PC Stupid to go for the desert?

J

j0ntaX

New member
Hi,

I'm pretty new to this game (loving it by the way!!) and I'm casually playing a SP game on a Pregen02 map at the moment. I've built a temporary base in the forest biome just to get a decent start. My second blood moon is coming up and I'm thinking of starting to build my main base as soon as it's over. I'm been scouting out a nice place for this which are close to to major towns and two traders, only problem is it's in the desert. I'm been looking around forums a bit but find it hard getting over fresh threads on the subject and due to that the game is changing alot I'm worried I'm getting old information.

My main concerns are these:

- I'm thinking of building a fairly big "home" where I'll stay on normal nights and also can have forges and what not and then a smaller "horde night base" which will be a more experimental build where I'll test out some ides I have. The main base will be mainly underground, will that be a weak base giving desert biome is mostly sand (of what I understand atleast) and that zombies now can dig down? I'm thinking of screamers and stuff which will possibly pop up thanks to heat map from forges and stuff.

- Am I going to end up having to run around in tank top and shorts without any armor because the heat is killing me?

- Will I find any animals to hunt except those darn snakes?

- Is there any other resource I'll miss? I will be pretty far from both forest and snow biome and I don't want to be needing to run over there any other day.

 
Not stupid at all, I'd say desert is pretty much my favourite again - you'll need to sort out the heat, but that's about it.

- Digging; meh. Sand is weaker than soil, sure, but you won't be able to ignore any digging zeds on either. Once there's a hole in the ground, fill it up with Stone in either biome.

- The temperature protection is practically all in clothes and mods now, so heat isn't an issue with regards to armor. There's no adverse effects to temp resistances anymore.

- Snakes, bunnies, chickens, and some coyotes.. usually enough to live off of, but take down some bigger game when you visit other biomes.

- You'll be living on top of oil shale and aloe. I think coal is the hardest to come by; but every biome has similar issue, at least with shale. Just keep your eyes open for nodes you haven't seen and mark the nearest ones on your map. Might want to plant some dirt for you tree farms, if you tend to use wood a lot. Clay is also a bit of a headache sometimes, not exactly hard to find, but the mental hurdle makes it worth just heading to the nearest clay biome.

 
Stupid imho. What are you getting out of living in the desert? Good proximity to 2 traders and a city doesn't count as there are definitely going to be other non-desert places in your map that will be better in that regard, you just haven't found them yet. The heat is a pain, but most importantly of all....there's no trees or large rocks. Early in your build you will need a lot of concrete and hence a lot of stone. Desert is pain for stone compared to the other biomes that have the massive boulders which are far more efficient to mine from for stone. Depends how big you plan to build. Finally, resources for mining. Desert has Shale reliably but that's it. Go to pine forest and you have every mineral except shale, and very reliably. One visit to the desert and one day digging gives all the Shale you'll ever need for your play-through, but if you live in the desert you will have to visit other biomes for your coal, lead, iron, nitrate, all the time.

I'd avoid it. Trust me, long term you'll regret it.

 
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I live in the desert because my first trader was there.

My clothes are a BDU shirt, BDU pants and a trench coat. Additionally the cowboy hat mod in my helmet gives me protection against the heat.

If you want to secure your underground base against screamers and other zombies, it should be on the bedrock. My current base is located under a mountain on the bedrock. The entrance is on the flank of the mountain. So far I had no problems with screamers. However, my previous base had no problems with screamers after I secured it with shotgun turrets.

 
Desert is pain for stone compared to the other biomes that have the massive boulders which are far more efficient to mine from for stone.
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Aren't those the exact same Stone that exists under three layers of dirt Everywhere? As in, you'll save digging about 3-9 (direct down vs ramp) clay/sand blocks by driving to the massive boulder and that's about it?
I seem to remember you dislike the underground mining (?), so that's quite likely a factor here?

 
Thank you all for your input!

About the spot, I'm been cheating a bit and looking at the pregen02 map online and there aren't really any other spot like it. I want to be close to the traders for quests/buying stuff and the towns I'm talking about are among the biggest on the map and they practically touching each other. Good for looting :)

I really don't mind mining underground for rocks, I would actually say that I find it pretty fun and also time efficient as you can do it by night. My question was more if there were any rocks underground or just sand down to bedrock. But I take your answers as it is rock a few layers down :) and I also already have about 50k rocks so I'm thinking that's a good start for my base. Just have to find that damn cement mixer recipe :(

About the trees I'm not really worried. I want to build most of it with concrete and maybe even steel for the most exposed parts. And as long as I can grow trees and other stuff I'll see it more as a challenge. I like the idea to build a self sufficient base.

Reading your answers I'm fairly certain I give it a try. Just have to figure out the clothing part. I'll let you know how I manage ;)

 
About the trees I'm not really worried. I want to build most of it with concrete and maybe even steel for the most exposed parts. And as long as I can grow trees and other stuff I'll see it more as a challenge. I like the idea to build a self sufficient base.
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Trees in the desert do not grow as big as in the green biome and they grow slower. So I would recommend you to start a tree farm in green biome and visit it from time to time. That should provide more wood than you will ever need. I haven't harvested my tree farm for weeks.

 
Trees in the desert do not grow as big as in the green biome and they grow slower. So I would recommend you to start a tree farm in green biome and visit it from time to time. That should provide more wood than you will ever need. I haven't harvested my tree farm for weeks.
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Not even if you change the sand to soil?

 
desert is no issue at all, the only thing which took me ages is to find coal deposit in forest biome. but that's just rng

i would anyways pick a location which is not too far from another biome, i have around 1km to forest biome where also my nearest trader is, and it is fine.

didn't bother with replacing sand by soil for tree farm, just plant a few more trees and you are good.

 
Not even if you change the sand to soil?
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You'll have trouble with that. The different blocks of soil have been replaced by Topsoil which will always be the block that fits the biome. If you place it in the desert it will turn into sand. There is also dirt in the crafting menu but I am not sure what properties this has as I have not tested it.

On the map you sometimes see green patches in the desert. This is soil and in one of these spots I have planted trees. These have grown to a maximum of 900 HP. In the green biome they reach 1200 HP.

What I have not tested yet is to plant the trees in farm plots.

 
You'll have trouble with that. The different blocks of soil have been replaced by Topsoil which will always be the block that fits the biome. If you place it in the desert it will turn into sand.
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I'm pretty sure that's just a visual effect. The texture of a newly placed terrain block will be overwritten by the texture for the original ground if you're "close enough to the surface", but the properties will be the same as before. Digging them up will yield whatever you placed down, etc.

Not sure about the exact details, but I have grown full 1200 trees in desert.. but I'm only sure about using existing POI soil, not sure if I've tested self-placed soil for A18..

 
Stupid imho. What are you getting out of living in the desert? Good proximity to 2 traders and a city doesn't count as there are definitely going to be other non-desert places in your map that will be better in that regard, you just haven't found them yet. The heat is a pain, but most importantly of all....there's no trees or large rocks. Early in your build you will need a lot of concrete and hence a lot of stone. Desert is pain for stone compared to the other biomes that have the massive boulders which are far more efficient to mine from for stone. Depends how big you plan to build. Finally, resources for mining. Desert has Shale reliably but that's it. Go to pine forest and you have every mineral except shale, and very reliably. One visit to the desert and one day digging gives all the Shale you'll ever need for your play-through, but if you live in the desert you will have to visit other biomes for your coal, lead, iron, nitrate, all the time.
I'd avoid it. Trust me, long term you'll regret it.
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Ignore this advice. Any biome is reasonable, it's just a preference. You have all the concrete making supplies in the desert you need. Looting and questing can give you everything else. I don't ever go mining for anything. Wrench cars and visit the traders. Do quests. If you do decide you want to mine then all of that is there except coal, so go one biome over to get it. I personally don't because I buy ammo from traders, in addition to all their coal and gunpowder. Early game is tougher but by about level 30 the game is so laughably easy anyway.

 
Desert is quite fun and my favourite biom. Once you got the right clothes to cool down its very nice. Enough oil for thousands of hours.

 
I used to favor a start (staying briefly) in the Desert biome, but now... not so much. They have changed the Yucca plant so that eating them has a 7% chance of sickness (fair enough), so no more free ride to a full stomach and thirst. Aloe is nice to have so you can make useful health items. Wood can be a bit harder to accumulate, more time involved as a single location is v. likely smaller yield-wise. Making the Yucca Juice takes a jar of water now also, so while still v. useful, again, no more free ride to be had here.

VULTURES. Oh, man, these are a royal pain-in-the-arse. Once they start tracking you it can potentially be deadly if you get into a fight with other zeds. Not deadly in and of themselves mostly, but they are a real stress point as a new players. You can't relax too much. Some POIs have them sitting on structures and hard to see. It can bait you into exploring and then the trap springs with 1-3 Vultures and other Zeds. So beware.

It's doable and I would rather spawn there initially vs. Burnt biome. I don't normally make any kind of permanent base in Desert, nice to have adjacent though. Comes down to personal preference like most things.

 
Placing player made dirt blocks in the desert does indeed allow the trees to grow to 1200. Have done so numerous times.

 
Desert is quite fun and my favourite biom. Once you got the right clothes to cool down its very nice. Enough oil for thousands of hours.
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One visit to the nearby desert and mining for 1 day = all the Shale I'd ever need. Current on day 90 with 80000 Shale unused.

 
Stupid imho. What are you getting out of living in the desert? Good proximity to 2 traders and a city doesn't count as there are definitely going to be other non-desert places in your map that will be better in that regard, you just haven't found them yet. The heat is a pain, but most importantly of all....there's no trees or large rocks. Early in your build you will need a lot of concrete and hence a lot of stone. Desert is pain for stone compared to the other biomes that have the massive boulders which are far more efficient to mine from for stone. Depends how big you plan to build. Finally, resources for mining. Desert has Shale reliably but that's it. Go to pine forest and you have every mineral except shale, and very reliably. One visit to the desert and one day digging gives all the Shale you'll ever need for your play-through, but if you live in the desert you will have to visit other biomes for your coal, lead, iron, nitrate, all the time.
I'd avoid it. Trust me, long term you'll regret it.
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Yeah I agree i'd avoid the desert as well. Back in a16 it was good, because you had yucca u could eat with no real risk, and 4 yucca and a empty jar made a drink thats better than boiled water, it also helped deal with the heat iirc back then. However thats all changed, Yucca can now make you purge your gut, and it now takes boiled water+yucca to make the yucca juice. You could also build a underground base so when in your base heat was never an issue. Aloe is still good though period, your most likely going to go to the desert at some point to harvest some.

I generally won't build a base outside of forest biome, its just not worth it, forest has every ore except shale in decent amounts.

As for the concrete issue, I get most of my concrete from poi's the pallets with the blue bags, give usually 50-80 concrete a pop, just need stones and sand and it saves a TON of stone this way. The blue tarp covered one gives about 35 cobblestones as well. Even later game I usually harvest these, doesn't take long at all once you can start to 1 shot them. If you have the supercorn poi, you can walk out with thousands of concrete and cobblestones if you harvest all the pallets inside, not to mention probally 1-2 stacks of meat a ton of bone and leather etc. Usually takes a day to clear it out on 60 min days, but its worth it, lots of those corpse piles to harvest later on as well for even more bone.

 
One visit to the nearby desert and mining for 1 day = all the Shale I'd ever need. Current on day 90 with 80000 Shale unused.
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I usually just go mining during 1 night from 22:00 to 4am for shale and that usually gives me 2-3 stacks, if not more depends on skill levels and what tool I got. I actually never mine during the day time for the most part, usually only do it at night as I got better things I could be doing during the day.

 
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