The Burchell Arms Regulars/B.A.R Guide
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Burchell Arms Regulars: Survivor Manual v2.1This manual has been written for the use of new BAR recruits so that they can learn essential survivor tactics and useful information. It is probably not too useful for experienced survivors. It is recommended reading, but if you do not want to read it, we won't force you to. After joining the BAR one of the very first things you should do is make an appearance at the BAR forum. Once you have been assigned member status (as a "Regular") you can get to work helping the BAR. Access to the "Office" (private BAR section of the forum) requires a promotion to BAR Employee. Work hard though you'll earn that status sooner or later. This guide is split into several sections for easy reading. Recent changes:
Character Class GuideThis is a general character class guide, following what I think are the best characters to be depending on what you want to achieve. Name, names are important, don't choose one you'll be stuck with for the rest of your UD life! Some clans even make a point of killing characters with stupid names! Once you've chosen your name and password, you are presented with a hard choice... What to be! Well, if you want to be a doctor, choose a Science, both doctor and lab assistant are solid choices. If you want to kick some ass, I recommend that you choose Military and be a Private. Medic is a bad class; if you want to heal, be a Doctor. Scouts take a million years to get experience, so picking a different class would be smart. Don't like the sound of those? Well, you could be a Firefighter or a Cop from the Civilian choices, but stay the hell away from being a Consumer! They suck bad style! According to the wiki, the best starting classes in order (exact order is debatable): 1- Firefighter 2- Cop 3- Private 4- Doctor Whatever class you choose, you'll begin to blend in with the other classes as you level. There are no skills that a particular class cannot take. This means that a max leveled soldier and a max leveled consumer will have all the same skills. They just might go about getting there in a different order, and the skills will cost different amounts of XP. Graphical Interface and Game Functions GuideThis is for people that are entirely new to the game. If you know the basics, you'll want to skip past this part.
This just points out the basic functions of the interface, patronizing but I didn't notice the suburb name for way too long when I first played!
Here we see an example of the right hand side of the screen, with important functions pointed out. Players will appear underneath the "already there graffiti", but my building is deserted. Under the players you will find the "since your last turn" section but since nothing HAS happened since my last turn, nothing is there.
Character ProfileTo access your profile, click on your name in red underneath the map. Here you can join groups, set your description, and look at your skills tree. Once you have clicked your name, look in the bottom left of the screen. There is a button that says edit your profile Click this button and you can set your description and change your group affiliation. The submit changes button works for all three options - survivor description, zombie description, and group. Note that you only get 250 characters to describe yourself. ContactsYour Contacts can be accessed via the View Contacts button underneath the map. Clicking on it will show your contacts. To add someone to your contacts, click on their name and look in the bottom left of their profile - there is a button that says add to contacts. Once added you can change the color your contacts name will appear in. Your contacts list can be used in a variety of ways: specific zombie tracking, Player Killer tracking, Revive Point rotter tracking, and for tracking your group. Immediate Tactics!What to do at Level 1Now you know what everything does, you can do some really important stuff, like spending the 50 action points that you start with! First of all you need, I REPEAT NEED, to find a safehouse! A place to bunk up for the night. Even if you spend all your points finding one, it will be worth it! To find a safehouse, travel across the map diagonally, and in every new square, look for a building that is Very Strongly barricaded (or VSB). If a building is VSB that means that a) you can get into it, and B) there are people in there to help if zombies break in. I recommend that you especially check out police stations, fire stations, and hospitals - these make good starting safehouses for low level characters. Avoid heavily barricaded and extremely heavily barricaded buildings as you cant get into these without freerunning (see skills) However, if you DO find a HB or EHB building, odds are that there is a VS building close by to use as an entry point for freerunners. Once you have a safehouse, use a map, such as: http://map.aypok.co.uk/index.php, or http://dssrzs.org/map/, to find out where you are in the world by looking at your suburb name (above the 3x3 game map). Click on the suburb names to zoom into your suburb and find out where you are to the square, and how far away you are from resource buildings like fire stations and police stations. After that, cross reference that map with this one: http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Suburbs which shows how dangerous your suburb is, and if you click on your suburb on this map you will get current information on the area. (Be warned that the danger levels could be out of date, so make sure you have enough AP to go somewhere else if it turns out the suburb is dangerous.) Neat, huh? Anyway, since you now know where you are, you can start finding useful gear. As a general guide, a gun-using character (the advantage of a Firefighter, he doesn't need ammo) will want to head to a police station, and a healer will want to head to a hospital. If you are a lab assistant, stay near your safehouse and use your DNA extractor to poke zombies, getting you 4exp a pop.
Police Stations are great for finding the following: Pistols, Pistol Clips, Shotguns, Shotgun Shells, Radios, Flack Jackets. Hospitals are good for: First Aid Kits (or FAK's - good stuff) Search TacticsUrban Dead uses a random number-based searching system. When you search for something. The random number generator decides whether you find anything, and determines what it is, depending on where you are searching. You can never run out of items to find. In police stations there is roughly a 7% chance of finding a pistol clip, and in hospitals there is a similar chance for first aid kits. If there is a running generator in your building, then you have a higher chance of finding stuff. The Urban Dead random number generator is, however, an evil beast. These tips may help you tame it: First, don't click like mad. If you click like mad, you won't find jack. It happens. Go Slowly. It helps to do things in-between searching (I like to drop my useless items in-between searching, as that uses no action points). Sometimes you will get a groove and get lots of stuff; other times you will get nothing for 30 action points. Make sure you have enough AP to get back to your safehouse (or if you feel like it, stay at the resource building if it's safe- it could be your new safehouse). What to do with suppliesWell. Hopefully you are now tooled up with lots of clips if you are a military person, or lots of FAK's if you are a doctor. Time to go earn some XP and kick / heal some ass! If you are a combatant, leave your safehouse and find a zombie, then without clicking like mad (remember the evil random number generator), fill it full of lead/axe wounds. Hopefully you killed it, but it doesn't matter if you didn't, as long as you have enough action points to get back to your safehouse! Be careful! (Oh, by the way, that ammo you found earlier is being converted into experience. 1 point of damage = 1 XP.). If you are a doctor, then heal, heal and heal some more! Every FAK you use gets you 5 experience! No need to worry about random numbers, it's guaranteed! It used to be the case that level 1 doctors had to ask if people need healing, but now they start with Diagnosis, so just look for survivors that have less than 50 health. DyingShit happens. Especially in your early levels, you will die a fair few times. If you die, it's not the end of the game. If you want to get back to your human character, then post on the B.A.R forum and head to the Otto Street revive point and we will welcome you back to our side. [91,16] (coordinates) Otto St. in Pescodside (that's the suburb). If you are in a revive point say Mrh? once or twice as a zombie. People generally take that as to mean you want reviving. Or, alternately, head to the nearest cemetery and look for graffiti pointing you to revive points. Getting Player KilledSometimes, dying is getting player killed by others. PKers flourish in relatively stable suburbs with a low zombie presence, where they have a lot of safe places to hide from the law. They take joy in basically pissing people off. Now, what to do about it? First be sure to take and save a screenshot of yourself being killed - press Alt+PrtScr and then open paint (or other programs) and press Ctr+V - you now have evidence of your injustice. Host this picture evidence on the wiki or on Photobucket for use on the forums. Then add your killer to your contacts so that you have his Urban Dead ID, which we can use to track him down. Now, even if you are not a part of the B.A.R, there are a number of things you can do to avenge your death: 1) Contact small individual anti PKer groups in your area and see what they say. 2) Contact larger anti PKer groups in your area. (e.g. your local Malton Police Department people or Bounty Hunters) 3) Add the PKer to your contacts list and hunt them down yourself. But, if you are in the B.A.R, then what you should do is report the killing in the Knight Watchmen forum (for new PKers), and in the general forums. Add the picture evidence and a link to his/her profile. Now a lot of B.A.R members will add your killer to their shit lists, and if he comes back into our area he will get the *&^% kicked out of him. There is, of course, nothing to stop you from hunting him down yourself! Recommended Skills!Once you have earned your experience, you'll want to spend it! Well, here’s a general guide to make life easier for you. To buy skills, simply look underneath the map, and click the buy skills button. The rest is self explanatory. MilitaryIf you were smart, the only military class you would even consider playing as is a Private, which starts with Basic Firearms Training. So get Free Running. You can already shoot, Free Running allows you to get into buildings that are EHB so you can be VERY safe. To get into a EHB building, find a building that is VSB or less, go inside, and then click on the building in your adjacent square; your character will travel between the buildings. Your chances of dying in an EHB building are much less than in a VSB. Once you have Free Running, get your pistol skill up to advanced. The reason to do this is because The pistol is far more efficient for your action points, as you get 6 shots per clip that do 5 damage each - that’s 30 damage per clip (at 65% accuracy - MUCH better than 30%, right?), whereas with a shotgun, its MUCH MUCH less efficient. Save the shells you find til you have maxed out your pistol skills and can afford some shotgun experience! After that you can choose pretty much what you want, Bodybuilding and Construction are always good choices. (Weapon efficiency is discussed in the AP efficiency section in greater detail). Skill Progression by level:
Now you have the ability to gain XP efficiently and can go about obtaining other useful but less essential skills. For a start, Bodybuilding and Construction, then build up your scientific skills. ScientistAgain - Get Free Running! I know it looks expensive, those 150 experience points could buy you some shiny new doctor skills, but you can’t be a survivor if you're dead. And dead is what you'll be a lot without Free Running. Break-ins are common, except in heavily or more barricaded buildings. A zombie can crack open a VSB building in about 40 AP, letting his mates come in and munch you. Once you have Free Running, you'll want to improve your science skills. NecroTech Advancement by level:
Now you have the ability to gain XP by reviving people and can use NecroNet to locate potential revives. I'd max out doctor's skills too because they are also cheap and can get you experience. Doctor's Advancement by level:
If you started out as a doctor, now is a good time to buy some scientific skills, as in my experience surgery is rarely used. You will want to avoid buying First Aid until you have another way to gain XP, other than healing. First Aid, while useful later on, only impedes your XP gain early in the game. CivilianIf you are a civvy, again, your main priority is Free Running. If you are a Firefighter, get Axe Proficiency. If you are a Cop, then get your pistol skills up to par, same as military. Being a civilian gives you a lot of choices. You can become a doctor, a NecroTech technician or a warrior by following the appropriate tech tree, because each and every skill only costs you 100 XP. In the long run, civilians can buy all of their skills faster than any other survivor class. Action Point EfficiencyBasically, action points are the real health points of the game. Make your enemy run out of action points before you do and you win. GeneralIt's more AP efficient to barricade a building than it is to wait until it's open and full of zombies, then have to kill them (30 AP plus ammo - that’s about 90 AP plus ammo for 3 zombies!), dump the bodies (1 AP each), close the doors (1 AP), fix the interior (1 AP), then barricade up. This is obvious, but people still don’t take it into account. If a zombie dies, it costs them either 1 AP (if they have Ankle Grab and you don’t have the Headshot skill), 6 AP (if they have ankle grab and you have headshot), 10 AP (if the zombie lacks ankle grab and you don't have headshot), or 15 AP (if you have headshot and they don’t have ankle grab). Most zombies get up for 6 AP. However, when a survivor dies, it takes 10 AP to stand up as a zombie (if you don't have ankle grab), then you have to find a revive point - about 10 more AP (costs you 2 to move), then you have to wait around like a Mrh? cow while you wait for someone who has manufactured a syringe (20AP for them) or found one (AP cost varies) to come to you (not that far - most rev points are near NT buildings) and stick you in the neck with it (10 more AP for them but 10 XP too) - then you can stand up for 10 more AP, making a whopping 60 AP combined! That’s ten times more than it costs a zombie to get up, so don’t die in stupid ways and don’t kill them unless they have broken into your building because emptying all your precious ammo into a crowd of 30 zombies isn’t gonna do jack! Instead, barricade your building up, and prepare for the worst. It's worth saying this again, because it is that important. If you want to help the survivor side, you have to play intelligently. Killing a zombie while they are outside actually hurts the survivor side. Unless you have a good reason to do so, such as gaining experience or dropping a rotter in the revive queue, don't do it. You use a lot of AP and resources on dropping them. They stand up, their health is full, and they spent little AP. You lost out, they did not. That AP and ammo could have gone to clearing out a building that other zombies are breaking into. Traveling - Remember it's more efficient to travel diagonally. You can see more squares if you're hunting zombies if you travel diagonally! Object EfficiencyFlak Jackets - Effectively reduce the damage you take from Firearms by 20%. Definitely worth getting. Find them in Police Departments, Fort Armories, and sometimes Junkyards. Crowbars - Nothing better for getting a barricade that should be VSB down so you can get in than a crowbar. Available in Power Stations, Warehouses, Auto Repair Shops, Factories; sometimes in Junkyards and Mall Hardware Stores. Generators - In resource buildings the presence of a genny is important. Search odds go up for everyone in the building (which helps conserve AP!). In hospitals you need a genny to use Surgery (15 points of healing per FAK), and in NecroTech buildings you need a genny to use NecroNet, to make syringes, and it increases the odds of searches again! Dark Buildings need power before you can repair them, if they are ruined. Found in Factories, and sometimes found in Station Stations and Mall Hardware Stores. Fuel Cans - Generators don't do anything unless they are fueled, which can only be done with a fuel can. Fuel cans are found in Auto Repair Shops, Factories, Warehouses, and are sometimes found in Power Stations and Junkyards. You might want to try out this inventory system I figured out:
Number of items, name of item, percent encumbrence, places to find All Purpose Adaptable InventoryPermanent Items: 1x DNA Extractor, 4%, NT Buildings 1x Flak Jacket, 2%, Police Stations + Fort Armories 1x Crowbar, 4%, Power Stations + Warehouses + Auto Repair Shops + Factories 1x Mobile Phone, 2%, Mall Tech Stores + Clubs (Note: Possibly optional now due to the creation of the DSS Satellite Phone) 1x Radio, 4%, Mall Tech Stores + Police Departments + Fire Stations 2x Pistols 4%, Mall Gun Stores + Fort Armories + Police Departments Subtotal of 24% of your inventory. Consumables: 2x Spray Cans, 2% each, Mall Hardware Stores + Schools + Junkyards + Auto Repair Shops 2x Revive Syringes, 2% each, NT Buildings 5x Pistol Clips, 2% each, Mall Gun Stores + Fort Armories + Police Departments 4x First Aid Kits, 2% each, Mall Drugstores + Hospitals + Churches
This inventory system is made to be adaptable. Your character has the space to deal with situations by stocking up on the required materials and going out there. With 50% of your inventory available, this could, for example, take the form of using the extra space for: 1x Generator, 20%, Factories + Power Stations + Mall Hardware Stores 1x Radio Transmitter, 20%, Mall Tech Store + Fort Storehouse OR 1x Toolbox, 16%, Mall Hardware Stores + Auto Repair Shops + Factories 1x Fuel Can, 10%, Auto Repair Shops + Factories + Warehouses Thus bringing your percentage up to 100%, with the ability to start a new safehouse if one has gone down or been the victim of GKing/RKing. Note that your spray cans, pistols, FAKs and syringes allow you to continue normal operation as well as this. This is recommended if going to a new area, as long as you have supporting crew and people to fill other roles - like killing zombies. WeaponryCheck out the Fire axe. As you can see, the fire axe is the most efficient weapon out there if you have the skills, and in fact it is the most efficient weapon in the whole game! Why? Because you don't need ammo for it! However, using it, you will probably only be able to kill one zombie a day. Now check out the Pistol. The pistol is more efficient than the shotgun as its ammo is more plentiful; however, shotguns are very useful because when you search for pistol ammo, you find shotgun ammo as a side effect. Shotguns are also useful in a tight spot where you have few APs to spend. Use them wisely. Personally I use all three, depending on my situation. Hybrid wins every time, no contest. If you are curious, use this: http://www.herbsofwar.com/test/combatstats.html to see the action points calculated. The Urban Dead Wiki(http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Main_Page) The wiki is the hub of Urban Dead. Apart from the game, it’s the most important resource that you have at your disposal. Once you learn your way around the wiki, you can find out anything and everything about the game and the people on it. The map I gave you earlier is on the wiki, as is practically every group on Urban Dead. Hell, the wiki's already given you this wonderful resource! ;-) Online ResourcesUseful websitesThese are websites that are useful for Urban Dead Resources:
General Guide to DefenseHere is a general guide on what to do with your safehouse: If it is a resource building, DO NOT cade over VSB+2 as newbies cannot get in! If under siege, however, barricading to EHB will keep you much safer. Just make sure to lower the cades back to VSB+2 when the attack is over! However, if there is graffiti that says ENTRY POINT, DO NOT cade over VSB+2 as people will not be able to get inside their EHB safehouse if you cade up the entry point. You will probably kill a lot of survivors by overcading an entry point, so DO NOT do it. Gennys are not necessary for every safehouse. In fact, you should really only power a resource building (which, by the way, tend to draw a lot of zombie attention and thus, aren't always the best safehouse). But if you want to take advantage of a radio transmitter, you'll need to power the building. Just be aware that the lights will draw zombie attention. Ordinary buildings are the best to sleep in. Resource buildings draw a lot of zombies, while the regular buildings tend to be attacked later. You'll have plenty of warning of an attack in one. Dark buildings may be a good idea, but remember that you can't see bodies in them, so a zed can easily stand up to join your party, and you'll have no idea. Outside of killing zombies for XP, cleaning up a revive point by killing unwanted brain rotters and PKers so they don't get revived, there is NO REASON to kill a zombie outside. You waste AP and ammo attacking them, and they just stand right back up at full health. Rather than taking potshots at hordes, concentrate on getting zombies out of safehouses and cading them up, and if there are too many (roughly half the number of people inside the building), evacuate. If you have the AP and supplies, heal some people first. This will buy some time, as healing is more AP effective than a zombie's attack power. You'll be of much more assistance, if you skip out and live, only to return and retake the building after the bulk of the horde has passed, than staying behind to be killed by the dead. Shout out a warning and heal some people, sure, but LEAVE. Don't commit suicide by staying overnight. Malls are generally known as death traps. Sure, they have FAKs and guns, but any decent-sized horde can break in in hardly any time due to rules like ransack and dragging. The only mall to survive for a measurable time was Caiger Mall. Gameplay changes and eager hordes ready to test their mettle, have destroyed this last bastion of human resistance. Basically: it doesn't matter what mall it is, or who's defending it. Every mall will fall eventually. Don't be there when it happens. If trying to defend a mall, which should only be attempted for the thrill of it, it is essential to spread forces evenly so that the zombies don’t get inside any of the quarters - the larger building rule means that if the cades are down in one part, they can be bypassed in all the others. Anyway the BAR doesn’t really like malls. There's no friendly atmosphere there. I have played zombie characters, and a mob of 17 zombies managed to break into, and cause terror in a mall to a ridiculous extent. Defend only for fun. Don't expect to actually be able to hold it, and if by some miracle you do, celebrate afterwords. Remember: the mall can always be retaken after the horde moves on. Jargon GuideUD means Urban Dead. ObjectsFAK = First Aid Kit, Genny = Mobile Generator used to power buildings. BuildingsPD = Police Department, FD = Fire Department, NT = NecroTech Building; sometimes just NTB. Barricades or 'CadesVS = Very Strongly VS+2 = Very Strongly Barricaded; highest level with entry still possible, VH = Very Heavily, EHB = Extremely Heavily Barricaded, maximum cades, also known as EH. PeopleGKers = Generator Killers, PKers = Player Killers, ZKers = Zombie Killers (zombies that kill other zombies), Zergers = People abuse multiple characters, Alt = Alternative Characters, e.g., "my zombie alt ate some people"
BAR SpecificsThe BAR aren’t Nazis, we don’t want to tell you what to do, but there are a few things you should be aware of: Check out the barricade plan, to make sure that you don’t cade people out. Rolt Heights has a distressingly small amount of Necrotechs (Read: none), the nearest one to the BAR HQ is the Clewett Building, which is a high profile target and should be kept at EHB at all times. The sponsored revive point for the BAR is Otto Street in Pescodside, the suburb next to Rolt Heights. It would be appreciated if people would keep an eye on it; check the forums for revive requests, or post one yourself if needed. Also if you want to spray up the BAR and promote us, use this: http://tinyurl.com/lnukg as it will actually fit into the spraypaint text bar. Cheers!!! ConclusionThere are still lots more things to learn in urban dead, this is just a basic guide! Brought to you by SamTheMan Of the Burchell Arms Regulars!
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