PC First day shelter tips/ideas?

ImCalledBethy

ImCalledBethy

Refugee
Good afternoon.

I'm tipping my toes into a random map, and would like to know if it's possible to build a shelter on your first day or do I need to use a prefab? If so, how should I go about it?

Thank you for your time.

 
It's hard to build a complete shelter completely. you can get started on one and have something that gives you relative safety the first night.The best place is on top of the hill away from the gravel roads or the big roads. They don't usually come up to the top of high hills. They tend to follow the roads. if the hill is too steep you'll have trouble getting your bicycle or motorcycle up it.

I generally build a 9 x 10 that's three blocks up. The first night it's barely big enough to hold a campfire and my bedroll. Completing it takes a few days. I don't spend all of my time working on the base. I explore and do trader missions.  I upgrade the first three floors to stone as soon as I can and reinfored cement when I eventually get a cement mixer.

Or you can take over a prefab which I do frequently. Chop out the stairs live in the Attic. Upgrade the walls to Stone. This goes a little quicker because you don't have to harvest as many trees.

A lot of people dig a hole but I don't do that. I think you're better off defending a base  by shooting down from above

I take over a trailer home for horde night base because it's all metal and the z's have a hard time with metal.

I built a base on top of a junkyard roof that worked out pretty well.

 
I usually clear a prefab with 2 floors and knock out the stairs. You can also find a building with a roof and ladder up to it. 

 
I've had success before building a 3x3 room with just twice-upgraded wooden walls and wooden spikes around it. Probably wouldn't stand up to a full wandering horde, but the occasional nighttime visitor dies on the spikes. If I'm lucky enough to have found a bunch of feathers then I can arrow them to death before they destroy the spikes. You can leave a block in the roof open and put a ladder from the inside to the top so you can see what's coming, and you can add a wood bars ledge around the top so you can see/shoot straight down.

That said, typically we will find a POI that is a) small-ish and b) has at least cobblestone walls (concrete if we can find it). Clear it out, throw up a ladder to the roof, instant starting base. We run around punching the walls of POIs a lot (checking HP).

 
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I change it up almost every time. I've built some quick start-up bases from cobblestone (clay and rock) that hold up fine, I've had relatively good luck just with a wooden structure although they obviously won't hold up as well. Taking over another POI, assuming you have the artillery/weapons to clear one out day one and knocking out the stairs as mentioned. Personally, smaller houses I find easier to defend than larger POI's on the first few days. I try and create choke points to help control which direction they can/will attack me from. 

 
Barb wire is very underrated.  It is effective in rooting anything that wants to kill you in place while you kill them or need to run away.

 
You CAN build a shelter on day 1, but finding a POI is much easier.

Or, just find one of those big boulders, put a wood platform on top, wood frame to extend over the edges (2 blocks is fine)

You can shoot through the frames.  Center part just upgrade the frames once (so you can't pick them up)

Drop your land claim and bedroll and you are good for the night.

You can generally get a 5x5 solid wood block area, with 2 rows of frames. spikes at the bottom.

Just use a wood frame ramp to get up, a few blocks out.

I'm nasty, and put the frames right to the platform when I'm going UP, then remove them once up there.

(I don't like falling into my own spikes)

It's cheap and easy to do, and you can save your mats until you need/want to move.

 
Laz Man said:
Barb wire is very underrated.  It is effective in rooting anything that wants to kill you in place while you kill them or need to run away.
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I'd even argue that barbwire is more useful than spikes at the end of the day, simply because they last much longer, and allow you to kill zombies more effectively throughout the horde night.

 
Prefab is for sure the easier way. You can manage to build a small base on day one. But it won´t be as secure as a POI. I always hope to find a swigging serum when i start a new game. It´s great for a starter base.

 
Well since this is your first rando map, and you're a fresh spawn lemme tell you something the others have not.  I won't over inundate you with which POI's are great to take over or diggy diggy hole or anything like that, a lot of good suggestions have been given above.

But.. if you haven't yet, learn what nerd-poling is and how effective it can be to cover your backside.

You basically place a wooden or any kind of frame down.  Jump on top of it.  Look down while jumping up, and click drop another frame where you once stood.  Lather rinse repeat until you find yourself in the clouds.

It has more effectiveness if you have Parkour, because some levels allow you to jump that much higher.  If it becomes kinda frustrating, which it sometimes can be because the game will lock you inside one of the frames, you can always put frames on the sides of smooth surfaces on an angle to create a fake temporary stairway.   Once you're on top of whatever it is you wanted to climb up on, you can simply pick them back up and put them back into your inventory.  This trick is a lot like putting up stairs or ladders, but at the same time may be in a hurry or don't wanna destroy them behind you.  It's the best trick and can save you a lot of time and logistics.  No way in?  No worries!  You can hop pretty much any roof or wall with relative ease.

 
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Ranger station is great,  the small bunker is as well.

Ranger has flagstone ground floor, easily upgradable. remove the stairs INSIDE, leave the outside ones until you can spike around it.

Second floor has lotsa room.

Small bunker, mostly concrete, just need to upgrade your entrance a bit, fence around upgradable to wood2 on day one.

House with 2 doors, you can upgrade to wood2 day 1 as well.

Both have a gunsafe, the bunker ALWAYS gives you a cooking pot.

I've used both. 

Those are the 2 easiest ones I've found as starter bases. (not horde bases mind you)

 
I just find a nice flat spot and start doing flagstone (l*w*h) 7*7*3 where middle layer (window) is only inserted in the corners with one wood2 door and make a spear fastest possible, if there would be some intruder in the night I simply stab it to death with spear not leaving my premises, repair the damaged door on occasion. Next day just keep digging to make a nice basement floor with all my belongings, campfire and all the rest after that. Third day just give it a roof and go get some more effective weapons for the first horde night (just guns and ammo), after that just upgrade what you have to concrete as soon as you get the mixer and keep digging for ores/smelt etc, do some corridors in a shape of snail house ending with entrance door to your base so all walking dead has to go all around your windows that cover 360° so you have plenty of time shooting these @%$*#!s before they even reach your main door. After I would add some electric fences to slow them even more and add few propellers on the wall of my doom corridor on the 3d block in height so it only touches their head while they move to the door, then add a sensor or a trigger plate and some dart traps in the last section of the coorindor and a auto smg turret in the very end in the window right next to the door so im sure no-one start smashing it while im underground. 

 
You could easily build any shelter for the first night. Basically if you build a 3x3 "house" out of wood blocks and don't make any noise you are pretty safe. But that would be a waste of materials. The first night or even the second is pretty easy. You could also stay into any POI on the base level, just keep the door closed and don't make noise. There are not that many zombies spawning and if they still find and head towards you it's just pretty unlucky.

If you go to the second floor and knock out the stairs at least 2 blocks high, you're pretty safe. Even if few zombies are attended to you just let them roam araound. They won't knock down the building on first night.

Basically you could even sneak around in the open wild. If no Z comes really close to you, they won't even notice you.

Night is dark but especially in the beginning pretty easy. Even if a zombie senses you, you can outrun it easily and either he will loose track of you or you can easily kill him after the night ends. If you are halfway know what you are doing and don't run around during night like an elefant in a china shop, you're pretty safe.

 
ElCabong said:
It's hard to build a complete shelter completely. you can get started on one and have something that gives you relative safety the first night.The best place is on top of the hill away from the gravel roads or the big roads. They don't usually come up to the top of high hills. They tend to follow the roads. if the hill is too steep you'll have trouble getting your bicycle or motorcycle up it.

I generally build a 9 x 10 that's three blocks up. The first night it's barely big enough to hold a campfire and my bedroll. Completing it takes a few days. I don't spend all of my time working on the base. I explore and do trader missions.  I upgrade the first three floors to stone as soon as I can and reinfored cement when I eventually get a cement mixer.

Or you can take over a prefab which I do frequently. Chop out the stairs live in the Attic. Upgrade the walls to Stone. This goes a little quicker because you don't have to harvest as many trees.

A lot of people dig a hole but I don't do that. I think you're better off defending a base  by shooting down from above

I take over a trailer home for horde night base because it's all metal and the z's have a hard time with metal.

I built a base on top of a junkyard roof that worked out pretty well.
Click to expand...
They follow roads?

never in many many many days of playing have I seen this, and never have I heard this quoted by anybody.  I think you got bitten.
 

 
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Tahaan said:
They follow roads?

never in many many many days of playing have I seen this, and never have I heard this quoted by anybody.  I think you got bitten.
 
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No I don't think they follow the roads, I think they tend to spawn near them. When I have my base near one of those gravel roads I tend to get more visits by Z's than when it's far away from any of the roads. I get hardly any when it's on top of a big hill.

 
ElCabong said:
No I don't think they follow the roads, I think they tend to spawn near them. When I have my base near one of those gravel roads I tend to get more visits by Z's than when it's far away from any of the roads. I get hardly any when it's on top of a big hill.
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Still nope.  They spawn everywhere.

Spreading false news about the spread of the Zombie apocalypse is punishable with 7 strikes with a blunt axe on the upper lip.  (Just kidding)

 
ElCabong said:
I get hardly any when it's on top of a big hill.
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As some others already said, the spawns are completely random.

However i once red the AI somehow prefers walking downhill. Was explained with walking downhill is faster than walking uphill. With that if your base is on a hill, nearby spawned zombies tend to walk away from your base, while with a base on flat ground there is a higher chance that they will walk towards your base. That could explain why there are really less zombies for on-top-of-a-hill-bases.

 
Liesel Weppen said:
As some others already said, the spawns are completely random.

However i once red the AI somehow prefers walking downhill. Was explained with walking downhill is faster than walking uphill. With that if your base is on a hill, nearby spawned zombies tend to walk away from your base, while with a base on flat ground there is a higher chance that they will walk towards your base. That could explain why there are really less zombies for on-top-of-a-hill-bases.
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That would fit what I've noticed. the last base I built that was far away from any road was also very close to a large pond so that might have affected the way they walk too. That would also explain why I didn't see as many visits there.

 
Thoroughly unscientific, but if I want to avoid zombies at night or at the start of a game I stay away from roads as I meet them there far more often than I meet them in the fields.  OTOH if I'm in the mood to deliver a good old fashioned head whoopin I just cruise the roads, looking either side yes but it's centered on the roads.

 
Grolbu said:
Thoroughly unscientific, but if I want to avoid zombies at night or at the start of a game I stay away from roads as I meet them there far more often than I meet them in the fields.
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Even that is more likely just due to having better vision in the area flattened by the road, so you spot them more often. Also, might be that the ones on the road are "blocking" you; since running in the forest your route is more free, it feels easier to dodge them.

 
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