PC Quick guide for those still struggling in early days of an A17 game.

[Scyris]

Ok cool, I will start switching over to them. They were so useless before I never used them.Damn that's a good haul for ammo by day 7. Shotgun messiah boxes?

When you scrap or sell a gun you get the ammo in its clip back, so I'd scrap all those pistols I found that were worse than what I got, and cancel the scrap before its done, takes the 15 ammo out of the pistol and gives me the pistol back. You can find a crapload of pistols in tons of places.

 

[Scyris]

Not sure if anyone's posted this yet, but one thing that's helped some for me is not using wood or coal for campfire, forge, or chem lab fuel. I used to craft wood logs in a16 but now I just craft up secure wood doors. It takes 4 wood to make them and they give 5 min burn time each which is more than what just the 4 wood adds up to. Also, though I haven't started crafting ammo yet, I'd imagine that coal is more useful for gunpowder if you can afford to save it.

Wood frames use 2 wood, and if I remember right burn for 2 min 30s, so thats an option to use as well.

 

[HerrKingsley]

Never stand still on BM and your base will survive.

 

[Skeeter63082]

Never stand still on BM and your base will survive.

That used to work pre-A17, but now zombies will target the weakest point that provides a path to you. If you have a damaged block or a door with less hitpoints than the walls, they are still going to target that are as long as they numbers in the path to you don't otherwise change. Now if you had multiple rooms/trap configurations set up and continuously changed rooms and floors then maybe that would have some bearing, but even then I predict the destruction will be severe until you can propertly reinforce and engineer something that can trick out the AI.

 

[Skeeter63082]

When you scrap or sell a gun you get the ammo in its clip back, so I'd scrap all those pistols I found that were worse than what I got, and cancel the scrap before its done, takes the 15 ammo out of the pistol and gives me the pistol back. You can find a crapload of pistols in tons of places.

Scrap, sell, or if a gun is Tier 2 or better, modify. I typically scrap tier 1 guns on the early days just for the mechanical parts that will come in very handy. So much easier than going out and scavenging them since guns seem to be more plentiful than zombies in the A17 universe. Then I'll get a bunch of Tier 2+ guns together and then just click modify on each one after another. This is by far the best source of ammo in the game right now with the sheer amount of guns you find, and mostly all low tier, 2 or less. Pistol = 15 9mm rounds. SMG = 30. I've also noticed that AK-47s have had a hell of a drop rate increase, and those are 30 of the super yummy 7.62 rounds each. Strip them out of there and pop them into my Marksman Rifle with 4X scope, mag extender, bipod, and another mod...I forget what I was using last. All those AKs have been feeding that beast for quite a while.

 

[PoppaTot]

Scrap, sell, or if a gun is Tier 2 or better, modify. I typically scrap tier 1 guns on the early days just for the mechanical parts that will come in very handy. So much easier than going out and scavenging them since guns seem to be more plentiful than zombies in the A17 universe. Then I'll get a bunch of Tier 2+ guns together and then just click modify on each one after another. This is by far the best source of ammo in the game right now with the sheer amount of guns you find, and mostly all low tier, 2 or less. Pistol = 15 9mm rounds. SMG = 30. I've also noticed that AK-47s have had a hell of a drop rate increase, and those are 30 of the super yummy 7.62 rounds each. Strip them out of there and pop them into my Marksman Rifle with 4X scope, mag extender, bipod, and another mod...I forget what I was using last. All those AKs have been feeding that beast for quite a while.

I legit scrap EVERY gun that I find that is worse than mine. no sense having a box full of them when you can just craft them. No need to worry about Trader Fodder, just sell forged steel or forged iron if you want to buy duct tape, glue, ect.

 

[Grue]

I do something similar for the earliest stages of the game, except I use wooden chairs that I find since they 1) stack, 2) are typically plentiful, and 3) have WAY better burn times than their scrapped result. I have actually powered my forge with nothing but old wooden chairs for the first 15-20 in game days back in A16.

According to the wiki the chair has a burn time of 50 seconds, but would break down into two wood which burn for 50 seconds each.

Am I missing something here?

 

[Ghostlight]

perhaps you feel the difficulty has been significantly ramped up since A16

lol

If you feel that, please l2p. A17 is the easiest alpha for some time

 

[asmosnuts]

Stealth is also a fast way to lv with minimal risk as long as you keep an eye on the noise you are making. After 1 lv of in the shadows and hidden strike you can 1 shot a lot of zs and loot a lot of poi relatively quickly.

 

[fishjie]

lol
If you feel that, please l2p. A17 is the easiest alpha for some time

lol please stop trolling and lying. A17 is far harder than A16 which was harder than A15. everything makes you bleed, greens show up far more quickly and in higher numbers, illness debilitates you, getting hit decreases your max hp, not being fed decreases your max stamina, the list goes on and on. every post of yours is about how the game is easy. a quick glance on steam and reddit shows that unanimously everyone feels the game is much harder. you're clearly just trying to show off and look cool on the internets.

 

[Aldranon]

You don't really need heavy investment in intelligence early on. You can get by just fine repairing your stone axe and eating charred meat and boiled water. You don't get much, and those points can be valuable for a particular build.
There are three critical things starting off:

1. Prioritize what you need, and stick with it. Do you need materials to build? Focus on it. Do you need to work for the trader to get some early tools and antibiotics? Focus on it. Do you need to scavenge? Stick with it. Avoid becoming too distracted with everything in front of you. Have a dump chest and save 'inventory sorting' activities for nighttime. Getting distracted often means picking up too much loot, which inevitably leads to overencumbrance, which wastes daylight. Pick up only what you need, and avoid sidetracks or aimless waffling.

2. Prioritize who you want to be. Spreading your perk points thin may help early on, but it can sabotage obtaining higher tier perks. EVERYTHING looks important, but what you don't realize is that you CAN do without them by compensating elsewhere. Why cook when you can earn dukes to buy pasta from all those random vending machines? Why get Boom Headshot if you want to be a stealthy-boi when you can focus heavily in Hidden Strike, Shadows, and Ninja Movement? Do you want to be a builder, a melee tank, a ninja looter, a run-and-gunner? Focus on the key skill combinations that fits your build first.

3. Always have a way out. If you hear an angry zombie and you don't know where it is, back out. If it's BM night, have an accessible plan B location if your defense plan fails or isn't done. If you focused on priorities, you should be ready.

To focus is definitely good advise for this game and life in general.

I would add that a player needs to know how they will deal with the radiated when they begin to appear, all too soon.

For me, melee is "all in" or nothing. You don't need any perks to kill a normal zombie by melee. Your main attack method should always have killing radiated in mind.

EDIT: 17.2 made BM hordes not as important, but ranged attack is still the thing and a bow weapon will not kill radiated that well, certainly not in a POI. **(Bow+Stealth could work)

So, Ammo, Ammo, Ammo. And a mod'ed out damage hose (AK, SMG, Shotgun) is the best way IMO.

 

[fishjie]

i haven't played 17.2, but heavily disagree about ranged attacks. i thought ranged was the way to go, but it wastes too many bullets on bullet sponge. i use heavy armor, pain tolerance, heavy weapons, and headshots. i also have points in stealth and ranged headshots. what i usually do to clear POI now is use sneak + steel arrow to aggro just one green at a time with a headshot, hopefully far away enough where it doesn't wake the other greens, then when it comes close i use my sledgehammer. i have 4 pts in heavy weapons, so most of the time it knocks them down. then i meelee their prone bodies until they die. if it all goes to ♥♥♥♥ and a bunch of greens aggro, i use the power attack to crowd control and hopefully it knocks a lot of them down. then i will retreat down a preplanned path, where i can then snipe at them from a distance with sniper. i try to retreat down a chokepoint area so that they can only come at me single file. usually a straggler leads the pack. i will snipe at the straggler, then switch to shotgun, and then finally when its close finish with sledgehammer.

in this way i can clear out POIs without having to resort to wasting tons of ammo. the issue of course is that anything that touches you causes you to bleed, because for some reason they decided that all zombies should proc bleed now. carry bandaids, invest in an aloe farm. also invest some points in cooking so you have steak + potato meal to heal you.

 

[lee_terry_jr]

According to the wiki the chair has a burn time of 50 seconds, but would break down into two wood which burn for 50 seconds each.Am I missing something here?

That comment was probably made during a previous version which has been patched since. Earlier someone mentioned secure doors being good for that and it was also patched. I think they may have gone through and made sure everything burns for the same time as the parts you used to craft it would because everything I have tested so far has been like that.

 

[SylenThunder]

That comment was probably made during a previous version which has been patched since. Earlier someone mentioned secure doors being good for that and it was also patched. I think they may have gone through and made sure everything burns for the same time as the parts you used to craft it would because everything I have tested so far has been like that.

You're responding to a comment made in a previous version.

Don't raise the dead please.