2 x Regen, or 1x Regen and 1x Stamina Shot (essential, pop right at the start and loot tool boxes along the way
• Sticky Bomb (essential for Bosses, can be used offensively)
• Bee Bomb (good to prevent a push or get people out of cover, often backfires tho)
• Frag (good range, bad RNG)
• Triple Dynamite (reliable and cheap)
• Big Dynamite Bundle (good but overkill)
• Hellfire Bomb (big radius, burns hunters)
• Molotov (cheap and good for burning hunters without line of sight)
• Ammo box (for special ammo)

Traits:

• Beastface (essential)

• Physician (good trait, essential for solos)

• Fanning (essential for Nagant Revolver)

• Serpent (essential for getting clues as a solo, and you can snatch a bounty from a downed hunter)

• Necro (essential for self revive)

• Magpie and Conduit (essential)

• Gatorlegs (because men only want one thing and it's disgusting)

• Greyhound (you can outrun enemies)

• Silent Killer (always nice to have)

• The one with the silent vaulting and climbing, don't remeber what its called (essential)

• The one that let's you use tools one extra time

• Vigor (paired with regen shots, gets you back into the fight faster)

• Pitcher

• Doctor

You can change your healt bar arrangement by clicking on the Hunters health bar in the loadout menu, for solos I'd recommend 3 full bars, since getting downed will most likely be the end of the hunter anyway.

When you recruit hunters there's an option to recruit 4 free hunters, and they reset after every match. There is 0 downside to picking those up, picking one you like, taking the gear off the other ones, and starting a game. I actually do this for a match or 2 to warm up and not experience gear fear.

They'll usually have similar loadouts and generally speaking the minimum necessary gear so you can start learning some weapons' strengths and weaknesses without going in naked.

Alternatively, you can try out soul survivor, in which only the last player standing gets to win, so you must make moves or lose.

In the end, it comes down to being OK with failure and losing, but still striving for the win. Once you have that confidence, you might feel "ok, I'm pushing and making moves, but maybe not winning as many of these as I'd like. I guess now I have to learn to pick my battles better and learn to maneuver better".

Don't worry about KD or MMR. You can hide those stats and just play the game.

Buy throwaway hunters with cheap loadouts and just head towards the first gunshots you hear.

Try not to care about bounties or income much, and just run into danger until you start killing instead of getting killed.

Basically, lower the stakes and put in some practice.

One more thing I forgot to mention in my long post.

An easy way to reliably get a first kill on a team without a headshot is to wait for a player to get any damage. Usually I wait till a player is either jumping from a roof and getting fall damage or getting hit by a NPC. Hellhounds are perfect for the latter, because its almost impossible to not get hit at least once while fighting them. Most long rifles will kill with one hit after a single zombie strike.

Edit: The reason why I'm putting so much emphasis on that first kill in a fight is because you specifically asked about "confidence". If you manage to instantly take out a player, the remaining one will usually get insecure and make mistakes. After that first kill you control the fight.