What to focus on early game.

[Arkane Jaguar]

I'm playing with a friend, level 14 on day 5 playing the default map.
We've got some AR's and pistols with Iron armour.
Should we focus on base building and improving our gamestage since most of the loot we get is pretty terrible?
We ran from the starting areas to the high level ones and got close to no loot at all.

[Gimli]

Mostly just looting and building up an ammo supply. My first week I usually try to find a small POI like a gas station or something and make a base on top of it. Then before day 7's horde I just plant a crap ton of spikes around it and hope for the best. After that is when I start building a base from scratch out of stronger material.

Also depends a lot on the settings you're using and whether or not you're planning to live more like a nomad than settling down.

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Try to find one of those hidden bunkers, clear it out and make it your horde base!

[Andros]

The kind of loot you find is completely based on game stage or level idk which they both go hand in hand, good way to level is upgrading blocks so I would start the base

[Amanoob105]

Originally posted by ⚜ JOST AMMAN ⚜:

Try to find one of those hidden bunkers, clear it out and make it your horde base! :steamsunny::brothersword:

A good plan on paper, until you remember that zombies can dig and a lot of hoard night zombies can dig very fast .

[Arkane Jaguar]

I think we will try to find a nice spot somewhere in the middle of the map to make a horde base just for convenience sake. We do need to hunker down, we are very close to Night 7.

Originally posted by Equinox:

Mostly just looting and building up an ammo supply. My first week I usually try to find a small POI like a gas station or something and make a base on top of it. Then before day 7's horde I just plant a crap ton of spikes around it and hope for the best. After that is when I start building a base from scratch out of stronger material.

Also depends a lot on the settings you're using and whether or not you're planning to live more like a nomad than settling down.

[Amanoob105]

As said above, loot level is typed to a mix of how long the games been running. The longer it goes on for the better stuff you start to find.
The area you're in doesn't make any real difference to what loot you will find.
As a result don't put any more points into perks that help you get better loot, at least not yet. At the moment the loot you can get is next to nothing, so 5-10% more of next to nothing is not a lot more.

It should be noted that everything you can find is useful in one way or another, it's just a case of figuring out exactly what.

As you guessed, right now you're better off trying to focus on base building and perks that make life as a whole easier.
Harvesting resources better.
Cooking better.
Finding animals better, the first rank of Animal Tracker is a godsend. The others? Still useful, but not so much.
Using less stamina to get anything done. Sexual Tyrannosaurus is another godsend, but to just being able to get stuff done.

Days should be spent doing anything you can't do indoors or otherwise out of reach of anything that could be out in the dark. Night time the other way around, cooking, using the forge/workbench/chem station (when you start getting them).
Also mining. There's a lot of useful stuff down there, yes even the rock, you just have to dig down and find it. Just be sure not to start looking out on the horizontal until you're at least 7-10 blocks down after having hit stone. As I mentioned before, zombies dig, so make it so if they want at you they have to work for it. This also means that chances are pretty good they won't see your mines as an easy way into the base on hoard night.

[Arkane Jaguar]

Originally posted by Amanoob105:

As said above, loot level is typed to a mix of how long the games been running. The longer it goes on for the better stuff you start to find.
The area you're in doesn't make any real difference to what loot you will find.
As a result don't put any more points into perks that help you get better loot, at least not yet. At the moment the loot you can get is next to nothing, so 5-10% more of next to nothing is not a lot more.

It should be noted that everything you can find is useful in one way or another, it's just a case of figuring out exactly what.

As you guessed, right now you're better off trying to focus on base building and perks that make life as a whole easier.
Harvesting resources better.
Cooking better.
Finding animals better, the first rank of Animal Tracker is a godsend. The others? Still useful, but not so much.
Using less stamina to get anything done. Sexual Tyrannosaurus is another godsend, but to just being able to get stuff done.

Days should be spent doing anything you can't do indoors or otherwise out of reach of anything that could be out in the dark. Night time the other way around, cooking, using the forge/workbench/chem station (when you start getting them).
Also mining. There's a lot of useful stuff down there, yes even the rock, you just have to dig down and find it. Just be sure not to start looking out on the horizontal until you're at least 7-10 blocks down after having hit stone. As I mentioned before, zombies dig, so make it so if they want at you they have to work for it. This also means that chances are pretty good they won't see your mines as an easy way into the base on hoard night.

I think you've summed it all up perfectly Unfortunately I have already put points into the looting perks, but at least now I know where to put future ones.
I guess I'll just focus on developing a base and tools.
Thanks a lot :)

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Originally posted by Amanoob105:

Originally posted by ⚜ JOST AMMAN ⚜:

Try to find one of those hidden bunkers, clear it out and make it your horde base!

A good plan on paper, until you remember that zombies can dig and a lot of hoard night zombies can dig very fast .

Sure, zombies can dig... the trick is to let them come in through a "path of least resistance".

This is a Tower Defense game after all (at least when Blood Moon comes) so you need to be smart and use TD pathing. The bunker will allow you have a very good perimetral protection with several rooms where you can fall back in case they break in the first defense.

But I guess you don't normally use underground bases, don't you?

[KellyR]

Man. If there's one thing I hate about this game it's that "Loot guns and ammo" is early game advice. I feel like you shouldn't even find guns until like day 21.

[Amanoob105]

Originally posted by ⚜ JOST AMMAN ⚜:

Originally posted by Amanoob105:

A good plan on paper, until you remember that zombies can dig and a lot of hoard night zombies can dig very fast .

Sure, zombies can dig... the trick is to let them come in through a "path of least resistance".

This is a Tower Defense game after all (at least when Blood Moon comes) so you need to be smart and use TD pathing. The bunker will allow you have a very good perimetral protection with several rooms where you can fall back in case they break in the first defense.

But I guess you don't normally use underground bases, don't you? :staredown:

Depends on what you classify as "underground".
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2492919417
Does inside a mountain count ?

I meant it in the sense you have giving the advice of "dig a hole and you'll be safe" to a new player that likely doesn't know about such things as what you have only now mentioned.
And even then is likely going to need more advice on that subject.

[Hellsmoke]

Yeah digging a hole is a thing of the past, not good advice for new players. Find a little wooden house and knock out the stairs, put a row of wooden spikes around it and start looking for a pot and some food and a water source. As you get a few blue cobblestone packs that are found all over the place, reinforce your structure a bit around the bottom two blocks and look for more food.

Once you've conquered starvation and stamina loss (skills) you can take the next step and look for a decent horde base all the while gathering some loot as you go. If you run out of time due to bad luck, find a stone poi for horde night, get on the roof and chill.

Eventually you'll have acquired enough materials to start building your own horde base and the rest you'll figure out from experience.

[KellyR]

I build a basic horde base for day 7 even... This is my idea of basic: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2505681261

Spent the first 5 days looting, mining, and crafting, and then started building that on day 6.

[Hellsmoke]

Originally posted by KellyR:

I build a basic horde base for day 7 even... This is my idea of basic: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2505681261

Spent the first 5 days looting, mining, and crafting, and then started building that on day 6.

Yeah but you have been playing a while and know what to look for and do. ;)

[KellyR]

Originally posted by Hellsmoke77:

Originally posted by KellyR:

I build a basic horde base for day 7 even... This is my idea of basic: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2505681261

Spent the first 5 days looting, mining, and crafting, and then started building that on day 6.

Yeah but you have been playing a while and know what to look for and do. ;)

True. I was a bit rusty because I hadn't played in maybe a year or so, but it came back pretty quick.

My advice in the early game would honestly just be "never stop gathering". Be collecting plant fiber, wood, stone, feathers and eggs as you walk. Find a base camp (A good solid building you can camp on the roof of) and set up your land claim and bedroll there to stop zombies spawning, and get to work looting everything nearby. You're looking for a cooking pot for your campfire, a wrench for taking apart cars and other mechanical things for parts, duct tape and short iron pipes for crafting the forge. That last one is crucial. Get your forge crafted as soon as humanly possible.

Once you actually have your forge built, honestly my advice is to start mining like a madman. Find an iron deposit and go to town. You're also going to want to do some shallow mining in the dirt level above the stone level to gather as much clay as possible, because you're going to want to make your day 7 horde base out of cobblestone. But you'll want to forge iron tools first, as they make mining everything faster. Which means you do need at least 1 point in Miner 69'er, and of course 1 in advanced engineering for the forge.

I wouldn't worry too much about getting guns and ammo for day 7. Or even day 14. You're better off with a very solid, durable base that funnels zombies to a specific spot for you to melee them through poles or some other "cage" construction that holds them at bay while you beat them to death.

Oh, and do decide which melee weapon type you're going to use, because it dictates the type of cage you want to build. Things like clubs and sledgehammers you want vertical poles to form the "bars" of your cage, because your weapon swings vertically. Fists or blades you want horizontal poles.

[Khissi]

All these are fun, great suggestions but do remember this, every failure in this game is nothing more than a learning experience. If something didn't work as you wanted it to, figure out how to make it better, and keep doing that until you've found what works best for YOU and how you like to play.

This game is supposed to be replayed, over and over and over... starting from the beginning and learning more each time. It does get better! You learn what works best for you and it's more and more fun every time. The scary parts are scarier, the jump scares are jumpier, and the smiles can only get bigger as you learn more.

Glad you're having fun! DO NOT STOP if it goes sideways. Just pick up from there and make it better!