Fast tips and tricks (+ Achievement tips)

Things I wish I knew early. List of best skills, heroes, loot and such.

General Tips

Supply locker
Has limited capacity of 225 slots. Don't put any low durability melee weapons in it or you will have to eventually clean your locker from them.

Inventory
Always have 2 food, 2 medicine with you.
Food increases stamina regeneration so when fighting zombies you never have to hold back.
Medicine will help you when they inevitably grapple-lock you anyway.

Scavenging
When scavenging consider to leave this items as they either don't do anything useful enough or are not good enough.

Melee weapons with durability lower than 4

Anything that is used to distract zombies.

Stimulants.

Non-incendiary shotguns (shotguns are really bad).





To gain extra rucksack of supplies call scavenging run before picking up last resource from the location. You don't have to wait or help the scavenger in any way (unless the NPC is swarmed by zombies, you can prevent that by going far enough from the location since zombies only spawn around your character). NPC will loot the empty location and bring rucksack home.

Resources
You can go over stockpile limit. It only means you get less of that resource from rucksacks. Like instead of 8 food you will gain 5.

Your home site uses resources daily. By daily it doesn't mean in-game time but real-time. You wont lose/gain resources for more than one day if you wont play for several days. (In theory you can fast forward a few things by changing the date on your computer. Day passes, events happen. I haven't tried and I know it works on xbox)

Food and medicine are very common.
Fuel is least necessary.
Ammo and building materials are a priority.

Best Skill
If you find someone with full shooting skill just pick focus aim for always easy win in any situation if you have accurate fast firing weapon, ammo and stamina. Solves all combat problems. Best heroes are the ones with full shooting skill because of that.

Zombie spawn mechanic
I found that best way to beat bunch of zombies is not to have to fight them at all. For that you have to fight the spawning mechanic itself. By going far enough from the location zombies de-spawn and spawn elsewhere. This is necessary when trying to make Snyder Trucking Warehouse your home site, don't try killing all zombies in the location as they will respawn around faster than you can clear it out. Get in a car, go far enough and come back, repeat until it is clear. This will refresh infestations and hordes instead of making them go away.

Weapon attributes





















Feral
Dealing with ferals can be annoying, but imagine how your focus aim can be annoying for the zombies.











Melee

1. stay at such distance for it to be able to pounce on you
   
2. don't move and wait for it to enter pounce animation
   
3. roll out of the way
   
4. once it misses it will be stunned

Vehicle

1. position drivers door towards the feral and don't move
   
2. wait for it to try and pounce on the door
   
3. open the door when it is in mid-air
   
4. if it didn't work you still can just slam it a few times with the door or run it into something

Big Un

There is really no trick to those. Just don't waste cars on them, you can kill it with a car but it will destroy the car. Shoot head to kill. Shoot everything else to stun.

State of decay + State of decay breakdown

Outposts
To set up an outpost that provides resources daily there must be at least one of that resource inside any of the location container before setting up. Check the map or mini-map for appropriate resource icon once you have searched the location. Once you set up the outpost you can pick up that resource from the container.

Marshall city home site
If you choose to live in one of those home sites always set up an outpost in abandoned building across the river in order to not get any missions there. Otherwise survivors that are waiting for you there will get swarmed by zombies once you try to help them.

Missions
Non story missions have time limit. If you start a mission the other missions will never time out while you are on a mission.

All missions where survivor is following you you are not timed in anyway. So you can use them to help you loot locations, bring supplies home, build outposts. Use this when you start getting bombarded by missions while you need resources.

Scavenger missions are the most dangerous ones. Have a car near and before doing it empty all containers in the location. This way the NPC will scavenge faster and less zombies will spawn.

Breakdown Next difficulty level extra influence from the start



When you move to the next difficulty level everything in your selected character inventory and supply locker will remain, everything else resets. Before moving, pick up the most expensive items from the supply locker, once you move put them back.

Infinite supplies















If for whatever reason you decide to loot the whole map and there is no supplies left, try using radio room. Lily will "find" you more and by find I mean spawn more.

Lifeline

Threat level
The Threat level consists of a 32 minute countdown. At 6 minutes before the siege it increases to level 2 and at 3 minutes before the siege to level 3. Once it is level 3 you have 3 minutes to go back to defend the base. (In theory, the siege mission can't start while you are on a mission. It will go to level 3 and the siege mission will be on hold until you complete your active mission. I haven't tried but it could work)








Siege defence
Give NPCs grenade launchers and incendiary shotguns. NPC with a grenade launcher can hold one side on its own.

Achievements

Sasquatch Hunts




On the last hunt you will have to kill a juggernaut by using melee weapon. The problem is NPCs are really dumb and there is nothing you can do about it. Sasquatch will try to melee it and very likely die. To prevent that from happening get yourself assault rifle and shoot the juggernaut in the belly. This will stun the juggernaut and allow you to melee it. (If Sasquatch kills it with melee he will call you dumb for not doing what he said and you will have to search for another one)



The killer challenge









To trigger the mission you must have the following conditions.

• No infirmary build
  
• No medicine in stockpile
  
• You must have sick person who is not your friend.
  
• There must be no more than one mission related to your home site survivors active.

To lose trust try running them over with a car when they are with you on a mission. Don't help them fight zombies Unless they are about to die. If you see a message appear "trust gained" after a fight just try running them over again with a car. Don't worry you can't hurt them, just their feelings.

To make them sick find a bloater and let them melee it by standing somewhere near. Then guide them as much as possible in the gas cloud. Don't worry they can't die from it.

Get as many survivors sick as possible. The sick person must be not a friend, you can check that in survivor status tab.

Complete all missions related to your home site, close your game and wait a day.

Kill.

[Orome]

@GermanMGTOW Try verifying integrity of your files. If that doesn't work either start over or reinstall the game or both. If that doesn't work it might be system related.

[GermanMGTOW]

So..I started lifeline and on the way to the military location the game just instantly closes on me, if I am in a car it closes even a few seconds earlier...wtf is the problem here, can someone tell me?

[pascalbeechey]

Awesome thnks!

[TheCeltman]

Was able to get 100% with help from this guide. Thanks!

[Resonce]

But man, many thanks for this comprehensive guide!

[Resonce]

"If Sasquatch kills it with melee he will call you dumb for not doing what he said"
10/10 will play this game again ROFL

[WillieSea]

Feral and vehicles. Drive slowly, and let the feral come in behind you. Keep driving slow and it will smash its brains on your back bumper. If it jumps and falls on the ground instead, just reverse and back over it. Splat either way.

[Cryogenius333]

For "Mercy Shot" I just waited until Alan got sick, because hes supposed to get sick per the games "canon", as it were. Then took him out back and....dropkicked his head off. I tried to shoot him...it was accidental, comical, and kinda morbid, but effective...and a lot quieter than using a gun.

I found the best melee weapon in the game, in my opinion, was the nail puller. Probably the sturdiest blunt weapon, fast, light, and EXTREMELY durable, and does a lot of damage.

And shotguns do suck. they spread a lot of damage out, but they rarely take heads...just drop a lot of zombies to their knees. and they take a stupid amount of time to reload. a decent automatic weapon will serve you better.

[LittlePanda]

For skills, I like finding someone with reflexes, and getting sweep kick to knock all the zombies down. A heavy weapon makes finishing them off quicker. Doesn't help with freaks though, but at lease this doesn't require bullets like focus aim does. Great guide though! Thanks for doing this!