How do outposts generate resources?

[Smig]

I've been scouring the internet for info and I found little bits here and there, but I'm still confused. From what I understand, if you want a daily income of a resource, you leave it in the container and make it an outpost, so:

1) Is this correct?

2) If I leave more than one resource "item" in the house, will the income add up?

3) What's the point of doing that instead of taking it with you? It seems that, unless you have too many resources filling up your storage space, it is always better to just take them all in one go than to have it arrive in small doses.

I'm asking this because I keep asking myself whether its worth it to make outposts out of useful resources or to just pick them for protection.

[pmrn]

Not entirely sure, but I think outpost resources trickle in on a daily basis. I kept getting "resource over capacity" messages even though none of my resource numbers were yellow, I think it was telling me I had too many resources to automatically transfer resources from outposts to base. Keeping stocked up with resources was easy anyway, pick your outposts for their trap coverage rather than resources.

[Antares]

Down to my understanding, resource-base outposts simply reduce the daily consumption rate of a particular resource. Let say if you take over too many restaurants, your base's food consumption will drop to zero units per day.

Also not entirely sure, but you may even end up in profit if your daily collection of a particular resource exceeds its consumption. So you can trade the margin with other survival groups (or maybe this what will happen in the future updates... can only guess atm).

[pmrn]

I only got one offer to trade in both playthroughs, one case of ammo for five daily rations. I had plenty of food and was light on ammo, so I never took them up on it and was never offered any other opprotunity to trade. Must be a future feature. Trading doesn't seem to have any relevent impact on the state of the other survivor enclaves.

[iLLmEcHaNiCo]

here's part of an old thread undead sanya posted for the xbox crowd back in june. some of it no longer pertains to the game as it was posted prior to the big TU3 update and was actually corrected by the update, but it should help immensely. i just did a straight up copy and paste. hope it helps.

RESOURCES

Q: What types of resources can an outpost generate?

A: The plan was: Food, ammo, fuel, some medical supplies, construction materials. Whatever type of resource is in the building when you declare it to be an outpost is what it makes. More on that below. (Outposts without any resources in the building when you make your declaration will generate ammunition.)

Please note that as of this writing, fuel generation doesn’t work.

Q: How do we know how many resources an outpost gathers per day? Do they actually gather resources?

The resources aren’t gathered from the surrounding area; they’re generated. Here is the formula at this time. (If you are reading this Q&A in the future, please check the date.)

1 outpost = (3 * (type of resource) - 1 material) per day

So, if you have an ammo outpost, you will get three units of ammo and lose one unit of raw materials, each game day. (We are aware that the UI is not reporting either the gain or the loss accurately. We’re working on it as I type )

The resources have to be taken by your survivors to your home base (which is also where the materials are being consumed from, not your home base).

Q: What indicator (if any) is there that the outpost is no longer producing resources?

A: There isn’t one. Should you restock your home with raw materials, the outpost will start producing again.

Please note that there is currently a known issue where the outposts will continue to generate resources even if you are out of the raw materials.

Q: Does it matter if I set the outpost up on some random house with food, or a restaurant? E.g., searching from a high area fills in the map with various icons (warehouse, house, food, medicine, fuel). Is there a difference between putting an outpost on a house where I find food versus on a restaurant where I find food?

A: No. The important thing is just that there be one unit of the thing you’re trying to generate. See next:

Q: Does an Outpost built supply you with ammo if it's built on an area with no resources left? There's no difference between an Outpost built on an ammo supply store and one built on a building with no resources inside at all, right?

A: The materials used in generating resources are coming from your main base, not the outpost itself, so the number of resources at the newly-created outpost itself does not matter. But you’ve got to start with something in the outpost in the first place, unless you just want ammunition.

Q: If there are multiple caches in an outpost (say, medicine and food), are they both contributed, or is it only the map icon?

A: Only the icon.

Q: How is it determined which resource is gathered by an outpost? I have found places where two resources are in the same location, but it picks one instead of another.

A: It can only have one. The system looks in alphabetical order, and stops on the first one it sees: Ammo, food, fuel, materials, medicine. If it finds nothing, the system goes with ammo.

Q: If I find an outpost that has three material caches, and I make an outpost out of it, does having three unlooted caches count for the outpost daily supply? Or can I just leave one for the outpost to "count"?

A: You only need to leave one there to begin the resource generation cycle (assuming you don’t want the outpost to generate ammo). Leaving more won’t make a difference. And of course, once you’re rolling, you can take that one as well. Once the outpost resource type is established, that’s the type of resource it makes for the remainder of the game, no matter what else is left in the building.

Q: If you create an outpost,does any unclaimed loot in the building go into your inventory?

A: No. You still have to loot it. Please note that if you leave loot in the building (not to be confused with generated resources), other survivors may loot it. As Shaun reminded me, you and yours are not the only group of survivors in the valley...

Q: Why do resource rucksacks have to be dropped off at the main base? Could their materials be dropped off at the outpost stockpile for later transfer to the main base?

A: Funny story about that. We actually had it that way, originally. Unfortunately, it was possible to exploit the system as it was and effectively end the game. So... we changed it.

Q: Is there any screen or menu in the game that shows how many resources are being generated, where they're coming from, and how they're being consumed? Something like:

Daily food balance: -2
Income: +22 (+12 garden, +10 outposts)
Usage: -24 (-2 per survivor)

A: No, but I’ve passed this on as feedback in hopes of our being able to make improvements.

Q: What do the little green flags on the outpost icons mean?

A: Just that it’s an outpost

Q: Are you aware that outposts stop providing resource income as soon as there is a population change?

A: They don’t, not really. This is a display bug, not an actual resource bug. It should be (partially) fixed in TU3.

[Smig]

WOW

It would be great to have an update on that but thanks a lot for the find!

The information in the game is confusing and outside it's surprisingly hard to find.

[iLLmEcHaNiCo]

i agree, the game is quite secretive on super pertinent info. don't think i EVER would have figured this out without reading that lol best of luck.

[Floid]

So those buildings I keep finding that even after thoroughly searching them, still have a resource icon on the building in the map, are actually just the games way of telling me that building is now a possible resource outpost site ??? - is that correct ?

[iLLmEcHaNiCo]

Originally posted by Sioias:

So those buildings I keep finding that even after thoroughly searching them, still have a resource icon on the building in the map, are actually just the games way of telling me that building is now a possible resource outpost site ??? - is that correct ?

actually i think that's a bug they're working on lol if the buildings resources are tapped out, a nice black X should mark the building, at which point it should default to AMMO regeneration if made into an outpost.

[Floid]

Originally posted by iLLcAtTiVisSiMo:

Originally posted by Sioias:

So those buildings I keep finding that even after thoroughly searching them, still have a resource icon on the building in the map, are actually just the games way of telling me that building is now a possible resource outpost site ??? - is that correct ?

actually i think that's a bug they're working on lol if the buildings resources are tapped out, a nice black X should mark the building, at which point it should default to AMMO regeneration if made into an outpost.

Oh wait, I think I get it. Just re-read your other post. So to create a resource outpost, it needs to be a building that still has one of a particular resource left in it's searchable containers. So in that case, dose it matter if the resource you leave in the building is a crate or a unit ? Like for example there are food materials crates (Crate) that you can break open to get a few "snack food" (Unit) out of them.

[iLLmEcHaNiCo]

only the "rucksack" resources count. remember, make sure you leave the resource you want the outpost to generate in the container before declaring it as an outpost. once you declare it as an outpost, you can then loot the resource or call in scavengers.

[Hellzyeas]

I’m still having a little trouble understanding if my resource outpost actually generate new rescouce bags. It says when I hover over the outpost:

Outpost effects:
Permanent safe area ( that speaks for itself :) )
Ammo collection.

Now does that mean I can go back at some point and there will be a new resource bag for me? Or is it like what’s been said before that the home base will use less of that resource a day?

[cruinne]

If you leave a rucksack resource in place, then create an outpost, it will have the effect of adding 3 crates of that resource to your home base each day, at the cost of one crate of materials per day to keep the outpost up.


Example: if you leave a rucksack of food in the outpost and create the outpost, it will use one crate of materials each day from your home base, and your home base will gain three crates of food each day.

Example: if you leave a rucksack of materials in the outpost, it will use one crate of materials every day from your home base, then add three crates of materials to your base each day (net of 2 crates of materials).

Leaving more than one rucksack doesn't have any beneficial effect - they don't stack - and an outpost can only generate one kind of resource.


Also note that after you create the outpost, you can then take the rucksack with no penalty, and the outpost will still be generating that type of good each day. It's really just a way to "set" what you want the outpost to produce.