PC POI vs. Player built for horde nights?

[InSanity]

I've played a decent amount of this alpha so far and I've quickly realized that if you spend your first week looting and killing zeds you'll be a higher level and maybe get the forge but that also means a higher gamestage and obviously less time to build, which has seemingly led most to simply take over an existing building for at least the first horde night. I was wondering how many people have chosen to spend more of their first week resource gathering and building rather than the leveling route and what kind of bases you guys have made/how are they holding up. I spent my first 2 1/2 - 3 days looting but starting getting ferals so I backed off and decided to try for a base and it held up pretty well for the first horde being on nomad and level 19 or so. I had 2 rows of wood spikes, 1 row of barbed wire on the outside, and used a couple hunting rifle shots here and there for the bigger zeds but mostly used a bow with stone arrows.

 

[Zourin]

I tend to focus 2-3 days on the base defense for horde night, and usually focus on development and priorities early in the week after a horde night.

My most recent game, I took over a fairly simple barn that offered a pretty good combination of roof access and a safe 2nd floor. it was almost entirely made of wood, so I ended up spending a lot of time knocking out the wood at ground level and replacing it with flagstone, which ended up really not making any difference at all. The building itself has taken pretty low amounts of damage despite the promise for 'pillar knockers', so small blessings there.

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The effort spent hardening the barn wall was pretty worthless, since the damage was minimal, and that ended up postponing the perimeter wall by two whole weeks, which turned out to be MUCH more valuable in driving zombies to a more condensed combat area. 'priority' after Week 1 was overtaking the nearby crop fields for my own, and laying groundwork for a workshop area outside my perimeter wall to spread the screamer pressure to a building that should be idle during long jobs.

Priority after week 2 was a bicycle and starting a mine down in the desert for shale. I was starved for oil, mostly for molotovs, and hadn't really focused heavily on breaking down cars. The mine was also expected to bring in some extra iron and material for cobblestone (and later cement)

With the wall complete in time for the 3rd week horde, I enclosed the workshop and focused wholly on a motorcycle and trying to find a beaker to get my own chem station. I had been using a camp near the trader that has turned into a hotspot for wolf and dire wolf spawns, and that's not a good thing when you're busy working with gunpowder.

Now in the 4th week, I still have no chem station with beakers being stupidly rare, the trader is tired of me dropping off more guns than ammo, but I have a motorcycle, and I'm COMPLETELY starved for clay and stone. I have an augur that just is a bigger danger to myself than the rocks I'm trying to dig with it. The total sum of concrete I've been able to produce was barely enough to make a parking space for my motorcycle.. which isn't very much.

I just can't produce enough material, to the point where I am starting to get Ark/Conan Exiles flashbacks with the amount of manual labor I have to constantly devote to in order to enhance my defensive posture. I have electrical systems, but no resources to deploy them effectively. I'm short on engines, concrete, and cobblestone to extend my defensive perimeter and add an extra layer to whittle down the incoming hordes... so i've already lost for day 35. Having spent literal days trying to get a chem station up and running (and failing) has cost me time. There was an entire hospital next door that took 2 days to clear, and not a damn thing in it I could use.

At level 56, I've mostly finished INT'ing up, and plan on focusing on neglected development in other perk trees, so I could get away with hopping on the motorcycle and ditching the BM night entirely without feeling like I'm missing out on xp.

 

[InSanity]

Yeah I noticed that they zeds only came in from one side and even though I tried to drag them across the spikes once they started damaging blocks in one place they simply all went there so it really only seems necessary to fortify certain sides to funnel them in there. And now that I'm done with my first horde my priority will be leveling up a bit and getting some better transportation for sure.

 

[calebelt]

In this version, the base is not needed. Only loot storage boxes.

Zombies have become very stupid and they only need to levels up. I spent the first week killing zombies. Made combat skills. And during the Horde, I just go outside and play Serious Sam.

With the new system of skills, you can become a powerful tank in one week. The game became uninteresting.

 

[Zourin]

In this version, the base is not needed. Only loot storage boxes.Zombies have become very stupid and they only need to levels up. I spent the first week killing zombies. Made combat skills. And during the Horde, I just go outside and play Serious Sam.

With the new system of skills, you can become a powerful tank in one week. The game became uninteresting.

Unlikely true. Even at L20, you're capped to Fortitude 4, which still limits you to Pain Tolerance 2 and Healing Factor 2. Even in iron armor, a BM horde would rip you to shreds. You would literally need Self Medicated 2, Healing Factor 2, Pain Tolerance 2, Iron Armor, and a bunch of steroids, fortbites, and painkillers. Even then, they'd only last 30 seconds.

 

[InSanity]

If you either hid, ran away, or distracted them all night then I could see you easily go out and just melee the whole BM horde in the morning but otherwise that's not really too feasible for the first week for most.

 

[babspsol]

Forge is easily found at POI's or Traders.

My days are spent looting without fighting and spend the nights underground mining. End of the week drop iron in forge and make forged iron which I then craft into irons spikes.

Base is cobblestone 5x5 at ground level with iron bars 2nd block up so I can shoot arrows out of and then iron spikes all around. Horde barely scratches the base due to low gamestage and too many iron spikes.

Despite being level 6 I have iron tools and good weapons because I have spent so much time looting and wasted so little time killing.

Many ways to play this game, that's how I do it.

 

[calebelt]

Unlikely true. Even at L20, you're capped to Fortitude 4, which still limits you to Pain Tolerance 2 and Healing Factor 2. Even in iron armor, a BM horde would rip you to shreds. You would literally need Self Medicated 2, Healing Factor 2, Pain Tolerance 2, Iron Armor, and a bunch of steroids, fortbites, and painkillers. Even then, they'd only last 30 seconds.

L20? Are you kidding me? :smile-new:

Sorry, but you must have a level of at least 30-40 in the first week. Or you don't kill zombies?

The first week, I just walked around buildings, killed zombies, and collected loot. Did not build anything besides the boxes for loot.

The first Horde is very weak. There are no dangerous zombies out there. They form a chain and get stuck in each other. If you played shooters, you can easily dance around stupid zombies, hiding behind small obstacles. If the health was lower, then jump to the box with the drugs, treated and back into the fight. Boxes can be put on the roof of the building. The ladder is higher than the zombies can jump. Just put next to a couple of blocks and jump sideways. Zombies do not get it. That's the whole base

 

[Kalarro]

L20? Are you kidding me? :smile-new: Sorry, but you must have a level of at least 30-40 in the first week. Or you don't kill zombies?

The first week, I just walked around buildings, killed zombies, and collected loot. Did not build anything besides the boxes for loot.

The first Horde is very weak. There are no dangerous zombies out there. They form a chain and get stuck in each other. If you played shooters, you can easily dance around stupid zombies, hiding behind small obstacles. If the health was lower, then jump to the box with the drugs, treated and back into the fight. Boxes can be put on the roof of the building. The ladder is higher than the zombies can jump. Just put next to a couple of blocks and jump sideways. Zombies do not get it. That's the whole base

To sum up, play the game like a combat game. How awesome. But yeah, it looks like what the devs want.

 

[InSanity]

Forge is easily found at POI's or Traders.
My days are spent looting without fighting and spend the nights underground mining. End of the week drop iron in forge and make forged iron which I then craft into irons spikes.

Base is cobblestone 5x5 at ground level with iron bars 2nd block up so I can shoot arrows out of and then iron spikes all around. Horde barely scratches the base due to low gamestage and too many iron spikes.

Despite being level 6 I have iron tools and good weapons because I have spent so much time looting and wasted so little time killing.

Many ways to play this game, that's how I do it.

I played somewhat similarly but spent a little more time killing while looting and occasionally killing hordes and doing side missions just to break up the grinding so I didn't get too bored with that, I found a forge in a poi directly next to me and having that is definitely a big help becasue then you can get good tools and defenses without power leveling and having to worry about a difficult horde or anything.

 

[Reth]

I've played a decent amount of this alpha so far and I've quickly realized that if you spend your first week looting and killing zeds you'll be a higher level and maybe get the forge but that also means a higher gamestage and obviously less time to build, which has seemingly led most to simply take over an existing building for at least the first horde night. I was wondering how many people have chosen to spend more of their first week resource gathering and building rather than the leveling route and what kind of bases you guys have made/how are they holding up. I spent my first 2 1/2 - 3 days looting but starting getting ferals so I backed off and decided to try for a base and it held up pretty well for the first horde being on nomad and level 19 or so. I had 2 rows of wood spikes, 1 row of barbed wire on the outside, and used a couple hunting rifle shots here and there for the bigger zeds but mostly used a bow with stone arrows.

Base building the first week or two is not as efficient as hardening a PoI. You *can* gather enough mats to build a horde-proof base, but the gathering process itself is painfully slow.

Most current base designs focus on exploiting the predetermined nature of zombie movement towards you. The idea is to keep them at a lower elevation while moving around. This will force them to switch paths and waste time repositioning, hopefully moving through a trap field and taking damage while also taking damage from you. There are other designs, even more exploitative in nature, that I don't really want to go into.

Using a PoI the first few weeks is beneficial due to multiple preexisting floors and a roof, which protects you from vultures. You only need to clean it up and put passive traps.

 

[jlmanatee]

My first week this time around consists of staying in an underground POI garage bunker at night. You know the kind. At the same time, I built a 5x5x6 hardened flagstone tower with a ramp leading up to the top level. I put in a "drawbridge" of three wood frames to get onto the tower's top. I dug a shallow pit between the base of the tower and the ramp and filled it with a double layer of wood spikes (3x5x2). I found in previous build renditions (b197 and b199) that the zeds are only interested in getting to me. So I let them run up the ramp and fall onto the spikes. They mostly ignore trying to demolish the tower. Some barbed wire laid on the ground and on thier "path" to the ramp slows them down long enough for me to pump stone arrows into them. So on horde night, I"ll be eating a can of chili and ocasionally pumping arrows into my Z-buddies till dawn.