PC Help a survivor out

1

180Shauny

New member
Hey All, so I've been a long time player but due to RL only get an hour here and there these days. Loving A17 it really is a new game.

After about 10 days in RL I'd made it to day 12 and going pretty sweet until a horde with a big feral and spiders turns up 10 minutes before sundown and proceeds to tear my base apart. I'd been converting a small POI to the old Pillar 50 type defense but it was still cobblestone and they were through before I realised what had happened.

Suffice to say I sat on the roof trying to kite them around as I knew they'd go for the foundations but halfway through the night they brought the whole base down, broken leg = dead me.

I'm not complaining, it's refreshing that the tactics we've been honing all this time need a rethink. But I don't have time to put in testing stuff to figure out what works and what doesn't.

Starting a new playthrough I can see that I need to focus zombie killing more in the early game to get towards level 20 sooner for bicycles, forges, etc. I'd been playing a mix of exploration, quests and bartering, was planning to hole up in a prefab roof for horde night which is why a feral horde that wouldn't leave got me.

But what else have we learned so far? Any basic tactics for a viable early base? Or just hole up in temporary digs until strong enough?

 
Make sure you have stamina drinks handy, in case you do have to make a run for it.

If you are finding the game way too hard, but dont want one hit kill zombies, set zombies to walk always, although this doesnt apply to ferals.

I personally prefer zombies always walk, not because its easier, but because zombie running animations and hit boxes are still equivalent to an indie game made by someone who just used pre made assets to assemble something and put it on Steam for $19, and completely abandon it after

 
Yeah I've made life rather hard for myself as I'm still playing survivalist difficulty but I don't mind working for my kills. The main thing is how do I get a secure place to stash my stuff and hole up at night?

 
Generally, I've found I roll at about 2 levels a day on average (lvl 10 on day 5), with small boosts on horde night.

Getting a wandering horde hitting your base just before horde night is a hazard, so be ready with some emergency supplies and to lure them away from your walls to minimize damage to your spikes.

If you're on Nomad, you're going to have zombies 'till dawn unless you have a healthy supply of molotovs and you raise your zombie limit to above 8 to burn down more zombies per throw. Be ready for ALL defensive layers to fall. Classic 'box' horde night configurations still work, particularly with access to wood bars to shoot down through. If you're in a POI, you're always going to have zombies under you at some point, so you need a plan for that, even if it's making a mad dash to another poi you don't care about.

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In this defense, the 'ground level' of the barn is the last line. They always get in. However, the perimeter walls are enough to deflect wandering hordes and keep most out of earshot of my milling about. The barns' loft is enough for a small base, with access to the metal roof (structurally sound) for firing into the pit traps.

Things of note: Unlike normal doors, Garage doors are ignored by the AI ,and they will flock to that overpriced pile of scrap like seagulls to a trash heap, hence, I used hay bales to delay that problem (which i wasn't sure about at the time)

The perimeter wall is made of wood plate and wood bars. That's it. I've NEVER had zombies breach through that wall. They always went for the doors after the pit traps were spent, and the battle moved inside the barn.

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This is about the worst you can expect once you're at your last-line defense shooting down and hoping the waves stop before dawn.

 
It's probably best to use existing buildings for base defense early on. They significantly increased block damage for some zombies like Wights, fat guys, cops etc but in Alpha 17 players can no longer access strong building materials early on. I'm guessing they forgot or didn't think about that and the result is that zombies wreck early base defenses. The other problem is how weak tools are and how little you get from harvesting early on because of the new perk + mod system. The perks and mods are so strong that the base values for everything is so low.

If you still really want to fight off the zombies, creating a funnel is a way you can do it. Create a long narrow hallway for them to come at you from rather than trying to block them off completely and kill them with bow/melee. Throw down wood spikes as needed to slow them down. You can also make a long platform to stand on that's 3 blocks high. You can hit them with melee while crouched but for the most part they can't hit you back. Bow works too of course. Just be careful not to fall down because they will try to destroy the blocks.

One more tactic is to create a long fence. Spread out some blocks along it you can use to jump over to the other side. This spreads out the zombies and gives you escape routes for when you need to heal or regenerate stamina.

 
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If you are not in a particularly tall building, be aware that the standard hearing range of almost everything you do is 7 blocks. Metal interactions double that to 14.

This is useful information when building a perimeter around your base. You want it at least 7 blocks away, and you want NO metal container interactions inside your base. If you're off by even 1 block, you will attract wandering zombies and hordes.

Understand and have a mind to control your boundaries and approach lanes. Early on, zombies can and will come from any direction, but after you establish a perimeter, you can build barriers to control which direction they approach those barriers. It's a lot more resources, but an outer perimeter wall can help enclose things like parking areas and farmland, and funnel zombies along common approach routes that can be trapped with electric fencing or spike strips.

Also worth noting every zombie trap (except maybe dart traps), take damage as they operate. With spikes, this is easy to notice, but blade traps and electric fencing need to be maintained periodically and may even fail or be destroyed if too many zombies pass through them.

Zombies always prefer the flat and level approach before considering stepping up on anything, even if that 'thing' is an ankle-high wedge tip. You can use this to create the world's dumbest force field by using 1/2 blocks and wedge tips to create a slightly elevated vehicle access route, and have an electrified zombie trap off to one side at ground level. They will NEVER step up on the ramp/platform and instead path into the bug trap.

 
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Some great ideas and advice here so far thanks. I think part of my issue is I used to rely on melee damage with the Pillar50 defense not so much on traps. But survivalist difficulty means I need to throw lots more traps down. I do like the idea of a perimeter fence to keep the regular customers out.

Kill funnel sounds good too for concentrating traps, defenses perhaps as a second line of defense.

 
If you are not in a particularly tall building, be aware that the standard hearing range of almost everything you do is 7 blocks. Metal interactions double that to 14.
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Hi mate can you give me an example of a "metal interaction" in usual crafting activities? Is it anytime I move forged iron around or only if I what something that's metal?

Also regarding approach lanes, I can see in your barn photo some sides have bars, some have barbed wire, is that to entice the zombies to come over the barbed wire first?

 
Hi mate can you give me an example of a "metal interaction" in usual crafting activities? Is it anytime I move forged iron around or only if I what something that's metal?
Also regarding approach lanes, I can see in your barn photo some sides have bars, some have barbed wire, is that to entice the zombies to come over the barbed wire first?
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Iron container interactions. Things like safes, dumpsters, filing cabinets (a big, fashionable culprit), but also any metal doorway or hatch. Outer doors can be iron, fine, but if you have a door or hatch INSIDE your base, do NOT upgrade it to metal. It is loud!

In this barn design, 3 out of 4 sides have TERRIBLE coverage, and the one side has great combat coverage. Because zombies prefer the 'easy' path, they walk past doubled-up doors and flimsy wood walls straight into the spike-filled pits (2 deep, can go 3). As the spikes collapse, they become less preferential, and subsequent zombies then path over fresh spikes. This continues until they can't path through the pits.

Just to be clear, where the barbed wire is, there is NO WALL section. It's, voxel-wise, flat, passable, accessible terrain. the flagstone you see is just reinforcement to replace the dirt at that level to prevent dogs and zombies from easily smacking themselves a path up and out.

The barbed wire is BEHIND the pits, because it IS possible for zombies to jump, pile, or somehow get past the spikes before they collapse out. The barbed wire gives me a brief amount of time to gun down or molotov that area before it becomes a problem. I don't have to worry about ANY other side of my base until the pits are 'spent', at which point the breach is automatic, and the fight goes inside the barn where I can shoot down from the roof and some wood bars I have prepped inside.

Because zombies love to 'rub up' along the walls as they path around my base, those are ideal places to set up extra defenses, and I did, digging down 1 block and adding a line of spikes. Like clockwork, the buggers walk/run over the strips and soften up before they either move on (wandering horde) or engage the pits if I have them repaired. This does get rather expensive to maintain, since wandering hordes usually run off on their merry way, but on horde night, they can really help.

 
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Early base until you get concrete/steel is pretty cake. Build a 3 blocks per side cube on ground level. Stack a single column of blocks up on top of that very high, starting with the middle of that 3x3 block cube and at the top make a 9 block square platform to live on. Build a ladder going up the center of one of the blocks all the way up to the top. Reinforce the bottom cube only as high as you can afford.

At the top of the ladder, place 3 small railings and leave one side open, that's so you can climb out and on top of the ladder. Then you can place your chest and bed and whatnot up top while you run around in the world and level up and prepare to hunker down in a real base.

Also build a little roof up top for vultures.

Now, what happens is zombie will sense you up top if you're up there and insted of attacking the pillars of your base they will climb the ladder, but they have to climb it single file. If you are hanging out in your base opposite of the one entrance space you made at the top, the zombies will try to spin around to dismount the ladder but since theres a little half block railing there, in the direction they spun to face you? They lose their grip on the ladder and fall back down to the bottom, at which poing the next zombie tries to pop up and spin midair to dismount the ladder and he falls too, they all fall. You can walk up to the railing and pop them with a club as they pop up and that combined with the fall damage will kill everyone. They literally cannot get to you. If they had AI that let them dismount the ladder first, THEN turn around to seek you it wouldn't work.

What happens is they try to face you while dismounting but they can't jump off a ladder over a railing while turning in midair and they lose their grip on the ladder and fall down. Their AI defaults to avoiding blocks and seeking the easiest way to get you and that way is up the ladder so they won't attack the base blocks.

It's just cheese though but many of the end game bases are looking cheesier than ever these days so why not.

I discovered this on my own when I was looting a PoI and on top of the trailer was the same setup when I was on the roof and a bunch of zeds tried getting to me up there, but I was opposite the exit hole of the ladder and I watched them all try and fail to dismount the ladder while they spun to face me and get blocked by the little wooden railing. I stopped what I was doing and drew a picture of it so I'd remember to build that for my own defense it seems flawless and super easy. And now I'm sharing it here!

 
I've never done the pillar 50 defense myself, but as I understand it, it's become obsolete in A17 anyways. Zombies supposedly fit through the gaps now.

Like others said: first few horde nights, a POI with strong walls and a roof you can cut off the access to, is your safest bet. That, or exploiting the zombie AI with ladders or trap funnels. Although with the latter you should be very careful that the zombies don't prefer a route through your walls instead. As I understand it, stuff like spikes registers as a serious obstacle to them, while barbed wire doesn't.

Also, rushing to level 20 for better tools/weapons is possible, but be aware that A17 increases your gamestage faster than A16, especially so on higher difficulties. Don't be surprised to see ferals, cops and even irradiated zombies at the end of your first week if you do decide to level up quickly (and don't die a lot in the process).

 
Others have mentioned it, and this has worked since...always - just find a big store building, the ones with a ground floor and big roof on the top with a ladder going up. Find that during your first week, so that you're safe for day 7. Then on horde night just remove the 2 top ladder pieces and block off the opening with some frames for added sense of safety. I'm 5 horde nights in and still no issues, just like always. They just run around attacking things underneath. The way the buildings are constructed, they can destroy all the pillars and supporting walls and the building will stay up. Then in the morning go downstairs and clean up whoever is left. At some point it's good to add an overhanging line of frames along the edges to stop spider zombies from climbing up.

 
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