What materials to use for a base

[Kakaroto]

Hi i wanna build my 1st ever base. But i have no idea what materials are the best to use as a foundation/walls..

[LunaCPlays]

Early game you can use wood to set the structure and upgrade to scrap. I myself prefer to build with scrap frames for my horde bases because metal is more sturdy just to ensure all my corners have a metal frame/block. This approach means living in a POI while you gather enough iron to start a basic base. Cobblestone is also good if you want to dig up a lot of clay. I just use scrap because I tend to devote a fair amount of my early game to mining and thus have more iron then I need. As long as it's reinforced 3 or 4 blocks high you can use wood up top. The main thing is to prevent spiders with ledges and keep them breaking in at ground level.

[Lerch Addams]

Originally posted by Kakaroto:

Hi i wanna build my 1st ever base. But i have no idea what materials are the best to use as a foundation/walls..

Welcome Kak.

Follow Luna's advice and you'll be fine.

I'd advise against using a POI as a base location since they tend to be spawn locations for zeds.

Other than that avoid tunneling beneath your base until you better understand how the structural system in the game works.

[Kakaroto]

Ok thx guys. Imma watch some youtube videos and try to copy soem designs

[Brownsugar27]

If you make flagstone (3 cobblestone rocks(Clay and small stones)) you can uprade it will clay and it will have 1,000 HP

[SquirmyWhale]

Concrete or cobblestone for sure. Cobblestone isn't too hard to get and is very strong and is upgradable to concrete. Wood for very early game but I wouldn't be building a base too early game.

[vv [FuMM]]

Cobble stone walls are 1500 and take a bit to build (6 hits with the stone axe I think it is and 4 with the claw hammer.

Useing a prefab as a base is fine. Put a bed inside the prefab and that will stop spawning happening around the prefab. I think it's about 32 blocks (similar to like minecraft). Generally if you want a prefab base there are 2 easy things I do to protect my self till about the 50 day period.

1. For the first 7 to 14 day hords put spikes around your base. I suggenst 4 to 6 deep at least on normal mode. More is better. 8 to 10 is quite good.

2. At about day 8 or 9 start digging a 1 or 2 wide trench around your base. You want to at least get into rock if you can. Hopefully you should have a forge by day 5 or so depending on how you do it.

A 1 wide trench will stop most zeds crossing. if it's only a few blocks deep they'll fall down and start attacking the dirt or rocks. A 2 wide trench will stop dogs. I usually put my trench about 4 to 6 spikes deep from my poi walls.

Dig your trench into the rock as much as you can. 10 or 15 deep is a good place. Rather than repairing the sides of the stone they dig through you can dig deeper each time they breach an area and then repair the dug out sections a bit more at your leasure. If you can eventually replace the dirt with concrete then your on your way to a good solid base.

With this base design you have 2 options. Shoot the zombies at your leasure while they are down the pit or just leave them there and go do what ever when the day starts. Come back later and repair the damage they've done.

My final usual design is to fill in the entire bottom of the POI (most are 2 stories) with what ever. Cement if I Can or cobble stone is a good choice as well. The stronger you make the base the longer you can last the night till they slow down again. Also the less likely they are to knock your house down.

I then only access the building by using the windows/doors on the floors above and have 4 high walk ways that stick out over the spikes that I use wood frames to climb up to. if you have some sections of the walk way have 2 long gaps that you have frames in with spikes under them you can then mostly spider zombie proof your base.

So far this has worked fairly well for me. My longest game is day 70ish in A12 and A13. So far I've got a couple of 40 to 50day games in A14.

My new project is to find the side of a cliff and dig into that. The idea there is if you can get 50 to 100 blocks inside the hill/mountain then that should be long enough that the zeds will only spawn on top of you and not close enough to wander past/find your entry way.

My other suggestion is that setting up other temp bases is also a good idea just incase you get stuck some where or you want to give an area a rest because you've been forging too much etc there.

[Seraphin]

First of, I try to start basebuilding in forest bioms, having water and a desert (to easily gather sand later on for concrete) nearby. Under these conditions I started my last base with flagstone, but that was before it got balanced down.
I still plan to start with flagstone the next game (probably a15 then), but to instandly upgrading to adobe then. Target is, to upgrade these to (reinforced) concrete later on.

I don't like wood anymore, when upgrading to concrete you have to move through the whole scrap iron part. It's too expensive in resources I think.

Instead of flagstone/adobe also cobblestone can be used. I prefer to need less gathering of resources and being able to build faster, even though adobe is weaker than cobblestone (1000 vs 1500). But adobe should be able to do it's job until concrete is in place.

[vv [FuMM]]

Cobble stone is fairly nice to upgrade to concrete. It's plant fiber and wood for the frames and cobble stone and clay in even amounts for the cobble stones. When placed it's just 10 concrete mix to upgrade to cement then the usual to upgrade from cement. As soon as you have cement you can just make concrete blocks though. Reinforced concrete is good value as it's 6k strong but gets down graded to cement first which is then 3k in strength. so it's a total of 9k.

[Nimbull]

Find a bunker and settle there to start out. Place a bunch of basic spikes around it and you have yourself a nice starter base. Be sure to remove doors and setup a parkor style jump entry with a trap door so there's less incentive for Zeds to come a knocking right away.

[Boresight]

Find a solid pre-built building (Police Station, Roof of Bank...), and upgrade it over time.

[Kakaroto]

I saw in 1 of the youtube vid, that guy uses white planks to support his wooden log spikes while he repairs the spikes underneath the planks.. Now im not sure if those are planks.. But it sure looks like a long piece of beam connecting from 1 end of his bunker to the other end...

Can anyone verify? The youtuber is Grand Spartan

[Akrux]

Originally posted by Boresight:

Find a solid pre-built building (Police Station, Roof of Bank...), and upgrade it over time.

Sorry but that is a poor choice. It is too big to defend properly as you can't easliy shoot down inside it. Also it is probably located in a town or city with a high spawn rate.

Originally posted by Nimbull:

Find a bunker and settle there to start out.

You can't reasonably expect to find a bunker in the first few days. If you do then good luck opening the door with a stone axe. Besides in version 15 onwards zombies will sense you underground and will not despawn. You need to think in terms of killing the horde not hiding from the horde.

Originally posted by vv FuMM:

Dig your trench into the rock as much as you can. 10 or 15 deep is a good place.

That is a lot to work to dig that deep and trenches don't kill zombies. You could also easily mess up the integrity of your base's foundation.

You are better to find a flat spot and build an elevated platform with a carpet of upgraded log spikes underneath. Leave gaps in the spikes in order to get in and repair as needed. Your shooting down through some horizontal iron bars in the floor and the spikes will eventually kill the horde.

To answer the OP question the construction material of choice is concrete. It is cheap to make and repair and has great durability. For day 7 you can get away with a reinforced POI with spikes around it or build a platform from wood or whatever but your goal is concrete by day 14. You don't need iron to get to reinforced concrete. Save your iron for upgrading the log spikes etc.

For extra durabilty by day 21 I use 96 metal siding to clad the 4 2x2 concrete pillars that support my elevated platform with 200+ upgraded log spikes underneath. Insane hordes are insane in size and toughness.

[vv [FuMM]]

Originally posted by Akrux:

Originally posted by vv FuMM:

Dig your trench into the rock as much as you can. 10 or 15 deep is a good place.

That is a lot to work to dig that deep and trenches don't kill zombies. You could also easily mess up the integrity of your base's foundation.

Actually. Trenches do kill zombies.

Sure it can be some work digging down into the rock but by day 10 or so you should be at least into the dirt and then into the rock layer quite easily. If you havn't got a forge going after the first 7days then you should hurry up and get one so you can start making iron and steel tools.

Making a forge and smelting iron is so easy now. Digging out the rock in a 2 thick trench around your base is a rather good idea for early defense and to gather the required rock and iron for cement and other things.

If you are saying digging a trench around your base to "too much work" then I'd hate to see what your base looks like. I've been able to dig around my base 3 to 5 deep in the dirt with stone shovels in about 2 days. It's well worth the effort and an early horde will not have enough damage capability to do much. This is about delaying them enough so you can either avoid them and then repair the damage or pick them off at a safe distance and place.

You are better to find a flat spot and build an elevated platform with a carpet of upgraded log spikes underneath. Leave gaps in the spikes in order to get in and repair as needed. Your shooting down through some horizontal iron bars in the floor and the spikes will eventually kill the horde.

Zombies like attacking log spikes now. Also why would you leave gaps in your log spike defense if you can just put a wood frame on top and walk ontop of them and repair? I have raised platforms over mine for easy access and entry.

[qquote]
To answer the OP question the construction material of choice is concrete. It is cheap to make and repair and has great durability. For day 7 you can get away with a reinforced POI with spikes around it or build a platform from wood or whatever but your goal is concrete by day 14. You don't need iron to get to reinforced concrete. Save your iron for upgrading the log spikes etc.

For extra durabilty by day 21 I use 96 metal siding to clad the 4 2x2 concrete pillars that support my elevated platform with 200+ upgraded log spikes underneath. Insane hordes are insane in size and toughness. [/quote]

I agree that concrete is a good all round choice. I'm just finding it annoying in my current game because I don't have a desert biome yet. Cobble stone is how ever much cheaper to make if you don't have the resources yet.

Cement is something like 20 stone to make a concrete block (10 stone = 10 cement.10 cement and 10 sand and 10 stone=10 concrete mix. 10 concrete mix=one cement block). So defensive mining is a handy thing that will help get you the resources you want. if you dig the trench deep enough around your base then the zeds kind of lose track of where you are and don't really damage it.

Finding what works for a player is the main thing here. I hope we've all given the OP some nice ideas though :)

My next idea for a base is to find a POI that's in a small valley or near a cliff/hill and cover it over with dirt but at a level where zombies walking over the hill next to it will just keep going and not find anything to attack. I may eventually just make an artificial cliff out of cement :D

[Kakaroto]

Yeah so far its been very helpful.. Im looking to build trenches 30 blocks deep and have my log spikes at the botton..hopefully the freefall down into log spikes will kill the zeds.. Then build my base in the middle with the spikes surrounding it and the only access is thru a hatch at some POI nearby.

[vv [FuMM]]

yeah I add a 1 or 2 extra depth to my trenches every day or two depending on if that side has been attacked. It's cheap enough to just dig below damage caused by zombies and then repair the dug out areas with concrete etc.