advice for a bad player?

[Andyman0018]

hey all, so ive got about 70 hours in and frankly, i play like ♥♥♥♥♥, main issues im having is fighting off hordes (mainly base attacks) and stam management seems to be an issue aswell, if anybody could offer maybe a bit of advice or some insight to what im doing wrong? seems my ai are kinda, well. useless in combat even though they have max combat skills, maybe im just bad in general?
edit: this is in lethal difficulty, shoulda specified

[Protectron]

Stamina management:

* Be light encumbered whenever you have to be prepared to fight. This halves stamina usage.
* The stamina usage of the melee weapon is a significant factor. It's called Ease of use and the more there is of it the less stamina each swing uses.
* Stamina regeneration is significantly boosted when you crouch. Try to get away from the zombies a few meters and crouch. Be patient and time your swing for when it's halfway through its attack, so that you maximize the time you get to regen stamina.
* As your characters level up Cardio, they gain more stamina. Backpacking gives a nice hard boost to max stamina, while Powerhouse gives a bonus to Ease of Use. In practice, they are not that far apart when it comes to usefulness in a fight (depending on how much you dodge and run).
* Other ways to boost max Stamina is to build a Shooting Range, make a Feast in an upgraded Kitchen (with a Nutritionist), have a maxed-out Plumber 5th skill, and the Hero Bonus called Lights Out which provides another +15. Some Enclaves may also boost Stamina.
* Get a Cook and a Chemist to produce Energy Drinks. It drastically increases stamina regen for 30 seconds. There is also a more powerful type of stamina consumable; the Bottle of Stimulants, but I have found no way of producing them so they are rare and non-replenishable.

Base defense

* Give your NPC crew the biggest, loudest, most powerful guns you can find. They have unlimited ammo in their pockets and don't use yours, and their gunshots do not spawn zombies (although they may attract nearby zombies).
* Do not give them crossbows, bolt/lever-action rifles, hand-fed shotguns, revolvers and non-.44 pistols if you can help it. Also avoid grenade launchers of course. They are more likely to become liabilities than helpful with these.
* The best options are .50 rifles like the Timberwolf, B50FG. The weakness of these is the low fire rate, so they are weak against large hordes of zombies so beware of them getting stunlocked in a corner trying to reload.
* Almost as good as .50 rifles against Juggernauts, which are the greatest threats, are full-auto-only guns (as in guns with no select fire). They are much better than .50 guns at letting NPCs deal with large number of zombies, and with Brakes on them, are almost on par with the Timberwolf at dealing with Juggernauts. Below follows a full list of these.

Shotguns:

AA-12
RTX Cyclone
R12 Import

Assault pistols:

Dillinger Pattern 1911
G18 Custom Auto
RTX Rampart
Raider's Uzi 22

SMGs:

M3 Grease Gun
MP40 Submachine Gun

Assault Rifles:

M1918 BAR
Barrow-Style BAR
FBI Fighting Rifle
Non-compliant SKS
Raider's AR15
Raider's AK47

[Andyman0018]

Originally posted by Protectron:

Stamina management:

* Be light encumbered whenever you have to be prepared to fight. This halves stamina usage.
* The stamina usage of the melee weapon is a significant factor. It's called Ease of use and the more there is of it the less stamina each swing uses.
* Stamina regeneration is significantly boosted when you crouch. Try to get away from the zombies a few meters and crouch. Be patient and time your swing for when it's halfway through its attack, so that you maximize the time you get to regen stamina.
* As your characters level up Cardio, they gain more stamina. Backpacking gives a nice hard boost to max stamina, while Powerhouse gives a bonus to Ease of Use. In practice, they are not that far apart when it comes to usefulness in a fight (depending on how much you dodge and run).
* Other ways to boost max Stamina is to build a Shooting Range, make a Feast in an upgraded Kitchen (with a Nutritionist), have a maxed-out Plumber 5th skill, and the Hero Bonus called Lights Out which provides another +15. Some Enclaves may also boost Stamina.
* Get a Cook and a Chemist to produce Energy Drinks. It drastically increases stamina regen for 30 seconds. There is also a more powerful type of stamina consumable; the Bottle of Stimulants, but I have found no way of producing them so they are rare and non-replenishable.

this is a huge help! i appreciate you taking the time to write a paragraph on stam management, im going to try to put this to use and see if it makes a difference :D <3

[Kirshak]

I personally use the follower as an extra backpack, and fire support since they have infinite ammo. Before I go out, I usually give the AI follower a good gun with high capacity. Sadly the game make them shoot in burst even with rifles that can go fully automatic.

[Dragon_Dude1]

learn stealth, the zoms cones of vision and how to block line of sight to lose a tail (except blood ferals, they are like homing missiles) stealth will make you infinitely better, but if stealth isn't your forte, learn to pick zoms off one at a time i.e when they fall down after a lunge/dodge around them, execute them. Most of the time if you play it right, you can stealth kill small hordes if they are spread out enough. DROPKICK FERALS it gives an instant stun, which gives a short window to use the execute button to kill them instantly (don't try against a feral horde, u will certainly die unless you time everything right) and stay away from juggs in general, they cost a lot of resources if not properly dealt with and give little to no reward except influence, high risk low reward. Stamina can easily managed with a shooting range for extra stamina, and a gardener (utilities will help) to grow food, and that food can be turned into snacks which refill your stamina bar to full, or craft energy drinks

[Andyman0018]

Originally posted by Dragon_Dude1:

learn stealth, the zoms cones of vision and how to block line of sight to lose a tail (except blood ferals, they are like homing missiles) stealth will make you infinitely better, but if stealth isn't your forte, learn to pick zoms off one at a time i.e when they fall down after a lunge/dodge around them, execute them. Most of the time if you play it right, you can stealth kill small hordes if they are spread out enough. DROPKICK FERALS it gives an instant stun, which gives a short window to use the execute button to kill them instantly (don't try against a feral horde, u will certainly die unless you time everything right) and stay away from juggs in general, they cost a lot of resources if not properly dealt with and give little to no reward except influence, high risk low reward. Stamina can easily managed with a shooting range for extra stamina, and a gardener (utilities will help) to grow food, and that food can be turned into snacks which refill your stamina bar to full, or craft energy drinks

i loathe blood ferals right now lol, how would you cut los? just kind of dodge into a building and go out another way quietly? the woods? not sure how id go about that.

[Sigi_Reuven [CH]]

Blood ferals can be a death guarantee, especially packs of 3 spawning at a plague heart.

I do them like this:
- 1 feral can be killed in melee. take a 1h bladed + stam reg, hit him 3 times and press the evade button, this with a step backwards if done correctly and you will dodge his attacks. Repeat this until the feral is dead
- lure them at you, stand on top of your car and give them a few headshots. the "Gunslinger" skill in shooting helps alot
- let them chase you in your car, slow down and when they are close drive backwards. Usually 1-2, of this 3 horde pack, are dead because they jump into you or are too late to evade your car.

Fighting hordes isn´t that difficult and you can simply run them down with your car, but do it backwards. As long as you hit them with your trunk, your car don´t take any dmg. Even a juggernaut can be killed like this, but it takes a few attempts because they have more hp than regular zeds.
Park your car in front of an object, that the zeds can´t climb and hit your engine, that increases the lifespan of your car :-)

Avoid hostile enclaves...on lethal they are super-humans and kills you pretty fast. It needs alot of preparation to deal with human enemies.


There is also a Youtuber with a SOD 2 beginner guide and with the current Patch 33:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQZgq2LOgR8&list=PLS6oKYrRmu0Aa0g-bl43BYXuVUA-Uaefv


Last resort can be done with "Alt + F4" and a cheap tactic is, to go back to main menu and reload your community, that despawns most of the zeds around you for a while.

[ArathoriaTTV]

70 hours in and your on lethal difficulty. not suprised at all that your getting destroyed

[Glip Glop]

You can avoid attacks on your base by building outposts & putting landmines on the outpost screen, which destroys literally every zombie (even just randoms) that pass by. Or just leave town for another once you update your command center to level 2, if you don't have the extra ammo for it. Personally, I recommend you to just level up your characters so they turn into a bunch of walking supermen (they have much more stamina, plus have stronger attacks) & collect resources. Put them in a car (they never deplete) and once you checked almost every building, just leave for another town. You'll have so much surplus you can easily kill every plague heart by just spamming pipe bombs from your workshop (around 9-10 kills them on Lethal if I remember correctly)

Also, always check out merchants because some of them sell biochem station add-ons for the medical building. It makes every zombie fight a walk in the park, because you can craft chems that turn your character invisible to zombies for about 5 minutes. (they'll still hear you) This also allows you to clean up plague hearts very easily, even with the ferals around.

For a last resort, just level your characters in heavy weapons. Some guys / girls can unlock an insta-kill attack skill which, again, can make the game very easy.

If you don't take the game too seriously, just alt + F4 if you get into a bad situation. It resets every zombie in the area.

[SSG Anhor]

Originally posted by Allah Gold:

For a last resort, just level your characters in heavy weapons. Some guys / girls can unlock an insta-kill attack skill which, again, can make the game very easy.

Not a fan off. I prefer swords and machetes. Some of your "guys" learn sword art ...... than a horde with 6 or 8 zeds are gone in seconds.
Heavy meeles consuming to much power and they are f........ slow.
My opinion after arround 1800 hours of gameplay.

[The Elder Glock]

Get a hang of a grab and throw technique cause you can deal with hordes of zombies without caring much about stamina using knife finishers. Also I find it hilarious how easy it is to deal with hordes having maxed out powerhouse and throwing zombies on nearby fences, trash bins, doors or even your own car.