PC Single Player - Wrench / Workbench dependencies

O

Old Painless

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I'm not using anything I haven't made myself apart from raw materials.

I'm trying to make steel, for this I need a crucible, for that I need a workbench, for that I need a wrench.

To make a wrench I need a workbench, so unless I find one somewhere I can't progress just by crafting stuff.

Am I being dumb and the solution is obvious or am I doing something wrong?

Also, why do I need to boil eggs, I should be able to fry them with nothing but a fire like the meat. As a new player this is actually a severe pain in my ass. There ain't no pots and pans out in the wilderness on top of a mountain when you get hungry...

Dogs and wolves are pretty much a guaranteed death if I don't spot them first. Explore the map for hours... killed by the first wolf that finds me and you can't run away from them. grrrrr

Any and all advice gratefully received!

 
To make a wrench I need a workbench, so unless I find one somewhere I can't progress just by crafting stuff. Am I being dumb and the solution is obvious or am I doing something wrong?
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As you have already stated yourself, you must either find or buy a wrench. Wrenches are quite common. You usually find them under the sink. Therefore you are usually already in possession of a wrench long before you can build the workbench.

Also, why do I need to boil eggs, I should be able to fry them with nothing but a fire like the meat. As a new player this is actually a severe pain in my ass. There ain't no pots and pans out in the wilderness on top of a mountain when you get hungry...
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The first 5 days actually consist only of looting houses. The first base is usually a house you take over.

You only build your own base later when you have the necessary resources. In my current game I first used a Ranger Station next to the dealer as my working base. This house is very suitable as a base because the lower part consists of flagstone and the upper part is easy to secure.

Cooking pots are quite common. But like in other games, you most often find what you already have. Therefore it is not a bad idea to check your trader if the forge works. If it works, you can make a cooking pot there.

 
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Well - since you're new to the game here it goes... First off dogs are the bane of existence, make that a given and you should be okay lol Vultures are the bane of existence... lol They both are virtually almost everyone's bane of existence. Looting is fine but you should reserve sometime to get and obtain resources to build things. Like many other games this game is heavy into get things to make things to get more and better things to make other things.... You can watch some Youtubers such as Games4Kickz Anyway - I would recommend that:

1.) Definitely loot everything you can, sometimes its good if your close to a town to drop some temp storage boxes on the street, generally I'll find a light pole and put them up a few blocks so zeds can't just walk up and wack away at them.

2.) Look through all the perks, generally in the beginning you may want a point in lucky looter, healing factor to 'rebuild' your health automatically, cardio to help with running and at least one in headshot! This will get you through a bit till you hit the traitor and level up... BUT beware that leveling up will increase gamestage (not too bothersome if you've recently died because gamestage includes 'days alive' I THINK?!?).

3.) At this point in the game its best to try to find a POI (Point of interest - building, etc.) where you can at least temporally make your base. "We" usually choose a building we can get up on and shoot down upon the zombies...

This is probably thee most important advice/information - Zeds currently hold Doctorates in Engineering and know the best way to get to you. So... You must plan accordingly. Meaning that you know where you want to be or are going to be - therefore you too should know how any zed might be able to get to you. One tactic I use in Single Player is to get on one of the very large boulders, surround the base with as many wood spikes and barbed wire as I can... Generally for the first horde night or two you can get by with this. Albeit to go further you'll need more and more rows of spikes all around. As for being on top of a building - they will generally try to get to you by either wacking at the walls, going up through the building and up the same ladder and hatch you used... Or by bringing down the building! So - we'll try to stack as many spikes inside the building and around the supports for where we're shooting from. IE Pass N Gas has an 'over hang' thats above where the pumps are, many of the restraunts have this overhang... In one of my latest games I used

. In the past I've used the noted and there is/was a trailer house that was made out of steel...
But to get to make steel you'll need a bunch of points in Intel & "Hammer & Forge" - requirement for making steel in the forge is something like level 70, intel level 7, Tier 4 in Hammer & Forge... At least according to gamepidia. As you loot you'll find that cars can have excellent items, but are RARE. Generally guns are found in safe's. Loot drops in the form of yellow bags from zombies, and can sometimes be found 'out in the open world.' Sometimes killed by wild animals and such. It's a good time to make mental notes of some POI's - Gas stations, Hardware stores and sinks can all have wrenches! Or - this one has a safe, that one bites since there's on xxx there... Etc. Generally any POI that has brick or concrete (steel) for walls are you're best POI's to take over. When the crackerbook skyscraper spawned it was good. Generally you should reserve any guns for horde night. Sneaking and firing the first shot at zeds with a bow is a good way to quickly take them down - especially if they haven't seen you. Sneaking around within a POI is a must learn tactic. Some POI's have forges, work benches and even chem stations too! You can get lucky and have your first traitor have all working...

 
It would be very hard to play this game, no looting. I have heard/seen no crafting challenges, but no looting would be tough.

I always start the game and get through the starting quests very fast. I then head to the nearest city and look for a POI to set up as base. My favorites are Amigone funeral home, followed buzzes bar and the small squarish ruins building that has two raised floors (but you have to break the rock like up a bit).. This is because they have some high places that are only accessible by ladder, the ladder has to start on the third block up (jump to it). This way the zombies can’t get in to bother you. This is where I stay while I build a place to fight hordes and find a better place or build something.

I am not an expert though and restart when I die, so I have never get too far into the game :-( I am sure there are better places....

 
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I am looting, just not using any of the tools, weapons or guns. Not for very long at least. I'm looting for food and all the other stuff.

Watching the fire station video he's having quite a different time of it than me, I usually get a dozen zombies at a time rather than the amount he suffered, certainly seems less anyway. I'm living out in a fort I built in the wasteland so maybe that makes a difference.

My fort is 5 blocks off the ground with multiple reinforced stilts keeping it up, I built it next to a building and some hills just off the boundary between the wasteland and the forest with a lake nearby. I thought the building would be good for cover or materials but it cast a huge shadow at night that meant I couldn't see the zombies and it would have taken ages to disassemble with the stone tools I had at the time so I cut out all its supporting walls and demolished it. The ragdoll physics made my CPU cry but it was very satisfying! The loot drop was a bit rubbish for the effort involved but it might be a bit quicker now I have iron tools. 4500 wood was all I got, plus some other bits and bobs.

The hills make the route to the forest on one side and the lake on the other a bit of a chore so I have constructed a high level walkway from my fort to the forest and have tunnelled through the mountain on the other side to make the route to the lake straight and easy. Mining by torchlight is a bit of a chore.

The entrances to the fort are up in the air and are reached by walkways with a 2 block gap to a door that I fill with removable wooden blocks whenever I want to exit. The zombies walk to the end of the high-level walkway and either fall off or jump off the gap into a couple of hundred wooden spike traps. Anybody walking towards the fort from the usual routes also walk through a field of spike traps.

Zombie nights are pretty easy tbh, it's the dogs and birds that get me. I've been working my way through the perks focussing on crafting skills, I reached level 30 tonight mostly by bow & arrow and a club, now I have the iron fire-axe. I do like that!

I'm considering making the entrance spike traps into dead-falls, I wonder how deep they need to be for an insta-kill? It will cost me XP but better that than being eaten alive...

I tried to do the first 'kill some zombies' mission but it was way off over the other side of the map in the winter zone and a dog blew up a car I was stood on and killed me so I have left the missions alone now for a while.

Doesn't seem to be much point risking my life for mission rewards when I can skill up and craft it all myself eventually.

I almost have the parts for a bicycle but the workshop bench thing is an issue again for the wheels I think. Stupid wrench, guess I need to find out which one near me has a bench.

Thanks for all the advice.

 
Make storage crates and situate them in the parking lots of where you are looting. Dump there, and take back what you need to your base. Or leave it in the container, and the next time you loot that container you'll get the old stuff and then a chance at new stuff.

Wrenchs are under sinks as has been stated, also sometimes in Working Stiff crates or random boxes, I like to look in Pass n Gas or the contructions sites / buildings.

Cooking pots I'm usually swimming in them after I finally find my first one. Search the burger joints etc. Also residences.

For dogs / wolves, keep barbed wire on your tool belt, not the 3 lines of barbed wire, but the wood frame, backpedal and place the wire then snipe the dog / wolf = profit. If you see them before they see you, even better. If you feel you can't take them in a fair fight, cheat. Get up on the side of a building and snipe them, (preferable brick), or get on one of the big boulders. (This works for bears too, just make sure you have enough ammo).

Snipped my comments on cars when I saw you'd already figured out why that was a bad idea...

 
Level 30 and no wrench? Wow, that's some really horrible luck there. Unheard of levels of bad luck lol. They are really not that hard to find. Loot up normal houses, you're looking for sink cabinets. Choosing the wastelands biome for a base if you don't like dogs? Not a good biome choice.

 
Level 32 now.

I went out tonight purposely to find a wrench, did a load of wandering about and searching of various properties, no wrench. I guess God just hates me. lol

When I say wasteland I mean the burned looking nuclear explosion wasteland, not the area where the floor is made of building rubble with iron and cars everywhere. Not sure what its called tbh.

I did give a few dogs the fire axe treatment tonight which was good, I didn't die.

I've started building brick structures next to POI's and at major road junctions, 1 block on the ground then 9 on top in a flat square, nothing can get up apart from when they stand on each others shoulders, took out a bear without any difficulty which was great. I'll put some storage crates on them.

I have found a large multi-level warehouse so i'll be clearing that next. There were several crates in the loading dock I have looted so far, including tool crates, but still no wrench. Loads of guns I am scrapping for parts but no sodding wrench. lmao

I'm starting to think i'll need to edit the config files to make one magically appear in my inventory or something, feels a bit too much like cheating at the moment but give me a couple more days...

 
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Just keep at it, you'll find one. If you don't feel like wasting as much time, just make a beeline for the sink in every house. Ignore the rest, you can always come back.

And because I don't think I saw it mentioned and just in case you don't know, you can always just find a trader or certain POIs that have workbenches. Then you could possibly even just craft one if your luck stays bad.

It can be annoying, sure, but I enjoy it as it keeps me occupied with an objective.

 
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Level 32 now.
I went out tonight purposely to find a wrench, did a load of wandering about and searching of various properties, no wrench. I guess God just hates me. lol

When I say wasteland I mean the burned looking nuclear explosion wasteland, not the area where the floor is made of building rubble with iron and cars everywhere. Not sure what its called tbh.

I did give a few dogs the fire axe treatment tonight which was good, I didn't die.

I've started building brick structures next to POI's and at major road junctions, 1 block on the ground then 9 on top in a flat square, nothing can get up apart from when they stand on each others shoulders, took out a bear without any difficulty which was great. I'll put some storage crates on them.

I have found a large multi-level warehouse so i'll be clearing that next. There were several crates in the loading dock I have looted so far, including tool crates, but still no wrench. Loads of guns I am scrapping for parts but no sodding wrench. lmao

I'm starting to think i'll need to edit the config files to make one magically appear in my inventory or something, feels a bit too much like cheating at the moment but give me a couple more days...
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That area is the burnt forrest. I forgot about the fire-axe treatment! Since you're level 30'ish you'll find it works pretty good! One thing I do is I'll always at least take one day to explore for other towns! While doing this I specifically focus on looting cars since they're quick and easy. While going through the towns I'll look for specific POI's - in your case I'd be looking for pass-n-gas and working stiff's tool POI's. But always note where the shotgun messiah's are and banks. Cobblestone (rock & clay) structures are decent, building with cobble stone and upgrading that with more cobble stone to Flagstone blocks. If you 'mine' the blue bags - mostly at construction sites you can get a bit of concrete to upgrade those flagstone blocks to concrete blocks. Please note that I generally don't stay at one base but will always be looking for a better place to build. As for where you're at its okay and doesn't 'generally' effect anything but yes there can be more dogs/vultures in the area.

Guns you can sell to the traitor besides scrapping them. Wrenches are expensive at the traitor - that is if you're lucky to get one there. Last I remember was a 3 at 4000 dukes. BUT!!! Treasure maps can give you that much - sometimes.

 
Level 36

Found a chainsaw and a rocket launcher... but no wrench.

Trader Joel apparently doesn't stock them but he does pay decent money for guns, clothes and also for small rocks, strangely.

EDIT

Yeah, so I cheated and got a wrench. Bah.

Workbench built and crucible on the way.

 
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Lol was going to say the same thing... I played for about 40 minutes last night, hit two POI’s and ended up with two wrenches, one from the bathroom sink the other kitchen...

That has to be some tough luck you ran into...

 
The best way I know to deal with gated things due to not being able to find the resources yourself, is to use a traders work stations. Usually they have at least 2 working stations of some sort in a Trader compound.

 
The traders workbench and chemical station are broken BTW.
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Every trader is different. :) If you find three, chances are the majority of the stations will be working between them, not to mention the farming supplies you can pilfer.

 
OH! That's another thing... Running around to find other towns... Not only that but to find other traitors!!! Finding multiple can be the best thing to happen!

I consider myself lucky to find any traitor with anything working, much less 2 stations...

 
Try going to a place with a lot of sinks, like a motel. Nearly every room has one. I did this last night, and got a bunch of wrenches.

 
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