I'd like to thank this community.

[stomper51]

As the title says I 'd like to thank you all for being helpful and giving me great tips on how to survive better. I've just lost one survivor but It was probably a stupid mistake, I went to get a cleo drop and a juggernaut was there so I started shooting him and three ferals turned up. I only have 600 influence left but 3 survivors still. no car near my base so I'm stumped on what to do.

Anyways thank you everyone, you've been a great help. I think I'm probably on day 4 or 5 and about 7 plague hearts down.

[miikhei]

Originally posted by stomper51:

I've just lost one survivor but It was probably a stupid mistake, I went to get a cleo drop and a juggernaut was there so I started shooting him and three ferals turned up. I only have 600 influence left but 3 survivors still. no car near my base so I'm stumped on what to do.

Anyways thank you everyone, you've been a great help. I think I'm probably on day 4 or 5 and about 7 plague hearts down.

Take your best runner and give them a lightweight packback and gear, like a silenced pistol or light crossbow and bolts, plus some gas and a repair kit. Go on foot to the nearest car, avoiding trouble on the way. Doesn't matter what the car is like, you can switch to a different one later. If you haven't spotted any, climb some cell towers and look around.

When you get back to the cleo drop, don't bother killing the jugg. Just lead him away from the drop with your car, then get away from him and circle back to the drop. You may have to kill the ferals first, though: roof of car and headshots with a suppressed pistol is the easy method. Just don't do it near the jugg, or he'll mess up your car.

[Protectron]

The reason you find it hard right now is that encountering Feral trios on day 4, with only 3 survivors left and no cars means that you have escalated the difficulty quicker than your community has increased in firepower and Stamina/health.

So there are two solutions to this for the next run:

A) recruit more survivors quicker, train them quicker and find better gear quicker
B) don't start attacking Plague Hearts before your community is ready for the difficulty increase (i.e. slow down the rise in difficulty)

Edit: also, don't fight Juggernauts. They are not worth 60+ bullets or the risk to kill. Lure them away, take them with the rear of the car, or ignore them/go somewhere else.

[WarBucks]

Definetly agree with a b and C there.

Focus on getting the next mid tier base you want clear of a fewq plague hearts. and the amount of people to move in.

Its tempting to try to focus on getting the biggest base first and bypass the mid game base. But in fact waiting offers no real benefit in efficency.

The 1000 influence cost early game to get into a 4 or 5 person base, in the long run isnt a useful thing. The starting areas are quickly clear out and you end up driving a lot back and forth wasting time and fuel.

[stomper51]

Originally posted by Protectron:

The reason you find it hard right now is that encountering Feral trios on day 4, with only 3 survivors left and no cars means that you have escalated the difficulty quicker than your community has increased in firepower and Stamina/health.

So there are two solutions to this for the next run:

A) recruit more survivors quicker, train them quicker and find better gear quicker
B) don't start attacking Plague Hearts before your community is ready for the difficulty increase (i.e. slow down the rise in difficulty)

Edit: also, don't fight Juggernauts. They are not worth 60+ bullets or the risk to kill. Lure them away, take them with the rear of the car, or ignore them/go somewhere else.

I think watching Jay Talbot may be the reason for taking out hearts too quickly, I watch his videos where he rushes and takes out so many. perhaps I need to slow down and think. It's just that I feel like destroying hearts is the best way to get some good loot, but maybe I'm not making use of the enclaves or traders around me.

at the current moment I have about 9 molotovs and 3 or 4 fuel bombs. A selection of pistols and only a couple of automatics.

My outposts are level 2 meds, level 2 food, and cell tower. I also find it very hard to manage doing all these things while trying to also recruit members to get a new base. one of the members I lost was one of my original computer people too, ugh that sucks.

Just to be clear the car I had got taken out by that jugg. it has lichenology in it that I got from a rare skills trader.

[stomper51]

Originally posted by WarBucks:

Definetly agree with a b and C there.

Focus on getting the next mid tier base you want clear of a fewq plague hearts. and the amount of people to move in.

Its tempting to try to focus on getting the biggest base first and bypass the mid game base. But in fact waiting offers no real benefit in efficency.

The 1000 influence cost early game to get into a 4 or 5 person base, in the long run isnt a useful thing. The starting areas are quickly clear out and you end up driving a lot back and forth wasting time and fuel.

Hey War Bucks I would like your opinion on what I should do please, So I lucked out and got 3 extra survivors from the escapees thing which puts me up to 6. I've moved into the chruch on the hill and have infirmary level 2 and workshop level 2.

I can either build a solar array or a farm, I already have a level 2 food outpost so I don't know if I would need a farm. base wide power from the array seems good and would possibly allow me to craft more things in the workshop.

I'm 6 days in and It's going alright. Also got some decent weaponry going with silencers as well so that helps for the ferals.

[The Elder Glock]

Originally posted by stomper51:

Originally posted by WarBucks:

Definetly agree with a b and C there.

Focus on getting the next mid tier base you want clear of a fewq plague hearts. and the amount of people to move in.

Its tempting to try to focus on getting the biggest base first and bypass the mid game base. But in fact waiting offers no real benefit in efficency.

The 1000 influence cost early game to get into a 4 or 5 person base, in the long run isnt a useful thing. The starting areas are quickly clear out and you end up driving a lot back and forth wasting time and fuel.

Hey War Bucks I would like your opinion on what I should do please, So I lucked out and got 3 extra survivors from the escapees thing which puts me up to 6. I've moved into the chruch on the hill and have infirmary level 2 and workshop level 2.

I can either build a solar array or a farm, I already have a level 2 food outpost so I don't know if I would need a farm. base wide power from the array seems good and would possibly allow me to craft more things in the workshop.

I'm 6 days in and It's going alright. Also got some decent weaponry going with silencers as well so that helps for the ferals.

Farm is always better. If you have somebody with gardening skills, you can grow meds in the farm too, which is good for healing and for trading meds for influence. Gardening books are pretty common when you search offices, plus you can learn it from level 2 food outpost.

[Protectron]

Originally posted by stomper51:

Originally posted by Protectron:

The reason you find it hard right now is that encountering Feral trios on day 4, with only 3 survivors left and no cars means that you have escalated the difficulty quicker than your community has increased in firepower and Stamina/health.

So there are two solutions to this for the next run:

A) recruit more survivors quicker, train them quicker and find better gear quicker
B) don't start attacking Plague Hearts before your community is ready for the difficulty increase (i.e. slow down the rise in difficulty)

Edit: also, don't fight Juggernauts. They are not worth 60+ bullets or the risk to kill. Lure them away, take them with the rear of the car, or ignore them/go somewhere else.

I think watching Jay Talbot may be the reason for taking out hearts too quickly, I watch his videos where he rushes and takes out so many. perhaps I need to slow down and think. It's just that I feel like destroying hearts is the best way to get some good loot, but maybe I'm not making use of the enclaves or traders around me.

at the current moment I have about 9 molotovs and 3 or 4 fuel bombs. A selection of pistols and only a couple of automatics.

My outposts are level 2 meds, level 2 food, and cell tower. I also find it very hard to manage doing all these things while trying to also recruit members to get a new base. one of the members I lost was one of my original computer people too, ugh that sucks.

Just to be clear the car I had got taken out by that jugg. it has lichenology in it that I got from a rare skills trader.

The Jug is probably gone now, since you have restarted the game. So you can just get hold of a repair kit and a gas can and go and get it or another car.

If you want to kill a Juggernaut, drive a 100 meters or so away from it, so that you have enough space to reach maximum reverse speed with your car. A successful strike will have the Jug stagger and say "unh". You can simply hit it like this 4 or 5 times to kill it. Just beware of its attacks. The double-hand slam attack will damage your car and he is invulnerable while doing it, while the single hand swipe attack leaves it vulnerable. The charge attack also makes it vulnerable. It is more vulnerable from behind for any attack.

Once you strike, immediately drive forward regardless of if the strike was a success or not. Repeat until it's dead and beware of Bloaters, Ferals and other zombies trying to attach to your car. I usually try to clear out Screamers, zombies and Bloaters before dealing with the Jug. The car does not take damage from hitting anything with the rear, but there is a bug that sometimes occur where zombies morph through the trunk and damages the engine.

Never hit anything with the front. On Lethal the car will blow up, from full health, after less than 10 zombies hits the front end.

What difficulty are you on? Even on Dread, 9 molotovs and 5 Fuel Bombs is just enough for 2 Hearts or something. Just stand on top of your car and lob them on the Heart from safety. This is best done with the Impaler or Zedbuster because the zombies can't climb onto the hood. Without them, park the front so that the zombies can't climb onto it. This will help a little.

Use Crossbows until you have enough Parts to sustain gun usage. Same with melee weapons; the best ones are not much better than the common run-of-the-mill melee weapon in the hands of a character who has not got a specialization yet, so you can save some Parts by just using the common ones and replace them with another as needed.

Bring home with you all melee weapons you can find, and save up a bunch. Then get hold of a Salvage Station from the Parts Trader. Install it and salvage all the common melee weapons you won't use, sell or collect. This should net you 2000+ Parts at once if you are patient. As you continue to bring those melee weapons home and save up a bunch for the next time, you are now effectively no longer in a Parts scarcity situation for the rest of the game. You can also salvage common guns this way, as well as excess backpacks and facility mods.

It is important to realize that you are not supposed to help everyone and do every mission that pops up. As long as you are in the community buildup phase, doing regular Enclave missions to get them to Allied status is a worthwhile effort. However, do the first mission for them and then check their 5th skills if you want to recruit any of them. If not, ignore them and they'll leave or become hostile, and in either case you will get a new Enclave coming in shortly.

Other than this, you can ignore all Personal and Legacy missions as they will always pop up again so you can do them later. The Soldiers, Alcoholics, Mechanics and Blood Donors are special enclaves that you should do the first mission to say hello - then cancel the "enclave project" when the next mission pops up. They will then offer to join as a trio a day later. This is the only way to go to 12 survivors, except the Builder Legacy final missions.

As for misc missions, you can safely ignore them. The Mysterious missions are usually worth doing as some of them have great rewards.

[stomper51]

Originally posted by Protectron:

Originally posted by stomper51:

I think watching Jay Talbot may be the reason for taking out hearts too quickly, I watch his videos where he rushes and takes out so many. perhaps I need to slow down and think. It's just that I feel like destroying hearts is the best way to get some good loot, but maybe I'm not making use of the enclaves or traders around me.

at the current moment I have about 9 molotovs and 3 or 4 fuel bombs. A selection of pistols and only a couple of automatics.

My outposts are level 2 meds, level 2 food, and cell tower. I also find it very hard to manage doing all these things while trying to also recruit members to get a new base. one of the members I lost was one of my original computer people too, ugh that sucks.

Just to be clear the car I had got taken out by that jugg. it has lichenology in it that I got from a rare skills trader.

The Jug is probably gone now, since you have restarted the game. So you can just get hold of a repair kit and a gas can and go and get it or another car.

If you want to kill a Juggernaut, drive a 100 meters or so away from it, so that you have enough space to reach maximum reverse speed with your car. A successful strike will have the Jug stagger and say "unh". You can simply hit it like this 4 or 5 times to kill it. Just beware of its attacks. The double-hand slam attack will damage your car and he is invulnerable while doing it, while the single hand swipe attack leaves it vulnerable. The charge attack also makes it vulnerable. It is more vulnerable from behind for any attack.

Once you strike, immediately drive forward regardless of if the strike was a success or not. Repeat until it's dead and beware of Bloaters, Ferals and other zombies trying to attach to your car. I usually try to clear out Screamers, zombies and Bloaters before dealing with the Jug. The car does not take damage from hitting anything with the rear, but there is a bug that sometimes occur where zombies morph through the trunk and damages the engine.

Never hit anything with the front. On Lethal the car will blow up, from full health, after less than 10 zombies hits the front end.

What difficulty are you on? Even on Dread, 9 molotovs and 5 Fuel Bombs is just enough for 2 Hearts or something. Just stand on top of your car and lob them on the Heart from safety. This is best done with the Impaler or Zedbuster because the zombies can't climb onto the hood. Without them, park the front so that the zombies can't climb onto it. This will help a little.

Use Crossbows until you have enough Parts to sustain gun usage. Same with melee weapons; the best ones are not much better than the common run-of-the-mill melee weapon in the hands of a character who has not got a specialization yet, so you can save some Parts by just using the common ones and replace them with another as needed.

Bring home with you all melee weapons you can find, and save up a bunch. Then get hold of a Salvage Station from the Parts Trader. Install it and salvage all the common melee weapons you won't use, sell or collect. This should net you 2000+ Parts at once if you are patient. As you continue to bring those melee weapons home and save up a bunch for the next time, you are now effectively no longer in a Parts scarcity situation for the rest of the game. You can also salvage common guns this way, as well as excess backpacks and facility mods.

It is important to realize that you are not supposed to help everyone and do every mission that pops up. As long as you are in the community buildup phase, doing regular Enclave missions to get them to Allied status is a worthwhile effort. However, do the first mission for them and then check their 5th skills if you want to recruit any of them. If not, ignore them and they'll leave or become hostile, and in either case you will get a new Enclave coming in shortly.

Other than this, you can ignore all Personal and Legacy missions as they will always pop up again so you can do them later. The Soldiers, Alcoholics, Mechanics and Blood Donors are special enclaves that you should do the first mission to say hello - then cancel the "enclave project" when the next mission pops up. They will then offer to join as a trio a day later. This is the only way to go to 12 survivors, except the Builder Legacy final missions.

As for misc missions, you can safely ignore them. The Mysterious missions are usually worth doing as some of them have great rewards.

Thanks for all the knowledge, I didn't know that cancelling certain missions could have them join you. I'm on Nightmare by the way and I'm actually doing pretty okay. I'm on day 7 and about 10 plague hearts down. I've moved too the church on the hill base in Cascade hills. got silencers on my weapons and dealing with ferals has been easier.

I'm currently debating whether or not I should get a farm or a solar array. look back through some of the posts here too see. I got my lichenology thing and put it on one of the three that joined. The Elder Glock says a farm would be better than a solar array, what do you think?

How I take out hearts is with heavy weapons like a sledge hammer, hit it until first phase is done and then throw a molotov or a fuel bomb or grenade, run too the roof of the car if ferals show up. then repeat.

I need to find a way to mass produce something so I can get influence. influence seems to be an issue. I'm not getting a lot but maybe that's because I'm not doing enough missions or producing stuff to sell.

[Protectron]

Originally posted by stomper51:

Thanks for all the knowledge, I didn't know that cancelling certain missions could have them join you. I'm on Nightmare by the way and I'm actually doing pretty okay. I'm on day 7 and about 10 plague hearts down. I've moved too the church on the hill base in Cascade hills. got silencers on my weapons and dealing with ferals has been easier.

I'm currently debating whether or not I should get a farm or a solar array. look back through some of the posts here too see. I got my lichenology thing and put it on one of the three that joined. The Elder Glock says a farm would be better than a solar array, what do you think?

How I take out hearts is with heavy weapons like a sledge hammer, hit it until first phase is done and then throw a molotov or a fuel bomb or grenade, run too the roof of the car if ferals show up. then repeat.

I need to find a way to mass produce something so I can get influence. influence seems to be an issue. I'm not getting a lot but maybe that's because I'm not doing enough missions or producing stuff to sell.

The way you kill the Plague Hearts is one of the good ways. As long as you don't fight the spawned-in zombies, it's all good. Maybe a well-placed Boombox could let you deal more damage in peace.

When you have only the Lichenologist's basic gardening, the best Food/meds production facility is the Hydroponics farm. You then get 7,5 Food per day with a Compost Bin (-1 to activate it for a net 6,5). A Farm lvl 3 costs a lot, takes much longer to build and I think still only yield the same result without Agriculture. However, to build and maintain a Hydroponics you need a Utilities expert, Power and Water. Anyways, if you are running a deficit on Food, you need a Farm more than Power.

To produce trade goods, build a Still 2 and make Beer from Food.

[WarBucks]

The important thing to remember is most of the choices you make about facilities can always be reverted. The cost is fully returned. Outposts you get the materials back but you lose like 1/3 of the influence. It a near non issue, except for very begining game.

If you think the food outpost is good enough awesome, you have a place to deposit rucks now. Thats a positive.

The farm probably gives more food, but can you get by with out it? Most certainly. The key is the options are there and figuring out what matches how you want to play is the most important part. As I said you can always change your mind.

i typically wont even worry about food until i get the second level infirmary, command, and workshops up so i have a couple mats outposts and move around the 3rd slot as needed

[Yosterix]

Originally posted by stomper51:

Thanks for all the knowledge, I didn't know that cancelling certain missions could have them join you. I'm on Nightmare by the way and I'm actually doing pretty okay. I'm on day 7 and about 10 plague hearts down. I've moved too the church on the hill base in Cascade hills. got silencers on my weapons and dealing with ferals has been easier.

I'm currently debating whether or not I should get a farm or a solar array. look back through some of the posts here too see. I got my lichenology thing and put it on one of the three that joined. The Elder Glock says a farm would be better than a solar array, what do you think?

How I take out hearts is with heavy weapons like a sledge hammer, hit it until first phase is done and then throw a molotov or a fuel bomb or grenade, run too the roof of the car if ferals show up. then repeat.

I need to find a way to mass produce something so I can get influence. influence seems to be an issue. I'm not getting a lot but maybe that's because I'm not doing enough missions or producing stuff to sell.

The Church on the Hill is a good place to farm influence, ringing the bell generates a siege, so as long as you think your survivors are sufficiently equipped, ring the bell and have fun.

Personally I use facility mods, an outpost or a built in, if available, for power, until I unlock the Builders boon. Early game not too many facilities need power so just using a mod is sufficient and late game sacrificing an outpost for power is an easier choice than deciding which facility to go without. Due to the changes to how sieges are generated, noise levels are not as much of an issue as they used to be, so if you must, use a small slot to build the regular generator.

I got into the (bad) habit of cheesing hearts with explosives where possible, standing on cars or in other inaccessible spots so zombies can't get to me, and figuring out throwing angles. As such my playstyle tends to be slower, as I gather resources to craft explosives, and being very careful not to wake hearts unnecessarily.

It's been great to see and be a part of all the responses to your questions. I usually just lurk when not busy at work, but it's been so quiet I've had time to contribute. Good luck with the game.

[stomper51]

Originally posted by Yosterix:

Originally posted by stomper51:

Thanks for all the knowledge, I didn't know that cancelling certain missions could have them join you. I'm on Nightmare by the way and I'm actually doing pretty okay. I'm on day 7 and about 10 plague hearts down. I've moved too the church on the hill base in Cascade hills. got silencers on my weapons and dealing with ferals has been easier.

I'm currently debating whether or not I should get a farm or a solar array. look back through some of the posts here too see. I got my lichenology thing and put it on one of the three that joined. The Elder Glock says a farm would be better than a solar array, what do you think?

How I take out hearts is with heavy weapons like a sledge hammer, hit it until first phase is done and then throw a molotov or a fuel bomb or grenade, run too the roof of the car if ferals show up. then repeat.

I need to find a way to mass produce something so I can get influence. influence seems to be an issue. I'm not getting a lot but maybe that's because I'm not doing enough missions or producing stuff to sell.

The Church on the Hill is a good place to farm influence, ringing the bell generates a siege, so as long as you think your survivors are sufficiently equipped, ring the bell and have fun.

Personally I use facility mods, an outpost or a built in, if available, for power, until I unlock the Builders boon. Early game not too many facilities need power so just using a mod is sufficient and late game sacrificing an outpost for power is an easier choice than deciding which facility to go without. Due to the changes to how sieges are generated, noise levels are not as much of an issue as they used to be, so if you must, use a small slot to build the regular generator.

I got into the (bad) habit of cheesing hearts with explosives where possible, standing on cars or in other inaccessible spots so zombies can't get to me, and figuring out throwing angles. As such my playstyle tends to be slower, as I gather resources to craft explosives, and being very careful not to wake hearts unnecessarily.

It's been great to see and be a part of all the responses to your questions. I usually just lurk when not busy at work, but it's been so quiet I've had time to contribute. Good luck with the game.

Thank you, It's been really fun trying to survive in Nightmare difficulty, It's going really well thanks to everyones replies. I'm glad I could entertain from the boredom at work. I usually lurk places as well but recently I've been active in all kinds of discussions.

I've got a farm going so I can convert food to meds if needed for selling and I've got about 5 outposts that being 2 food (one of them level 2), one meds outpost level 2, one fuel outpost and one cell tower. I'm going to go Sheriff for the leader though.

I lost one off my survivors which puts me down to 5 but I've got a few good skills in the locker so that's alright.

anyways yeah thank you for helping me along the way.