Okay so, here’s the thing. I’ve been playing this game on and off for about a year now. I love it, but I never survived more than 5 days or so.
I know that once you reach a certain point most things become trivial, but I never seem to reach that point. I always get ambushed sooner or later by some bullshit I can’t deal with. Especially Mi-Gos. I’m almost at the point where I’m gonna debug menu them out of the game when I see them. They agro from so far and I can’t beat them or outrun them. I do know about most of the good tricks, basic early game survival, char min-maxing, fighting with one tile windows, bushes, setting bushes on fire, etc. What annoys me the most is that I’m not doing anything really suicidal or stupid. Looting towns at night, finding a vehicle, looking for landmarks/corpses/crates/crashes in the wilderness. I’m not charging anywhere guns blazing in broad daylight.
Do I just continue throwing character after character at the wall in hope of getting lucky enough one time to not encounter any unbalanced game enders ? I want to see and experience middle and late game, not only brief early game.
As soon as you see a migo, you turn the fuck around. You don’t move any closer to it. But when you aggro a migo, you much fight it. You can’t run from it. Go stand behind a burning bush for trap it in a house then set it on fire.
How do you manage to get attacked by mi-gos at night? They are loud and can’t smell you out.
Are you taking defensive traits like quick and fleet-footed? If you take both and don’t encumber self, you can outrun most of the dangerous stuff, including mi-gos.
Try a more early game focused character. High dex helps a lot both in accuracy and dodging. Before hulk smashing was implemented, I tested a 20 dex char on meth against a hulk and he won despite no skills (fresh debug char, everything at 0), no armor and being armed with just a pointy stick. Hulk only managed to get one hit on him.
I just tested it again: a debug char, survivor with 20 dex (highest legit), 0 in all skills, pointy stick and a mi-go. It managed to land one hit and fled due to damage. Had to drop the winter coat though - earlier test with coat on ended in 10 turns.
Additionally high dex makes brutes and hulks much less dangerous by greatly reducing landing damage after getting smashed.
Also try grinding tailoring early on. Don’t scavenge during the first day, just spend it all cutting up sheets and sewing up a complete reinforced clothing set that doesn’t encumber you.
You can run from it by getting it to walk into a car. Even if the car is a wreck, it will take 16 turns to get through it. During that time you can enter a house or otherwise make it lose your track.
Shotguns are big and heavy. But there is some Rivtech “short shotgun”, which could fit in a holster. a lil’ surprise for that Hulk, if you happen to have one of those loaded.
In my experience 20x66 ammunition is quite common and the RM228 SS can be found in gun stores. It’s an excellent backup weapon with one shot doing nearly 200 damage at very close range. It is only 3 volume, fits in a holster and never jams too.
My advice for surviving a week would be to focus on training melee and tailoring in the first few days so you can craft reasonable armor/storage and fight most zombies without getting killed. For weapons you would do well with a bayonet, quaterstaff or knife spear. Most small weapons of opportunity like hammers and hatchets are fine too, as long as they take less than 100 turns per attack or have rapid strike. The most important thing about training melee is kiting. Make sure you don’t get hit and you’ll be able to fight indefinitely.
I never fight Mi-gos in melee, at least not in the first couple of days. As soon as I spot one I run away and try to circle around it if I need to get past it. Get a firearm, preferably a boomstick.