Ya nowadays I can leave rates as their defaults and live years in game. But “wander spawns” is another thing.
It changed the game to totally another one. When it’s off, I can actively search towns. When it’s on, I can only hide in LMOE and waiting for wandering zombies to bring random resources in.[/quote]
The secret is to find a place to hole up a decent hike away (as you’re doing), but close enough to go hit the outskirts of town each night. No particular goal other than thinning the herd, but if you keep hitting the same area (not EXACTLY the same, usually, just to avoid whatever nasties were attracted there), you’ll eventually start clearing the outermost structures.
If it’s a large city, that alone might take a season or two. If it’s medium-ish in size, and you can’t seem to make progress, one night, go around to another edge of town - sometimes, the hoard will have moved to where you’ve been clearing, and this newer section is almost empty.
Between those two techniques, you should be able to clear a medium town’s interesting buildings in 2-4 seasons. Note that it may still be too dangerous to try to penetrate the town during the day! But you might want to start coming to the outskirts during daylight, just to get a view of how many stragglers are still wandering about.
Actually clearing a medium town to the point of daytime safety may take well more than year, but by then, your skills should be getting pretty significant, and it should start getting easier.
(Note that I run x5 spawn, standard season length. With longer seasons and/or fewer spawns, all those number should come down a bit, but I think the technique should still be viable.)
Patience is the name of the game, and ALL town contents are expendable to stay alive. That electric car you want? If a hoard comes, don’t even THINK about trying to defend it. (But maybe start a house fire 2 houses down and hope that they go there instead…)
