Early and midgame base tips?

[Wade]

Can you please give me some advice how to build my base for early and midgame? I am thinking about 3 options: 1) Dig a very long hole and build an undeground base 2) Make base on existing building like abandoned house, shop... 3) Make completely custom base 3 levels high.

The thing is I want to build a base where I can freely use forge, campfire and workbench, and put some candles inside to light it up, without being detected.

Right now I am using 2 small bases: one with a forge, campfire and workbench where I work and another 50 meters away where I sleep so zombies can not attack me at night. But I am really tired of using 2 different places, I would like to have one base for everything.

[Sarge]

If your using hordenight i suggest you create 2 bases, your main base where you store all your stuff and make all crafting stations, and a hordebase totally dedicated to making the life of the zombies impossible during horde nights, there are several ways of going about this, i suggest you look around on the net for ways to build both bases, draw ideas from that, and before you know it you will have your own ideas of how to make and create bases.

[Maddermax]

Firstly, I wouldn't recommend an underground base. They will make it harder for zombies to find you, but when they do detect you, they'll dig down directly on top of you, so you have to go up and fight them anyway. It's much easier to fight off zombies damaging your base if you can see them. There's also the fact zombies can dig down to anywhere in your base, and only need a 1x1 hole to fall into, rather than a 2x1 to go horizontally through a wall. There are definitely designs for underground bases that can work, but it's a lot of work early on.

Converting a POI is absolutely the easiest option early-mid game. Pick somewhere which already has a good wall all around it, reinforce the wall and close up any gaps, and make sure you have easy access to the top of the wall, to defend from when wandering hordes show up. Just a few ramp frames around the wall means you can run up it any time. When you have the resources, upgrade the wall to concrete if possible, or if the wall isn't upgradable, just make another layer of wall outside. I've used the walled graveyard before, and the walled house in Diresville with underground garage. Each time, I'd set up myself in one, reasonable protected but quickly accessible room, and made sure I had a couple of vantage points for shooting zombies off my walls. You can generally get a walled, even if only flagstone, area by day 2 or 3, if you find a suitable location.

Having a separate horde night base is a good idea though, so that if they get in, you don't lose everything.

Making your own base is a really good mid-late game option, just takes a lot of materials, and a bit of knowledge about making a working design to funnel zombies into. Zombies path to the easiest access to you, so making a strategic weak point can help significantly in funneling zombies the way you want them to go, where you can concentrate your defenses.

[UltimeRazzia]

The guys up above stated pretty much everything but there's a cool guide by GateauSec it's a bit old but you can still get the idea and adapt it to a18 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=777358420

[Crater Creator]

You’ll find that separate horde bases are very popular. It sounds like you have the basics down. All three of those ideas should be viable. I do a surface-level from-scratch base with a separate workshop annex. By only running one or two stations at a time, and/or having a simple defensive layer of spikes, screamers aren’t an issue.

[AnAngelOfDeath]

Have a loot base where your land claim block is and sleeping bag and have a separate horde night base. I like to use the roof of business POI's early to mid game - in Navigazine I like to use Altos cabinet shop as the horde base and the nearby Crack a Book as my loot base.

[Sinbad]

A simple - effective design for early horde nights is a simple base that is minimum 4 blocks high (almost any poi will do - prefer at least cobblestone for longevity). Then build a stairway with blocks leading up to your level (recommend at least 2 blocks wide), but leave a one block gap from top step to roof. Add bars standing up on ledge of roof.

Zombies will run a path and jump at you hitting the bars falling back down and starting over. The block height steps cause them to do their jump animation instead of running. Build stairway with at least cobblestone.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2026784491

[Kauldric]

An underground base is fine BUT you need to build a pillbox at the top, offset your down town a little bit from the actual base. Some zombies might dig down but very few. You can repair that pretty easy when it happens. During blood moons do not go underground for too long or they WILL dig to find you.