7 Days To Die

[Traab]

Im just curious if anyone else has played this game? maybe start a discussion thread on it. For those who dont know, 7 days is an interesting mix of zombie apocalypse survival and minecraft. You wake up lying in the road and get a short series of tutorial quests to get you setup with basic stone tools like an axe, a bow, a club etc. From there your goal is to build or take over a home that you can defend against a zombie horde that will attack in 7 days. Its post apocalyptic with damaged homes and businesses full of zombies, dogs, angry birds (not the cute round ones, these suckers are MEAN) and a handful of traders around the very large map. You can chop down trees and mine stone for basic supplies, but for the good stuff you have to break into homes, fight the undead, and collect all the random stuff left in the cupboards, backpacks, purses and crates everywhere. You start out with stone, work your way up to iron, then eventually hit steel and each one does more damage, gathers loot faster, lasts longer etc. But you also find guns of all types, ammo, skill books that improve your ability to do just about anything, and you also need to find or make food and water. The game has all different biomes in it, standard green grassy nice areas, burning wastelands, desert, and snow. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages such as overheating or hypothermia effecting how well you can move and fight.

I only just started playing so my skills are pretty basic. Ive watched a few videos though and its really helped me figure out what to do. Ive found that it works best to run around scavenging supplies, running missions for the traders, and exploring to see what nice spots you can find during the day, then you spend the more dangerous night time hours inside your hastily made base upgrading it as much as you can, then scanning through your crafting menus seeing what the next step is and what you need to start aiming for to unlock it. As you build, mine, and kill, you gain exp and can level up. You get skill points to put in a wide assortment of abilities that you can tailor to your playstyle.

The way my first day generally goes is, I do the starter quests, scavenge whatever I can find on my way to the trader, find a nice location to build my home in thats close to a town for scavenging and close to the trader for easy runs. Then i chop down a ton of trees, break up a lot of boulders, and build myself a nice basic cube of a house. If I get lucky and find an area with lots of cobblestone stacks to loot, or just have a lot of small rocks to spare I can get my building at least partially upgraded to cobblestone which makes it tougher. I think probably the hardest part of the early game is finding enough health supplies such as honey or antibiotics to deal with infections, and splints and such for any broken bones you may get in a tough fight. You CAN die to reset these debuffs but probably best to avoid that as much as possible. Also getting basic food and water setup is fun. I had a couple early games where I just couldnt find ANY food to eat or animals to hunt and kill and that made things super miserable really fast. Because yes, hunger and thirst are also a part of this game. Its a pretty comprehensive survival game that takes a lot of random things into account.

Ive finally started pushing past the first day and getting the hang of things and im already on the lookout for the various crafting stations i will need to get iron gear setup if I dont just stumble over it all and thinking about building on another floor to my house just because I feel like it. Any other players out there? Feel free to share advice if you have it. The guy whose videos i watch is pretty advanced, like "has memorized where all the best loot is in every building" advanced, so I cant always copy his playstyle. :p

[Blackhawk748]

I've been playing since build 13, and I go back to it every now and again. I usually go with a randomly generated world cuz I enjoy the weirdness it causes.

I would say, go find a gun. This used to not be a huge deal, but they've added enough nasty stuff and just seemed to have upped the number of zombies, so getting a gun for when it goes down is kinda necessary

[Traab]

I've been playing since build 13, and I go back to it every now and again. I usually go with a randomly generated world cuz I enjoy the weirdness it causes.

I would say, go find a gun. This used to not be a huge deal, but they've added enough nasty stuff and just seemed to have upped the number of zombies, so getting a gun for when it goes down is kinda necessary

Yeah the problem is finding one. With randomized loot you might find a couple pistols in a toilet, you might find nothing but brass knuckle and ammo in the weapon caches. Ive actually got a decent amount of random ammo im holding onto to see what sort of weapon I can find. I was going to buy a double barrel shotgun from the trader but it was sold so cheap I figured there was a reason for that as the other guns are like 10x as expensive. I have a blunderbuss but that sucks. From what im learning the loot starts dropping better quality stuff as you level up, of course, the zombies ALSO level up so thats going to be fun. I may put the next couple levels I get from building a second floor to my home towards lucky looter type perks in hopes that the good stuff drops that much faster. Ive put most of my points so far into helping my melee damage/stamina and my resource gathering as I figure both will be useful long term as even once i get guns, ammo will be an issue for some time afterwards so I cant just go get an auto shotgun and rock and roll through every house i clear for loot. Bottlenecks and clubs/sledgehammers seem to be fairly effective.

[Blackhawk748]

Yeah the problem is finding one. With randomized loot you might find a couple pistols in a toilet, you might find nothing but brass knuckle and ammo in the weapon caches. Ive actually got a decent amount of random ammo im holding onto to see what sort of weapon I can find. I was going to buy a double barrel shotgun from the trader but it was sold so cheap I figured there was a reason for that as the other guns are like 10x as expensive. I have a blunderbuss but that sucks. From what im learning the loot starts dropping better quality stuff as you level up, of course, the zombies ALSO level up so thats going to be fun. I may put the next couple levels I get from building a second floor to my home towards lucky looter type perks in hopes that the good stuff drops that much faster. Ive put most of my points so far into helping my melee damage/stamina and my resource gathering as I figure both will be useful long term as even once i get guns, ammo will be an issue for some time afterwards so I cant just go get an auto shotgun and rock and roll through every house i clear for loot. Bottlenecks and clubs/sledgehammers seem to be fairly effective.

Lucky Looter is amazing, and the Double Barrel is so cheap because it's range is, well, awful. It hits hard enough to be useful indoors or in other tight spaces, but in the open it's mediocre at best.

[Tvtyrant]

Yeah the problem is finding one. With randomized loot you might find a couple pistols in a toilet, you might find nothing but brass knuckle and ammo in the weapon caches. Ive actually got a decent amount of random ammo im holding onto to see what sort of weapon I can find. I was going to buy a double barrel shotgun from the trader but it was sold so cheap I figured there was a reason for that as the other guns are like 10x as expensive. I have a blunderbuss but that sucks. From what im learning the loot starts dropping better quality stuff as you level up, of course, the zombies ALSO level up so thats going to be fun. I may put the next couple levels I get from building a second floor to my home towards lucky looter type perks in hopes that the good stuff drops that much faster. Ive put most of my points so far into helping my melee damage/stamina and my resource gathering as I figure both will be useful long term as even once i get guns, ammo will be an issue for some time afterwards so I cant just go get an auto shotgun and rock and roll through every house i clear for loot. Bottlenecks and clubs/sledgehammers seem to be fairly effective.

Clubs are the best melee weapon, sledgehammers are all arounders in that they can work in combat and fulfill digging tool needs.

I have played a lot of 7dtd, and my feeling is the game works better the more people you have. This lets you specialize builds, so I tend to be the miner/digger and can find and fill our mineral needs continously and make fortifications. One of my friends just works the workshop and forge, another loots and focuses on combat perks.

If you are just beginning there are a few things to keep in mind:
1. You want two bases. One for your stuff, one for horde night.
2. You can out bicycle and later helicopter out of horde night, so if you aren't ready don't be afraid to ditch.
3. Chopping wood is the fastest way to level.
4. Get a bicycle asap, they let you get out of bad situations and oncrease your hunting range
5. Stealth+bow is the best combo outside of horde night, but it takes a lot of build focus.
6. The best pre-made base is the bunker inside the well. You can tell which one because it is surrounded by creepy dead trees and looks like it is from the Ring. It's behind a house innthe burning woods area, and works really well for the first three weeks.
7. Junk turrets are really good at low levels. You can usually buy one and the ammo is dirt cheap to make.

[Traab]

Yeah on the multiplayer thing, I watched another youtuber markiplier play with his buddies and do that, its what first grabbed my attention, then a guy named Glock9 I think is how its spelled had a series of fun videos that im enjoying greatly. But the multiplayer thing looked interesting, especially if your group each ENJOYS doing the different thing. I could see myself being the resource gatherer, spending day one denuding an entire forest of trees and replanting the seeds on my way back while shattering every rock I could find, then going on to iron/lead/nitrate/etc after that once the crafter got done making the better tools for the job. Gimmie my bike or whatever so I can head to the desert biome for oil shale so everyone can have a nice vehicle for their own jobs involving travel. I never even thought of making a regular bike, glock is kinda advanced so he tends to skip straight to minibike in short order. I will take a look at my supplies and the recipe and see what I still need to make it.

[Blackhawk748]

Me and my buddies do that. I'm usually the Farmer/Cook, another does medical stuff, one likes looting etc.

Obviously we overlap, cuz convenience, and we all do combat, but even then it's different. I was using an AK and heavy armor and everyone else went light with their preferred guns.

Also, I forgot slugs for shotguns. Get those. They're hilarious. And don't underestimate the good ole Spear. I loved mine

[ShneekeyTheLost]

One way I survived at least the first horde night was to occupy a second story of a building, then broke the stair leading up to where I was, preventing them from getting up to me. Reinforced the windows to keep birbs out. Worked a treat. Even had a few wooden spikes dropped down there for them to mostly kill themselves on, so I could finish off the stragglers when dawn broke.

Don't know how viable that strategy would be in later hordes, but hey... I'm just starting off on the game, so it was all I could come up with at the time.

[Blackhawk748]

One way I survived at least the first horde night was to occupy a second story of a building, then broke the stair leading up to where I was, preventing them from getting up to me. Reinforced the windows to keep birbs out. Worked a treat. Even had a few wooden spikes dropped down there for them to mostly kill themselves on, so I could finish off the stragglers when dawn broke.

Don't know how viable that strategy would be in later hordes, but hey... I'm just starting off on the game, so it was all I could come up with at the time.

It works for the first few, but it rapidly falls off as the wreck too much fo the house.

Hiding in Gas Stations however-

[Traab]

So im reaching iron (gotta get more duct tape, that stuff is magic) tools and now the question becomes, what do i need to have on hand to fix them? I wish the UI would tell me what im missing as id really like to repair my iron pick axe. I know my stone weapons needed the basic stuff in my inventory, I just want to make sure I dont have to keep blowing so many parts on remaking the iron ones as my production is still rather low. Do I need to use repair kits instead? Still working on my bike. The annoying part is following the chain of stuff I need to craft to be able to craft the stuff i need to craft the bike parts. :p Its like, "Ok you need this." Well I dont have this, how do I get it? "Ok, combine these parts to make that part." Dangit, i need to craft something to make one of the bits here too!

Basically, I need to make glue, to make duct tape to make whatever. Finding houses is surprisingly hard, the closest "town" is a bunch of burned out buildings that are really freaking hard to navigate without breaking my leg. I got diresville a decent distance away that i can walk there and clear like, a house, each day, but the long walk back home and to the trader to sell off my junk and craft with what good stuff I find is pretty depressing, especially with a maxxed out encumbrance. I GOTTA get that bike built! Ive got the basic tools to survive, plenty of food and water, because I swear wolves keep spawning outside my house every night, but its pushing past survival and into thriving that im getting held up. Would you believe I still dont have a wrench? Or a gun? (blunderbuss totally doesnt count)

[Tvtyrant]

So im reaching iron (gotta get more duct tape, that stuff is magic) tools and now the question becomes, what do i need to have on hand to fix them? I wish the UI would tell me what im missing as id really like to repair my iron pick axe. I know my stone weapons needed the basic stuff in my inventory, I just want to make sure I dont have to keep blowing so many parts on remaking the iron ones as my production is still rather low. Do I need to use repair kits instead? Still working on my bike. The annoying part is following the chain of stuff I need to craft to be able to craft the stuff i need to craft the bike parts. :p Its like, "Ok you need this." Well I dont have this, how do I get it? "Ok, combine these parts to make that part." Dangit, i need to craft something to make one of the bits here too!

Basically, I need to make glue, to make duct tape to make whatever. Finding houses is surprisingly hard, the closest "town" is a bunch of burned out buildings that are really freaking hard to navigate without breaking my leg. I got diresville a decent distance away that i can walk there and clear like, a house, each day, but the long walk back home and to the trader to sell off my junk and craft with what good stuff I find is pretty depressing, especially with a maxxed out encumbrance. I GOTTA get that bike built! Ive got the basic tools to survive, plenty of food and water, because I swear wolves keep spawning outside my house every night, but its pushing past survival and into thriving that im getting held up. Would you believe I still dont have a wrench? Or a gun? (blunderbuss totally doesnt count)

You need a repair kit to repair all non-stone tools. Sorry I thought I posted this answer this morning.

Also if you need an early stronghold one of the best options is a water tower. It has really strong blocks (5000 hp concrete) and can be cleared safely unlike bunkers. If there is an emergency horde night event taking the ladder out of one of those isn't a bad one off for week one.

[Traab]

So I started over (again) because I think I have my early game setup down better now. On the plus side, I found an absurd amount of glue, seriously, I ran a single clear quest and ended up with TEN bottles of glue from the one building, plenty of cloth fragments or whatever from birds nest harvesting, so ive got a good head start on needed duct tape. And I managed to get some guns on day 2. Double barrel and an ak. On the downside, I am being sent EVERYWHERE for quests (Ive been to the grass, desert, burned wasteland, and snow biomes in about 24 hours) and im terrible at realizing just how long it takes to walk back when you are heavily encumbered. :p So tonight im going to cobblestone my base, then next day ignore quests and head for diresville to clear some buildings and hope I can get the stuff I need, namely a pot and grill for my fire, and maybe get lucky and find my crafting stuff, forge and workbench primarily, but a cement mixer would be nice. There is a store on the way to diresville I will hit first to grab more food as its kinda tough cooking without pots or grills. Then its time to move on to iron gear and my bike.

Oh, and I have my mine shaft started in my base as well. Only just hit rock but ive only had one night so far. :smalltongue: I also needed some torches crafted so I could see what I was doing. Tossed one in the middle of the ceiling to get good all around lighting and put one in my shaft so i can get deeper down in there. Maybe I will get lucky and find a miners hat with light mod. But until then, torches it is. Ive found a few good tutorial videos online that have helped me figure out some of the ins and outs of early to mid game. Still dont much like the spear or bow and arrow as im a lousy shot, but at least the bow is useful for sniping sleeping targets for bonus damage. You know, if I can hit them. :smallwink:

[Blackhawk748]

The shotgun is great, carry it with you everywhere cuz ammo for it is fairly common. For the AK i'd hoard ammo for when it gets bad. It's a good gun, it just can be an ammo hog.

[Traab]

Heh, I was doing an early morning raid on a store and things went fairly well. Im in the main loot room when I hear some groaning from outside. No big deal, strays show up. I come around the corner and see there are now SIX zombies inside jogging towards me, and three more stuck on the fence outside. I must have done like 2 laps of the big room before the last one finally decided to accept it had been shot in the face hard enough to kill it. Glad I went out to check before they pinned me down. Even looted my first triple pocket mod which was promptly put to good use. :p Tomorrow is day 4 so hopefully there will be some good stuff for sale at the trader, ive managed to build up a nice nest egg and am starting to mass produce forged iron (got my new level 5 iron pickaxe woohoo!) Still looking for a mixer and chem station. Mixer is more important for the moment, I need to upgrade to cement. Found a nice iron node and mined several thousand bits of iron to start, its like, 50 meters from the trader. I think I will widen it out a bit so I have room to move and do a better job setting up my exit as I ended up having to frame tower myself out digging in a straight line. Oh, and took apart a military truck for the heck of it on a quick zombie clear mission, got me an engine and battery so thats going right into storage. I know thats going to come in handy in a number of potential high end setups.

[Traab]

Wow night three was productive. I crafted a workbench, cement mixer, a bike, I have a newly crafted wrench and claw hammer ready to go, and have started grinding out cement for upgrading my building. All that AND I unlocked my first quest to go meet another trader which is perfect because now with my bike I can get there a lot faster. Now it will be day 4 when I start out, and I will have two traders to check out for interesting stuff and tier 2 quests. Ive got a fairly solid skill build atm, maxxed out miner sixty niner and motherlode for excellent resource gathering, got pummel pete up to just under max level and sexual tyrannosaurus all combined means I can clobber the taste out of the mouths of any zombie horde I dont feel like blasting and never get tired. That reminds me, I need to craft a iron club before I go out. Then swap out my burning shaft mod from my wooden club. Im pretty sure all my grinding and upgrading my building and such means I will be facing the tougher level zombies from here on, so the extra damage will be appreciated. I think my next set of talents is going to be between better barter type skills so my rewards from traders and general loot selling is better, and seeing what sort of decent mid level gun I loot next to buy points for that. I want to get rid of this double barrel and get a pump action at least.

[Starwulf]

Not sure if this was specifically mentioned, but if you do decide to go the Bunker route(either pre-made as suggested, or make one yourself), be aware that zombies dig now. When I first started playing(on the xbox one back at like patch 12 or whatever) zombies couldn't dig so if you were underground you were totally safe. When I eventually made the switch from the Xbox to the PC, things were so far and away different(I think it Alpha 19 when I switched, maybe 20, and they never patched the Xbox so it was stuck on an earlier alpha) that I died a dozen times because mechanics that I knew were so evolved from what I was used to.

Lucky Looter is awesome. So is the Shopkeeper one that lets them carry better loot. That's honestly how I get pretty much all my weapons until I can craft top-tier ones. Be wary, the higher your level, the more nasty zombies that get unlocked, such as Biker zombies that have helmets, to military zombies that are wearing body armor and a helmet.

My only complaint is the tiny variety of quest locations for tier 5's. There are only a handful of buildings big enough for them(schools, hospitals, Gun factory and food warehouses, and maybe 1 more), and usually only 1 or even just 2 in a single biome. Really hoping they address that issue later in some way. Also would like more unique buildings over-all, but that's a mild complaint really.

Hope you enjoy playing, it's a blast, so many different ways to try to survive, every playthrough is different from the last(as long as you want it to be, don't keep playing the same type of build every time). My last playthrough I only did Bows and bladed weapons. Kinda rough trying to kill the more tougher enemies before you get stronger arrows, but a fun time nonetheless :).

[Traab]

Not sure if this was specifically mentioned, but if you do decide to go the Bunker route(either pre-made as suggested, or make one yourself), be aware that zombies dig now. When I first started playing(on the xbox one back at like patch 12 or whatever) zombies couldn't dig so if you were underground you were totally safe. When I eventually made the switch from the Xbox to the PC, things were so far and away different(I think it Alpha 19 when I switched, maybe 20, and they never patched the Xbox so it was stuck on an earlier alpha) that I died a dozen times because mechanics that I knew were so evolved from what I was used to.

Lucky Looter is awesome. So is the Shopkeeper one that lets them carry better loot. That's honestly how I get pretty much all my weapons until I can craft top-tier ones. Be wary, the higher your level, the more nasty zombies that get unlocked, such as Biker zombies that have helmets, to military zombies that are wearing body armor and a helmet.

My only complaint is the tiny variety of quest locations for tier 5's. There are only a handful of buildings big enough for them(schools, hospitals, Gun factory and food warehouses, and maybe 1 more), and usually only 1 or even just 2 in a single biome. Really hoping they address that issue later in some way. Also would like more unique buildings over-all, but that's a mild complaint really.

Hope you enjoy playing, it's a blast, so many different ways to try to survive, every playthrough is different from the last(as long as you want it to be, don't keep playing the same type of build every time). My last playthrough I only did Bows and bladed weapons. Kinda rough trying to kill the more tougher enemies before you get stronger arrows, but a fun time nonetheless :).

Im getting better with the bow. My first few tries at the game I couldnt hit the broad side of a big momma zombie with one I swear. Now im finally starting to find uses for it, primarily hunting and sniping groups of sleepers so i dont have to deal with 3-4 zombies coming for me at once. That head shot sneak attack bonus is VERY nice for taking out all but the toughest of enemies, wolves die instantly for example, bears? Not so much. :smalltongue: If I was more sneaky focused I might give those skills a shot as I have to admit, the maxxed out sneak attack bonus is hilariously high. But for now my Burning Bat of Justice (tm) is good for dealing with everything that I dont want to break the shotgun out on. As for tier 5 quests, ive heard they arent really worth the time and effort to clear them because of the sheer size of the POI and how dangerous it is. Any thoughts on that? I have no idea what sort of rewards get dished out on those maxxed out quests as no videos ive watched ever got that far.

Ah well, my night is over, I ran the trade route quest, and amusingly enough, while waiting for the snow trader to open I managed to kill 2 wolves and a bear which got me all sorts of goodies for crafting glue and duct tape. Grabbed a few dozen shovels full of snow so I could make murky water and bobs your uncle. Still ticked I broke like 14 lockpicks on the traders safe only to find total garbage inside. He DID have a minibike handlebar for sale and I have lots of cash on me so I went for it, so thats nice, gonna have to see whats left to make to upgrade. Ah well, onwards to trader jen or whatever her name is, see what she has in stock and see what quests i can get from her. If I can get a good close clear or fetch quest I might start seeing the better loot now.

[Traab]

So ive been playing a bit more and a few observations ive put together.

1) I hardly ever have to cook any food for myself after the first day. Seriously, I have like 200 pieces of raw meat waiting to be put to use, but I dont need it, I loot so much food and drink from pois that I pretty much never touch my bacon and eggs. I made a stack of 5 two game days ago, I still have three of them. I get that there are some decent buff foods you can make so I wont say its useless, far from it, im just surprised at how fast it went from vital that I have my boiled/grilled meat and water, to "meh, throw it in with the other 5 stacks"

2) It is SUPRISINGLY easy to build a basic horde night base. The most time consuming part is producing enough concrete to upgrade your rebar frames. I just took like 2-3 in game hours and built the basics of my hall of death horde base. A nice ramp 3 blocks wide going up 5 blocks, then a floor three blocks wide traveling back roughly 15 blocks worth (along with support beams of course) for plenty of hatch shenanigans. All thats left is to build the walls and my safe room at the back with a quick escape ladder ending 4 blocks in the air just in case, and installing the hatches so I can hold them off and gun/club them down. This will probably hold me till I get steel production up and running (no crucible yet) Got another 2k concrete in the queue and I will be set.

3) Daring adventurer is just a really nice bit of fun for a maxxed out skill. Bonus to quest rewards, a much larger selection to choose from, and 2 per quest? yes please! Just wish it didnt require so much of a stat investment to get there. But meh, its got a few other worthwhile talents in that tree to grab as well, so its not really a waste.

4) Minibikes are great, cant wait till I can build a motorcycle though. I want to be able to run over zombies and angry animals that get in my way. the minibike just isnt threatening enough to pull that off. lol

5) To heck with my double barrel shotgun, I love my pistol and ak47. I may change my mind when I find a better shotgun. But the pistol is surprisingly effective at dealing with small groups. Ive also started dabbling in ammo production. Brass is my big bottleneck, ive found a few nitrate/lead/coal mine areas if I need more of that stuff. Hopefully when the traders restock next game day they will have some brass for sale. I kinda like having a few stacks of ammo in reserve.

5) Wandering hordes are interesting at night, especially when they show up at your front door. Heh, it was my own dumb fault, I had gotten used to having a roamer or two show up each night. Because my walls are double thick concrete, the easiest path is my front door so they always head there. I see the signs of a zombie attacking my door, pull out my trusty flaming club ready to give my late caller a THWACK for his rudeness when BOOM! like 6 zombies come pouring in. Luckily my first instinctive power attack knocked most of them down and on fire so I was able to switch to a gun but wow was that a rush. The part that was my fault is, i HAD a hatch that would have held them up, but I never bothered to open the dang thing before opening the door because one zombie isnt an issue. 6? Ehhh, a bit more of a problem. :smallbiggrin: Got a couple minor nibbles, no big. Thankfully my crafting house is big enough to move around in.

[Tvtyrant]

My horde night base for a group looked like this, I included before and after a horde:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/782392504645320784/788572432147152906/BASE_MOON_3.png?width=1202&height=676
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/782392504645320784/788593340333162496/BASE_MOON_3-4.png?width=1202&height=676

Super agree on food! There's also a mod perk we used that lets you eat zombies, which I took because cooking meat is for scrubs.

[Traab]

And here I thought I was being fancy by planning to dig a steel lined pit next to a sledge turret so I could toss pipe bombs from my window when I get bored of doing the hall of death. :smalltongue: Im having a tough time understanding your base. Did you setup the cylinders so zombies fall off them and land on spike traps only to have to walk all the way back and try again? Or is it just forcing them to trudge through reams of spikes trying to reach you with decorative touches to make it look nicer/be a way for you to move around?

[Tvtyrant]

And here I thought I was being fancy by planning to dig a steel lined pit next to a sledge turret so I could toss pipe bombs from my window when I get bored of doing the hall of death. :smalltongue: Im having a tough time understanding your base. Did you setup the cylinders so zombies fall off them and land on spike traps only to have to walk all the way back and try again? Or is it just forcing them to trudge through reams of spikes trying to reach you with decorative touches to make it look nicer/be a way for you to move around?

The zombies get stuck trying to walk between them, and the gaps between the pillars makes them miss their jumps and fall back down. It is designed so it takes them forever to get close to you so you can snipe and machine gun them at a distance. It also optimizes molotovs.

There are also about a hundred land mines in there, that is the spike free zones in the middle. The base does such a good job we never lost a tower, one time we ran out of ammo and the zombies killed themselves on the spikes anyway. The walls also funnel them into kill zones for easier shooting bam bam!

[Traab]

Thats pretty cool. Its good to see a unique design. So many vids ive watched follow two paths, the hallway of death, and the sledge turret catwalk. Either its all about letting them pile up in front of hatches they cant jump over or around so you can clear them out however you want, or its knocking them off the catwalk so they go in an endless loops, sometimes adding stuff like traps at the bottom to speed it up. I admit to kinda liking the catwalk one though as it leaves how much you want to take care of up to you, unlike the hallway where you have to personally kill everything. Hang back, toss some molotovs or pipe bombs, maybe take potshots with the shotgun to thin the herd, etc.

Quick question on how mines work. Can you set one on the ground where there are already zombies and do it from far enough away that you dont get blown up? I was thinking that would be a fun way to clear out the congestion from time to time. Worst case, drop on on your side of the hatch, back up, then drop the hatch, let them explode, then put it back up. I dont know if mines do a lot of block damage though so not sure if its viable.

[Tvtyrant]

Thats pretty cool. Its good to see a unique design. So many vids ive watched follow two paths, the hallway of death, and the sledge turret catwalk. Either its all about letting them pile up in front of hatches they cant jump over or around so you can clear them out however you want, or its knocking them off the catwalk so they go in an endless loops, sometimes adding stuff like traps at the bottom to speed it up. I admit to kinda liking the catwalk one though as it leaves how much you want to take care of up to you, unlike the hallway where you have to personally kill everything. Hang back, toss some molotovs or pipe bombs, maybe take potshots with the shotgun to thin the herd, etc.

Quick question on how mines work. Can you set one on the ground where there are already zombies and do it from far enough away that you dont get blown up? I was thinking that would be a fun way to clear out the congestion from time to time. Worst case, drop on on your side of the hatch, back up, then drop the hatch, let them explode, then put it back up. I dont know if mines do a lot of block damage though so not sure if its viable.

Ugh right? Yes, let's just cheeze the game instead of beating it. We actually stopped playing because my base got torched by the new update (it corrupted the file) and they wanted to make netdeck bases which bored me.

They don't do much block damage, but if you do that you will absolutely kill yourself :P The mines will go off as you put them down I think, it happened to us a few times.

We had a glitch and that house is literally flying, so the area under it is just massive mine field. If your sneak is high enough you can pick up military mines and replant them so they are the good mines which aren't craftable.

[Blackhawk748]

Good lord, and here I am sitting in a concrete box with a moat like I'm in some sort of castle. Wait... I am in a castle. I'm even on top of a hill.

Ya, works fine for me, and I don't even run auto defences!

[Traab]

So I cant believe my luck. First of all, I got my tier three trader quest so got to go find the next trader. I look through his stash and what do I find? A motorcycle for sale! Well, i rather quickly forked over the cash for that as I wouldnt be able to build one of those for days the normal way. On my way back I stumble across a number of sources of ore I need for my bullets, I find one of those Bobs Boars pois, and two farmsteads where I can get a tone of cement to help me finish my base. I havent made so many waypoint marks since I started this game. Im so freaking close to finishing off the frame. I have my hallway built but need another thousand or two of concrete to upgrade it. Also, I swear im getting a silly amount of zombie spawns, its day 7 yeah but its morning so whats with the three freaking wandering hordes in the last 24 hours? At least this one I spotted incoming as it was just approaching my base as I stepped outside. Also had a bit of luck in that I got the skill book that lets you get brass knobs from doors. So at least now I can get myself some extra brass to crank out bullets.

[Tvtyrant]

So I cant believe my luck. First of all, I got my tier three trader quest so got to go find the next trader. I look through his stash and what do I find? A motorcycle for sale! Well, i rather quickly forked over the cash for that as I wouldnt be able to build one of those for days the normal way. On my way back I stumble across a number of sources of ore I need for my bullets, I find one of those Bobs Boars pois, and two farmsteads where I can get a tone of cement to help me finish my base. I havent made so many waypoint marks since I started this game. Im so freaking close to finishing off the frame. I have my hallway built but need another thousand or two of concrete to upgrade it. Also, I swear im getting a silly amount of zombie spawns, its day 7 yeah but its morning so whats with the three freaking wandering hordes in the last 24 hours? At least this one I spotted incoming as it was just approaching my base as I stepped outside. Also had a bit of luck in that I got the skill book that lets you get brass knobs from doors. So at least now I can get myself some extra brass to crank out bullets.

Yeah that's why the game eventually tires most people out. Eventually there are so many zombies you spend all of your time making bullets to keep from running out, and the effort involved gets burdensome. That was my experience anyway.

The cool thing is you can cheat and just helicopter around on horde night until it ends to free up time for exploring during the week. So if you get sick of the zombie ratrace there is a solution.

[Traab]

So I feel dumb. My horde base? I screwed up and only made the hallway two squares high. That means I cant double hatch and shoot through the gap. Ummm, whats the quickest way to get rid of concrete? Because those things have a lot of hp and my battle axe or iron pick just are taking a long time to get through. If I have to do it the hard way im pretty sure it will waste most of a full day just plinking away like this. As for ammo issues, yeah, it feels like your options late game are to either gyro cheese the hordes, run out of ammo and die, or build up some serious traps for your horde base so you can kill or damage them significantly without spending thousands of bullets. I just watched a rather neat video where a guy created a mountain bunker base and set things up with three blade traps set sideways at head height, another set at ground level for dogs and spider zombies, and dart traps at the front and back of the hallway. Total murder fest. He was taking down everything including demolishers without risk to himself, though it took a lot of fine tuning to avoid the zombies tunneling through the mountain to reach him. He was free to shoot as much as he wanted but it wasnt really needed, all he needed to do was keep stocking the dart traps and repairing the blades. I think at one point he added electric fences just to hold up the zombies in the blade trap area.

Interesting thing happened though, I cleared out the boar/corn poi, then shortly after got a quest to clear it again. So that was nice. Got a couple stacks of cement easy from the double clear and plenty of loot. Didnt bother to kill bertha or whatever the big boar was called as I have hundreds of meat and no need for it, but the easy path to the loot cache under her cage was worth clearing out twice. :p Finally got my chem station up. I dont really NEED the fuel but I figured I might as well dig up some shale and make a few full stacks of the stuff since I took a quest out to the desert anyways. You never know, some day I might even find a crucible and be able to make steel to work on the 4x4! So I mentioned before about getting brass knobs from doors now, is there a better or more reliable way to get brass? Its not critical yet, ive got enough to probably make a few more stacks of ammo should I need it, but I figure it doesnt hurt to set things up for long term. If not no big, I will just remember to destroy every door in every house I clear. Also helps me keep track of what places ive already done. Those knobs are worth a pretty decent amount over the course of a full house. Does breaking down any devices inside the pois give brass as well?

Ah well, one more night to go and the trader restocks so I can spend a day going door to door looking to see if they have anything I need (like the crucible) My luck I will find a jeep for sale or a gyro :smallbiggrin: I am enjoying the tier 3 quests. So far they arent very difficult to clear out in short order and I can do 2-3 of them a day if I feel like it. I hear the tier 5 are a lot harder and more repetitive, will they be worth doing?

[AndrewDarwin]

Now that there are millions of reviews and guides for the game, playing this game has become much easier!

[Traab]

Well my hammer took the shortest time and I got it done right. Ugh, still an annoyance to fix. Got ANOTHER quest for the corn and pig poi so even more cement, woohoo. Lots of doors there so lots of brass, woohoo x2! I got a couple of crucibles so now forged steel is a thing I can start cranking out, which means soon I can upgrade my horde base. Gonna have to decide if I should build myself a more advanced afk horde base just to get the style down. Also need to go back down one of my iron mines as I will need a lot more of the stuff to keep up with steel production.

And yeah, all the guides and videos out there are a huge help. Knowing ahead of time what you are going to need to do is big. Even at its most basic, "Ok, got a wood house built, what are these symbols for showing what I need to upgrade again?" Could be an issue, but watching the vids you know its cobblestone then concrete. Then steel. And you know how to get them. Just knowing most pois are deliberately designed to act like a dungeon that leads to a treasure room is also a big deal. Its easy to miss that in a lot of cases if you dont KNOW.

[Traab]

Had a lucky break, got my trade route quest for tier 4 and the new trader had both a 4x4 chassis and the accessory schematic for sale, as well as the steel club schematic. So I just got done building my 4x4 and my steel club, transferring my burning shaft, weighted head, and spikes mod to it. Ive also built my third forge. Forged steel just takes too dang long to produce even with two forges running full tilt day and night smelting down iron and clay. I DID produce enough to upgrade the entrance to my horde base and the walls of the murder hallway two blocks high as well as the first two pillars supporting the whole thing. Im just glad that it doesnt take a lot of steel to upgrade each block. I am also amused that I skipped straight past pump shotgun and right to auto shotgun. This thing is only a level 2 gun but it is a BEAST. Im now plopping points into my shotgun skills to get the thing up to standard.

Still hoping someone can tell me if tier 5 quests are worth unlocking or more trouble than they are worth. Like, are the rewards for clearing them substantially better than tier 4? Are there specific rewards you can only get through doing those?

[Tvtyrant]

Had a lucky break, got my trade route quest for tier 4 and the new trader had both a 4x4 chassis and the accessory schematic for sale, as well as the steel club schematic. So I just got done building my 4x4 and my steel club, transferring my burning shaft, weighted head, and spikes mod to it. Ive also built my third forge. Forged steel just takes too dang long to produce even with two forges running full tilt day and night smelting down iron and clay. I DID produce enough to upgrade the entrance to my horde base and the walls of the murder hallway two blocks high as well as the first two pillars supporting the whole thing. Im just glad that it doesnt take a lot of steel to upgrade each block. I am also amused that I skipped straight past pump shotgun and right to auto shotgun. This thing is only a level 2 gun but it is a BEAST. Im now plopping points into my shotgun skills to get the thing up to standard.

Still hoping someone can tell me if tier 5 quests are worth unlocking or more trouble than they are worth. Like, are the rewards for clearing them substantially better than tier 4? Are there specific rewards you can only get through doing those?

You need at least 6 forges and 4 workbenches 😆 Or at least my group did.

I have no idea, I never did quests, sorry. That was another guy in the group, I made fortresses and fortress accessories.

Hopefully someone knows.

[Traab]

You need at least 6 forges and 4 workbenches 😆 Or at least my group did.

I have no idea, I never did quests, sorry. That was another guy in the group, I made fortresses and fortress accessories.

Hopefully someone knows.

Heh yeah ive seen some of the late game setups. I cant even imagine what sort of screamer spawns you must have been dealing with throwing off that much heat. I already get one from time to time with two. But I imagine keeping several people equipped and able to constantly do stuff requires a lot more crafting stations than a dude running solo. On the amusing side, i think I strip mined my first iron node more or less bare. I mean, im sure if I cleared out more rock I would find more, but it seems like ive dug out enough thousands (wouldnt be surprised if i got 60k+ from it) that some of my other spots are easier options. The neat thing is I swear they seem to naturally form in such a way that I dont have to worry too much about collapsing earth and cave ins killing me. And once I get the initial dig depth done where it opens out, im able to keep jumping all over the place and so dont need to keep extending the ladder. On the downside, I forgot to leave my normal wood cube around one of my dig sites and drove my motorcycle right into it. Some of them are kinda hard to spot until you are right on top of them, lol.

[Tvtyrant]

Heh yeah ive seen some of the late game setups. I cant even imagine what sort of screamer spawns you must have been dealing with throwing off that much heat. I already get one from time to time with two. But I imagine keeping several people equipped and able to constantly do stuff requires a lot more crafting stations than a dude running solo. On the amusing side, i think I strip mined my first iron node more or less bare. I mean, im sure if I cleared out more rock I would find more, but it seems like ive dug out enough thousands (wouldnt be surprised if i got 60k+ from it) that some of my other spots are easier options. The neat thing is I swear they seem to naturally form in such a way that I dont have to worry too much about collapsing earth and cave ins killing me. And once I get the initial dig depth done where it opens out, im able to keep jumping all over the place and so dont need to keep extending the ladder. On the downside, I forgot to leave my normal wood cube around one of my dig sites and drove my motorcycle right into it. Some of them are kinda hard to spot until you are right on top of them, lol.

Our forge base was in the old army base in the north east yellowstone by the lake. There was an absolutely huge node of iron and lead under the base that I mined forever, there was a dwarf kingdom under our base by the end. The screamers were constant, we used turrets for that and the base was enormously fortified with a full sized helicopter pad on top of the radio tower. I miss that file...

[Traab]

Dang that sounds awesome. Honestly I think I would have had fun with being the miner or builder for the group. There is just something I find interesting about the idea of being sent out with a single gun and stack of ammo, a stack of repair kits, and my pick axe/shovel combo and bringing back a full inventory of various metals for use in whatever. I know first things first is grab enough of each to get the forges going full pace, once you got a couple stacks of everything being smelted THEN its time to go full ham on the nodes one by one. I would be like, "Ok crafter? Build me a set of supply crates one for each ore. Im coming back loaded down with a 4x4 full of iron, and my personal inventory full of lead coal and nitrate." (with a side trip to the desert to get enough oil shale to keep us all motorized nice and easy) I would find a nice wooded valley, chop down the trees, then dig a layer or two deep across the whole thing to bring back about 40 stacks of clay. By the time im done captain planet is going to take a bounty out on me because I would be strip mining the heck out of the entire map. The hollow earth theory would be proven true, because I dug out the insides of the whole dang thing. Balrogs would be swarming the map because im DEFINITELY going to delve too greedily and too deeply.

[Tvtyrant]

Dang that sounds awesome. Honestly I think I would have had fun with being the miner or builder for the group. There is just something I find interesting about the idea of being sent out with a single gun and stack of ammo, a stack of repair kits, and my pick axe/shovel combo and bringing back a full inventory of various metals for use in whatever. I know first things first is grab enough of each to get the forges going full pace, once you got a couple stacks of everything being smelted THEN its time to go full ham on the nodes one by one. I would be like, "Ok crafter? Build me a set of supply crates one for each ore. Im coming back loaded down with a 4x4 full of iron, and my personal inventory full of lead coal and nitrate." (with a side trip to the desert to get enough oil shale to keep us all motorized nice and easy) I would find a nice wooded valley, chop down the trees, then dig a layer or two deep across the whole thing to bring back about 40 stacks of clay. By the time im done captain planet is going to take a bounty out on me because I would be strip mining the heck out of the entire map. The hollow earth theory would be proven true, because I dug out the insides of the whole dang thing. Balrogs would be swarming the map because im DEFINITELY going to delve too greedily and too deeply.

It's much more relaxing that way! Also I had a lot of side projects like a castle on the big island and a bridge across the lake to it (which took a long time to put the pylons to it at the base of the lake.) Not having to do everything frees up a lot of effort for the stuff each player enjoys. The real issue is you need a really big group if you want to run a persistent server or the bases will get destroyed.

[Traab]

I had this odd mental image of something I would do if I ever had access to a hilariously absurd amount of supplies. Wall off an entire town. Take Diresville, build a wall around the entire outskirts, build it tall enough to go over the top of the tallest building there, then encompass the entire thing so its one pitch black cube lit only by random torches, burning barrels, whatever inside. Why? Just because I think it would be funny to pull off if possible. Im honestly unsure on the math involved like, how few pillars it would take, minimum to support the roof. I can see people chopping holes in buildings so they can place the pillars where they need to be. I also want to try some silly stuff like, take a poi that gets frequent quests, dig under the building enough to collapse it if possible (im not sure if you can even do that in the game or not) Then get a quest for the poi and see if it resets, and if so, if it stays stable or just collapses again because the ground for a dozen blocks straight down is also gone.

[Tvtyrant]

I had this odd mental image of something I would do if I ever had access to a hilariously absurd amount of supplies. Wall off an entire town. Take Diresville, build a wall around the entire outskirts, build it tall enough to go over the top of the tallest building there, then encompass the entire thing so its one pitch black cube lit only by random torches, burning barrels, whatever inside. Why? Just because I think it would be funny to pull off if possible. Im honestly unsure on the math involved like, how few pillars it would take, minimum to support the roof. I can see people chopping holes in buildings so they can place the pillars where they need to be. I also want to try some silly stuff like, take a poi that gets frequent quests, dig under the building enough to collapse it if possible (im not sure if you can even do that in the game or not) Then get a quest for the poi and see if it resets, and if so, if it stays stable or just collapses again because the ground for a dozen blocks straight down is also gone.

I believe maximum structural integrity is 7 blocks from a pillar, so 14 long? You could fib by using ladders as the pillars from the buildings, so they would look invisible at a distance and make it look like there is an open vault. That would be super cool to be be honest.

[Traab]

I believe maximum structural integrity is 7 blocks from a pillar, so 14 long? You could fib by using ladders as the pillars from the buildings, so they would look invisible at a distance and make it look like there is an open vault. That would be super cool to be be honest.

I just did a check and rebar/wet concrete has a horizontal support of 12 blocks of that type. Im not sure but I THINK that means that coming out from the walls you only need one pillar in the corner to support a 12x12 square, then a pillar every 12th square further in you go. Build the pillars first then connect the blocks to it. God thats a lot of blocks though. If the info im looking at is correct, if you built steel blocks, its a support of 15 blocks. So fewer pillars that way, even if only by a bit. At least a 15 block gap in pillars is a nice wide pathway for travel, even if it means lots of buildings are going to have holes in them. :p

[Tvtyrant]

I just did a check and rebar/wet concrete has a horizontal support of 12 blocks of that type. Im not sure but I THINK that means that coming out from the walls you only need one pillar in the corner to support a 12x12 square, then a pillar every 12th square further in you go. Build the pillars first then connect the blocks to it. God thats a lot of blocks though. If the info im looking at is correct, if you built steel blocks, its a support of 15 blocks. So fewer pillars that way, even if only by a bit. At least a 15 block gap in pillars is a nice wide pathway for travel, even if it means lots of buildings are going to have holes in them. :p

You could always build the houses inside the bubble/fortress so they fit better. Make a pillar grid and then once the whole thing is done make the houses from scratch to fit.

[Starwulf]

I had this odd mental image of something I would do if I ever had access to a hilariously absurd amount of supplies. Wall off an entire town. Take Diresville, build a wall around the entire outskirts, build it tall enough to go over the top of the tallest building there, then encompass the entire thing so its one pitch black cube lit only by random torches, burning barrels, whatever inside. Why? Just because I think it would be funny to pull off if possible. Im honestly unsure on the math involved like, how few pillars it would take, minimum to support the roof. I can see people chopping holes in buildings so they can place the pillars where they need to be. I also want to try some silly stuff like, take a poi that gets frequent quests, dig under the building enough to collapse it if possible (im not sure if you can even do that in the game or not) Then get a quest for the poi and see if it resets, and if so, if it stays stable or just collapses again because the ground for a dozen blocks straight down is also gone.

They respawn normal. There was this huge construction tower in my last game, and I chewed through all the supports for it. It came all crumbling down(which, btw, will attract a TON of screamers to you, I counted at least 7 or 8). Got a quest for it shortly after, went back to it and started the quest and it respawned perfectly intact.

My best construction project(not much compared to many others honestly) was based on a hotel in the desert of the main storyline back in Alpha12 or so. I decided to make a supersized version of it. Took me a week or more of playing to construct the dang thing. 4 floors, and as long as half a town(I know this because I built it on the outskirts of a town, and it stretched literally halfway), and about 60 blocks wide as well. I chewed through nearly a hundred thousand(maybe more) concrete blocks. I had a ton of forges and cement mixers going non-stop the entire time to supply myself. I was kinda dumb about it though, I built it halfway across the map from my base(I was trying to find an even, level piece of ground to build on, took me a while to find a spot), so the back and forth time probably accounted for 15-20% of my time.(This was before trucks and the copter thing, and even motorcycles, only had minibikes back then).

Still, it was a blast making it, and the poor zombies couldn't touch it(they weren't as strong or smart as they are now). I waited out several bloodmoons in after I finished and I just sat inside not killing anything to see if they could make it through(no defenses). Nowadays, I'd need dozens of turrets to protect it, otherwise it'd get demolished I'm sure. Maybe not entirely, but they'd definitely make it inside quick enough.

[Traab]

So ive discovered the truth about dealing with screamers while digging out mines. They arent so bad. The real danger is the regular zombies quietly sneaking up on you while you dig. Knowing the mini horde is coming once the screamer screams, you just stand under the main hole, wait for the zombies to ragdoll to the bottom of the shaft, then shoot them in the head at point blank as they struggle to stand back up. Probably would be different on the higher difficulties as they are tougher but even so, yeah, the real danger is feeling that first whack as you are tunneling away and turning around to realize, "OH CRUD! There is a irradiated soldier in my face!" THAT tends to end badly depending on how tight the area is.

[Traab]

So I started up a new game doing horde nights. Im on night three and ive got my home base setup with a forge and workbench, and my tools are up to iron. I raided a fishery factory and looted enough cement that im fairly sure once I get a mixer going and craft the sand for it, i will be able to build a rudimentary horde base with reinforced concrete before the big day. I just had an AWFUL night that was only just short of the worst because I didnt die. A freaking bear decided it hated my home base, and I had literally just gotten rid of my hunting rifle because it was only useful for very rare long range sniping so I had to freaking well melee a bear to death with a baseball bat while it tried to force its way through my front door. Thank god I finished my second block deep cobblestone wall around the whole thing, because im fairly sure he broke one before he went down. i had to burn several healing items and am now wearing a splint but I got him down in the end. Actually worked out for the best, I needed more duct tape and was out of bones to make glue.

The one down side is im not really well placed for raiding houses as there arent a ton nearby. Im hoping that there will be enough near me to last till I at least get a bike or something going. Then I can do more exploring and loot farming. On the plus side, there are a TON of iron nodes within short distance of me, as well as a nitrate right outside my front door and a lead nearby. So I am setup pretty good for the short and medium term future when it comes to ore needed. But im not used to my starting trader being so relatively isolated. I THINK I will be able to find my way around eventually, I have a suspicion where I am in the navezgane map more or less, so hopefully that will work out in the end. But I never found this guy last time so I may be wrong.

[Tvtyrant]

So I started up a new game doing horde nights. Im on night three and ive got my home base setup with a forge and workbench, and my tools are up to iron. I raided a fishery factory and looted enough cement that im fairly sure once I get a mixer going and craft the sand for it, i will be able to build a rudimentary horde base with reinforced concrete before the big day. I just had an AWFUL night that was only just short of the worst because I didnt die. A freaking bear decided it hated my home base, and I had literally just gotten rid of my hunting rifle because it was only useful for very rare long range sniping so I had to freaking well melee a bear to death with a baseball bat while it tried to force its way through my front door. Thank god I finished my second block deep cobblestone wall around the whole thing, because im fairly sure he broke one before he went down. i had to burn several healing items and am now wearing a splint but I got him down in the end. Actually worked out for the best, I needed more duct tape and was out of bones to make glue.

The one down side is im not really well placed for raiding houses as there arent a ton nearby. Im hoping that there will be enough near me to last till I at least get a bike or something going. Then I can do more exploring and loot farming. On the plus side, there are a TON of iron nodes within short distance of me, as well as a nitrate right outside my front door and a lead nearby. So I am setup pretty good for the short and medium term future when it comes to ore needed. But im not used to my starting trader being so relatively isolated. I THINK I will be able to find my way around eventually, I have a suspicion where I am in the navezgane map more or less, so hopefully that will work out in the end. But I never found this guy last time so I may be wrong.

Are you on the north east side of the big lake, just past the Walmart?

[Traab]

Are you on the north east side of the big lake, just past the Walmart?

There is a big store just across a bridge by the lake but I think its a savage country store. Now I have my directions all mixed up, but im at the trader who is basically 1.5 km due east (maybe west? ugh) from trader jill near diresville. Its a surprisingly straight path off road with only minor adjustments for a couple steep hills. Also, its now day 8. I survived my first horde night with flying colors! Only downside is, i didnt realize I would need repair kits. Of my three main weapons, steel club, pistol, and ak, 2 of them were broken. I was getting REALLY anxious around 2:30 when they were still spawning and heading up the ramp at me. I was about to craft a dang stone club for a moment there. The horde base is a straightforward double hatch narrow hallway set 4 blocks off the ground with a ramp, and on either side of the entrance are angled blocks to funnel them all in to face the wrath of my steel club to the face. Then in between waves I would run out and mow down the freaking birds with my ak because I didnt think to place iron bars on my roof instead of reinforced concrete so I had no way to shoot them from safety. The most obnoxious enemies were the leapers though, too low to the ground to swing away unrestricted, and having to smash them as they clip through my hatches meant I was doing more damage to the hatches than the zombies were. Was a bit of a surprise that my first horde night involved a few cops though. I expected the dogs and leapers, hadnt run into any cops in my travels yet. First impressions, the horde night isnt overwhelming (I know, not yet) its just a bit mind numbing and worrisome as wave after wave after wave keep spawning and running for your ramp. The upside to a smooth ramp was a surprising number of zombies would get knocked back then slide back to the bottom before they could get back up, so it was surprisingly easy to maintain a little breathing room. Heck, i was even able to machete the dead dogs out of the way from time to time to keep the clutter low if I timed it right. They never made it past the first set of hatches with my ability to repair them.

Final notes, in my day 7 scramble to check the merchants for new stuff, i was able to get the motorcycle chassis and I had gotten just enough random forged steel to forge the handlebars, so I also have a brand new bike to replace my trusty little put put. I also had a near mental breakdown from the stress and annoyance of trying to get to a treasure chest. It wasnt so bad, i figured, a quick 1.5k trip and I can maybe get a nice chunk of change (One of the traders has a flipping GYROCOPTOR for sale, I want money) But no. Oh no. No no no. It took me on a rage inducing trip up into the mountains where every 5 blocks was another mini valley too steep to drive out of. I was literally digging out my bike so it could continue on. (It had too much stuff for me to empty and carry it) I gave up after wasting 5 in game hours trying to make it to the location and didnt want to even THINK about circling around to try from another side where im sure there was probably some straight paved road leading right to it with my freaking luck. Also, the daily supply drop landed IN THE LAKE. Not on the shore, not on the island, IN THE WATER. Not far in the water yeah, but still, by that point I was happy im not a superstitious fellow because those were some bad omens.

[Traab]

I dont normally like to bump threads that I was the last reply on but I figured if its new info its ok. I decided that my other game was annoying with the way it was setup and didnt want to try and build all over again elsewhere, so what i did was, I looked up popular seeds for the game. Ended up playing Decillionaire which so far is awesome. There are neighborhoods and towns and businesses EVERYWHERE. My first day I raided three fast food joints to build up some decent food and drink that were next to each other. I even found my first shotgun messiah factory and marked it out for later as i am NOT going to waste that place on low tier loot. Probably go there after my first horde night. I even found my first (albeit small) crack-a-books store to clear out. That was nice, must have gotten like a dozen random schematics and magazines to read, along with a pile of paper. Im on day 5 and got my motorcycle going, there is ore everywhere, im in the forest biome but I can see the desert from my base so once I had the chem station open I quick mined several shale nodes to get enough gas on the boil so I wont have to worry about running out for a long time.

The one downside that made me curse myself for a total moron, I decided to go hilariously big for my home base/crafting area. Its a 15/15 cube, and I put together all the frame work, went to drop my land claim block, and discovered I had built it WAY too close to the trader so it wouldnt let me. I literally had to leave my base, walk like a dozen or so blocks further away, THEN dropped it. There was no way in heck i was going to repeat that absurd effort to rebuild my entire base ten feet over. The effect still covers my base so its ok. I built my horde base out back, still sticking to the basic melee horde hatch base to start, with plenty of room to add in things like catwalks, sledge turrets, blade traps, pits, etc as the hordes get more dangerous. Tonight I will hopefully have enough cement to finish upgrading it then i can install the hatches, and learn from my last effort and put bars in the roof so I can shoot the stupid birds instead of letting them peck at my roof all night. Can I attach a hatch to a set of bars by the way? If not I may end up trying to decide what is the best setup for roof hatches and iron bars so I can block the zombies and still get a good firing angle on birds. But yeah, nice map, lots of cool pois that I have never seen before, and ive got the start of the game down to a decent science.

If I had to give advice to new players it would probably be, get a wrench asap and break down every car you see. You get so many things you are going to need from them, engines, batteries, mechanical parts, electrical parts, short iron pipes, plastic parts, its pretty much all going to be very handy to have in bulk very fast. Also, you get a surprising amount of gas which is more then enough to handle your minibike or motorcycle until you can go to the desert to farm shale. Its a one stop encumbrance shop for a lot of the important bits you will need to craft.

[Tvtyrant]

I dont normally like to bump threads that I was the last reply on but I figured if its new info its ok. I decided that my other game was annoying with the way it was setup and didnt want to try and build all over again elsewhere, so what i did was, I looked up popular seeds for the game. Ended up playing Decillionaire which so far is awesome. There are neighborhoods and towns and businesses EVERYWHERE. My first day I raided three fast food joints to build up some decent food and drink that were next to each other. I even found my first shotgun messiah factory and marked it out for later as i am NOT going to waste that place on low tier loot. Probably go there after my first horde night. I even found my first (albeit small) crack-a-books store to clear out. That was nice, must have gotten like a dozen random schematics and magazines to read, along with a pile of paper. Im on day 5 and got my motorcycle going, there is ore everywhere, im in the forest biome but I can see the desert from my base so once I had the chem station open I quick mined several shale nodes to get enough gas on the boil so I wont have to worry about running out for a long time.

The one downside that made me curse myself for a total moron, I decided to go hilariously big for my home base/crafting area. Its a 15/15 cube, and I put together all the frame work, went to drop my land claim block, and discovered I had built it WAY too close to the trader so it wouldnt let me. I literally had to leave my base, walk like a dozen or so blocks further away, THEN dropped it. There was no way in heck i was going to repeat that absurd effort to rebuild my entire base ten feet over. The effect still covers my base so its ok. I built my horde base out back, still sticking to the basic melee horde hatch base to start, with plenty of room to add in things like catwalks, sledge turrets, blade traps, pits, etc as the hordes get more dangerous. Tonight I will hopefully have enough cement to finish upgrading it then i can install the hatches, and learn from my last effort and put bars in the roof so I can shoot the stupid birds instead of letting them peck at my roof all night. Can I attach a hatch to a set of bars by the way? If not I may end up trying to decide what is the best setup for roof hatches and iron bars so I can block the zombies and still get a good firing angle on birds. But yeah, nice map, lots of cool pois that I have never seen before, and ive got the start of the game down to a decent science.

If I had to give advice to new players it would probably be, get a wrench asap and break down every car you see. You get so many things you are going to need from them, engines, batteries, mechanical parts, electrical parts, short iron pipes, plastic parts, its pretty much all going to be very handy to have in bulk very fast. Also, you get a surprising amount of gas which is more then enough to handle your minibike or motorcycle until you can go to the desert to farm shale. Its a one stop encumbrance shop for a lot of the important bits you will need to craft.

What time zone are you in? I wouldn't mind playing from time to time.

[Traab]

What time zone are you in? I wouldn't mind playing from time to time.

Im est but my playtime is REALLY erratic. I could be playing at any time from 8 am to 8 pm and I rarely play for longer than a single daylight cycle, log off for awhile, suffer through the night cycle as i rarely have enough to do thats worthwhile, (currently my project is in between producing concrete from my forges im digging a tunnel to some nearby iron deposits on my map) then log off for a bit at around 3-4am game time then come back to play again later refreshed. lol. Some days I play through a few in game days, some times I dont play at all for a day or two. Its strange honestly, I think I burned out my ability to play a focused amount of time doing mmorpgs when i was growing up so now I stick to idle games that I can play a little log off then come back later with no issues.

I will say in defense of my earlier post about building too close to the trader, that the area around him was INCREDIBLY flat. Once i broke down a nice sized boulder and chopped down the trees, I had this huge empty field that was just perfect for a home base and horde base with tons of room to grow. In hindsight I could have gone further away, but I didnt realize that the distance from the trader that you can dig is different from the distance you can use a land claim block. I even went a good few blocks further just to ensure my mining wouldnt be effected (except in that direction of course) And on top of all that, the trader is right at the start of a nice town and it was so tempting to build right there because of how easy it would be to reach everything I couldnt resist. Ah well, live and learn. Make sure to build my next base at least a couple hundred meters from the trader just to be safe.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

You guys sounded like you were having so much fun, I checked it out on Steam and what do you know? It’s on sale this week. So don’t be surprised if I pop in later asking for starting advice.

[Traab]

You guys sounded like you were having so much fun, I checked it out on Steam and what do you know? It’s on sale this week. So don’t be surprised if I pop in later asking for starting advice.

Go for it, I would be glad to offer what newbie advice I have picked up. I would say though that you shouldnt go into the first game expecting to get very far very well. It takes a little practice to get good at the basics like moving, crafting, repairing etc. Makes the first day super awkward. And, this is just my personal preference, but I would recommend putting all the settings onto the easiest mark and turning off blood moon hordes until you feel like you are confident in your skills and ready to have a challenge. So max exp and loot, block damage, the weaker difficulty option, cant remember its name, etc. Once you know how to get things started and have figured out what you want to do, THEN go for horde nights and other normal settings.

Another thing that helped me out a lot, was watching youtube videos. There are numerous tutorial videos out there, Saven's World is a good channel and he does a LOT of tutorials on the game for many topics. Plus he is just amusing to listen to imo.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

So apparently going towards the nearest building with an eye to sheltering inside was a bad idea. I think it was maybe an hour in-game tops before I died? :smalltongue:

But I got my first stone axe and through the 'make a base' portion of my starting quest. Placed the door wrong and now I can't figure out how to pick it back it up. It's late evening on the first day because I wasted precious time hunting down a chicken for feathers not realizing there were bird nests all over the place. :smalltongue:

EDIT: I want to say I survived the night, but I’m pretty sure the damage I took was responsible for me randomly dropping dead some time later. Yes game, it’s nice to know antiseptic would stave off that infection, but since I don’t actually know how to make that yet...

Anyway, I built an enclosure with a chest to store stuff in and surrounded the thing with wooden spike traps. (And proceeded to cut my health in half when I accidentally bumped into one of them.) I also figured out how to make bandages.

[Traab]

Yeah doors and hatches are a real pain to place properly, its kind of subtle when trying to place them which direction they will open in. And im pretty sure you just have to smash the door then try again, as at least ive never found a way to pick one back up. Im still constantly putting my hatches in so they open up sideways which... well its not much help on horde night. lol As for buildings, every building but the trader is going to have zombies in it, and infection can be treated by honey or antibiotics, both of which are random items found while looting. The first night or two are the hardest because there is no promise you will find any of either right away, same for food, drink, splints, etc etc etc. After a few days the law of averages says you are going to start finding plenty enough but yeah, first day sucks. There are tree stumps randomly placed in the world that you can break and they often, not always, have honey in them, honey can also sometimes be found in the kitchen areas of houses.

Nice work on the bandages and your first attempt at a shelter. Yeah, spike traps and such can be really annoying to remember and easy to bump into. There is a youtuber I watch who has played this game for 2-3 years now and he STILL hits spike traps and barbed wire and such from time to time. He also sets himself on fire a LOT with molotovs. :smallbiggrin: Also ouch, chasing down chickens aint easy. I sympathize with your attempts. Honestly, you wont be getting much in the way of animal kills until you have your bow and arrow built and can get a good sneak attack on something. Well, other than wolves and bears who will attack you on sight, but they will just murder you right now. Good luck on day 2, or restarting if you prefer. I know I ended up restarting like 4 times before I felt I had the first day down well enough that i wasnt playing at an early disadvantage.

[Traab]

Heh, so I started up yet another game, this time on a random world map because I swear to god the navezgane map keeps sending me to that one trader near the lake with very little good pois nearby and I dont want to waste my first day walking all the way to trader jen. Anyways, I started up a random map and HOLY CROW. I spawned right next to a city with a high end shamway factory, shotgun factory, the hotel of death (if you dont know what I mean, its the hotel where you start in the parking garage with a bus blocking the main entry so you go through a side office and then work your way to the roof. The dang thing is at LEAST an all day poi) Numerous businesses, plenty of regular houses of all shapes and sizes, and my home base, which i built on a basketball court because cement floors on day one are amusing, and its plenty of room for a solid base, is surrounded by no less than three construction pois full of cement and cobblestone. So far two nights and not a single zombie or animal has been drawn to me, which is a new record.

Its currently day 3 and im rocking my forge, workstation, and 2 cement mixers, gonna build a second forge tonight, and the trader is loaded with nearby quests that let me blitz to getting sent to the second trader already. I think I will wait till I have a moped or something built first. Thats probably going to be tonight. Gonna have to go look for a good location for a horde base soon. Only downside is aside from a blunderbuss no guns yet. I dont want to raid any of the good locations till I can expect to see decent guns in the loot crates. The only thing that bugged me was I suicided on day 1 because I got infected and despite blitzing like 4 pois trying to cherry pick the loot that was likely to be honey or antibiotics, and chopping down a half dozen tree trunks I couldnt find ANYTHING to treat my infection. I was at like 12% infection by nightfall and basically went, "To heck with this" and gave the nearest zombie a hug. Its only today I saw my first honey and antibotics drop. :smallyuk: Ah well, not a big deal. Got my mine shaft started, and now that I have managed to get enough duct tape im getting all my mid level tools setup.

[Tvtyrant]

Heh, so I started up yet another game, this time on a random world map because I swear to god the navezgane map keeps sending me to that one trader near the lake with very little good pois nearby and I dont want to waste my first day walking all the way to trader jen. Anyways, I started up a random map and HOLY CROW. I spawned right next to a city with a high end shamway factory, shotgun factory, the hotel of death (if you dont know what I mean, its the hotel where you start in the parking garage with a bus blocking the main entry so you go through a side office and then work your way to the roof. The dang thing is at LEAST an all day poi) Numerous businesses, plenty of regular houses of all shapes and sizes, and my home base, which i built on a basketball court because cement floors on day one are amusing, and its plenty of room for a solid base, is surrounded by no less than three construction pois full of cement and cobblestone. So far two nights and not a single zombie or animal has been drawn to me, which is a new record.

Its currently day 3 and im rocking my forge, workstation, and 2 cement mixers, gonna build a second forge tonight, and the trader is loaded with nearby quests that let me blitz to getting sent to the second trader already. I think I will wait till I have a moped or something built first. Thats probably going to be tonight. Gonna have to go look for a good location for a horde base soon. Only downside is aside from a blunderbuss no guns yet. I dont want to raid any of the good locations till I can expect to see decent guns in the loot crates. The only thing that bugged me was I suicided on day 1 because I got infected and despite blitzing like 4 pois trying to cherry pick the loot that was likely to be honey or antibiotics, and chopping down a half dozen tree trunks I couldnt find ANYTHING to treat my infection. I was at like 12% infection by nightfall and basically went, "To heck with this" and gave the nearest zombie a hug. Its only today I saw my first honey and antibotics drop. :smallyuk: Ah well, not a big deal. Got my mine shaft started, and now that I have managed to get enough duct tape im getting all my mid level tools setup.

Nice! Sounds like a good map! What prompted to game reset?

[Traab]

Basically, I was tired of popping up in the same spot with the same buildings in the same locations over and over. Now with this random map I have no idea where anything is or what else is out there so its all shiny and new. I dont know how the classic game determines where to start you but around the 5th game in a row of me popping up next to that one trader near the lake and me resetting because I didnt want to play that area or hike the kilometer or two to the only other trader I knew how to reach on foot from there, I figured I would give the random world a shot. Now I will have to hope that I didnt get everything decent in one location and the rest of the traders are off in barren burned out wastelands or something, :p I think I have an idea for my horde base, gonna have to scout it out to see if its the right sized, its a park area. May have to clear out the benches and low brick walls to make it work.

I have to admit, starting on the basketball court was an idea I wasnt sure would work out, I was worried that chipping through the concrete floor with a level 3 stone axe was going to be miserable, but it turns out that it wasnt that bad. Its only one block deep and I only needed to break a single block to start crafting my mine shaft. And because the whole thing is fenced off at a decent range and dropped down a bit in elevation it feels fairly isolated. Im debating putting up another wall around the chain link fence to totally cut it off from sight, and give myself an aesthetic of a keep and castle wall setup. Will have to see how I feel once I can settle down from the setup rush and have my full kit ready. Right now I am trying to get at least a baseball bat and a set of basic guns as well as enough material to build my starter horde base, and the trader has a motorcycle for sale that im hoping I can grind enough cash to buy before she resets. If not, ah well, I can just build myself a vehicle with another talent point. A minibike isnt as good as a motorcycle but it will do for a start.

*EDIT* Got my motorcycle before day 4. Thank you generous trader and surprisingly easy to reach tier 2 quest locations. Now I can relax a bit and work on creating rebar frames, crafting cement, and making my iron tools. Also found a school poi. Not the highschool with the big gym loot room, but some other one. Might check that out. Also got ahold of a double barrel shotgun and ak so weapons are finally starting to drop. I was surprised, I thought you had to go to the new trader to unlock the next tier of quests. Finding out that wasnt true means I dont have to go there till I feel like it.

[Tvtyrant]

Basically, I was tired of popping up in the same spot with the same buildings in the same locations over and over. Now with this random map I have no idea where anything is or what else is out there so its all shiny and new. I dont know how the classic game determines where to start you but around the 5th game in a row of me popping up next to that one trader near the lake and me resetting because I didnt want to play that area or hike the kilometer or two to the only other trader I knew how to reach on foot from there, I figured I would give the random world a shot. Now I will have to hope that I didnt get everything decent in one location and the rest of the traders are off in barren burned out wastelands or something, :p I think I have an idea for my horde base, gonna have to scout it out to see if its the right sized, its a park area. May have to clear out the benches and low brick walls to make it work.

I have to admit, starting on the basketball court was an idea I wasnt sure would work out, I was worried that chipping through the concrete floor with a level 3 stone axe was going to be miserable, but it turns out that it wasnt that bad. Its only one block deep and I only needed to break a single block to start crafting my mine shaft. And because the whole thing is fenced off at a decent range and dropped down a bit in elevation it feels fairly isolated. Im debating putting up another wall around the chain link fence to totally cut it off from sight, and give myself an aesthetic of a keep and castle wall setup. Will have to see how I feel once I can settle down from the setup rush and have my full kit ready. Right now I am trying to get at least a baseball bat and a set of basic guns as well as enough material to build my starter horde base, and the trader has a motorcycle for sale that im hoping I can grind enough cash to buy before she resets. If not, ah well, I can just build myself a vehicle with another talent point. A minibike isnt as good as a motorcycle but it will do for a start.

*EDIT* Got my motorcycle before day 4. Thank you generous trader and surprisingly easy to reach tier 2 quest locations. Now I can relax a bit and work on creating rebar frames, crafting cement, and making my iron tools. Also found a school poi. Not the highschool with the big gym loot room, but some other one. Might check that out. Also got ahold of a double barrel shotgun and ak so weapons are finally starting to drop. I was surprised, I thought you had to go to the new trader to unlock the next tier of quests. Finding out that wasnt true means I dont have to go there till I feel like it.

Nice! The concrete floor is great for stopping digging, putting a hole in it to dig kind of undermines it though (pun intended.)

I guess I want to know why you reset so frequently at all. This is something I noticed with my playgroup where they wanted to reset weekly and I never did, so it just interests me to know why.

[Traab]

Nice! The concrete floor is great for stopping digging, putting a hole in it to dig kind of undermines it though (pun intended.)

I guess I want to know why you reset so frequently at all. This is something I noticed with my playgroup where they wanted to reset weekly and I never did, so it just interests me to know why.

Because I keep hitting a point where I dont feel like I can progress much further. My horde base is sufficient for the next 2-5 weeks in game easily, I have the best weapons and armor, I have raided the good pois nearby and have the best vehicles, so what do i do now? Just mindlessly run the same general trader quests? Mine another 15 stacks of everything? Build up enough ammo that I could fire a full clip into every zombie and still not run out? I could bump up the difficulty by shortening the time between hordes I suppose. But for me the fun is in establishing a respectable base and horde base and getting geared up. Once I have that I get bored. Im not a huge builder person either, I never got into minecraft so the idea of just continuing to build to make things fancier isnt enough of a draw for me. Honestly im not sure how much longer I will be playing for. I may come back when I learn alpha 20 is out just to see how it changes things. I like the random gen worlds though, it adds in all sorts of fun new setups so I dont know where everything is. Like this one, its got an easy two dozen pois ive never run before. Some I recognize from watching youtube videos of other players some I dont recall at all.

Its almost the morning of day 4, im going to build myself my starter horde base as I have several thousand things of cement mix and several hundred rebar frames crafted. Then I will likely start checking out these locations to see what i can see. Only downside to this map is iron is nowhere nears as abundant as im used to in this section. Ive only found a few nodes. Its enough to get me going so not a huge deal but something to worry about in the future. I also need to remember to break down more stuff for leather as I actually ran out of the stuff last night before I could build my second forge which is slowing me down quite a bit. Not a lot of animals out here, so far ive killed all of one wolf and one deer.

[Traab]

So its the morning of day 7. My horde base is ready, I have like 5 stacks of ammo each for all my weapons plus my trusty bat, which i will likely be using a lot of because first hordes generally arent that bad for melee damage. Ive turned my mineshaft into a cavern going off in three directions. I dont know if its just my impatience thats always had me digging more or less straight lines till i find something or what, but this time im hollowing out the earth deep underground. Basically, if you ever watched jawoodle or some of the other youtubers playing darkness falls, im doing that where I dig out enough of a cavern that if I wanted I could probably relocate all my workbenches mixers forges etc down here and have plenty of space to continue mining. Making sure to place pillars every so often because I dont want to die to cave ins. Looted my first crucible so now I can start forging steel for next weeks horde, and I unlocked the tier 3 quests and trader who was in the desert biome, so I snagged some shale while I was motoring offroad because why not, I might want it when I upgrade to a 4x4 eventually. I got lucky at the old west version of crack a books, forget the name, and got my steel club schematic, just need some more steel club parts to build it. Gonna run a couple more quests and hope I get lucky. Got daring adventurer maxxed and all but the last level of better barter so money wont be an issue going forward. I even, just because I had it handy, started smelting brass and lead to make bullet tips and casings along with making a stack of gunpowder for future needs. The only minerals ive found so far in my cavern are nitrate but fingers crossed I will eventually find another node of something. I figure after horde night I will run the shotgun messiah factory nearby as im close to mid level guns now. The zombie slaughter should push me over the edge loot stage wise.

Oh, and building a cobblestone wall around the basketball court seems to have worked to funnel screamers and random zombies to my front entrance. THAT took a long time to finish, even only going three blocks high. I wish I had more concrete ready at the time just to make it faster. Plop down rebar frames, one upgrade and boom, reinforced concrete walls means the zombies wont bother trying to dig through when they can go around. It figures the day after I talked about how I hadnt seen any zombies near me for the first few nights that very night spawned a wandering horde and like 2-3 screamers just tot each me a lesson. Just gotta remember to bring torches with me to my horde base, repair kits because its scary how fast gear breaks down against a horde, and enough material to keep my iron hatches repaired. So yeah, all in all, I think im ready to curbstomp my way through the day 7 horde. Just gotta wait for daylight and get started.


*EDIT* Im not making an entire third post in a row so I will post it here. Horde night went well, I was surprised by just how much damage the dang birds did to my horde base roof, they came within a couple hundred hp of breaking through reinforced concrete. I tried to build my base so I had bars on top I could shoot through but it made it so i couldnt do top and bottom hatches for my melee tunnel so I decided to go with solid roof then kill the birds afterwards. I think my next bit of building is going to be an exposed catwalk so I can setup things like turrets for future hordes and also so I can walk out of my base and shoot down the birds on a regular basis without getting dogpiled by zombies. I upgraded most of the vital parts of my horde base to steel, had just enough to do the roof, the top layer of the ramp and entrance, as well as the support pillar holding it all up. Lets see how that holds up to the birds next time.

Next morning I decided to reward myself by raiding shotgun messiah. I thought it was one of the mid sized buildings but no, it was the full tier 5 poi. That actually made me happy because ive never really watched someone raid the entire place start to finish. Dear god is it not worth it. I am pretty sure I burned more ammo clearing it out than I did during horde night. And I couldnt use my club much because like 75% of the time it was large clumps of zombies that are feral crowding me too fast to take them down safely in melee. I suppose I could have done the wood frame trick to bottleneck them at doors but I didnt feel like it. I managed to slaughter my way to the upper third, where you start walking around the roof areas, when i got a VERY nasty surprise. Irradiated zombies. Lots of them. Soldiers, bikers, big mommas, all glowing green and very angry and positioned in such a way that I had no idea till I was in the middle of them. I got murdered. Luckily its not a long walk back there. I wood frame towered my way back to more or less where I died and tried again. Thats when the game decided it hated me. For some reason every time the irradiated woke up, my camera would freeze. I could walk, shoot, jump, etc. but I couldnt turn my field of view around no matter what I did. I managed to log out then back in, that seemed to briefly fix the issue but the second the irradiated stood up, it froze again. I ran off a ledge and got lucky enough to land somewhere somewhat safe and logged again. Then this morning tried one last time and was able to gun them all down and hit the main loot. The main loot wasnt bad, the big ammo pile, weapon bag, reinforced locked chest plus three boxes of shotgun messiah stuff, but again, totally not worth the expenditure of ammo and time. Maybe if I find another I will bypass everything but the roof as its still a tough fight but not an absurd marathon. Worst part is I didnt even get any decent weapon upgrades! Also, *&^%*&^% birds. I hate them and they need to all go off and die. Every time I went outside the building id get swarmed by another three birds hugging the walls and dodging bullets like freaking neo.

Anyway, finished that, and decided to spend the next couple hours before nightfall restocking on iron. Im pretty sure ive strip mined the initial iron node more or less bare. Its a giant pit that spreads out something like 10 blocks in all directions and ive looted probably round 100k iron from the dang thing overall. Time to get started on a new one. meanwhile both my forges are smelting it all down so I can crank out another thousand forged steel, I got my chem station up and squeezed out a few stacks of fuel from a casual bit of mining in the desert on my way to visit the traders on new stock day, forged my steel club, and am now back in my private mine cavern slowly expanding in all directions until i hit something interesting aside from nitrate. Got enough cement in stock to build my next section of horde base and if im wrong ive got so freaking much stone from expanding my cavern that i can create as much as I want in short order. Now I can relax and go back to doing stuff like running missions for fun and profit. With daring adventurer maxxed and better barter almost maxxed that should net me enough cash and rewards to get whatever I need.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I like to build my horde base ceiling out of fence so I can a) see the birds to respond to them, and b) shoot them through the fence so they don't keep pounding on the ceiling.

I have also discovered that base moats with spikes work great... right up to the point where you get cop zombies, at which point it ceases to have any functionality other than provide zombies cover while they dig into your base.

Killing halls seem to work really well, though. Use hatches on the floor to create choke points and just go to town on them. Might get an occasional jumper work their way through, but that's what sledgehammers are for. This is especially fun if you have a couple of molotovs or pipe bombs to huck down the hallway.

[Traab]

I like to build my horde base ceiling out of fence so I can a) see the birds to respond to them, and b) shoot them through the fence so they don't keep pounding on the ceiling.

I have also discovered that base moats with spikes work great... right up to the point where you get cop zombies, at which point it ceases to have any functionality other than provide zombies cover while they dig into your base.

Killing halls seem to work really well, though. Use hatches on the floor to create choke points and just go to town on them. Might get an occasional jumper work their way through, but that's what sledgehammers are for. This is especially fun if you have a couple of molotovs or pipe bombs to huck down the hallway.

I found the double hatch, floor and ceiling stops the leapers dead in their tracks, make the hall three blocks high and the middle is wide open for a kill hall. Nothing gets through there without destroying the hatches first. Put a hatch on each square and two open hatches means you are far enough back to not be hit by anything but the leaper zombies who keep clipping through, but you can melee them to death easy. Maybe what I should do is make the hallway longer, and leave the back with iron bars on the roof to get the birds, as they do a great job of stalking me, hitting whatever block in standing under on a regular basis. I honestly didnt expect them to come within a whisker of breaking through the roof on the day 7 horde so I didnt worry about it when I was unable to attach hatches to bars. But I figure it would be fine to walk backwards to lure the vultures into range while the zombies work on my hatches. But yeah, double hatch or else spider zombies and dogs will charge right to your face and eat it.

Also, i think I mentioned it awhile back, but I honestly love doing ramps instead of stairs at my horde base entrance, as watching the knocked down zombies slide back is amusing, and my ramp takes almost zero damage by the end of the horde night. Im guessing making them hop up to the next block means some are likely to take a swing as they go. Another useful tactic ive seen that works is, put the ramp blocks sideways at the entrance to the hall so it works like a funnel guiding them all into the hall instead of milling around the single square block width entrance. Again, the ramp blocks take almost zero damage because the zombies arent being held up in progress by the blocks so they dont attack them trying to force their way through. At least thats my theory. Aside from my roof, the rest of my base was at 95%-100% by nights end.

I think my next "fancy" addition to the horde base is going to be the catwalk they can be knocked off of. I may try to push to get enough talent points so I can run two turrets at once, build a little pill box for me to stand in at the end, and have a door on each side that leads to my turrets so I can reload them at need. Get a good length on the catwalk so it takes them time to reach me, and keep shooting them off as they come in. Either that or I will get a sledge turret, build up a supply of pipe bombs, dig a deep steel lined pit, and just murder them that way. I do enjoy watching them ragdoll in explosions in youtube videos. :smalltongue: Shoot them on incoming, and once enough get knocked into the pit, or there is a lull between waves, crack tubes and BOOM! Since steel is resistant to explosions as well as being the toughest material I can build out of, it should handle things fine. Worst case scenario it eventually takes enough damage for them to dig their way out in which case it will have probably done enough to be worth the effort and can be fixed and improved for next time.

[Traab]

Ok so, its the day after the 14 horde and wow have I got a lot to share. First off, leading up to horde night. Ive unlocked tier 5 quests, I was able to purchase a gyrocoptor, and after spending time offline to read how to steer the stupid thing, used it to find the trader I got sent to last. Secondly, I setup auto turrets over my horde base to handle birds, and got my turret talent maxxed out so junky can hold lots of ammo, do lots of damage, and once i get a second good one, have two out there at all times. I also setup some auto turrets on my home base, havent had much chance to test their effectiveness yet but it seems to be working for sniping the screamers before I get in trouble.

Ok, so horde night. I built an arm leading off my killing hallway so I could mount my junk turret at an angle that lets him pelt the incoming horde and be able to easily restock him. When I get my second junky I will do the same on the other side for some crossfire. Put up some bars to try and prevent the jumpers from getting lucky and leaping up. Upgraded my hatches to vault hatches because ive got a plethora of steel and already have my base fully built out of the stuff. So horde night happens and HOLY (*&^(&*^ My junk turret is SLAUGHTERING these guys. At first I thought he would only be good at shooting the ones on the ramp, and I wasnt hearing a lot of gunfire sound so I thought I screwed up, but then I noticed my exp gained was ticking up while I wasnt doing anything. Turns out my turret can also shoot downwards in his range and he was flat out murdering the zombies. Only downside is even with the maxed skill, he runs out of ammo so freaking fast. I basically loaded him up then brought a stack with me and was out of ammo about halfway through the night, would have been faster but I wasnt always able to tell when he ran out of ammo other than suddenly having to kill a couple zombies myself. ;p

My anti air turrets did a GREAT job. After the horde was done I went to the roof and like 5 blocks took a single hit. The zombie makeup of the horde was soldiers, cops, and some irradiated random zombies. Not a lot of animals but I cant be sure if that was just my turret murdering them before they could reach my hatches. This horde was beat fast. It wasnt even 2am and the last zombie was dead. Got a lot of loot, mostly stuff to sell to the trader in the morning. Minimal effort to repair the hatches to hold back the swarm. Basically, from what i can tell, I have overbuilt my horde base for current threats. Until demolishers and irradiated cop level zombies start showing up its going to be smooth sailing for me. So long as I can manage to not fall off the catwalk anymore. :smalleek: I didnt even need to use ammo except for getting bored and deciding to use something other than my burning steel club of smashy doom. (tm) Maybe I will build a fully enclosed hallway to each turret to avoid the risk. Not like I dont have the material available to do it. I only did it a simple catwalk because it was 16:00 on horde night and I didnt want to get fancy and risk my cement not drying in time.

Oh, I also got the 7/7 club batter up reward of my stamina auto filling every time I club a baby seal zombie to death, so that made it hilariously easy to swing for the fences on horde night and never get tired.

[Tvtyrant]

Ok so, its the day after the 14 horde and wow have I got a lot to share. First off, leading up to horde night. Ive unlocked tier 5 quests, I was able to purchase a gyrocoptor, and after spending time offline to read how to steer the stupid thing, used it to find the trader I got sent to last. Secondly, I setup auto turrets over my horde base to handle birds, and got my turret talent maxxed out so junky can hold lots of ammo, do lots of damage, and once i get a second good one, have two out there at all times. I also setup some auto turrets on my home base, havent had much chance to test their effectiveness yet but it seems to be working for sniping the screamers before I get in trouble.

Ok, so horde night. I built an arm leading off my killing hallway so I could mount my junk turret at an angle that lets him pelt the incoming horde and be able to easily restock him. When I get my second junky I will do the same on the other side for some crossfire. Put up some bars to try and prevent the jumpers from getting lucky and leaping up. Upgraded my hatches to vault hatches because ive got a plethora of steel and already have my base fully built out of the stuff. So horde night happens and HOLY (*&^(&*^ My junk turret is SLAUGHTERING these guys. At first I thought he would only be good at shooting the ones on the ramp, and I wasnt hearing a lot of gunfire sound so I thought I screwed up, but then I noticed my exp gained was ticking up while I wasnt doing anything. Turns out my turret can also shoot downwards in his range and he was flat out murdering the zombies. Only downside is even with the maxed skill, he runs out of ammo so freaking fast. I basically loaded him up then brought a stack with me and was out of ammo about halfway through the night, would have been faster but I wasnt always able to tell when he ran out of ammo other than suddenly having to kill a couple zombies myself. ;p

My anti air turrets did a GREAT job. After the horde was done I went to the roof and like 5 blocks took a single hit. The zombie makeup of the horde was soldiers, cops, and some irradiated random zombies. Not a lot of animals but I cant be sure if that was just my turret murdering them before they could reach my hatches. This horde was beat fast. It wasnt even 2am and the last zombie was dead. Got a lot of loot, mostly stuff to sell to the trader in the morning. Minimal effort to repair the hatches to hold back the swarm. Basically, from what i can tell, I have overbuilt my horde base for current threats. Until demolishers and irradiated cop level zombies start showing up its going to be smooth sailing for me. So long as I can manage to not fall off the catwalk anymore. :smalleek: I didnt even need to use ammo except for getting bored and deciding to use something other than my burning steel club of smashy doom. (tm) Maybe I will build a fully enclosed hallway to each turret to avoid the risk. Not like I dont have the material available to do it. I only did it a simple catwalk because it was 16:00 on horde night and I didnt want to get fancy and risk my cement not drying in time.

Oh, I also got the 7/7 club batter up reward of my stamina auto filling every time I club a baby seal zombie to death, so that made it hilariously easy to swing for the fences on horde night and never get tired.

Nice! It helps stockpile ammo for later, which is nice.

What I really want is a persistent server for 7 Days to Die, but I feel like I would need a lot of players for it to work. Just leaving it on 24/7 and a gentlemans' agreement not to wreck each other's stuff.

[Traab]

Nice! It helps stockpile ammo for later, which is nice.

What I really want is a persistent server for 7 Days to Die, but I feel like I would need a lot of players for it to work. Just leaving it on 24/7 and a gentlemans' agreement not to wreck each other's stuff.

Yeah im going to have to mass produce some 9mm ammo though, the auto turrets are great and all, but each one can hold 900 rounds, and while my main base probably wont burn through a ton of ammo as sniping the screamer before she can spawn stuff doesnt take much, the horde night turrets are a different matter. Even just killing the birds they burned through probably a couple hundred bullets total. Other downside is, now that im at tier 5 quests im very displeased as I cant get tier 4 to show up anymore, and tier 5 buildings are too flipping huge. I was raiding 3-4 tier 4 quests a day. I cant wait for alpha 20 to come out, thats apparently going to be a thing they will add in, being able to choose what tier you have unlocked to get quests for. Im probably going to spend my days raiding random pois of interest from now on and crafting ammo and such. The dishong towers looks like fun and the sort of poi I can clear with melee mostly and keep me busy for a day or so. And with all those doorknobs I will likely be gathering I will have plenty of brass to smelt. :p

But man losing the tier 4 hurts. There were a few pois nearby it kept sending me on, my favorite was this dance till you drop building with three stores connected together. Super easy and fast to clear out, only the main loot room was tough because like 5 zombies drop from the false ceiling and like half are irradiated. But once you got the route down it was hilariously simple to clear in short order. Lots and lots of loot, exp and item rewards from the trader, it was a great setup. Even the highschool was pretty easy to handle. At least now I answered one of my earlier questions though. Tier 4 is ideal, tier 5 is awful.

[Traab]

So I discovered something that makes me very very unhappy. Auto turrets do not contribute towards exp. I just ran this horde night, it was incredible. I had a great setup going on with two smg auto turrets setup alongside my melee corridor horde base so they could shoot anything spawning in range and climbing the ramp to my hatches. I also had a shotgun auto turret on the roof for birdies. The horde spawned and it was GLORIOUS! The turrets mowed down like 9 out of 10 zombies before they even reached me. The less glorious thing was I didnt get a bit of exp for any of it. I ended up literally leaving my horde base and fighting zombies out in the open with my automatic weapons because if I managed to hit them before they died I got exp for it. These things were brutal, even the dogs were barely fast enough to reach me before dying. It made me regret not having an easy path to my generator to turn it off. (I have to nerd pole to the roof to hit the power) So yeah, there is that. Auto turrets are great at murdering zombies, but they steal all exp from you when they do all the work. Junk turrets give you the exp for the kill though. So next i will max out that talent so I can keep two of them running instead. they arent QUITE as murderous as auto turrets, but they are very close when you have the skill maxxed. Only downside is needing to be reloaded a lot because they have like a 5th as much ammo as the smg auto turrets. On the plus side ammo is a LOT easier to make for the junk turrets as I only need raw iron instead of bullet tips, casings and gunpowder for 9mm.

Ah well, there goes my incredible plan for ensuring that I dont need to do much on horde night other than turn on the generator at the start. I had this eventual end goal in mind where I had smg turrets setup so there were a few pointed outwards to nail zombies on incoming, then when they reach my base and pass through a hallway they reach the second batch and get riddled even more, then come out the back and yadda yadda. I could basically go afk till the ammo runs out and with three layers of turrets, that could take awhile. Sure its an insanely bullet intensive setup, but its not like its HARD to smelt down lead and brass and mine for all the coal and nitrate I could ever need. I bet I could take a single day each week to do nothing but strip mine coal lead and nitrate and let everything craft in the background the rest of the time and be fine. I suppose I could still do it, but the idea of losing out on a couple levels a horde night kinda stinks.