Guns?

[ClancyDamon]

I just started playing, and I'm wondering if there's a viable way to use guns in the game? I actually do like that they attract all of the zombies in the surrounding area, but after trying about a dozen times (using soldier/police officer professions so I have a basic competency), I get killed every time. Even if I'm overburdened with ammo, I haven't had a scenario where I have enough bullets for everything I've attracted to my location. And that's another thing, the ammo takes precious weight. None of these are bad in my opinion, but it means I can't think of any viable strategy that makes guns worthwhile as opposed to just having a hammer or metal pipe. Is there something I'm missing?

I should mention I'm only doing single-player, I imagine it's a different story in multiplayer.

[Foster]

What you should do with guns depends on if you have existing Aiming skill points in your build before you start it up.
Some people will almost certainly tell you that guns are completely useless and to never bother with them, but you can absolutely make use out of guns even if you start from 0 Aiming.
If you have even 1 point in Aiming in character creation you'll get drastically more experience in them and it'll make them a lot easier to use in the long run, even having 1 Aiming skill itself makes them drastically more functional.

Starting from 0 or 1 however, shotguns are your best bet. They can hit multiple targets at once and have a relatively high chance compared to any standard bullet-based firearms to hit due to the multiple projectiles that each have their own chance to hit rolled independently of one another.
The thing about shotguns is that they're the loudest guns in the game, so how do you train them? That's actually rather simple you choose a spot where you can funnel zombies to where they can't just surround you (a basic principle that applies in all types of fights, that for some reason tends to get forgotten as soon as someone picks up a gun and tries to use it) and always keep multiple means of escape in the immediate vicinity of where you plan on training your skill.
Ideally, keep a vehicle as your main means of exit but always ALWAYS have multiple venues of escape in case the unforeseen happens and zombies appear out of nowhere to block off the way to your car.
Never trust it as your main means of attack while you're training either, keep a tight track of your ammo count and the shots you fire, and keep a reliable melee weapon on standby in case you run out unexpectedly or the horde gets too close for comfort while the gun is empty.

Don't forget you can also roll your window down and shoot out of your car itself, so you can even use it as a means to keep yourself far safer while doing it. It does hamper your aiming ability, so you'll get less hits and thus less experience (as you only get experience in Aiming for each landed hit with a gun) but you'll be safer. Pick your poison, basically.
Rolling your window down does also mean you'll need to remember to roll it back up when zombies do get close, which they will, otherwise you'll get bitten through your window.

Always act preemptively and proactively rather than reactively, if you think you have a little bit more space before you'll get overwhelmed that's when you should start moving away. If the moodle for getting tired AT ALL comes up you leave immediately, ideally even pre-plan how long you intend to train for that day beforehand and stick to that exact timeframe no matter if you're not tired yet or not because the moment that moodle shows up your chances of survival drastically spiral and it can and will show up exactly when you're about to get overrun and need to sprint away.

Once you hit Aiming 2 as I recall, you should be able to rather reliably hit zombies with standard firearms, but the best ones to start with would be the handguns and revolvers because they have more abundant ammunition as well as the lowest sound values on shooting of any firearms in the game.
Just be more careful despite this because you'll only be able to target one zombie at a time, so you won't get multikills for one shot like you would a shotgun.

[ClancyDamon]

More than anything else, I'm genuinely surprised that you can do drive-bys. I never thought to try that!

That's all good advice, thank you. But it does make it seem like shooting is just for its own sake, rather than being practical. I just mean with the advice about being proactive and picking a killzone. From what you describe, even if you're skilled it wouldn't be useful to have a gun to try and clear a parking lot so you can siphon gas in (relative) peace, for example. That's something I tried, and I got swarmed from every single direction. I believe you're saying that's always suicide if you don't already HAVE the gasoline to get away.

[Armagenesis]

Get a few hundred shotgun shells and you are golden.
Just stand still, aim, fire, move away, rinse and repeat.
Combine it with fire. Fire gud.

[maviscruet]

Guns are fine. if you use them in the right way. But you need to be careful using them early on. Unless you know that you can kill everything that comes towards you then it's best to start firing away from your base and have an exit route planned for when the ammo runs out.

[Ichinin]

Go somewhere far away from your base and pick off zombies. Doesn't matter if they hear as you move on. You can also use guns to rally a horde of zombies to a location, then throw pipebombs or molotovs on them.

Another option is to use a silencer for stealthy takedowns:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=639909479

[WASFDDDDD]

No

[Foster]

Originally posted by ClancyDamon:

More than anything else, I'm genuinely surprised that you can do drive-bys. I never thought to try that!

That's all good advice, thank you. But it does make it seem like shooting is just for its own sake, rather than being practical. I just mean with the advice about being proactive and picking a killzone. From what you describe, even if you're skilled it wouldn't be useful to have a gun to try and clear a parking lot so you can siphon gas in (relative) peace, for example. That's something I tried, and I got swarmed from every single direction. I believe you're saying that's always suicide if you don't already HAVE the gasoline to get away.

It's an option for ranged gameplay where otherwise you're stuck with purely melee-based gameplay.

As for how useful they are, guns are plenty useful but moreso when you get to the point where you can reliably hit killing blows within 1 to 3 shots from a distance.
Their whole shtick in this game is that you can put far more distance between you and the zombies and keep it that way, lowering the potential threat of making a minor slipup.
The counterbalance is that it takes a while to get to the point that you can reliably hit killing blows like you need to in order for that to have any value, after all if you aren't killing anything then the distance isn't doing anything for you.
If you have even 1 point in the Aiming skill, as with any other skill in character creation, you get a permanent massive XP gain boost to that skill and it becomes drastically easier to level it and so you spend less time just practicing in a killzone and more time killing.
The other counterbalance is ammo, but ammo isn't actually all that scarce as long as you look in the right places for it, it's guns that are more scarce comparatively.

I also don't even feel you need a car, it's just the ideal and it's comically better than being on foot for very obvious reasons. I can practice with a shotgun from level 0 Aiming and get away with my life just fine on foot, but that's because I'm so cautious to begin with and I always do things proactively rather than reactively and I have a plan of escape in mind and a successive list of alternative options in my head if the previous ones go to hell.
It also helps to understand how the zombie pathfinding and AI in general works, situations that might seem hopeless are rarely ever actually so granted that you know how to elude hordes properly.
Once you get down how to escape well enough, you can actually use something like how loud shotguns are to your advantage to artificially clear an area of zombies and lure them to a more favorable place that's not really got anything you care about as a temporary means of getting them away from stuff you want to loot, or even use it to break up hordes into smaller processable chunks.

Finally, shotguns are for practice because they're comically loud whereas pistols are quiet enough to be practical primary weapons with no real downsides over a rifle or anything.
Pistols are your go to if you want to primarily use firearms, or shotguns for horde clearing purposes, rifles are kind of the forgotten stepchild of the categories.
If you really want to use guns, build for them and choose Rosewood. It'll be a harder start, but you'll have more ready access to guns and you'll be able to actually effectively utilize them as well as the ammunition to feed them.

All that said, melee is the king here because there's just less of a hassle and less burning hoops to jump through with it, you don't need ammo and there are plenty of melee weapons all around, and you still need melee even if you go ranged because there WILL come a time where you'll run out of guns while fighting a horde because you can't feasibly carry all the ammo you will ever need all the time everywhere you go, which is something that's not really true for melee unless it's a shotgun to clear a path through a small crowd blocking your path or something faster than your backup melee options would provide.

They're redoing firearms in B42, hopefully that includes their associated skills as well, so we can only hope that when that comes out (or at least the unstable build) that the changes are solid ones for the better and they make guns less wonky, strange and overly impractical.

[Horked]

Kite zombies in a circle, shoot once in a while until all zombies in the area has been attracted. then keep kite them until they are all gathered in a neat bunch, then stop > gun them down until they get too close > kite in a cirle > gun them down > [loop]

[bluesunrunner]

i made video
https://youtu.be/-rb677nselI?si=KO3febxiCWl5QgrC

[ClancyDamon]

Originally posted by Ichinin:

Another option is to use a silencer for stealthy takedowns:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=639909479

Silencers would be a lot of fun, but I'm trying to avoid all mods until I get a grasp of the basics. It took me half a dozen deaths to finally figure out how the medical system properly works (sterilized bandages and such), and I'm still picking up details with each game.

Originally posted by Foster:

Once you get down how to escape well enough, you can actually use something like how loud shotguns are to your advantage to artificially clear an area of zombies and lure them to a more favorable place that's not really got anything you care about as a temporary means of getting them away from stuff you want to loot, or even use it to break up hordes into smaller processable chunks.

Now THIS is the kind of thing I was looking for! I've managed to figure out a few "tricks" myself, but I really wasn't sure about the guns. This is a great idea, especially for the city centers that always give me problems. I usually have to kite 1 to 3 zombies away from the main groups around a single building I want to loot, and that can take damn near a whole day in-game. This is a great strategy that I'm going to try.

[Coolranch]

Once you level up Aiming and Reloading a bit and provided you aren't playing with insanely rare loot settings, firearms will likely become your primary weapons later in the game.

You don't even have to bother with professions that give you shooting proficiency. I always choose Unemployed and my most used weapon on my longest character is shotgun. You just have to get over the initial awkwardness of the first few levels.

Here's what I do. Quietly gather guns and ammo; specifically shotguns and shells. Wait for zombie population to peak, then visit the Rosewood Prison. Carefully make your way to the northern fenced-in driveway. Fight your way in with melee, but once you get in to the driveway, you should be able to find relative safety. There will be zombies on the other side of the fence. Once you start shooting them, more will come up to the fence, but they will not try to pathfind around to you, so they will just stand there and take it. You can quickly level up at least 2 levels with relatively little ammo. Just make sure you are using a shotgun and targeting 4 zombies per shot to maximize XP. Wear a Shells Bandolier if you can find one to speed up reloading. A double barrelled shotgun is best for low levels; the JS-2000 will jam frequently between shots.

However, I would not recommend making this trip or trying this without a vehicle.

Also, you can pull this off at the Military Base but obviously that is a much more perilous journey than the Rosewood Prison. If you're already going there, might as well take the opportunity, but don't go there specifically for this.

[ClancyDamon]

Originally posted by Coolranch:

Once you level up Aiming and Reloading a bit and provided you aren't playing with insanely rare loot settings, firearms will likely become your primary weapons later in the game.

You don't even have to bother with professions that give you shooting proficiency. I always choose Unemployed and my most used weapon on my longest character is shotgun. You just have to get over the initial awkwardness of the first few levels.

Here's what I do. Quietly gather guns and ammo; specifically shotguns and shells. Wait for zombie population to peak, then visit the Rosewood Prison. Carefully make your way to the northern fenced-in driveway. Fight your way in with melee, but once you get in to the driveway, you should be able to find relative safety. There will be zombies on the other side of the fence. Once you start shooting them, more will come up to the fence, but they will not try to pathfind around to you, so they will just stand there and take it. You can quickly level up at least 2 levels with relatively little ammo. Just make sure you are using a shotgun and targeting 4 zombies per shot to maximize XP. Wear a Shells Bandolier if you can find one to speed up reloading. A double barrelled shotgun is best for low levels; the JS-2000 will jam frequently between shots.

However, I would not recommend making this trip or trying this without a vehicle.

That does sound like a plan. I bet I could also do this using the chain link fence around the Rosewood Police Station.

Also, thanks for explaining the bandoleer (increase reload speed). I've found the shell and bullet one a few times, but since they didn't operate like the fanny packs I had no idea what they were for. I don't think it says, at least in the hover-over tooltip.

[Liro Raériyo]

guns will get much more important once we have NPCs, after all they will likely have guns so we will need guns to deal with their guns.

[Rusty]

Shotguns are good training tools. The pistols and rifles are more of a reward for having medium and high level skill respectively.

[Coolranch]

Shotguns remain an optimal midpoint between melee and rifles, but definitely at higher levels, M14 and M16 have the fastest kill rate in the game. M14 briefly took the spot for my character's "Favorite Weapon" but I think right now it's Sawed-Off Double Barrelled Shotgun. (I kinda stopped playing that save to start a new one, so I forget)