Guide for Beginners: Simple Building Order [Spoilers]

[Flavvy]

I found this on Reddit and it really helped me so I thought I would share it here. I couldn't stick to the specific days myself, but it was a useful basis to get a feel for this great game which can be a bit overwhelming at first.

All credit goes to Shalmanese for their original post, of course:

My optimized build order

(don't read unless you want the game spoiled)

I've been trying to figure out a build order that helps you get on your feet the fastest. Here's what I've tended to go with:

Day 1:

I don't build a shovel since digging by hand is doable and the resources are needed to keep the build order going.

• Metal Workshop
  
• Crowbar
  
• Bed 1

Day 2:

I almost always start scavenging the decrepit squat, bringing 1 raw food + 1 crowbar. I scavenge what I need to make up 32 components, 15 wood, 5 parts & 1 weapon part & fill rest of inventory with food/meds.

Generally, only 5 or 6 slots are needed to fill this night's quota. 1 slot will be taken up by trade goods, 1 slot by meds (resist the urge to grab food on night 1 as you don't need them yet) which gives you at least 2 slots to get a jumpstart on the next night (especially to make sure the parts and weapon parts quota is filled).

• Upgrade Metal Workshop
  
• Saw

Day 3 & 4:

You need to loot at least 36 components, 5 parts, 5 weapon parts & 12 wood over 2 nights.

Hopefully the Saw allowed you to break into a place with lots of weapon parts (Garage is the best place for this, especially if you're willing to bring along a lockpick and steal from the family. Ruined Flats, Decrepit Squat, St Mary's Church and Sniper Junction are also good).

Once you have the hatchet, you have enough wood to board up all the walls.

You need 9 slots worth of components and 6 slots worth of wood over 2 nights of scavenging. You need another slot for weapon parts and maybe 1 for parts, and 1 more to return the hatchet for day 4, which is 17 spoken for slots over 2 nights. The rest can be used to fill up on food, meds and trade goods.

• Stove
  
• Hatchet
  
• First meal
  
• Bed 2
  
• Upgrade Workshop
  
• Board up walls

Day 5 & 6:

Your goal is to collect 21 wood & at least 13 parts (preferably 23)& fill the rest of your inventory slots with meds/vegetables/components.

You need 3 slots worth of parts, 9 slots worth of components and 11 slots worth of wood. By now, a trader is almost sure to have come which means you can trade your valuables to reduce the number of slots for scavenging.

• Rat Trap 1
  
• Rainwater Distiller (if summer start)
  
• Second meal
  
• Rat Trap 2 (if you have 23 parts)
  
• Shovel
  
• Radio

Vegetable Growing:

Your next big push is to get vegetables growing. This takes a ton of resources (105 components, 80 wood, 13 parts, 13 electrical parts) but just keep scavenging and trading until you get there. Scavenge components & trade wood if possible.

This requires 26 slots worth of components, 40 slots of wood and 5 or so slots of parts/electrical parts. You should be your aim to trade at least 20 slots of wood which means it takes 5 days with a 10 slot character or 3 days with a 17 slot character.

• Herbal Garden
  
• Upgrade Workshop 2
  
• Upgrade Herbal Garden
  
• Rainwater Collector 2

Cash Economy:

Start pumping out cigarettes & moonshine for trade and use them to fund improvements.

• Moonshine Still
  
• Herbal Workshop
  
• Upgrade Stove
  
• Reinforce doors

Advanced Cash Economy:

This is basically the end game. Make pure alcohol and bandages to sell.

• Alcohol Distiller
  
• Upgrade Herbal Workshop

Cash Out:

At this point, you should have enough goods that you can basically clear out the barter guy of anything valuable every single time he comes. From here on out, I keep every single one of my people well fed every single day. Sit back and enjoy the good life.

• Heater (if summer start)
  
• Upgrade Metal Workshop 3
  
• Armchair
  
• Armchair
  
• Guitar
  
• Guitar
  
• Guitar
  
• Chair
  
• Chair

[MarQan]

An important part of that guide, which can improve everyone's gameplay greatly, is to always know what you want to build the next day and scavenge accodingly.
That being said, I think there are several problems in it as well.

Rush Hatchet. Always.*
With it you get a whole night's worth of Wood during the day, letting your scavenger bring back other goodies. You can easily get it on Day 2-3, but building a Saw before that can jeopardize it. Not to mention it's a gamble: sometimes there are things behind the bar you don't need at that point.

You can delay eating until Day 5, and then just eat every 3rd day until you have a decent supply of food (8, 11 so on). Therefore a Stove on day 3 or 4 is a waste, but be sure to have enough materials to build one on the 5th.

A bed on the first day is a waste of time, but at least materials. A duo might not be able to clear all the rubbles on day one and build a bed.
2 survivors won't use it for sure, because they're scavenging or guarding, the others won't have much problem sleeping on the floor for 1 or 2 nights. Unless you have someone (slighty) wounded or sick. In that case you want them to sleep in a Bed on the first night.

If you have locked doors/containers at your starter location, then bring a Lockpick instead of a Crowbar. Given you want to make a Crowbar on day 1 to use it in your Shelter, bringing it to a location means 1 less inventory slot on the way back.

Patching up holes and Reinforced Door depends on scenario: with Roman guarding you barely need it, while Iskra+Christo, Anton+Cveta and Marko-Solo should rush for it (after Hatchet ofc).

I wouldn't include Decrepit Squat in a general guide, since it appears in about half the scenarios only. If you mentioned it though, it's a waste of Mood giving food to Grisha on the first night. Just steal from another location if you can and bring Food to him after that.

Never use a Shovel in your Shelter. In fact it's mostly useless. The only location it's worth to bring is St. Mary's Chapel, hostile scenario. BUT if you can afford to clear that location, you probably have lots of things already and can afford to spend a bit more time there to clear by hand. Everywhere else you can loot the place effectively (i.e: full stacks of things you need/can use) without a Shovel, clearing rubbles by hand. Another possible location is the Small Apartment Building, family scenario, but nowhere else.
Not worth it, really... unless you want to save IRL time.

Trading:
You want to get every Component, Wood, (mechanical) Parts on your first 1 or 2 trades with Franko. Additionally any Food you might need, and Water and Filters if you can. Of course if you need Weapon Parts to get your first Hatchet, definitely get those as well.
To get all these things without delaying your constructions and visiting multiple locations too soon, you need to give away some items that you'd keep later on: Sugar, Moonshine, Pure Alcohol, any kind of cigarettes, Tobacco, Herbs, Coffee and Broken Weapons (you rarely need to repair them anyways).

If I'd mention any locations in a general guide, it'd be the Warehouse:
It's the best location in the game. It's stacked with all kinds of items, and you can safely kill the thugs with a Hatchet (hiding-backstab, except Cveta). Additionally it has enough furniture to chop that'll use up a brand-new Hatchet: no wasted materals, nor do you have to bring it back.
In every situation you should go there as soon as possible.

EDIT:
* In some of the more difficult Scenarios you don't have the luxury to rush for the Hatchet, even with all the benefits it provides. You might have to go for Beds for your Sick and Wounded or rush for a Reinforced Door without even upgrading your Metal Workshop.

[Flavvy]

Helpful stuff. Thank you!

[Sir_Blaze]

@MarQan you can actually delay eating till day 7 so don't need the stove in place till day 6-7 giving you even more time. and if you subsiquently eat to well fed you can then eat every 8 days afterwards if need be.

with your shovel idea i conversely take the shovel to all locations once as i grab every single item and put them in 1 spot that way i know whats there and maximise what i take out so the time i save with the shovel on 1 trip is useful also it backs up as a weapon in a lot of the agro locations, as for places where the shovel is really useful just as a tool i find the school with 2 rock piles and size and the supermarket due to it's size the shovel is useful ( supermarket only if its the soldier there though)

for the general public ...

for trade if you have the garage try to save your herbal meds for trade there you get better prices for meds at the garage than anywhere else and you get cheaper building materials there than with franko so it's a win win.

when your tools are about to break save them for trade you get full price no matter the durability left on them so your better off selling to frank with 1 durability left and getting something back than just using it for it to break.

[MarQan]

@Sir_Blaze
Starving makes you really slow, applies a Mood penalty to the group and makes other crises more likely to get worse than Very Hungry.
Whether you go for Starving or Very Hungry, you have to eat a Cooked Meal or Canned Food every 3 days on average to maintain a certain level of Hunger. Also if you're trying to save food, you don't want to eat to Well-fed.
That 2 Day delay is not worth it.

You can easily stack your inventory at the Supermarket on first visit even without a shovel, and gather every item into 1 container on the second.

I don't think you ever need to go to the hostile Shelled School location, because there are other, better choices. If I recall correctly it's a pretty dangerous location and most of the things you have to steal.
You can just bring a Hatchet if you need a weapon: higher damage, which makes it safer, and you can also chop some furniture if you need it.
If you want a Shovel, by all means, but it costs almost 4 inventory slots. I haven't used one for 6 playthroughs.

Good point with Garage, it's pretty awesome too. All kinds of parts and tools, even food. I go there sometimes to get my last 1 or 2 Electric Parts for certain equipment.

[Sir_Blaze]

starving only makes you slow if you have any other Debuff on your characters so if your scavenger is just starving then he'll move at normal speed but with starving and bad sleep or starving and slightly wounded/ill then it slows you down dramatically ( i do it all the time )

i've also not noticed a mood penalty to be honest but the reason for going to well fed is more for the instant mood rise you get and the bonus to healing that you get. and the mood bonus tends to be a substantial one. which makes it easier to keep your peeps happier even with doing dodgy evil nasty things hence i go to well fed. i usually go from starving to well fed and get a content for all my guys when i do it this way ( also my reason for going so long without food isn't because i struggle to find it but it frees up bag slots for longer so i can get more built including upgraded oven to use less ingreedients such as firewood and water than strugglnig for food then i can go on the 7th night to m high food location grabe it all and bring it back cook it all that morning feed up and then make sure any remaining food is cooked up and left on the stove to prevent food theft)

as for easily stacking in the supermarket if its the 3 scavs i usually have an easier time of gathering all loot to 1 place but then they do take a reasonable amount of it with them and they also clear the rubble for you . with the soldier with the 4 tiers and the back area even with a shovel i strugle unless i'm using pavlov to do it and still usually have to finish a few spots on a 2nd visit so i have absolutely no idea how you do it without using a shovel. ( i do pretty much rush in and kill the guard straight up too no waiting for the girl to scream help. but i think we do slightly different collection methods you i believe stack over time where i tend to stack on the first run see what is there then take home what is needed and it's easy to count what you have and take back in full stacks right from the get go rather than perhps taking home only 3 electrical because you dodn't condense all the loot on the first run to find out there was actually 4 electrical and so you've wasted 2 slots over 2 runs for something that would normally only take the 1 slot

as for the shelled school i was thinking just the passive school forgot about the agro school but it still has 2 rock piles that takes an age to clear without a shovel like most of the night so have no idea how you'd clear that to the 1 spot in a singular run. in the hostile shelled school i've only had it show up once so far so don't know a lot about it but if it's anything like the passive school there's only 2 private containers in it the veg and the 2 bums loot, but i was under the impression that hostile areas once cleared all loot went to 0 owners

i'm not sure how you get 4 inventory slots with a shovel though it takes the same room as a hatchet and you can leave tools at locations and get them on a 2nd run, my typical method is go in with a faster person first and then the bigger backpack on the 2nd run so first run is go in all the tools on the fast guy and clear as much as possible and bring it all to 1 storage area take what i need and if i have room bring back as many tools as possible if not leave the tools there and bring them back gradually. and as each location has its own standard amount of grates taking saws is easy as is lockpick/ crow bar on specific runs.

oh and just for a last bit of info i only take the shovel on the first run and then bring it back on the best possible run for me. the hatchet you only take to some areas due to the lack of desks and cupboards in others, but some places also have respawning draws so you take the axe 1 time leave it there for your visits and chop the respawn each time you go back

[MarQan]

Food:
I've tried Starving to see how it is, and cause I was forced to: that Marin+Arica+Katia+Misha scenario is pretty tough.
Since I wanted to test this fairly I restarted until the kid got the Severely Ill, so my adults won't get slowed down: it works, and it isn't as bad as I imagined, however..

Considering everything I don't see why you would use it though, especially if you're going for Well-fed right after:
1. No need to delay the lvl 1 Stove, because at day 5 your critical constructions are delayed by Electric or Mechanical Parts, and not Components or Wood.
2. You don't need to get well-fed, unless you crushed their Mood by something.
3. Well-fed is the least efficient way of eating: costing 1 Cooked Meal/Canned Food for only 1 day, while eating at Very Hungry 2nd day gives you 3.
4. Also if you go for Well-fed all the food, Water and Fuel you saved by delaying until Day 7 gets wasted.
5. You can get a Stove and enough food by Day 5.

I get it that you used it and it worked, but I don't see a worthwhile reason to delay it past Day 5.
If you can tell me a certain Scenario or setting in Write your own story where this is necessary or very helpful, I'd gladly try it out.

+1: If a kid goes to sleep with Starving, then one of your adults will feed them during the night of Day 6, so it's impossible to delay that long.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that you can gather everything in 1 visit into 1 container.
I only meant that you can gather enough useful items on the 1st visit, and return home with a full inventory of useful items and complete stacks (2 Wood, 4 Components, 10 Sugar).
Both in Supermarket and Shelled School I need 2 visits to hoard everything into 1 pile.

Supermarket:
3-scavenger scenario is a b*tch, I just grab the valuable and rare items from the basement, then run out. There's no location I hate more.
In the Girl in peril scenario I gather up the items left of the door that separates me from the soldier while he's talking. My inventory is full, everything else goes in the pile closest to the door. Then after he kicks the girl, I sneak-backstab him. After he's dead I gather everything in the shopping cart right of the ladder that leads to the basement. Except the stuff blocked by the rubble: I leave that for 2nd visit and clear it by hand. I usually bring the Hatchet here I used to chop the furniture at the Shelter, so it goes down to 1 use: 5 at Shelter, 4 at Supermarket.
On 2nd visit I easily have enough time to haul everything down to the basement's locked container to hide it for roleplay purposes.
If you clear it with a Shovel on day 1 you probably end up gathering less items into a pile.

Shelled School:
The passive scenario only has 1 Rubble you have to clear on the top floor (not roof).
If you have a Saw on first visit it's really easy to gather lots of stuff and get out in time.
I need 2 visits there to gather everything into 1 container.
I don't remember the aggro layout exactly: as I said I try avoid it as much as possible.
Gonna check it next time I get it though.

Shovel:
I was talking about the building cost here: 4 Wood, 6-7 Components, which is ~3,5 inventory slots. Plus if you want to bring it back, then it's a 5th. Pretty high opportunity cost.
Only 3 places to consider using a Shovel:
1. Hostile St. Mary's Church: you should use it, lots of Rubble.
2. Neutral Small Apartment Building: might be worth, but if you're going to steal, you might as well just kill the son and go around.
3. Hostile Shelled School: I have no idea about this, gonna check it out.

[Sir_Blaze]

oh i agree well fed is pretty ordinary for the consumption to time frame ratio but i don't use well fed for the spare time and after 15 days for me food is rarely a problem either, i do it mostly for the content buff ( i tend to do a bit of theft like from the school at the start i'll steal the veg and jewelry from the beggers, i steal from the hospital and a few of the locations even though they have hostiles come with owned loot that i steal so keeping my peeps well fed on occasion helps offset all my criminal activities and it works substantially. but even if you don't use it to well fed like i do it is an extra 2 days you can go on the first run that doesn't change the only thing that does change is i feed to wellfed for the mood bonus you don't in all other respects it's the exact same method it just gives me that extra 2 days of leeway incase something goes wrong or different than expected. I generally expect and plan for disaster so that i'm far better off if it doesn't happen.

also if i have ill/wounded peeps i'm more likely to keep them wellfed for the healing bonus they get overnight.

another reason to delay is for most scenario's if you build and feed on day 5 you've only got 1 franko visit under your belt but by waiting till day 6/7 you usually have 2 visits so possibly more electrical and mechanical parts, also i believe extra locations usually open up on day 5 so if it's a place you know you can get those sorts of parts it helps with the extra bag space for longer.

I can hoard majority of the school and supermarket into 1 container in 1 visit with a shovel depending on whom i have available but without one i don't even get 1/2 so still not sure what you're doing different unless you're using pavlo. it also depends on whats in the containers i've done it a few times in 1 visit only too but not that often usually with marko or pavlo.

I don't have kids so i'm not sure on that one and i haven't played the game since DLC as been waiting for the bugs all to get fixed.

if you're talking about the hatchet costs they are very similar to the shovel with the 3-5 slots needed and require an upgraded tool bench to boot, as well as weapon parts being a lot more limited to get so a hatchet is more expensive and the hatchet is only really worth taking to a few locations more locations have rubble and it takes 40 mins to clear by shovel and 2 hours to clear by hand so your run with the clearing by hand will always be preasured to finish in time if you plan on an all containers compacted into 1 to get a clear idea of what you have.

[MarQan]

Yeah, I get your point with feeding then: I played my last 5-6 scenarios without stealing from civilians, so I don't have to deal with that. At worst I get Sad with Marko/Boris if they kill too many bandits at once, but nothing too serious.
I still wouldn't use that as a tactic, although I had to use it out of necessity in my last game.
That's 1 occasion out of the 9 scenarios I've completed in the past 2 weeks.

When I talked about scavenging I've had an average team in mind: Roman/Arica/Emilia for killing and Katia or Zlata for scavenging, so noone special really.

A rubble is 2 hours without a Shovel and about 20 mins with it. Gives you 100 mins on your first visit, which will definitely be wasted on the 2nd (in case of Supermarket and Shelled School).
You sacrifice 5 inventory slots for 100 minutes that you can't even use effectively on most locations. It is not a good investment.

Hatchet is worth to bring and build, because it has more damage than the Shovel and gives you the ability to chop furniture, which is impossible without it. There are also several locations where you can 100 to 0 a Hatchet, saving you thet trip back, while giving you lots of Fuel and Wood (Warehouse and hostile St. Mary's Church for example).
No such location for the Shovel.
Then there's the added bonus for your first Hatchet: 5 furniture to chop in your shelter.

Although as I've found you can't always rush the Hatchet... I'm gonna edit my 1st comment (it's a miracle if people even read that).

[Sir_Blaze]

oh don't get me wrong i do make the hatchet but the shovel is a decent weapon as well and again i prefer to have some leeway time when scavaging and that 5 slots is only if i use the shovel at 1 location only, since i tend to use the shovel in multiple locations the cost diminishes ( i think i've found only 4-5 locations that don't have at least 1 rubble out of 21 possible ones) , i've found the shovel good enough to take out the soldier in the supermarket in everyone but Cveta's and Antons hands, as they're the worst at combat. and the shovel also makes for a weapon at home when guarding when you haven't taken it with you just like the hatchet is. I've found the squat i think it is a good place to take or even leave the hatchet as it has 2 spy-glass areas and i've found that they respawn on every visit .... unlimited wood. though i do tend to use franko for most of my wood needs rather than scavenger locations mainly because of the limit of 2 wood per slot.

Roman i generally leave at home as a guard at all times unless everyones too sick/injured to go out as he counts as 2 guards when on that duty. though on the sick or injured part i will take sick injured to the hospital as its a garunteed heal the next day rather than bandages meds being a possible heal.

as for the shovel times it's 2 hours by hand and 25 mins by shovel when scavaging .4 to being 40 for some silly reason my bad, and at home it's 4 hrs by hand and 48 mins by shovel i took not that i really use a shovel at home.

as for your sad with marko/boris when killing Well fed does eases that a lot, though i personally use boris as a pack mule he's too slow for combat and clearing a location so he's my 2nd triper.

Pavlo makes a good scav especially sniper run and his speed does make it possible to clear school and supermarket to 1 container in 1 run real possible when armed with a shovel.
i didn't think emilias combat was anything to take home about though arica and the police officer are decent killers

[MarQan]

Your only valid argument for the Shovel so far is "but I like it".
I can live with that, use it if you want, but that doesn't make it useful or effective in general, and nothing you said so far does either.

[Flavvy]

Interesting points, guys! It made for a bit of interesting reading about the game. Thanks for keeping this discussion going.

[Cetoiscini]

My build order is the exact same as OP, except I don't build a second rain collector. (you can harvest 12 water everyday with only 1 collector assuming you have enough components for filters, and because you don't use water for anything except cooking in the early game, you will have about 100 water by the time you can afford a vegetable garden.) Plus I build the guitar as soon as I find a broken guitar, simply because I don't like the music in the radio :/

As for scavenging, only grab what you will immediately need the next day. Which means grab food only if your people have to eat; grab trading items only if Franko is going to come (often every 3 days); etc. Otherwise, fill your backpack with materials and parts. Don't waste your slots taking things you don't need.

I find eating every odd days starting from day 3 is the most effective way of feeding. When survivors get very hungry, they complain in their bio, and it seems everything in the bio (except story parts) affects morale, one way or another. No reason to delay a day when it harms
morale. And keeping people well fed everyday is totally unnecessary. Doing good deeds is enough to boost mood.

Don't build a knife, a hatchet deals more damage and it can also be used to chop furnitures. Don't build lockpicks either, they cost parts, are single use, and can't be used as a weapon. Also don't build a shovel unless you're playing solo/the Construction Site (with snipers) or the Church (with bandits) appear on the map. With 3 people (including kids) or more, you can clear your shelter on the first day without a shovel, and the 2-man scenarios are really difficult already, don't waste your materials. At night, time only matters if you are in a hostile location, and rubble piles only appear in those two places I mentioned. When you are safe, time isn't important, inventory slots are.

When trading, prioritize materials and parts, they are cheap yet essential. Never trade for food, they are too expensive. Plus with 2 traps and a garden you can self-produce your food as long as you have water and fuel. Which can be made from components and wood, which are materials.

[kaganpunchwood]

Some thoughts

- the hatchet has huge value as you can get all that wood from the shelter, but if you have the garage scenario, take a med and trade for the hatchet and hacksaws needed, that way no need to build the advanced metal workshop until late. Garage you can drop the med when you get there then use what you find in the outside piles to trade for 1 hacksaw, then use that to get to the back. With the stuff you pick up from the back (assuming no stealing) plus the med you took, you can get the hatchet plus a few other things before you leave (he usually has at least one more hacksaw)

- the hatchet is my weapon of choice anyway, but I make a knife to leave at home as it adds to the defensive points of the house (knife being counted as a weapon while hatchet a tool)

- if you get sniper junction, do it asap even without hacksaws as you can pick up some meds there, plus the 5 gems from the guy which makes your trading game strong from the outset, then if you can get just 1 more hacksaw, do the second trip with that. Lots of value in sniper junction.

- with a strong trading game, I take the tobacco leaves from Franko early and build a cig making machine early. This also allows you to use the bottle of alcohol from the decrepit squat to make a herbal med, vs trading it by itself. For me, the cig machine comes before the water collector if I can getting tobacco leaves on top of the components and wood needed