Advice On The Old Woods Hideout

[Dwight Hut Pizza]

Introduction

I just recently moved from the Silent Forest Hideout to the Old Woods Hideout aftergiving the key to the musician.And holy hell the Old Woods Hideout is not a joke, my first night was really difficult. I even knew this going in after hearing about all the horrors people have witnessed in their time spent in the hideout which made me even more anxious when night began to fall.

My First Night (Skip If You Don't Care To Hear My Story)

I began my first night off in the oven room where I barricaded both doors and the window. I then huddled in the corner by the oven and prayed for RNGesus to be on my side. It didn't take to long before I hear a huge dog breaking down the barricaded door by the oven. Keep in mind I literally havn't moved a muscle and have been quiet as possible. So, eventually this dog breaks down the door and I just give him two whacks with my shovel and barricade the door once again after he died. Pretty much right after that I hear another huge dog breaking down my door on the other side of the room. Once again, I kill that huge dog and barely managed to live (since I was a idiot and accidentally turned off my lamp in the middle of the fight). I heal up and get back in my corner. Then I hear one of those chompers breaking down that same door and no way in hell I wanted to fight one of those after fighting the two by the bridge into the Old Woods. I decided that it was best to book it so I unbarricaded the door by the oven and pretty much the rest of the night was me running around my hideout trying to avoid sight from the chomper. Luckily, being the hideout so big and the long corridors I had many places to run away from it and I somehow managed to see the morning light and live. It was such a relief to live as I honestly thought I was going to die that night.

Tips and Advice

Firstly, I'm really huge on stealthing nights. In fact, most of the nights in Dry Meadow and Silent Forest I was able to get by just by stealthing but it looks like in Old Woods they break through your barricades even if they don't know your there. So, is Stealth even worth trying or should I just leave my hideout open and try to kill whatever comes my way? If anyone can tell me their best strategy that would be helpful. Also, is the oven room the best room to hide in or should I choose a different room? Lastly, is it worth trying to wedge furniture between corners and walls so they can't push through on one side or will they just break the furniture? Thanks all if you can answer my questions and give me tips and advice.

[Ivy]

Drag all the furniture in oven room and barricade yourself there every night (that means you gotta unbarricade one door every morning, unless it gets destroyed), there's like 3 wardrobes in this hideout (that's a lot of storing space). Make use of them in one put all your planks and nails, second one put pills, bandages, beartraps, flares (basically what would be useful for surviving the night), 3rd one you can do whatever you want with, i usually put more useful items into. Flares are important in Old woods, when shadows come all lamps but one break for short ammount of time, Old woods hideout got a lot of lights but only one is movable and you don't wanna leave your main room, so always have a flare with you (plus they're useful for dealing with banshees). When you hear something you can't or are too afraid to deal with take one of the beartraps from your wardrobe and put it infront of attacked window/door. Hope that helps.

[MazyRun]

There are so many viable strats for the old woods hideout you can be quite creative in your set ups. If you prepare well for it (by buying stuff from the trader & wolfman everyday) by the time you reach the old woods you will have a ton of resources, so running out of something shouldn't be an issue..

Bikeman will deliver your war chest, filled with essential resources (wood/nails, metal, glass, flares) and crafted items (lanterns, armor, throwables, disposable shotguns).. You can leave it all inside the very pack it's delivered in (beside the workbench).

If you've been hoarding red eggs now would be the time to cook them, the max efficiency oven at HO3 allows you to max level up by around day 15-20 (this means you will have all your chosen skills during the old woods section, well before moving on to chapter 2).

You have enough resources to keep windows permanently barricaded and doors/furniture/tools constantly maintained/repaired (with bear traps outside protecting the window barricades)..

The trick to conserving metal is to not use traps in the first 2 areas and buy scrap metal every day. Bear traps are extremely effective at protecting against intruders. Traps give you control of your hideout..

Which in turn means you do not need to hide or hunker down, being confined to a single room can be a liability (and also means you will miss out on a lot of valuable loot). You can secure the central area within the hideout (the outer areas have to be breached before they get to you)..

You are surrounded by outer corridors and outer rooms, anything breaking into those areas is breaking into a kill zone for you to move into and mop them up & take their loot (remember, good prep = lots of firepower).

There are 2 openings in the hideout, your well barricaded windows mean these openings will be the main breach points. Use glass traps at these openings, anything entering through here will instantly take a lot of damage, allowing you to kill them quicker..

Whilst patrolling your hideout, if you notice the glass is gone from an entry point you know something has come in through there and is weak, sniff them out.

If you do go the route of using furniture as barricades, remember you can fire over the top of some furniture.. https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/850473117534436484/83A4D756CA70B3D75C4B997585E77280D973DA0C/ ..but it is a hassle setting stuff up like that, you're almost better off with uncluttered routes and unblocked exits, free roam gives you more control over situations..

As a general rule I say furniture is for storage, best pushed out of the way (against walls) to give you as much floor space as possible. The one exception to this is chairs, the single seat chairs/stools are indestructible, perfect for barricading..

Placing chairs in front of windows (or doors) protects against damage & intrusion because the intruder will just push against the chair unable to interact with the actual window (or door). This strat is more useful in the chapter 2 HO where you can use chairs to block intruders from the north & west entry points (leaving just south & east to worry about).

The key is to always be thinking about the best ways to proactively deal with situations rather than the best ways to ride them out. So use your ears and react to intruders, use all the tools the game gives you.

The more experienced you get the more you start trying to maximize every possible situation, you start seeing intruders as a resource, letting their corpse loot despawn (when the day cycle begins) becomes regrettable. You end up going outside to kill everything just to grab every last piece of odd meat and tradable item (at the same time you are minimizing the damage done to your hideout).

It is good to have rooms and areas (with multiple exits) to fall back to, the room with the bench is a good room to move in and out of (I always stay close to the bench in any hideout). Most the action (fighting or escaping) will take place in the corridors (nice long narrow kill zones) or the outer rooms adjacent to windows (like the oven room).

[Dwight Hut Pizza]

Thanks for the responses!

[Super]

This is my favorite way to fortify Hideout 3.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/500697453561905152/584818263041769483/Hideout_3_Outline.JPG

I survive all my nights, and rarely run into problems. If there are any ghosts I use flares and if anything comes through my wardrobe in the top right I blast them away with my shotgun.... Or I just use a shovel for huge dogs. I hope this helps. I also tend to go the stealthy approach. The circles are bear traps btw.

[Ivy]

Originally posted by SuperToxicBeast:

This is my favorite way to fortify Hideout 3.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/500697453561905152/584818263041769483/Hideout_3_Outline.JPG

I survive all my nights, and rarely run into problems. If there are any ghosts I use flares and if anything comes through my wardrobe in the top right I blast them away with my shotgun.... Or I just use a shovel for huge dogs. I hope this helps. I also tend to go the stealthy approach. The circles are bear traps btw.

I think this is too much furniture that you used for barricading instead of storing space. I think you should have at least 2 wardrobes in your room.

[Super]

Originally posted by Ivan the Space Gopnik:

Originally posted by SuperToxicBeast:

This is my favorite way to fortify Hideout 3.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/500697453561905152/584818263041769483/Hideout_3_Outline.JPG

I survive all my nights, and rarely run into problems. If there are any ghosts I use flares and if anything comes through my wardrobe in the top right I blast them away with my shotgun.... Or I just use a shovel for huge dogs. I hope this helps. I also tend to go the stealthy approach. The circles are bear traps btw.

I think this is too much furniture that you used for barricading instead of storing space. I think you should have at least 2 wardrobes in your room.

Oh... I use all of that for storage and fortifying. I have the essentials in my workbench. But extra stuff in the wardrobes and dresser.

[Ivy]

Originally posted by SuperToxicBeast:

Originally posted by Ivan the Space Gopnik:

I think this is too much furniture that you used for barricading instead of storing space. I think you should have at least 2 wardrobes in your room.

Oh... I use all of that for storage and fortifying. I have the essentials in my workbench. But extra stuff in the wardrobes and dresser.

Forgot about the workbench. If you got things nicely sorted out in your workbench then there's no really need for wardrobes eh.

[Space Karen]

Played through this game 3 times and for Old Forest hideout I always camp inside the Crafting Table room. Its big enough to move around in due to the crack in the wall leading to another room.

You want to barricade all doors here, there are 3 of them. Furniture on the door in the crafting table room. The door leading towards the room the trader appears in you want to put a trap behind it if something breaks through, always keep a trap or two in your inventory, along with wood and nails, to quickly put up your defences again if they get through. The last door I usually never have problems with, because I also barricade the hallway and doors outside of it.

Always keep your gun ready if multiple enemies get through your trap. This is viable and easy enough to handle, even the chompers as you control the chokepoint.

[Ivy]

Oven room is better imo, has a bit more room for fighting. When chomper gets into your room you're kindof screwed in the workbench room... if you're doing melee only runs at least. Guns make this game too easy.

[Darthzz]

Originally posted by Ivan the Space Gopnik:

Oven room is better imo, has a bit more room for fighting. When chomper gets into your room you're kindof screwed in the workbench room... if you're doing melee only runs at least. Guns make this game too easy.

I don't know why but people SEVERELY underestimate how absurdly overpowered guns truly are in this game. They think "but but but ammo is too scarce!" when it really, really isn't. Guns seriously trivialize what could otherwise be somewhat kind of challenging encounters into, well, jokes.

[Ivy]

Originally posted by miao:

Originally posted by Ivan the Space Gopnik:

Oven room is better imo, has a bit more room for fighting. When chomper gets into your room you're kindof screwed in the workbench room... if you're doing melee only runs at least. Guns make this game too easy.

I don't know why but people SEVERELY underestimate how absurdly overpowered guns truly are in this game. They think "but but but ammo is too scarce!" when it really, really isn't. Guns seriously trivialize what could otherwise be somewhat kind of challenging encounters into, well, jokes.

last time i used guns (in my second playthrough) i had 8 mags before i reached old woods... that's almost 13 dead chompers. Shotgun can oneshot anything in the game (except few specific creatures) while each slug requires 40 rep. A bit ridicilous isn't it. Perhaps they should break after some time, or trader should restock on ammo every 2 or 3 days.

[marrocas]

I thought I was ready for this old forest hideout but I my first night I spend all my bullets and the red chompers destroy all my guarding furniture