PC Building question

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Dead Smarty

Active member
New PS5 player here.
I'm starting to build a horde base and wondered what the difference is between bars and railings. I like to build something suitable to keep the zombies out while allowim me to shoot/stab/club the horde during my first blood moon.

 
I THINK you can stab and I KNOW you can shoot through railings and bars. But you can't melee swing "through" them. If a Zeds head sticks through you can hit it, but your swing doesn't do damage beyond it. I am not 100% sure about the spear. You would think that would work because it's a forward stab vs. a horizontal swing.

 
warmer said:
I THINK you can stab and I KNOW you can shoot through railings and bars. But you can't melee swing "through" them. If a Zeds head sticks through you can hit it, but your swing doesn't do damage beyond it. I am not 100% sure about the spear. You would think that would work because it's a forward stab vs. a horizontal swing.
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Quick response, thanks!
From what I've seen spears should work but I started as Pummel Pete so I gues I need to use a hatch as kind of half door if clubs don't work.
Any idea if bars are different from railings?

 
Interesting, I hopped into a test world -thinking you wouldn't be able to melee through railings at all. Or if you could, you would be able to with any melee weapon. But based on this very little testing, it seems you can Only melee through railings with a spear.

So, Bars block melee entirely, Railings allow you to swing a spear through. You'll hit the block a lot, aim for the gap, instead of the zed - and hope the zed is behind the gap at the right time... :)

For other melee weapons, you'll need blocks with a wider gap, the current meta tends towards either Scaffolding ladders or Poles and Pole Doubles

 
You can also reach through railings to repair things, but not through bars.  I don't think I've used bars since A16 (maybe A17?) because I just don't see a point to them any longer.

 
Vaeliorin said:
You can also reach through railings to repair things, but not through bars.  I don't think I've used bars since A16 (maybe A17?) because I just don't see a point to them any longer.
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That is an interesting distinction I was unaware of.

 
Thank you all for the response. I made the mistake to go for bars since the gaps looked wider so it seemed the logical thing, still time to replace them with railings and change my club for a spear. Or just take a block away and get a hatch in the choke point.

 
Suxar said:
Looks like I'll have to try playing with the spear. Always ignored it.
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It does sound like a rather strong option; I didn't test, but I assume zeds won't be able to "properly" hit through them. Of course they'll still glitch through like any other thin block.

 
Suxar said:
Looks like I'll have to try playing with the spear. Always ignored it.
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As mentioned above, the go to block for melee bases is the scaffolding ladder.  You can shoot and melee between the ladder rungs. Most people turn the block on its side (rungs going up and down) for better visibility and more usable area.

 
Rule of thumb, if you place a wood building block then place another object 'behind' it, you can tell if you can interact 'through' it. The main benefits of that is being able to repair or pick up loot backs 'behind' the block.

The perfect example is the difference between (building block) bars and railings, the latter you can interact through, the former you can't.

It seems the scaffolding ladder block is the "memé de jour", but as it makes it a 'climbable block' I dislike using them.

 
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ricp said:
Rule of thumb, if you place a normal cube building block, then place another behind it, and you can interact with it then things like cop puke can go through it too.
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I may be misunderstanding, but that sounds.. oddly phrased at least.

Interacting, like using hatches and boxes, works in the melee space. Cop puke is in ranged space - it will happily go through bars.

Repairing is melee as well, if you can repair a block through a gap, you can melee though it. (Size of gap seems to make a difference now, though)

 
theFlu said:
I may be misunderstanding, but that sounds.. oddly phrased at least.

Interacting, like using hatches and boxes, works in the melee space. Cop puke is in ranged space - it will happily go through bars.

Repairing is melee as well, if you can repair a block through a gap, you can melee though it. (Size of gap seems to make a difference now, though)
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Spot on, I've given a bad/wrong example with the cop spit actually, I should go back and amend it. I was more working on the visibility through items and added that in, when really the cop spit (and screamer visibility) is more based on how thick the block is.

 
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Kosmic Kerman said:
As mentioned above, the go to block for melee bases is the scaffolding ladder.  You can shoot and melee between the ladder rungs. Most people turn the block on its side (rungs going up and down) for better visibility and more usable area.
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Is there no difference between a stabbing melee and swinging melee? From games like ARK I got the feeling that a swing can hit a larger space while a stab is more precise, I was hoping this would also affect the space needed for bloking it or letting it pass.

 
Dead Smarty said:
Is there no difference between a stabbing melee and swinging melee? From games like ARK I got the feeling that a swing can hit a larger space while a stab is more precise, I was hoping this would also affect the space needed for bloking it or letting it pass.
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The best way to test things in this game is to actually try them.  Craft some frames and then place blocks (like the scaffolding ladder) to test them out.  You can always repair the frame and then pick it back up.  The reality is that what some people find to be acceptable, you may not. You won't know until you try.  If you find the scaffolding ladder to be too restricting you can use the double pole block placed horizontally. If I were playing with a sledgehammer or stun baton I would use the double pole block.  A club can work with either the scaffolding ladder or the double poles but as you are using a controller and may have less precision you may prefer the double poles.

Edit

I don't want to spoil anything for you so I haven't provided a link to a video showing a basic horde base using either ladders or double poles but I can if you like.

 
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Dead Smarty said:
Is there no difference between a stabbing melee and swinging melee?
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The weapon swings consist of two parts, the primary and a "path" of secondaries.

The primary hit does the actual damage, it's basically a short range bullet down the crosshairs - although its "thickness" seems to vary.

The secondaries, aka "Glancing blow", are a fan of similar swings mimicing the animation path - console showswings to see them. They do minimal damage, but can proc decaps and such. I haven't checked these lately, but as they roughly follow the animation, they should be different for spears and clubs. But since they're so weak, that makes very little difference...

 
Kosmic Kerman said:
... but as you are using a controller and may have less precision you may prefer the double poles. ...
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Yeah... About that...
You know what got me killed first time I tried ladders and bars? The @#$$ Aim Assist!
Initialy I blamed stick drift but the assist is more like a tracker assist than an aim assist, it follows a target. It caused me doing more damage to my service desk myself than the zeds so it broke and I had the horde inside having a ball with my corpse.
This caused also issues me destroying doors when trying to poke 'm in the eye when they made a hole in it so I'm not using that anymore.

Without the assist ladders work fine for clubs and spears I know now, even with controler.

 
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