so what do you do first? I go hunt for a backpack, but I find I get hungry and thirsty with in 3.5 hours. so if I don’t find anything I can use to carry stuff I am in trouble. I try to hunt through houses on the out skirts and break windows to get in. This leads to some pain. I look for anything I can wear that lets me carry stuff. In non-static spawns, I usually have time to get to town to get a backpack, army pants, etc… this one is more luck. I either find it, or I’m hungry and thirsty really quickly and I basically restart.
Don’t break through the windows. Break the doors down. With static it doesn’t cause any extra spawning.
As for food and drink, you should be able to get enough from town outskirts to last at least a day or two. If you’re really unlucky, you could try finding a different town.
I do find acquiring backpacks/coats seems more difficult now, maybe due to item spawn rates or something.
On the other hand now I can usually go into 3-6 houses without even seeing a zombie, and they definitely won’t be following me back to the camp which has no armed NPC since they can’t surprise me.
My only luck was randomly looking on roads and things. I find science corpses for the lab coats, soldiers for the utility vests and backpacks, stuff like that.
Also currently there’s a bug where throwing something to break a window doesn’t make noise (or generate items).
Don’t forget you can eat strawberries and stuff for water, and if you can get a science ID card, there’s usually a fair amount of water and lab coats.
If I find myself near a townn where there are no zombie free suburbs sticking out of the centre, I typically try to break into as few houses as I can to find enough string to make a bow and try to train that up in the wikd before commiring to zombie eradication pogroms.
Unless I have taken bashing as a skill, I usually start by making a wooden spear from a thick branch using the pocket knife I started with. Then I find a house on the outskirts of town, make sure there’s no nearby zombies (usually isn’t at the outskirts), and break a back window. Just in case, I wait a bit to make sure nothing aggro’d. If so I lure them into a bush to slow them down, and stab them until they stop moving. Clear the glass from the window when it’s clear, and loot the house, trying to avoid the front windows as much as possible.
Usually you can find at least a few crucial items in the first few houses. You can make your way around the edge of a city doing this if necessary - you’re unlikely to attract any attention that can’t be handled with a window or a bush and a wooden spear.
I’m not sure why it was suggested to break the door down instead of windows as a) it still makes noise I believe, b) is facing where the zombies likely are so you are exposing yourself to sight lines, and c) is marginally closer to where the zombies are, making any noise you make travel that much deeper into the city. It’s not a huge difference but it can be the difference between attracting a horde if you’re unlucky.
Honestly it is extremely rare to attract zombies at the edge of a city with breaking glass. And any that do come won’t be a huge hassle as long as you have SOME weapon and make sure to use obstructive terrain to your advantage. Get 'em tangled up in a bush or crawling through a window and you’ll get some free attacks.
From there you can kite zombies out of the city center by being careful in how you reveal yourself. Poke your head into an alley between two buildings and you can grab a slice of a horde, pull them back out of noise range and deal with them at a chokepoint. Doing this enough times, you can make an ordinarily unapproachable part of town safe and zombie-free, and give you access to that gun store or military surplus store you desperately want access to but were death traps before.
I usually throw a point in mechanics during character generation, that way I have more crafting options right at the start. So after I spawn in the Evac shelter, I smash a locker until it breaks into pieces and then grab a pipe from the wreckage. Then I run right outside and pick up a rock, and then craft a crowbar. Not only is it a pretty good zombie killer, but you can pry open doors in town so that you make little to no noise. After that, I’ll usually explore the outskirts of town trying to find a dead military patrol, because they will usually have weapons and a military rucksack for storage. When night falls I’ll go into town and raid. Night time makes town raiding easier, especially if you try to stay as quiet as possible.
But yeah, assuming you can’t get near a town because of static spawn, you should be able to find plenty of food in the wilds. Strawberries, apples, and blueberries grow all over. You could also craft a spear or bow pretty easily and try hunting, Squirrels are easy enough to kill and they are EVERYWHERE. Clean water is a bit more difficult to obtain in the early game IMO, and that is where I don’t have much advice.
My advice would be to do the outskirts raid first and foremost. You’ll almost certainly find some kind of bag/backback/satchel and will hopefully be able to scarf at least a day’s worth of water. You can then dedicate time to slowly making your way deeper into town.
Also there’s some useful advice coming out here. Everyone feel free to update the advice page on the wiki, which is currently empty!
Always start on the outskirts. I second smashing open a back window and also the crafting of a crowbar. As long as you choose the furthest house you shouldn’t pull too much aggro with a smashed window. Peek around the back wall. If there’s anything you can spot on either side you’ll probably draw something. Close all curtains and doors.
1)Clothes, backpacks. You desperately need carrying capacity.
2)Fridge raidan. Orange juice, Apple juice, water. If you plan on staying in town like I do you can generally leave this bit (boil toilet water.)
3)Books, tools, Smokes. Remember, you DO NOT NEED more than one hammer.
Why I continually run around with 6+ screwdrivers and 3+ hammers is beyond me.
Goddamn Hoarder mentality.
LIES! The extra hammers make great throwing weapons!
Now everyone has said to stay to the outskirts so guess what I’m going to tell you… [S]Stay to the safe area[/S] Smash and grab! Break into the first house you see and beeline the dresser and bathroom. We want two things, backpack and drugs. Beautiful, beautiful time bending drugs.
With a batch of mind altering goodness* you dive headfirst into the city and map out as much as you can (binoculars will help) using “V” to window shop as you go. Mark choice loot on your map and when you start running low on drugs lead the hoard away from it. Smash a window and light the heavy stick on fire to light up the whole house and use it to cover your escape.
Come night fall you have your targets marked and the mass of zombies pulled off to the side away from your loot. Enjoy one hell of a raid!
Pros: -Lots of loot (maybe too much)
-Early access to in town buildings (garage/surplus/electronics/gas and the like)
Cons: -High risk if you don’t watch your drugs. Use too little they catch you, too much your heart explodes!
-Very high chance of addiction and thus withdrawal if you don’t want to keep it up.
Probably more on both sides but that gives you the basic idea.
I get hungry and thirsty with in 3.5 hours. I killed a cougar and butchered it. Ate all 4 pieces of it raw and was still hungry. That seems extreme. Cooking is probably worth more. If I had cooked the meat would it provide alot more nutrition?
what can I light with the matchbook? I used to use lighters to light bushes to cook with, but I get ‘no lightable items’ when I apply matches to a bush. I am guessing I can use sheets I get from bashing windows. What do you use for fires? I saw something about indoor stoves, but I am guessing I need higher skills to build those.
if I want to light a house on fire, when do I set on fire? can I go get a jug of gas from the gas station spread it on the ground and create a fire line and then shoot zombies from the other side of it?
Crowbars are not real useful anymore. Noise doesn’t matter that much. I see no reason to break down doors its too close to zombies. I forgot about clearing glass. Thanks.
In .4 I have noticed alot more corpses. I have played a number of worlds and corpses (especially scientists) seem to be alot more common. I have yet to find a bee hive in several .4 world generations. Anyone else having trouble finding these? Thee were my bread and butter for training archery, getting lots of food, and find royal jelly for healing. I would bring back piles of bee corpses and then cook them later on.
You definitely can’t light bushes on fire. Probably what was happening was that they had heavy sticks one the same tile as them, which were not visible to you, but caught fire when you 'a’pplied a lighter to them.
Burnable materials include:
Clothing of almost any kind
Books/magazines
Paper wrappers
Sticks/two by fours/logs (Get by breaking down small trees, any wooden furniture, or by cutting down a big tree with an axe)
Sheets from windows (these burn for ages, because of their weight, and are my no. 1 choice of fuel on the go)