PC Strategies for Maximising Bloodmoon XP.

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Pernicious

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You can tell I am a bit of a rules lawyer/min-maxer from this post :) But I decided to have a look at the Gamestages and Entity Groups XML files, and wondered when I started missing out on XP, because I wasn't killing them fast enough.

Pretty early on in the game, you can finish all 3 waves well before 4AM with just guns. Easy.

When things get a bit tougher, some players I note have strategies to slow down Zombies - Mazes, single width corridors, falling traps, etc. That's legit if that's how you want to play. However, if you can't kill the entire wave in 5 minutes, then you lose the rest of that wave - That's easy XP you're missing out on.

Some players kill Zombies with traps, which either nets you no XP, or only partial XP depending on your perks - Again, legit if you want to play it that way, but I feel that's wasted easy XP.

In A19, I took the strategy of using traps to "Soften up" Zombies without killing them. So, a deep pit so they took fall damage, then an electric fence to take off a few more points, and by the time I shot them, a single shot virtually anywhere on the body was enough for almost all zombies except some of the really tough ones like demolishers and feral soldiers who might need a couple shots.

I'm now getting to the stage in A20 where I am finishing the 3rd wave about 3:30am. So soon I'll need to start softening. I also realised eventually though, it will get so overwhelming, that even with softening, you can't get 100% of kills by gun, and 20-35-50% of XP by traps is still better than none.

So - TL:DR, what's your strategy for maximising bloodmoon XP, or am I the only one who dives down this deep?

 
I play on 2 hour days, so more bloodmoon time, and inadvertently discovered that the BM horde starts all over again if you finish one and exit the game before 0400hrs (a surprise to be sure, the first time logging back in). Not a deliberate, planned, strategy but reasonably effective...

 
Guess, it depends. Personally, I do the softening up approach use barbed wire and electric fences. While if you're a bit more daring you could build a base in the wasteland and do horde there.

 
The shotgun seems more than adequate to hold off and slaughter multiple hordes all night. Early game getting 2-3 kills per regular shotgun shell is routine.. Later on because so many of them are feral and radiated getting 3 kills in one shot is much more rare but you still get two kills per shot very often. I use a 5 block long 1 block wide hallway for the zombies to get to me with some electric fences to slow them down a bit. The primary slowdown that keeps me from getting more kills is the run time from when the zombies spawn in to when they get within range.

I think the perfect setup for absolutely maximizing xp would be to cover the spawnable area with electric fences and shotgun turrets a few blocks above the grounds surface facing down. Sure you only get 50% xp per kill but you'd possibly be looking at a spawn to kill time of a few seconds or less. The through put could be amazing, though I think that would be a little to resource intensive just to get setup. Although I guess you could maybe do it in a part of the map where the zombie spawn area is restricted to a smaller space. That said I don't know if the game just aborts spawning the horde if it fails to many times to find spawnable surface.

Barring the above the fastest way would probably be to use tons of explosives and set your max alive as high as possible.

 
If you can change the settings, you could increase the number of bloodmoon zombies. Resetting bloodmoon by relogging before 4 am is also an option.

I've seen a video today where the player makes a block-based staircase with electrifying fences. It stuns zombies when they jump and he gets a clear headshot, which makes me envious of why I didn't think of this sooner.

 
I prefer the soften up approach, mainly electric fence posts and sledge turret. I use to do a pit, but too much work for so little effort. I try to kill them off as fast as I can, but it seems in A20, the hordes are lasting  past 4:00 AM. 

 
Thanks guys. Yeah, just to be clear, I did mean with default settings and not doing the log out/log back in trick.

Horde night does seem somewhat  tougher in A20, which is why I brought up this thread. Day 28/Gamestage 80 something and I'm already stretching to 4am, where as I'd be a bit higher level before that happened in A19.

You know, I've never turned on Debug mode to see how much damage a fall pit took. I took for granted a Youtuber's comment that it was always 1/3rd. 

I've also got a staircase with an electric fence at the top. It does hold them still for a heashot, which was my aim, but not sure where the jump is involved? Keen to see the video @Kasad if you still have the link.

@Whorhay I've always assumed a big flat area was best so I had the longest line of sight to shoot, as well as fewest obstacles for the spawns to get caught on. But you bring up a good point about reducing spawnable area for reducing run time... I'm gonna do some testing! Thanks.

 
Pernicious said:
Thanks guys. Yeah, just to be clear, I did mean with default settings and not doing the log out/log back in trick.

Horde night does seem somewhat  tougher in A20, which is why I brought up this thread. Day 28/Gamestage 80 something and I'm already stretching to 4am, where as I'd be a bit higher level before that happened in A19.

You know, I've never turned on Debug mode to see how much damage a fall pit took. I took for granted a Youtuber's comment that it was always 1/3rd. 

I've also got a staircase with an electric fence at the top. It does hold them still for a heashot, which was my aim, but not sure where the jump is involved? Keen to see the video @Kasad if you still have the link.

@Whorhay I've always assumed a big flat area was best so I had the longest line of sight to shoot, as well as fewest obstacles for the spawns to get caught on. But you bring up a good point about reducing spawnable area for reducing run time... I'm gonna do some testing! Thanks.
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Interesting observation that they can't jump. It does mean that any zombie you don't shoot in time will eventually die from the trap.

One thing I just found out - and I'm not sure if this is an A20 change, or it changed back in A19 and I didn't notice - Area of Effect weapons now give full XP - So I can start incorporating those into my strategies. The obvious first thought is just throw it when hordes get a bit too dense, but wondering if there would be some way to get them to fall into a pit and just drop grenades on them :)

 
AOE damage like Molotovs, Pipebombs, Grenades, and rockets have been working for full xp since at least A16. At least I think that is the last time I did a pit trap base where we would just stand around all night tossing explosives into the pit with the zombies all night. We'd have to reset the server every couple in game hours because with max zombies alive maxed out you just cleared the horde amazingly fast. With a shotgun and single block wide corridor I haven't seen a horde not get cleared before 4am until well over 100 gamestage. I do play with 16 alive on Nomad though as otherwise the horde is just more of a trickle and could probably be managed with a wet noodle for a weapon.

 
Whorhay said:
AOE damage like Molotovs, Pipebombs, Grenades, and rockets have been working for full xp since at least A16. At least I think that is the last time I did a pit trap base where we would just stand around all night tossing explosives into the pit with the zombies all night. We'd have to reset the server every couple in game hours because with max zombies alive maxed out you just cleared the horde amazingly fast. With a shotgun and single block wide corridor I haven't seen a horde not get cleared before 4am until well over 100 gamestage. I do play with 16 alive on Nomad though as otherwise the horde is just more of a trickle and could probably be managed with a wet noodle for a weapon.
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It hasn't been consistently since A16 (The below is a screen cap from another part of the forum, sorry to be confusing):

image.png

Original link that will get converted to some kind of internal forum redirect:





Looks like there are conditions on getting XP from Molotovs:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/251570/discussions/4/2791620699989847780/

 
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BarryTGash said:
I play on 2 hour days, so more bloodmoon time, and inadvertently discovered that the BM horde starts all over again if you finish one and exit the game before 0400hrs (a surprise to be sure, the first time logging back in). Not a deliberate, planned, strategy but reasonably effective...
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I do this all the time. If i kill all the zombies i will log out and log back in if i have the resources to continue. 

 
As someone else said, explosives. Make the zombies path and group up to a choke point, then hail Mary a pipe bomb down. Drinking a learning elixir beforehand.

If the horde is seemingly soaking up that pipe bomb damage like it's nothing, it's time to start eating Atom Junky candy for 50% more explosion damage!

 
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