Wilderness challenge tips please

so i think i got a pretty good one going , a challenge where i have little to no contact with cities , i gave myself only one day to take what i need from cities and i think i will give myself one day contact with cities each week
so i have a shelter kit surrounded by shallow pits which i will turn to deep ones when i have the time
got a pillow and a blanket inside the shelter , fire wood on the side , also a funnel with a bottle to be turned to a jug
lots of shit out the back too

Looks good.

You know that you can [e]xamine a pit while you have a two-by-four in your inventory and the game will give you the option of putting the two-by-four across the pit, and then you can [e]xamine it again to pick it up again. You don’t need to leave the gap in the south side of your little fortress.

Having a friendly NPC or two also speeds up the rate of tedious construction tasks like digging pits.

I have done a wilderness challenge before, not making it tough as you though; Instead of a shelter-kit, I preferred a cabin for my base as it can be easily extended, fortified and is really far from cities. Anyway I died (after surviving a hundred-something days) when I got overconfident and went deep into a zombie-infested city. You might wanna look out for farms and ranches, if not as a base (they make really good bases) then as a place to get supplies.

Anyway here are some tips:

Use both ranged weapons and melee; a bow for ranged fighting and a spear (or better) for melee. Being properly armed will help in deterring frequent critter attacks and also in hunting.

# Increase your important skills in the early game by any means. These skills include, Survival, Tailoring, Fabrication, Cooking, Construction and Weapon-Skill(s). Get books from cities or mansions (read below) since many of these skills cannot be increased just by practicing (though you can manage tailoring and cooking). Increased skills mean you can craft better tools, weapons and gear, giving you a better chance of survival.

Increased survival and fabrication will allow you to craft better weapons, armor and tools. Increasing construction will almost be an imperative later as you need it to fortify, extend or repair your base. Increasing cooking is not so important in the early game but it allows you cook better meals and (later) chems and mutagenic-stuff. Melee-Skills and Dodging are necessary in close-quarters and will increase gradually as you progress.

Start farming as early as possible to ensure you never have a shortage of food. Farms can give you necessary items to start early; later on you can even automate the process using automobiles.

Make short but frequent runs into the city. Although you’re living in the wilderness, you’ll still need the basic supplies cities provide such as rags, nails, etc. Cities can also provide you with good gear (= better protection and storage), firearms, factory quality tools, and, of course, books!

# Do night-raids. For a beginner character like you, raiding a city in broad daylight can be an absolute death-trap. Even if you don’t have the night-vision trait, you can manage.

Be on lookout for faraway locations like Farms, Ranches and Mansions. Farms and Ranches have supplies which can help you a lot in this type of challenge; they’ve farming supplies, tools and might even have a working vehicle. Mansions are very good alternatives to cities, they’re easier to loot in the night and have lots of supplies. But the most important part is that they have a grand-library full of useful books which are important for increasing vital skills.

Keep enough medical supplies. This may seem rather useless considering you’re in the wild and damage heals rather fast provided you’re in good health but if you ever get a deep bite or worse, get infected you’ll need those supplies. With enough skills you can even grow them.

Thats all I got for now :slight_smile:

Btw, does this challenge allow you to use firearms? If you go for a raid, find a hulk 10-12 tiles away from you and you don’t have a firearm then you’re (for the most part) screwed.

[quote=“hexman, post:3, topic:12663”]I have done a wilderness challenge before, not making it tough as you though; Instead of a shelter-kit, I preferred a cabin for my base as it can be easily extended, fortified and is really far from cities. Anyway I died (after surviving a hundred-something days) when I got overconfident and went deep into a zombie-infested city. You might wanna look out for farms and ranches, if not as a base (they make really good bases) then as a place to get supplies.

Anyway here are some tips:

Use both ranged weapons and melee; a bow for ranged fighting and a spear (or better) for melee. Being properly armed will help in deterring frequent critter attacks and also in hunting.

# Increase your important skills in the early game by any means. These skills include, Survival, Tailoring, Fabrication, Cooking, Construction and Weapon-Skill(s). Get books from cities or mansions (read below) since many of these skills cannot be increased just by practicing (though you can manage tailoring and cooking). Increased skills mean you can craft better tools, weapons and gear, giving you a better chance of survival.

Increased survival and fabrication will allow you to craft better weapons, armor and tools. Increasing construction will almost be an imperative later as you need it to fortify, extend or repair your base. Increasing cooking is not so important in the early game but it allows you cook better meals and (later) chems and mutagenic-stuff. Melee-Skills and Dodging are necessary in close-quarters and will increase gradually as you progress.

Start farming as early as possible to ensure you never have a shortage of food. Farms can give you necessary items to start early; later on you can even automate the process using automobiles.

Make short but frequent runs into the city. Although you’re living in the wilderness, you’ll still need the basic supplies cities provide such as rags, nails, etc. Cities can also provide you with good gear (= better protection and storage), firearms, factory quality tools, and, of course, books!

# Do night-raids. For a beginner character like you, raiding a city in broad daylight can be an absolute death-trap. Even if you don’t have the night-vision trait, you can manage.

Be on lookout for faraway locations like Farms, Ranches and Mansions. Farms and Ranches have supplies which can help you a lot in this type of challenge; they’ve farming supplies, tools and might even have a working vehicle. Mansions are very good alternatives to cities, they’re easier to loot in the night and have lots of supplies. But the most important part is that they have a grand-library full of useful books which are important for increasing vital skills.

Keep enough medical supplies. This may seem rather useless considering you’re in the wild and damage heals rather fast provided you’re in good health but if you ever get a deep bite or worse, get infected you’ll need those supplies. With enough skills you can even grow them.

Thats all I got for now :slight_smile:

Btw, does this challenge allow you to use firearms? If you go for a raid, find a hulk 10-12 tiles away from you and you don’t have a firearm then you’re (for the most part) screwed.[/quote]
first of all , thanks mate
second, i’ve been thinking about getting into archery and all that , but i have found an “incurruptable sword” in a nearby mansion which is fucking great , i have like 5 tailoring and 4 first aid , so i think i got that covered , night raids , i do that on each 7th day , and i have night vision , so its pretty easy , also yes , firearms are okay , i have a glock with one full extended magazine and two full regular magazines , only using them for emergency though , i can post a pic if interested

[quote=“Gnorse, post:4, topic:12663”]first of all , thanks mate
second, i’ve been thinking about getting into archery and all that , but i have found an “incurruptable sword” in a nearby mansion which is fucking great , i have like 5 tailoring and 4 first aid , so i think i got that covered , night raids , i do that on each 7th day , and i have night vision , so its pretty easy , also yes , firearms are okay , i have a glock with one full extended magazine and two full regular magazines , only using them for emergency though , i can post a pic if interested[/quote]

Yeah, Mansions are awesome places to raid; they’ve only low level zombies (so no hulk-round-the-corner encounters) and huge amount of supplies. Sadly though, my mansion doesn’t have those “decorative” armor and weapon pieces. If you got a good weapon right there then you should stick to it till you find something better (like the Rivtech Knife or those diamond weapons).

If you ever feel that you’ve beaten this challenge then you might wanna move in that Mansion; it makes one hell of a base. Otherwise, just keep increasing Construction and build your base from scratch.

It’s good that you’re keeping a firearm, I always stockpile them whenever I get the chance. Keeping a good gun on you is an imperative since you never know what may come around that corner.

What are your thoughts about starting farming? Since you can literally grow most of the supplies (you can even grow bandages) and you’re on a wilderness challenge, it’s really useful to have a farm set up.

I would like to ask though, if you’re playing hordes or not and if you’re on dynamic or static? Hordes are really hard to beat atm but static is seriously underpowered since you can literally make the Zombies extinct in your cities. I play dynamic with monster spawn 4.0 and items 1.35, I don’t play hordes as they just seem OP to me.

[quote=“hexman, post:5, topic:12663”][quote=“Gnorse, post:4, topic:12663”]first of all , thanks mate
second, i’ve been thinking about getting into archery and all that , but i have found an “incurruptable sword” in a nearby mansion which is fucking great , i have like 5 tailoring and 4 first aid , so i think i got that covered , night raids , i do that on each 7th day , and i have night vision , so its pretty easy , also yes , firearms are okay , i have a glock with one full extended magazine and two full regular magazines , only using them for emergency though , i can post a pic if interested[/quote]

Yeah, Mansions are awesome places to raid; they’ve only low level zombies (so no hulk-round-the-corner encounters) and huge amount of supplies. Sadly though, my mansion doesn’t have those “decorative” armor and weapon pieces. If you got a good weapon right there then you should stick to it till you find something better (like the Rivtech Knife or those diamond weapons).

If you ever feel that you’ve beaten this challenge then you might wanna move in that Mansion; it makes one hell of a base. Otherwise, just keep increasing Construction and build your base from scratch.

It’s good that you’re keeping a firearm, I always stockpile them whenever I get the chance. Keeping a good gun on you is an imperative since you never know what may come around that corner.

What are your thoughts about starting farming? Since you can literally grow most of the supplies (you can even grow bandages) and you’re on a wilderness challenge, it’s really useful to have a farm set up.

I would like to ask though, if you’re playing hordes or not and if you’re on dynamic or static? Hordes are really hard to beat atm but static is seriously underpowered since you can literally make the Zombies extinct in your cities. I play dynamic with monster spawn 4.0 and items 1.35, I don’t play hordes as they just seem OP to me.[/quote]
about the farming thing , i would like to start the farming but i need to find space for the farm , tools AND seeds , which is alot considering i’m on the 8th day
and yes , i’m playing on hordes , static , 1.5 zombie spawns and 0.8 item spawns , increasing zombie spawns by 0.1 for each two days
and hordes are only that strong if you make a shit ton of noise like fire a gun or something , but if you learn to play well with them , you can just shrug them off
but for the love of all that is holy , DO NOT guide a horde to a FMOE camp or a hospital since they’ll draw whatever zombies were in there into them
but to be honest , hordes make this shit easy for me , just go out in the wild , fire a bullet or two and the horde gets attracted to it , giving you a few hours to loot that city with little resistance

[quote=“Gnorse, post:6, topic:12663”]about the farming thing , i would like to start the farming but i need to find space for the farm , tools AND seeds , which is alot considering i’m on the 8th day
and yes , i’m playing on hordes , static , 1.5 zombie spawns and 0.8 item spawns , increasing zombie spawns by 0.1 for each two days
and hordes are only that strong if you make a shit ton of noise like fire a gun or something , but if you learn to play well with them , you can just shrug them off
but for the love of all that is holy , DO NOT guide a horde to a FMOE camp or a hospital since they’ll draw whatever zombies were in there into them
but to be honest , hordes make this shit easy for me , just go out in the wild , fire a bullet or two and the horde gets attracted to it , giving you a few hours to loot that city with little resistance[/quote]

Yeah farming is difficult if you haven’t prepared the space or don’t have the necessary tools. My farming problems got a solved a bit early as I found a farm on day 5, got almost all the stuff I needed to set it up. You can also get the stuff needed from a nearby gardening supply.

I haven’t ever played hordes and I’ve been playing the game ever since 0.B got out. I tried hordes in 0.C stable but they were really unbalanced and made my cabin start tough as hell. I’ve heard that in the experimentals, hordes got balanced so I’ll try them out. I like playing dynamic since you can’t clear a city of zombies but you still get the supplies that zombies drop.

Looks like your character is all set, good luck with your game man.

i would sugest building your base on edge of forest, it will save a lot of hours of cutting wood when you will want to have a vehicle