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. 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.

[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. 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. 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:

Spoiler

Show

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. 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. 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 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?