A18 Blood Moon Strategies?

[[SPAYED]Bud]

Been a few years since me and my friend played, we just hit day 7 with a fair amount of ammo and solid base with a slew of spikes and other early tier traps. It is very apparent spike traps don't do the job anymore. But more importantly, the amount of zombies was ludacris. It was a constant horde of 20-30 zombies, spitters, fliers, soldiers, dogs, you name it, they were there decimating our base. If you killed one, another spawned and took its place up until about 3 am.

The Bike Race strat and holding up in POIs and weathering the storm seem like really lame gameplay loops that take away from what made the original game fun. It is very apparent early game base defenses are useless. And shooting them was a waste of ammo based on the spawn mechanic. For the most part we just repaired to ride it out. Is this just the state of the game now or are we missing a crucial component of A18 strategy?

[Azure]

Best Strat is to turn it off and enjoy the game without weekly interuptions that wreck everything and waste resources

[Legion]

A good ACTUAL strat that doesn't involve whining about mechanics (Azure) is to use iron bars and vault doors. Since their AI makes them want to go for doors, I usually leave my main door open and lead them down a hallway filled with turrets on both sides, as well as constant doors laced with iron bars that still allow me to fire right on away.

Early game defenses are not useless unless you're not prioritizing the right ones (spikes are still very valid), and just as well, ammo is not a waste, either. Eventually, they do stop. They'll keep on spawning up until a set time regardless (never looked at what time considering other priorities), so you may as well shoot them or wind up overwhelmed entirely. This strat alone, solo, took me through 5 Hordes until I added blade traps. Then, another three Hordes went down. You don't need anything special.

[Sinbad]

Originally posted by AzureTerra:

Best Strat is to turn it off and enjoy the game without weekly interuptions that wreck everything and waste resources

Oof talk about boring ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Lets collect resources and build bases for no reason.

To op hordes will come usually up until 4am now and depending when you last played hordes are measured on your gamestage and when playing with others they all get added up and you encounter fairly tough hordes early on. A good route to go without burning through ammo is explosives, pipe bombs and a few concus grenades are cheap to make and can take down a decent amount of zombies with just a few.

[Azure]

Because fighting a heap of zombies every week is the peak of excitement....

[Exhelune]

In my current game (day 21), I use the 'Horde cage' design that you can see in this video (from 12:00) https://youtu.be/l9Xlb4VkW9w?t=714 Basically, it's a 7x7x4 box with an 'open side' with a ramp and poles to protect you. During the night, I crush the Zs mainly with a sledgehammer + gun/molotov if needed. It's quite easy to add electric fence and turrets on the sides.

[Sinbad]

Originally posted by Dessun:

God forbid someone have an opinion besides yours. LMAO "Mechanics" are in the game to shut it off!!

Me personally I build a platform, get a bunch of ammo, and shoot em till I run out.

Well the OP asked for BM strat and he says to turn it off. Hes gonna get those types of replies with that sort of answer :D

[Aesir]

Day 7 horde and you had cops and all that? Did you up your xp amount? That will inflate your gamestage, and you can easily get outpaced by it. How many zombies did you set the BM to spawn? That will add zeds to the horde.

As for me, I fight the hordes the exact same way I did in A16 and A17 with no problems whatsoever.

[LittleBlueDuneBuggy]

Originally posted by AzureTerra:

Because fighting a heap of zombies every week is the peak of excitement....

Well, it's kind of the only reason I play this game. So you and I are on opposite sides of the spectrum. If I had to venture a guess, I'd bet there are even some people in between.

OP, learn to fight the Horde. Don't let those spike traps steal your XP! Every 7 days, you get a train of experience delivered to you. You just have to stay alive long enough to get it. Otherwise, you spawn in on day 1, and you have.....






......7 Days to Die.



Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!

[Devoras]

I like the hordes now, they're actually a challenge. I raise zombie horde spawning to max and have the difficulty up a bit. By day 69 I found myself using up over 1,200 armor piercing and 600 7.62mm ammo with an m60, over 900 9mm ap rounds with my smg, my turrets use up 1800 9mm rounds and 1350 shotgun rounds, two full and upgraded junk turrets, and many many mines and rockets, and I'm still not able to clear out all the zombies before the morning now. It's crazy, I think I've about hit my limit to what I can handle, as I'm spending literally all 7 days just trying to get the ammo to survive the next horde.

All those zombies tear through cement blocks in like 3 seconds so building a wall doesn't work. The best strategy that I've come up with is to build up on a platform walkway, at least 3 blocks high, that goes around in a concentric circle so you can easily jump to another defence position. The best way to slow the zombies down so you have time to kill them is to give them a step-walkway up and a clear path to reach you along the walkway so they waste a bunch of time hopping up those steps before they can run at you. You can add some little extra steps along the walkway to slow them down more.

Then I build iron bars along that walkway so I can shoot through them and kill them in a row as they run along the walkway towards me, if they break through that defence I can hop over to the next ring in, and stand behind another set of iron bars. I'm usually not able to keep up to the incoming zombies due to having to reload my guns, so they do break through a few of the iron bars but with the layers of defence I can move back each time.

Basically the best way I've found to survive is make sure the zombies have to jump up along steps in order to reach you so they are slow enough for you to kill them before they can swarm you, walls just don't work. The step idea works in the early game too, I survived many nights with just a straight tower up so the zombies had to slowly individually jump up about 14 blocks to reach me which gave me enough time to kill them as they were hopping up, that worked until they got too powerful and started destroying my bottom steps, once that happened and they no longer had a path to reach me they tore my tower down very very quickly.

I've had to change my strategy with hordes quite a bit in order to survive in alpha 18.

It is absolutely possible to kill all the zombies before the morning, they stop spawning after you kill enough of them.

[Asuzu]

Originally posted by Exhelune:

In my current game (day 21), I use the 'Horde cage' design that you can see in this video (from 12:00) https://youtu.be/l9Xlb4VkW9w?t=714 Basically, it's a 7x7x4 box with an 'open side' with a ramp and poles to protect you. During the night, I crush the Zs mainly with a sledgehammer + gun/molotov if needed. It's quite easy to add electric fence and turrets on the sides.

Super funny video and nice design
Thanks man!

[mr_bman]

You want to use things that don't kill the zombies quickly in the early stages of the game. You won't have the ammo nor will a base take the constant abuse from newly spawned zombies. The faster you kill them, the more you can kill before 4 - and you run out of ammo in the process.
Use barbed wire fence - stack it ten deep around your walls. Use a lot of Molotov cocktails and barbed wire. A combo of spikes and barbed wire usually works pretty good early in the game.
Keep them from gathering up in a bunch because the more they do that the more mob damage the do. Also try not to wound them to where they get into zombie rage - you couple zombie rage with the AOE damage they get from being all bunched up and it means your walls takes an immense amount of abuse, all your traps get wrecked and you end up running for your life.

[CoinSpin]

I've got a few basic strategies that I employ for blood moon zombiepaloozas. I tend to make a "kill tower" now, about 4 blocks high using steep slopes (build the wedge blocks up on end instead of flat). You can sprint up that slope, but zombies can't get up there. And, as long as they think there is a clear path to you up the slope, the zombies will try to climb it constantly, instead of beating on the slope blocks and destroying them. You can get pretty creative in how you build it up - I've done an open square loop to run around on with 2 sloped legs, 4 legs, a big "kill pyramid" that was hollow inside and basically a mini base, etc.

Barbed wire to slow them down is always useful, so long as it's not in a spot where it might slow ME down when I'm in melee mode. Similarly, the wood and metal spikes are handy, but I always dig down 1 block deep trenches and put the spikes in the trench. The Z's like to go around spikes on the ground, but when they are below ground the silly brain eaters tend to just walk right over them and take damage.

And, lastly, for those overwhelming constantly streaming horde situations, a simple rule: maim or mutilate, don't kill. Get good at popping zed kneecaps from a distance, and you'll find things get interesting. I tend to blow the legs off a few of them, and then - this is key - I let them continue to crawl around trying to chew on ankles. It becomes simple math - there are typically a set number of active zombies in the horde rush. Every undead bastard you kill releases another one to come running into the fray. Hobble a few of them and let them roll around in the mud & blood, and you slow the incoming tide of new fresh braineaters. Takes some practice to get good at selective lead-induced amputation, but it does pay off if you need a little mob pressure off.

[runningtargetzombiebait]

1. Junk Turrets rock--the ammo is cheap and fully upgraded you can drop 2 of them.
2. Build your base as an elongated U--the zombies will usually ignore the walls and funnel through the opening.
3. Getting the zombies to funnel through one field of fire is key as it lowers the amount of walls your need to build and bunches up the zombies for molotovs. Dropping lots of torches toward the opening of the U usually lures them there.
4. I recommend building your walls to a height of 5 blocks and putting a roof over the section you're firing from to keep birds out. My walls are usually 2 blocks thick.
5. Places 2 to 3 rows of metal spikes outside of the walls and wall yourself in on horde night with barbed wire to slow the zombies that enter the U.

This strategy should get you through the first 3 to 4 horde nights. Blade traps were nerfed and break very easily. I solo and have hordes set to 64(max) spawn. Oh, and try to only shoot Demo-zombies in the head as that keeps their vests from going boom--if they start beeping, pour ammo into them.

[Legion]

Originally posted by Dessun:

Originally posted by Nomadic:

A good ACTUAL strat that doesn't involve whining about mechanics (Azure) is to use iron bars and vault doors. Since their AI makes them want to go for doors, I usually leave my main door open and lead them down a hallway filled with turrets on both sides, as well as constant doors laced with iron bars that still allow me to fire right on away.

Early game defenses are not useless unless you're not prioritizing the right ones (spikes are still very valid), and just as well, ammo is not a waste, either. Eventually, they do stop. They'll keep on spawning up until a set time regardless (never looked at what time considering other priorities), so you may as well shoot them or wind up overwhelmed entirely. This strat alone, solo, took me through 5 Hordes until I added blade traps. Then, another three Hordes went down. You don't need anything special.

God forbid someone have an opinion besides yours. LMAO "Mechanics" are in the game to shut it off!!

Me personally I build a platform, get a bunch of ammo, and shoot em till I run out.

You know, a little competence on the matter takes you a long way, bud. Revise your spewed bile, and then you can come back.

[Marstil]

Originally posted by Devoras:

, I think I've about hit my limit to what I can handle, as I'm spending literally all 7 days just trying to get the ammo to survive the next horde.

That doesn't sound like fun at all. That sounds like the worst grind I know. Assuming 60 minute days, that's like about 400 minutes of grinding to have 20 minutes of excitement. 2000% grinding.