So what are some strategies for playing with (and surviving hordes)?
Random NPC’s + Hordes are usually a disaster waiting to happen as a single gunshot will spell doom for everyone and you can’t always recruit NPC’s. More than that, playing with hordes means that an area will virtually never be safe and it is difficult to build a “base”.
Noise control also doesn’t work as even a blazing house fire will not stop Z’s from honing in onto you like you are the light to their moth. I still want to play with hordes because they make things interesting/challenging, but some tips would be nice.
If you play on large cities, loot away from where you are going to live. The noise you make while looting will attract the horde in that direction away from your base. Also, it appears that in large sections of houses, there is little zombie activity for some reason.
Imo is all about not letting the horde actually spawn so you have to keep distance checking the map frequently. I usually find a car and live on the road, setting a base is hard with hordes.
I’ve not had very long games with hordes (only played a few, and accidentally got the wrong version updated that had my horde game on it.) But seems like having a few outlying bases that you can fall back on if hordes to strong ever get to close to your main is the way to go. Having a building is nice, an RV better, but having some alternate cashes, and not getting overly attached to one place and playing flexible like that seems the best for me.
if you play with hordes and you want easier life try bigger city spacing
if you are playing stable build hordes are not big problem, they just spawn on edge of your reality bubble and rarely they wander near your base if you are quiet and go outside only during night
if you are playing experimentals make powerfull defense or live away from city after you create your vehicle this base will be only your warehouse anyway
for living outside of city try sewage threatement plants, they have a lot of resources to salvage to build your base and you have big downstairs where you can secure your loot if you fear fires, lab enterance is good too, farms have a lot of place to farm and some food
For the first few days of the game, I never bother setting up a base until my survivor can competently fend off small hordes. If I need a temporary base during that time, then somewhere with a basement is ideal. If z-levels are on hordes will still spawn, but they won’t be spawning in the basement so at the very least there’s less chance of getting attacked during sleep. If the survivor is dragging a wheelbarrow around I usually park it on stairs, since in the event of a collapsing house the wheelbarrow is safe on a stairs tile.
Basically, much like zombies that spawn in towns, avoid engaging hordes until you can take them on. Just do things slowly and avoid big risks… though in general I have good luck when I ignore the latter.
I can’t seem to get mobs to chase me up/down stairs anymore. Not sure what changed. NPC will follow but mobs don’t. Did experimental z-levels change or something?
Im fairly certain you are talking about the old habit, where the game would tell you that "X critter is almost up the stairs’ and etc. Yea. Ive been playing with the option for zlevels on for a quite a while now, and Ive noticed especially lately with my testing of my own custom made maps that critters can go up and down stairs if their query is traceable up there. Or im nuts and imagining it. thats happened a few times.
But no, I know that a recent pull request was talking about critters being able to see and fire at different levels, and I think it did say something about basic pathing around levels in cases where the impetus is present strongly enough.
wow sounds good. It would be nice to have that back, and stronger than it was before. As is now I can safely go into any basement, and if its to much to handle walk back out without problem. I miss having to deal with the consequences of opening that spider basement, or zombie basement etc…
It seems to be a rare instance when they do these days. Like, on my old underground ice lab fort, which my survivor lived in for two years with 45 day seasons, there was only one time when a horde zombie visited the fort. Lots of zombies show up above ground, but only one appeared down there.
