New player looking for tips

[WarMage]

Hello everyone,

I like the vibe of the game. Looks like an interesting way to spend some time. Usually, I'm fairly comfortable with learning from doing / dying, but somehow here.... something feels off.

The biggest issue I seems to have is food shortage. From the 3rd day or so most food's spoiled and I simply can't find food anymore. There's the rare rice bag here and there but for the most part food is just gone and I starve to death.

Crafting and cooking both looks interesting but I'm kinda wondering if I'm not just hampering myself trying to use those ? I find so very little food so I don't really have much chance to cook and crafting require to slow down your pace quite a lot to search, gather and carry around a lot of stuff. I like crafting spears and all but they're so flimsy and use up so much knives.,.. not so sure it's worth all the trouble.

Somehow, I feel like I'm missing a key part of the game. So much doesn't seems to make sense. So very little food. A crafting / cooking menu that seems like a mistake to invest in, skill books that I don't see the day I'll have the time to read...... actually, as fun as it may sound, combat is the easiest part I've found so far. Quite easy to fight and even easier to just outrun the zombies.

That just doesn't sound right.

Hahahaha.

[Funnybone]

So, you can turn rotten food into fishing bait. Fishing is king for fresh food, especially in longer games. That's the main way I've found to recycle rotting food. Plus parks are infinite dirty water, so I like to live near one when I'm not running right at terminus desperately.

Cooking is totally worth it, since it boost the resulting satiety by a fair bit. It stretches food out. A bag of rice is 10, but it cooks 2 portions of cooked rice if you have a pot and water, each serving giving 10 satiety and 4 water. So it's doubling in effectiveness if you cook it. Also, morale cooking is a big deal. Got cereal and milk? 'cook' them to make cereal and milk for a morale buff. Same with salads. Lettuce is all you need for a morale boost.

Crafting feels so strong to me I never go with less than 3 crafting, even if I have to throw 3 points into it to get it. 4 rags + glass or rock and you get a knife, then with planks you have all the spears you can use. Bad combat? Just make more disposable spears. It doesn't matter if they break, it's 2 planks and less than 1 turns AP crafting. Spear is king.

Edit: Also, higher dexterity makes you craft both faster AND get more durable results. if you're getting garbage spears and knives that don't last... don't bother crafting with low dexterity!

You can also consider animal traps. The worst single-use one is like one scrap plastic and one stick, iirc? And you can scrap a plank into 2 sticks if you can't find sticks. Even setting one in the opposite corner of your tile before bed can net you something by morning, which you can butcher with the stone or glass shard knife you made to make spears!

Anyway, keep exploring, and good luck. I recommend just blitzing to terminus as fast as possible a few times to get the XP for 'survive as X class' achievements and that will earn you some points to start with better, decent traits. For example, 16 points I believe gets you Light Eater, so you only default to -0.5 satiation a turn!

[Supergoober]

Great advice Funnybone! +1

[WarMage]

Publicado originalmente por Funnybone:

...Crafting feels so strong to me I never go with less than 3 crafting, even if I have to throw 3 points into it to get it. 4 rags + glass or rock and you get a knife, then with planks you have all the spears you can use. Bad combat? Just make more disposable spears. It doesn't matter if they break, it's 2 planks and less than 1 turns AP crafting. Spear is king.

Edit: Also, higher dexterity makes you craft both faster AND get more durable results. if you're getting garbage spears and knives that don't last... don't bother crafting with low dexterity!...

You kinda made me realize that's probably a big part of what feels wrong to me. I've been going as a soldier with 0 dex. So I suppose having low or no Dex makes crafting absolutely terrible. I mean, it takes me 3 turn worth of AP to craft one spear. Knives do last a bit but only a bit.

feel that might actually explain a lot.

I enjoy spear but crafting one in one turn sound pretty damn good to me.

Also, I suppose the only proper answer to food and water is find the park and fish. I errr.... don't like that all that much but if it's the way to go I'll oblige. WIll do as you suggested and will try to rush the Terminus a few times first.

The one playthrough where I almost made it I died in the last or before last tile it was a railroad tunnel and it was so cold the cold killed me. I wasn't expecting to be a bunch of roadblock to be cleared and so many zombies in between every obstacle. I was able to kill a bunch and would've made it if it wasn't for that damn cold.

[Funnybone]

Trapping is also a viable food source. Especially if you can find the recipes for a box trap or a metal box trap. They can be used many times, and even without bait they'll usually catch something. Just remember, traps need to be 4 or 5 tiles apart, can't remember which, or they debuff each other's catch rate. Note, like, single-step tiles, not map tiles, in case that wasn't obvious. I made 6 traps and I baited them with cooked food I had split into the smallest possible portions.

Oh, and on that note: With cooked meals, you can make a fish stew with like 7 fish, which restores like 80 satiety. Seems like a waste? Click the dots icon in the top right of the cooked meal to split into 2 or 3 portions! You can even keep repeating this to make minescule portions of a cooked meal that makes amazing bait for a fraction of what you might use otherwise! Using a 4 or 5 satiety portion of a meal to catch a 10-satiety raw meat animal, for example, adds up to how long you can keep the food rolling!

Edit: Also, as a remark, Zombie Guts can be made into fishing bait too, so do that if you're struggling on the food grind and dont want to make a zombie poncho or a gut bucket. Also, zombie ponchos last 10 hours (or immediately break with rain) and the timer starts as soon as you finish crafting it, worn or not. BUT you can craft one to 99% completion, leave it unfinished. Then when you're in a pinch, complete the zombie poncho, put it on, and you have 10 hours (or until rain) to fix the problem without zombies eating you.

Edit2: Also, you take damage when you are cold, which the game tells you. What it DOESN'T make really clear is you heal from being warm. Injured and without meds, or in a spot you don't want to risk sleeping? Light a fire and heat it up. At max heat, it gives an additional +1 HP a turn!

If you need metal sheets or scrap metal or wire for crafting, break fridges! You get 1 metal plate, and 2 wires. Construction worker can break these without an axe by using his ability to lift and throw furniture, even if it isn't to kill a zombie!

But good luck, I really love this game. 2 more achievements to get and I have them all, need to do helicopter escape and collect the jewelry. I always trade mine away, haha.

[Randomosity]

I quickly learned that the best time to read books is at night since I always wake up at midnight with nothing else to do. Sometimes if I have extra AP after a turn I'll read from a few books.

[exjia]

你可以在公園把過期的肉類蔬菜煮成肉湯菜湯，因為製作魚餌肥料需要重量，肉湯菜湯重量更重，可以製作更多份量。

[DominickSolerix]

The game is complex and the style you play should be partly affected by the character stats you start out with.

Getting a map quickly makes the game easier. Finding a restaurant early is helpful. The food should be good and there are knives, pans and pots (needed for cooking).

Pay attention to the zombie's attack radius. Ideally you'll never get hit if you stand at the right distance. Let them come to you. If you get surprised by a zombie it can end the run. I'm still not sure how defense works but all I know is you want it to be high. Taking hits uses up the durability of your clothes and I assume prevents you from being bit right away. To play it safe, always keep some AP at the end of your turn. Be wary of runners.

Books are good to have when you're holed up with nothing to do. Hopefully you get a decent one here or there. A bible is very useful for keeping up your morale.

Fortified houses can be a life saver. For some reason items that you can use to repair items have a low value. You can get your hands on them to repair a good weapon (or anything else).

You'll want to keep moving at the beginning. Looting as fast as you can to try and get ahead so you can focus on improving your character. Night vision level 1 is great, you can see the zombie you're attacking.

Sometimes you'll get unlucky. That's just how it goes with roguelikes.