Trying to survive the first week in Rosewood

[Demi-Fiend from Shin]

I should be watching a ton of life and living right? What should I focus on next? Most of my strategies have been to go to the Rosewood Fire Department and get some axes as that helps my lumberjack build. What other areas in Rosewood should I prioritize? Any good places to find seeds, or should I focus more on other stuff for the long haul?

[portable cattleman]

rosewood's fire department has a big ol' fence surrounding it on 3 sides. i'd personally keep that location in mind if i ever reach a high enough carpentry skill and happen to accumulate a lot of building materials and need a base in rosewood.

in regards to finding seeds, you might be able to find something in the garages of the surrounding houses, of visit the farms opposite of the fire department.

i would definitely stock up on food and water, though, for the short-term.

[Demi-Fiend from Shin]

Originally posted by portable cattleman:

rosewood's fire department has a big ol' fence surrounding it on 3 sides. i'd personally keep that location in mind if i ever reach a high enough carpentry skill and happen to accumulate a lot of building materials and need a base in rosewood.

in regards to finding seeds, you might be able to find something in the garages of the surrounding houses, of visit the farms opposite of the fire department.

i would definitely stock up on food and water, though, for the short-term.

I don't find getting food to be all too difficult when setting up a base in either the fire department or the gated community, given how there's a market closeby, which has a lot of non-perishable foods. I'm also able to get some canned goods quite easily, so the short term is never a problem. Just a bit worried for the long term. 🤔

There was a house that had strawberry seeds, but I'm pretty sure strawberries are kinda mid 😭 That's what I've heard.

[WrigglyRumble]

A good place to check out is the gated community! They have fences all around them with only 1 way to get in

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by WrigglyRumble:

A good place to check out is the gated community! They have fences all around them with only 1 way to get in

In Rosewood that is actually 2 entry points;) It is the construction site that has one entry point.

Also the funny thing is depending on the population limit you play with, living outside of Rosewood is also an entirely possible options as there are quite a few possible locations in the vicinity.

The fire station is usually an easy choice, allthough to make it work properly you might need some cars to block the windows. (Find some bad cars, park them by the window and strip them for parts.) It is also a decent idea to make some bridges from the station towards other places. Like the top of the Police department, and towards the 2 story houses. If you can knock down their stairs prior it will offer you easy in and out access to your base, not to mention you can play around with luring zombies to one position while escaping the other and looting the neighbourhood there.

The hotels are also a good option, you just need a car to block the doorway:)

[DrLamp]

Originally posted by Demi-Fiend from Shin:

Originally posted by portable cattleman:

rosewood's fire department has a big ol' fence surrounding it on 3 sides. i'd personally keep that location in mind if i ever reach a high enough carpentry skill and happen to accumulate a lot of building materials and need a base in rosewood.

in regards to finding seeds, you might be able to find something in the garages of the surrounding houses, of visit the farms opposite of the fire department.

i would definitely stock up on food and water, though, for the short-term.

I don't find getting food to be all too difficult when setting up a base in either the fire department or the gated community, given how there's a market closeby, which has a lot of non-perishable foods. I'm also able to get some canned goods quite easily, so the short term is never a problem. Just a bit worried for the long term. 🤔

There was a house that had strawberry seeds, but I'm pretty sure strawberries are kinda mid 😭 That's what I've heard.

Strawberries aren't very good unless you have ALOT of them planted. I do cabbage, potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots. The carrots I don't eat, I use them as bait to trap rabbits. Don't bother with fishing to catch your food. It just isn't worth it. It's really heavy for the amount of food it gives you (3-4 times heavier per food value than rabbit) and your much more limited on where you can do it. There also seems to be a much bigger time investment with fishing than with trapping. Lastly, trapping works year-round as fishing really slows down in the winter. It's low energy density then makes it hard to store for the winter months.


Alot of people shy away from trapping, but it's not that bad. More info below if you want to make food trivial.


To trap effectively the first thing you need to do is make traps, and I don't mean 1 or 2, something more like 8-10 is much better. I currently have 8 box traps and 8 cage traps I set out when it's time to go trapping. The next thing to do is find a spot to place your traps. They need to be in the forest or deep forest. You can tell what the biome you're in by opening up the foraging panel and mousing over the graphic. Additionally, the traps MUST be AT LEAST 75 tiles away from any players. If you so much as set foot in this radius they won't catch anything. Also you cannot have any player built structures within that radius either. Next comes the bait, the bait I prefer to use is carrots, they have the highest likelyhood of catching rabbit. If I don't have carrot, I'll use cabbage, it works fine too, just not quite as well. Next just set the traps out in the evening around 1800, bait them and then go home and get some sleep, first thing in the morning go check your traps. You will want to pick up all the traps, including the ones that didn't catch anything as the have a chance to break each hour that they're deployed. Once you get your trapping skill to 3-4 (with 8-10 traps it won't take long), you will never have to worry about meat again.

Also, don't eat your veggies raw, always cook them into something like stew, this really stretches out your food and makes it last longer. Also, you can use stale meat/veggies in stew and it doesn't cause any problems. After catching your rabbit, butcher it and cook it up on it's own. This increases the cooking skill and makes the rabbit have a higher food value helping us make it go even further. Next grab your pot with water and add 3 servings of rabbit, 1 serving of cabbage, 1 serving of potato, and 1 serving of tomato. You can add herbs, salt and pepper if you like, but its not necessary. With a high cooking skill this will make 4 bowls of stew worth about 25-30 food each. One pot can feed you about 1.5 days while maintaining your weight. ONE max-size rabbit can make 3 entire pots of stew this way!

^^This is the way to never worry about food. You have to be a bit of a farmer, but contrary to what alot of player think, farming isn't really that big of a time sink. Just check in on them every 3-4 days to see if they need water.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by DrLamp:

Originally posted by Demi-Fiend from Shin:

I don't find getting food to be all too difficult when setting up a base in either the fire department or the gated community, given how there's a market closeby, which has a lot of non-perishable foods. I'm also able to get some canned goods quite easily, so the short term is never a problem. Just a bit worried for the long term. 🤔

There was a house that had strawberry seeds, but I'm pretty sure strawberries are kinda mid 😭 That's what I've heard.

Strawberries aren't very good unless you have ALOT of them planted. I do cabbage, potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots. The carrots I don't eat, I use them as bait to trap rabbits. Don't bother with fishing to catch your food. It just isn't worth it. It's really heavy for the amount of food it gives you (3-4 times heavier per food value than rabbit) and your much more limited on where you can do it. There also seems to be a much bigger time investment with fishing than with trapping. Lastly, trapping works year-round as fishing really slows down in the winter. It's low energy density then makes it hard to store for the winter months.


Alot of people shy away from trapping, but it's not that bad. More info below if you want to make food trivial.


To trap effectively the first thing you need to do is make traps, and I don't mean 1 or 2, something more like 8-10 is much better. I currently have 8 box traps and 8 cage traps I set out when it's time to go trapping. The next thing to do is find a spot to place your traps. They need to be in the forest or deep forest. You can tell what the biome you're in by opening up the foraging panel and mousing over the graphic. Additionally, the traps MUST be AT LEAST 75 tiles away from any players. .

Afaik trapping also does not work during the winter. Dec-jan-february your chances of catching anything are greatly reduced. At least i was never able to catch anything during those times. But i have to confess was ages ago since i last tried it during those times.(Was somewhere before 41.55.)
One thing that is to note is that there is a max limit of traps you can set. The game will not tell you explicitly, but you can figure it out.
If you go over this limit, whatever you do, the next time you go back the extra traps will be "destroyed". It will appear as if it caught an animal but it managed to break out. This will happen no matter what you do if you go over the limit.(sorry cant recall how much that limit is but it is close to the numbers you have given i think it is 10? or 12?)

But yes trapping is a much less active effort requiring activity then fishing and it is way more friendly considerin the weight. Also in Rosewood there is already a possible trapping spot:)

[DrLamp]

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Originally posted by DrLamp:

Strawberries aren't very good unless you have ALOT of them planted. I do cabbage, potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots. The carrots I don't eat, I use them as bait to trap rabbits. Don't bother with fishing to catch your food. It just isn't worth it. It's really heavy for the amount of food it gives you (3-4 times heavier per food value than rabbit) and your much more limited on where you can do it. There also seems to be a much bigger time investment with fishing than with trapping. Lastly, trapping works year-round as fishing really slows down in the winter. It's low energy density then makes it hard to store for the winter months.


Alot of people shy away from trapping, but it's not that bad. More info below if you want to make food trivial.


To trap effectively the first thing you need to do is make traps, and I don't mean 1 or 2, something more like 8-10 is much better. I currently have 8 box traps and 8 cage traps I set out when it's time to go trapping. The next thing to do is find a spot to place your traps. They need to be in the forest or deep forest. You can tell what the biome you're in by opening up the foraging panel and mousing over the graphic. Additionally, the traps MUST be AT LEAST 75 tiles away from any players. .

Afaik trapping also does not work during the winter. Dec-jan-february your chances of catching anything are greatly reduced. At least i was never able to catch anything during those times. But i have to confess was ages ago since i last tried it during those times.(Was somewhere before 41.55.)
One thing that is to note is that there is a max limit of traps you can set. The game will not tell you explicitly, but you can figure it out.
If you go over this limit, whatever you do, the next time you go back the extra traps will be "destroyed". It will appear as if it caught an animal but it managed to break out. This will happen no matter what you do if you go over the limit.(sorry cant recall how much that limit is but it is close to the numbers you have given i think it is 10? or 12?)

But yes trapping is a much less active effort requiring activity then fishing and it is way more friendly considerin the weight. Also in Rosewood there is already a possible trapping spot:)

I used to think the same thing. With my latest trapping run in early february I set out 16 traps, thinking that I'd only have a few of them catching anything. I caught 15 rabbit the next morning. I only had trapping 5 on that character, also I was using cabbage which was a (slightly) less effective food.

edit: No broken traps btw.

[Dracoco OwO]

So you don't have to watch life and living but if you want a good increase in at bare minimum carpentry, or as an extra cooking and maybe fishing and survival (i avoid these because i never remember the order to read books) it can be tedious but you may find cassette tapes to view later on too but that's purely rng.

Coming to Rosewood specifically you can find books at the bookstore near the church and supermarket in what i would call the city center far from housing somewhat in general, there is also the school a bit on the right and south past the housing from there, you can find books there too, other keys location are the police stations going from the left and south of city center and a bit more in the south the Firefighter house which got tons of goodies you want to get, usually and personally if i want a safe spot i drive on the road north and east from the center past the gas station in the road straight then turn left to get to that isolated house that i make my base, there is a variation of that where i turn left after the gas station then turn right when i can where there is a farm and live there instead with 2 small house and food in the worshop or whatever that place is.

You of course have plenty of options or way to go around, Rosewood is an area of my choosing because i raid a secret lab place there often for the challenge and goodies.

[DrLamp]

I really have to spend some time in Rosewood at some point. I usually just stick around Muldraugh. It's where I first started playing and just got used to the area. It's nice too since it's centrally located and there's deep forest nearby. The pond to the south makes a great fishing/trapping area.

I've never raided the secret base. I'd like to check it out, but my world is about two years old at this point. I've heard it's down a dirt road so I'm sure getting to it would be a massive undertaking because of tree growth.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by DrLamp:

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Afaik trapping also does not work during the winter. Dec-jan-february your chances of catching anything are greatly reduced. At least i was never able to catch anything during those times. But i have to confess was ages ago since i last tried it during those times.(Was somewhere before 41.55.)
One thing that is to note is that there is a max limit of traps you can set. The game will not tell you explicitly, but you can figure it out.
If you go over this limit, whatever you do, the next time you go back the extra traps will be "destroyed". It will appear as if it caught an animal but it managed to break out. This will happen no matter what you do if you go over the limit.(sorry cant recall how much that limit is but it is close to the numbers you have given i think it is 10? or 12?)

But yes trapping is a much less active effort requiring activity then fishing and it is way more friendly considerin the weight. Also in Rosewood there is already a possible trapping spot:)

I used to think the same thing. With my latest trapping run in early february I set out 16 traps, thinking that I'd only have a few of them catching anything. I caught 15 rabbit the next morning. I only had trapping 5 on that character, also I was using cabbage which was a (slightly) less effective food.

edit: No broken traps btw.

wIll check eventually, i just have pillows mods.

[Demi-Fiend from Shin]

OK this run is kinda cracked. Large Backpack on day 2.

[Demi-Fiend from Shin]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3261723555 This is my luckiest run yet... Planning on scouring the gated community. I gave him a hat because it fits with the backpack

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by Demi-Fiend from Shin:

OK this run is kinda cracked. Large Backpack on day 2.

A game of mine in Muldraugh spawn:
1 Painful year settings with zombie respawn enabled, and no use of fire to kill zombies.
Within 8 hours of spawning i already found a military backpack:D (The random 25 group was at the crossroads south of muldrough:D so got some food, weapons and the 2nd best backpack in game )

[pzhda'tan]

Rosewood FD is overrated. It takes a lot of resources to secure, is way too big for a single player and has large masses of zombies that migrate from the farmlands to the south.
Gated community is a good choice.

Next up you should secure the Mega mart or whatever it is. Even when you do, zombies still clutter around it everyday because of the dense trees nearby. Next up head north until you hit the gas station. You should keep the road leading to the gas station clear for the long run.

I always clear the entire city. Has a good chance it'll have everything you will ever need. The high end two storey apartments in the center of town are a good place to visit. Some 20 houses and garages.

DO NOT ignore the apartment blocks above the main street amenities, such as above Mcfudgeington's and the two blocks above the book store and Rosewood medical. I always find melee weapons, guns and large hiking bags in those apartments and I play on insanely rare loot.

I would advise against staying in Rosewood for too long however. Your diet will be limited to farming and trapping and trapping is not everyone's cup of tea. There is a pond to the south but it's too far to be a reliable source of food. The city is pretty small. With 3 hour days I often clear all its loot and dismiss of its local population in a month. But then all it takes is the 4th week's helicopter event that proves to me the 3000 zombies that met my blade were just the tip of the iceberg and there are thousands more surrounding the city.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by pzhda'tan:

The city is pretty small. With 3 hour days I often clear all its loot and dismiss of its local population in a month. But then all it takes is the 4th week's helicopter event that proves to me the 3000 zombies that met my blade were just the tip of the iceberg and there are thousands more surrounding the city.

That is because of the prison mostly. It is a high density area, and the chopper or sometimes even a wrong time used firearm can lure in massive hordes from there. The southern farmlands with the pond also seem to have a higher pop density than what you would imagine. And to the east there are those small farming communities. Where a 10-12 housed community can have like 200-300 zeds ...on apocalypse.(Though it means you had a pretty bad random roll.) And in between there is the forest too.
A migration can also trigger from March Ridge towards Rwood as well. And from the military base.
It is a solid place, but it can get reinforced by zeds from nearly everywhere. Though it might take time.