Well, I'm just writing a lovely guide to human survival, based on my experiences as feral zombie, horde zombie, zombie leader, "PKer", NT nomad, and general all-around villain. (If this fact gives you pause, please buzz off. Villainy is a perfectly valid lifestyle choice, and is unfairly persecuted by the ignorant masses, the media, the law, and annoying Superheroes)

That all said, welcome to Grim's guide to staying alive! Follow the advice given, and you probably won't die, unless you are really unlucky. I refuse to reimburse you for failing to survive. I will, however, shoot you for ignoring 1.3.1.4.

This guide also contains sections on PKing and Guerrilla warfare tactics versus zombies. In essence, it is a "how to" guide to play smart as a human.

The Guide

This guide is divided into sections. The first few focus entirely on personal survival, the later ones on tactics where personal survival skills are an extreme advantage, but not the objective of the initial section of the guide. I trust people to be smart enough to be able to reconcile these two seemingly conflicting ideas on their own, without external assistance. Also, before you start to read, please understand that I have a very low tolerance for stupidity, and I am a tad vulgar. If you take offense to vulgarity, might I suggest you try a different game, a game where zombies do not regularly threaten anyone who will listen with object rape.

Know thy Enemy

The Zombie

Homo Cadaver

History

The humble Zombie is one of nature's most misunderstood and underestimated freaks. They did not evolve conventionally, but are the result of a chance meeting of two species, Human and Virus. There have been numerous zombie outbreaks in the past, usually in small communities in Haiti, where the virus first evolved. These are, however, covered up by claims of the use of Voodoo rituals, involving tetrodotoxin (poison in some puffer fish), combined with dissociative drugs. The founder of this cover-up movement is Wade Davis, though the massive outbreak in Malton in the UK has recently uncovered his lies for what they are. It is expected that with this unfair stereotype removed, Voodoo will join the worlds mainstream religions, and one day rival Christianity and Islam.

Physiology

The Zombie has numerous survival adaptations to any and all environments. The virus continually adapts and evolves, enabling a zombie to rise time and time again until the corpse is incinerated, or the person is revived through the use of a proper anti-virus. Unfortunately, traces of the virus are impossible to remove, and it is possible to relapse later on, thus making the quarantine of Malton effectively permanent.

The virus also bestows incredible resistance to damage and regenerative abilities to any who are infected, even if the virus is not in its dominant "Zombie" state, enabling even catastrophically wounded people to continue fighting until their last breath. Another strange result is that the virus actively repairs any and all mass damage usually caused by the feeding of other zombies, including cerebral damage, though there may be some scarring, which in the case of the brain makes proper administration of the anti-virus difficult except with specialized machinery.

Due to the high mutation rate of the virus, Zombies adapt physiologically very quickly to their new "lives", and also keep well ahead of the human bodies ability to fight off infection.

Diet

The Zombie Diet is live Human, though they have been known to sit down and gorge on a fallen persons brain. Some also try to ingest electrical equipment, such as generators and radios.

Psychology

Due to their habit of eating the brains of humans, and their strange speech patterns, many people erroneously assume zombies to be little more than mindless beasts. Nothing could be further from the truth. Zombies have a rich culture, diverse language, and a form of communal telepathy that rivals human communication methods.

They have their own language as well, but prefer instead to approximate human speech for the purpose of taunting and intimidating humans. They regularly embark on campaigns of terror in order to bring the human population to its knees. Recent examples include the Mall Tours and Big Bash.

In truth, zombies are fiendishly cunning creatures who's intelligence often matches, and occasionally outshines that of ordinary humans. They are single-minded in achieving their goals, and almost impossible to deter or dissuade from their task. They are drawn to large concentrations of humans, upon whom they feed without mercy.

In many ways, a Zombie retains its pre-death personality, though shaped by new instincts and ethics. It is not at all uncommon for people to become so enamored of life as a zombie that they voluntarily return themselves to that state as soon as possible if they receive treatment for their condition.

Anyway, enough on Zombies now to the guide:

Suggested Gear

Listed in this section is the gear a player should carry, or try to carry, at all times to ensure maximal survival. There are other items that could be helpful, so consider this a minimum. The gear here is equally valid in group play, and some of it is arguably more valuable group wise.

The Gear List

2-3 x Pistol
1-2 x Shogun
Clips
Shells
2 Syringe, Minimum
Generator
Fuel
Flak Jacket
2 FAK's (min)

Why?

Well, it would be asked here sooner or later, so may as well get it out of the way.

Toolbox

Get one if you like, but you don't need one. The point of this guide is your personal survival. Altruism gets you killed. And if no one knows you didn't help anyone, well its not like they can complain about it. So long as you keep mum on the subject, or make up that you did something when pressed, you'll be fine. Say something like "I revived a few people at a revive point". That's impossible to check.

Guns & Ammo

If you seriously asked this question, you can leave now. The rest of this documentation is too complex for your puny mind. Heres a handy link to get you to safety, where the big words won't hurt you anymore.

Syringes

In case you have a partner. A partner who happens to be dead. Occasionally a foolishly dead partner can be useful, perhaps in bringing you back to life. Sometimes you have to spend ap as an investment towards future wellbeing, just in case. If you need to know who they are, get their profile before they go and do something stupid that puts them in a position to need your help.

FAK's

In case of a maiming or infection. Use these to boost your health back up to 50+, and thus make yourself look most unappealing as a target.

No, seriously, Guns & Ammo

I told you to piss off!

Flak Jacket

Pkers really fucking hate Flak Jackets. It makes them less likely to finish you if they shoot you once or twice. Unless you have pissed them off, or are alone, they will probably pass you over if you have a flak jacket. Of course, some are stubborn and refuse to let your annoying jacket spoil their murder. But theres always people like that. Just hope you don't wander into them.

Generator + Fuel

Occasionally you will want to restock on something interesting, without a powered source nearby. Or you might want to set up a lovely decoy nearby (details later). Either way, its safer to have one that not to have one.

Why no Crucifix? Crucifixes rock, and will have something magic soon!

Thats it. I'm going to kill you.

How to survive player interaction

This will cover techniques to hide you from many different threats. PKers, such as myself, vengeful Bounty Hunters, and, of course, Zombies.

Don't make yourself a target

Your name

It is incredible how often people people forget this seemingly basic precaution. If you name yourself something like 1337 Z0M813 K1||A, do not whine when you are mauled by every single zombie that sees you. Zombie players love nothing more than ripping such people limb from limb as a method of saying "Oh yeah?". Similarly, many a PKer selects his/her victims by the absolute stupidity of their names. The logical response: Keep your name as sensible as possible.

Your description

Like before, many people miss this seemingly obvious step of camouflage. Do not paint yourself as superman, dressed in a trenchcoat and oozing cool. If you do, the only thing you shall be oozing is blood, when the zombies or pkers find you and read your description. Instead, portray yourself as a real character, or be funny. One of my personal favourites is from my old pker:

Grim s said:

This man wears a pink trenchcoat over his yellow polkadot vest and clown pants. His face is partially obscured by his star shaped sunglasses and rainbow wig. He carries an axe on his back with fairy designs etched on it. He also wears purple mittens.

Of course, this was also intended as a final "fuck you" to my victims, but what the hell. Its amusing, and zombies tend not to hurt amusing people. At least until they run out of people to hurt. Or they just don't care. Or you have low HP. That said, generally speaking, being funny = others die first, and when it comes down to it, you want to live as long as possible.

Don't be a douchebag

Don't go around shouting obscenities at people, or calling people stupid names on boards or wiki's, and if you do, don't post your character profiles where people can stick them in their UDtool lists, and most certainly don't tell people where you live in game (Actually, doing this will have PKers come and shoot you regardless, just to teach you not to. I have done the shooting myself on occasion).

Don't be an idiot

Actually, the last could fall under this heading, but idiots need it spelled out for them, so I'm being uncharacteristically charitable in separating this into its own heading. Don't go around forums and wiki pages spreading idiot talk such as fake suburb reports, retarded comments, plain cluelessness or posting retarded suggestions. People can tell the difference between something comically retarded and something unintentionally retarded, and will likely flame you for it. They will also probably PK you for it in game if you keep it up, just to annoy you, which brings you to my next point...

Don't cause drama

Do not make a public spectacle of the behaviour of other players. So what if someone overbarricades the gatehouse repeatedly? Deal with it in game. If you let people know it annoys you, more and more people will join in until you shut up for a prolonged period of time or go away. The same is true if you whine about PKing, with the bloody obvious consequence that you will be PKed. Again and again. Seriously, its like slashing your wrists in a school of sharks. It just starts a feeding frenzy and gets you killed a lot more.

Dealing with other people

Humans are not your friends

Just because there are other humans in a location does not make them your friend. If you have low HP and walk into a Pkers overnight hiding spot, he will think it is Christmas come early and blow your brains out. Generally speaking, it is safer to log off for the night in buildings without large crowds of people. There are pros and cons, but I personally think its silly to hide among large groups of people. It just attracts a horde to fuck you up (in more ways than one, they are pretty handy with those crowbars).

Also, while in the past a myth, the newish zombie horde called Extinction proudly acknowledges that it uses spies. (It zergs too, but what else would one expect from a trenchzombie group?) So don't trust anyone.

Zombies are not your friends either

You would think this should be pretty obvious, but you would be amazed how many people stupidly think they they can AP out in a building full of zombies while trying to "defend" it and then survive.

Don't dick with other groups

Be friendly to other groups in general and your neighboring groups in particular. Don't start a fight that becomes a PKing war. These usually result in a lot of senseless death and ill will, which leads to even more death, which leads to drama, which in turn eventually attracts a horde to come and kill you all just so you will shut up about it.

Dealing with Zombies

As a general rule, i would say you should avoid dealing with them at all costs, but if you have no choice...

Be kind and courteous

It is far better to be a friendly enemy of the horde, rather than a douchebag. Remember that Zombies are players too. Also, once the horde has moved on, remember that they do have human alts. Humans who are often PKers because the normal survivor game is boring for them.

That said, being known to the horde, either way, is becoming a target. Friends can expect floods of bites of greeting, enemies can expect vicious maulings and infections. However, being a friend is preferable to being an enemy. At least that way you can have some fun with them.

Surviving

Now heres the more interesting bit. The words of wisdom and such.

Killing Zombies

Whenever you attack a zombie, finish it. Make sure it is killed. If you aren't sure you can kill it, don't attack it. Wait until you have more AP, or even better, let someone else take care of it. There is a particular zombie skill called Scent Trail which, if purchased, allows zombies to follow you home and tell all their friends where you are sleeping. When you are living in an area with a horde, this is a very, very bad thing. It tells them where they can find something to eat, and zombies really love to eat the hand that shot them. You can break scent trail by rendering the zombie into an even deader state (by killing it).

Gloating over the body

This is just stupid. They can't hear you. They are dead.

Safehouses

There is absolutely no such thing. Sure, in a non occupied suburb, a building may go untouched for months at a time, but should the zombies be active in the suburb, no building is truly safe. If you are regularly going out and killing zombies, hiding in a different building each night is probably a good idea. For one thing, you get a better picture of the state of an area as a whole by roaming in it.

If zombies should break in before you wake...

Run. Don't stay. Don't take the time to say something witty, RUN. They will see you as an active as soon as you log in. Once you are in a neighboring building, take stock of yourself. Were you maimed? Do you have an infection? Yes? Heal yourself. No? Good. Find a new safehouse immediately. No sense in going back and getting either of the former, especially considering that once the zombies are inside, there isnt very much you can do about it. The January 23rd 2008 update means you cant barricade with any decent efficiency with zombies inside, negating most of the good you could have done in the first place. Its not particularly altruistic of you, but you have to look out for number 1. If you happen to chat with the others in some form of chat, you can warn them there and heal them later. If not, they can always mooch a revive off you for future favours.

Clearing the Streets

This is a spectacular waste of ammunition and AP. Only practice this if your character has not yet got the gun trees, free running, and the mallrat skills, and maybe construction. After this, spend your ap looking around, securing buildings, and evicting APed out zombies from buildings. Killing them on the streets gives them a nice restful nap. Killing them in a building puts them on the wrong side of the barricades.

Shooting them dead OUTSIDE a building under siege makes smart players cry. It's just that stupid.

"The MOB is coming! Stand and Fight!"

This has to be about the most stupid proposal of all time. You don't have to use the MOB for the example. Just about any horde will do, except that zerging Extinction. (I fully expect crap from them about it, but it's my page and my guide and I can say whatever I like.)

When a horde moves in, you have to move out, or you will die. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. If you are a human, move two suburbs in any direction but the one the horde came in. Why not that way? Because you will run facefirst into three quarters smashed suburbs being obliterated by the feral cloud a horde always pulls behind it. There are very few places to hide, and they get the brunt of a massive sustained feral attack until they have been eaten.

Now, I shall break it down for any newbie who happens to be reading this:

In a siege, zombies will win because they have a certain factor going for them, called attrition. Basically, this means that it doesn't take long for zombies to stand up and get back in the fight after being killed, but you can't. You have to go and queue for a revive, or ask someone for help through IRC or forums. This takes time. Meanwhile, the zombies are in your "safehouse" and eating your "buddies". Basically, the number of humans inside drops, while the number outside increases as the feral cloud catches up, and you go from having one or two coordinated breakins a day to two heavily coordinated breakins and numerous sporadic breakins through the day. This continues until all harmans have been eaten. Needless to say, this fate is something you should try to avoid.

Ask yourself: Is this building, of which there are many more in the game, really worth dying for when I can just move away now and come back after the zombies have gone? If you answered yes to that question, please click this link and don't come back. You're an idiot.

Combat Revives, the violent killer

Combat reviving is the name given to the practice of using your revivification syringes offensively. Most commonly during break ins to buildings by zombies. It is also common during live combat on the streets, or, in far rarer but not unheard of offensive sweeps on zombies gathering for an attack.

It is my opinion that combat reviving a zombie is, to put it as succinctly as possible, fucking stupid, however, I shall lay out the pro's and cons of the tactic below, as way of rationally presenting why I object to it, apart from the fact that I was primarily a zombie player.

Pro's

It is an expedient method to remove a zombie from combat, with 100% success rate if the zombie does not have Brain Rot. Given how easy they are to find, it is not at all difficult for you to replenish your supply in a couple of days searching. (This has, however, become a lot less efficient when the revive cost for a zombie was raised from 1ap per syringe to 10ap per syringe. Before then, given the find rate, it was much more effective to carry a bandoleer of syringes instead of a bandoleer of ammunition).

Syringes are not a rare commodity, unlike at other points in the game, so you don't really need to conserve them like in the distant past, where find rates were about 7 and a half percent lower.

It is a lot faster to dispose of a zombie in this way than with as opposed to simply killing them properly. While you shoot the zombie, the zombie could be eating you, your friends, your friends friends, or even your dog. In live combat this is especially effective. Depending on your goals, this can actually outweigh the cons of the situation.

Cons

Zombie players do not like being revived, except for their first time to go grab a jacket and bodybuilding. Some of them dislike it so much that they gathered weapons and skills during their previous visit to the land of the living, and will promptly stand up and blow your head off.

Also, there are some Zombie groups that, counter to the majority will of the zombie population, encourage the use of both alts and spies. Reviving those zombies just lets them find where you live and send round the horde, or simply PK you if they wish to be expedient.

Doing this is very unpopular, and many zombies individually mark you out for extermination privately, putting you on home made UDtool lists of combat revivers. This drastically decreases your chances of survival in the event of a zombie break in. Also, in the distant past, many of them were put on the now defunct A.R.S.E. list, where they were marked for termination by the large numbers of roving PKers. I myself used it for this purpose, and, through a chance meeting a good many months later, fulfilled the contract myself, with the same character that was victimized.

Many Zombies purchased the brain rot skill in order to avoid getting combat revived. Also, due to a game change, zombies with both brain rot and scent trail can see that you stuck them with a syringe, and follow you home to administer corrective measures. These are usually lethal in nature.

Despite the points in favour, the cons of combat reviving, as spelled out, can drastically decrease your chances of surviving. It is generally a good idea, as a result, to avoid using revivification syringes as weapons in combat if your goal is personal survival, and instead put them to the task of reviving friends and allies, who are a lot less likely to shoot you in the face for it.

General Survival Strategies

Introduction

For the purposes of this section of the documentation, I will assume that my earlier attempts to weed out the idiots among my readers have been successful, and thus I will not need to point out that the first law of human survival is to sleep indoors. If you really needed this pointed out to you, the door is here, if not, carry on.

How to hide

I'm going to list buildings by type and explain why its either a good or bad idea to hide in them.

Resource Buildings

The resource buildings of Malton all fall under the same heading. These include the following building types:

These are spectacularly bad places to hide. For one thing, you are not hiding, you are living in a massive commune who keep their lights on all night and annoy your neighbors, but unlike in real life, in game your neighbors will tear out your spine and eat your brain. These buildings are, without fail, the first buildings that fall under the assault of a horde on the suburb. If you sleep in them, you will have no warning whatsoever as to the approach of the zombies, and thus no time to run, unless you get really lucky and log in as they attack, and manage to escape.

This does not mean you cannot visit them to scrounge up supplies. It just means you shouldn't live there (or die there, as the case usually may be). Unfortunately, as a newbie, getting in to any other type of building is at best difficult, and most realistically it is usually impossible to get anywhere else. As such, the first skill you buy should always be free running, so you can hide elsewhere.

Large Buildings

Large buildings are a bad place to hide for two reasons:

You need to scout each and every part of it to make sure one isn't open, given the large building mechanics.
They have a larger footprint, and feral zombies are attracted to the novelty of cracking open the Mansions, Stadiums, Cathedrals, and Power Stations.

The risks of staying in these buildings by far outweighs any possible advantage. Even if the whole suburb has been busted open, zombies will check inside the stadiums just for the novelty of it, and many a time I have killed a human who thought he could hide inside, not realizing that hiding in a fucking landmark was a bad idea.

Malls

While malls are indeed hotly contested, and the site of many large scale sieges, the end result is that zombies win. And they have done so in all but a couple of occasions, where the game mechanics were so heavily stacked against zombies that it wasn't funny anymore. Since the addition of both large building and ransack, a mall is no longer a super fortress. Besides, big malls are often targets for PKers. Hiding in buildings further away is just good sense.

These days, Malls get obliterated in short order by any competent horde, usually takes them only a few days to do it too. It is far better to hide in a nearby building if you need to restock and free run in, do your searching, then run away to a new hiding spot. Basically, if your goal is to stay alive, don't hide in high profile targets.

Forts

While forts are, mechanics speaking at least, a pretty safe place to go due to recent changes, the problem is that they are trenchie magnets. Trenchies attract hordes of zombies and Pkers. At least for the moment, its probably a terrible idea to head to a fort, especially since trenchies get very territorial, and are often paranoid as hell (I had a lot of fun playing on that with my FOBU hoax a while back, when the forts were just a single armory square).

Nondescript buildings

These are the buildings in which you should hide. The Towers, the Hotels, The pubs, clubs, and auto repairs. These buildings are secondary and tertiary targets for a horde. You get plenty of advance warning about an assault in the area before the area becomes the place you happen to be standing.

Darkened Buildings

Whenever you are presented with the opportunity, a darkened building should definately be your choice for a hiding spot.

The innate advantages of such buildings for survivors are truly staggaring. Why? because not only are they generally nondescript buildings as listed above, making them low priority tragets anyway, everyone has a vastly reduced to hit rate in those buildings. Its only half of normal, so Zombies only have a 25% chance to grab you, 35% after grabbing you with a grasp. This dramatically inmcreases your survivability, and the chances of a successful bite are negligable, so theres no real need to worry about infection if you are paranoid about it.

Furthermore, this to hit debuff also affects humans, meaning that a darkened building is a great place to go to avoid being killed by other human players, who do much greater damage at a higher to hit rate, but have a limited ammunition capacity. While it wont always save your life, it will at the very least result in people using about twice as much ap and resources to kill you, and in many cases, you will probably survive the attack low on HP, at which point you can be certain that your attacker is hiding nearby, and wander off to the likely places and kill them yourself.

Buildings which can be darkened are Banks, Cinemas and Clubs. The Fort Armoury can also be darkened, but I suggest you avoid it.

You can tell if one of these buildings is dark before you enter it simply by seeing if the building is lit. Even if it is, putting a few bullets into the generator will speed it along the way to becoming a dark fortress of safitude.

This all said, if a horde moves into the area, or people are activly hunting you, its probably best to leave the area entirely rather than camping in one or more of these buildings.

Geography

This is an oft neglected part of considering where to hide, and often changes how a smart person will make themselves unlocatable in any given circumstance. On the whole, I would say that this section is even more important than the previous in considering where to hide.

Free running corridors

A Free running corridor is a path between any given resource building and another given resource building. These are not, typically speaking, the very best places to hide. Pkers use these corridors too, so if you are playing normal survivor, they are something to watch out for, but the real danger in these places lies with those who take the path of the outlaw.

A Free running corridor is high traffic, and thus more people will see you, and eventually one of them will have you in their contacts as a PKer. At this point you die, or they call your location out on a forum and you die within a few hours. Either way, the purpose of this guide has been defeated. Hiding in Free running dead ends (Buildings that have no other way in but the way you came in) or places off the main free running paths is the better idea. There is less traffic, and thus less risk all round.

Islands

Islands are buildings with no free running access, or a pair of buildings under the same circumstances. They have their pluses and minuses too. On the one hand, they are hard to get in to, but on the other hand, it is harder for the enemy to get into them as well, which reduces traffic to almost nothing. Gerrish Place Police Dept at 47, 48 in Barrville is an example of an island.

All in all, I'd say that it's best to avoid them, unless you are a PKer. If you are a Pker, I'll leave it to your judgment.

So, the whole suburb is ruined

Fear not, this is not the end! You can actually survive in a suburb that has been obliterated by a horde. There is, however, a list of do's and do not's for survival.

Remember when reading the below list: You do not need to survive there forever. You just need to survive for long enough to generate enough AP to get away. Following the do's and do not's listed below will maximize your chances of going undetected for long enough to generate enough AP to escape.

Do Not's

Do Not interact with any zombies.
Do Not fix the ruin
Do Not barricade
Do Not close the doors
Do Not set up a generator in your building
Do Not tag "I'm hiding in here" outside your building
Do Not throw yourself from a building in surrender and shamble off for a revive.

Do's

DO hide inside a ruined building.
DO set up a decoy about 5 ap away
DO hold on to hope
DO check in about 5 hours later and try to get to safety
DO check the wiki to make sure you know where a nearby safe suburb is.

I could include a largish section on how all this works and such but it would be quite long, and several months after this guide was written, Wan Yao wrote another guide covering this in greater detail, with a much higher idiot tolerance than i myself have. Do encourage you to read the Hiding_In_Plain_Sight Guide for more information.

Ruin as a guide

Ruin is an absolutely wonderful addition to the game from the perspective of a survivor. Since zombies are so addicted to doing it, you can now tell, without stepping into a building, if the zombies have obliterated it. You can roughly gauge the strength and extent of zombie activity without having to step outdoors. One or two ruined buildings means packs of ferals, large numbers of ruined buildings, 7-12 or so, means theres a horde. Examining the layout of these, its possible to tell where the zombies came from and where they are going, and thus stay completely out of their path. I recently used this myself to dodge zombies in East Becktown.

Be sure to avoid free running into a ruined building, as doing so now takes you outside. When stuck in such circumstances, run along outside until you reach the next survivor held area. You can use a Ruined building as an entry point at the edge of the new stretch of territory, though I would suggest moving several blocks into the new survivor land. Zombies tend to like to kill the border buildings after they have nailed the resource ones. Better safe than sorry (and dead).

Plan ahead

Decide on a destination using the maps before you go. Pick a secondary destination, just in case the first is in zombie hands. Plot out free running routes to both, and go for it.

Combat

As a survivor (a person who survives), as opposed to a human (a person who fights and gets killed), your combat experiences will be limited, as combat is generally a futile exercise. I will list the following circumstances in which combat is useful, and indeed, methods in which you can turn this type of playing style to great advantage against zombies.

Guerrilla Warfare

Ah, you like the sound of that, don't you?

The basic premise is that taking a horde on, head to head, is generally both fruitless and an exercise in stupidity. However, you can, and should, aggressively move in and smash apart the ferals left in the wake of the horde. Once a horde has passed through, many buildings are smashed and most humans are killed. The following are the different tasks needed, and how to achieve them.

Remember: The goal here is to bog down the feral cloud and separate them from the horde they follow, then disperse them looking for easier targets. None of this can be done alone, but if you have a group of even 15 like-minded people, this is amazingly effective. You do have to be a little altruistic, but I've just gone over how to survive, so here's how to fight back. This also works very well in retaking suburbs from small to medium organized hordes or about 40 members.

Basic truism

Try to always keep at least 10ap at all times. It's useful if you need to log in on short notice and run away, or help a companion with some task, such as healing, setting up machinery, or repairs. While you will almost never need them to do anything, it is better to have them and not need them than it is to need them and not have them.

Close the gaps

Once the horde has passed, move in and aggressively kill zombies in occupied buildings, repair them, and barricade them. Ignore the resource buildings at first and focus on clearing the surrounding nondescript buildings. This gives you and anyone else in the area dozens of places to hide and strike at the feral cloud members while indoors. Some of these will be broken in to, but using generators as decoys, while costly, generally succeeds in distracting them, especially if you get lucky and have an idiot move in like a moth attracted to the light and it sparks off groans.

You dont need the resource buildings in the area where you are, because you can just as easily use the ones across the border in the next suburb. Repairing a resource building clumps all the ferals together around it, especially if you try to make a stand in there. Since the goal is to disperse them, restoring and holding a resource building is a pretty dumb idea.

Building repair

Attack buildings with low zombie populations, kill them, dump them, fix the building, build the barricades to extremely heavy, then move on. Do not stay in the building you just fixed. Its the first place they will look the next day when they log on.

Restock somewhere else

Restock in a neighboring suburb. The resource buildings in the suburb you are trying to mess with will be unreliable, at best. Since you won't be rebuilding them until last (to deny the ferals something to focus on), there is no point in using them to restock, as they won't always be open for business and checking is a waste of valuable ap.

Spread out

Clumping together is stupid. It gives the zombies an all they can eat buffet and lets them wipe you all out in one strike. No more than two people should occupy any given building at any time. Compartmentalize, make sure that each person has all the skills needed to fix up the damage done by the zombies, including being able to revive those who have fallen.

Communicate

I cannot stress this enough. Communicate with your teammates, through forums, IRC, in game, any method you can. Let them know zombie movements, break in locations, where people are that need revives, entry point status, barricade levels, everything. Let others who move in know everything too, so they know how to fight. You have immense communication advantages over zombies. Use them to their fullest. It is almost certain that spending your AP lecturing a building on guerrilla tactics is a far better use of your AP than shooting zombies and 'cading.

Retake, not defend

You cannot defend a building from a zombie assault. Let them instead take the building, but just not get any people to eat inside. Move back in after they are gone and re-secure it. Zombies do not like this happening, as its a massive waste of time and effort on their part.

So, zombies are chewing on the door

That said, if you log in, and zombies are clawing at the 'cades, active 'cading is always a surefire way to demoralize them. If you really want to fuck with them, let them get it to loose before rebuilding to VS 1 (don't go any higher with 'cading, as those levels have a failure percentage). Get the most bang for your ap buck. Use that 5-1 ap advantage to its absolute fullest.

Zombie Inside

When you have a Zombie inside the building, you will find it extremely difficult to barricade that building up. While in some cases this zombie will likely be a feral, and easily evicted in short order, in most cases its just one of a large number of active zombies in the area. You may as well take a shot at it and try to drop it, dump it and cade up before his buddies show up, but if another zombie shows up, its time to go househunting again. While leaving your "allies" to die isnt the most companionable thing to do, it is the best way to ensure that someone is around to fight on and needle them later. Besides, if you have spread out as instructed, you wont lose very many buddies at all. Sometimes leaving people to die is best for everyone.

Collect information on zombie times

Keep a running record of when zombies break into buildings on a forum or other medium that can be checked and updated by multiple people, using this, you can find out the most common active times for zombies and frustrate them at every turn with the above tactic. Remember: knowledge is power, but only if used correctly.

Playerkilling (PKing)

Oh, this section won't make me popular, but I don't care. A PKer is a rich and rewarding character experience. There are several steps to create a fulfilling PKer, and I shall list them below.

Roleplaying

Before you can go on a senseless killing spree, it is probably best to come up with a roleplaying reason for your character to have done so. Perhaps he has gone crazy in a world where the dead walk, talk, and sexually assault the living. Perhaps all he really wants is a hug? Maybe he believes in preventing the use and distribution of illegal narcotics? There are numerous good reasons to play a Pker, and your time spent as a PKer will be much more entertaining if you come up with one.

Skills

Before you become a Pker, I suggest you go and obtain the following skills:

Basic Firearms Training
- Pistol Training
  - Advanced Pistol Training
- Shotgun training
  - Advanced Shotgun Training
Free Running
Diagnosis
Bodybuilding
Shopping
- Bargain Hunting

Why Firearms (And not Axe)

Because firearms are the only way to reliably kill someone. An axe you can get later for attacks of opportunity, but for now, firearms let you kill a lot more people in a lot less AP.

Its a simple question of math. 3 damage at 40% translates to 1.2 damage per Ap, which is 60 damage when you have full AP. This is exactly enough to kill one survivor. However, UD's RNG is appallingly bad with numbers below 50% and tends to fuck you over more often than not, meaning the Axe will more often than not leave you APed out sitting in front of a badly hurt, yet still very much alive human who now has every reason to blow your impudent head clean off your shoulders. Not to mention the fact that you will be stranded in or nearby a building where others witnessed you killing someone. This is not good for your long term survival, especially if you have a reputation.

Axes are pretty much best for finishing off wounded humans after you have blasted them a whole lot, or you found in a building that has been recently attacked by zombies.

Other useful Skills

These skills are not essential, but bloody useful.

Vigour Mortis
- Death Grip
Lurching Gait
- Ankle Grab
Memories of Life

The reasons for Lurching gait and Ankle Grab should be pretty obvious to most people, so I don't feel I need to list them here. The attacking skills do, however, need a mention, but they are just as useful to the Pker with a plan.

Why Zombie attack skills?

They are there so you can jump the revive queue. You use them to break into a Necrotech building, then say "Mrh?" to the humans inside. More often than not, you get a revive. This also bypasses a lot of those pesky Do Not Revive lists, which would otherwise serve to keep you out of circulation and, occasionally, headshot too.

Tools of the Trade

The tools of the trade for Pkers are different to those of a survivor. For starters, you don't need anything altruistic. My suggested gear:

4 pistols
Clips
4 Shotguns
Shells
3 FAK's
Axe
Radio

Pretty much everything on this list should be self explanatory, except the radio. What you do is you set the radio to the local groups frequencies, so you can hear chatter about yourself and your activities, and know if people have cottoned on to the fact you kill people (Sometimes it takes weeks for people to figure it out).

Budget your AP

Budget your AP before you go killing. Give yourself 8 or so AP to find a target, another 30 to kill him, and 10 more to get away. Remember not to overextend yourself when killing people, and not to get carried away. Sacrificing your chance to escape for just one more kill is a senseless waste of your life and your effort, and saves your targets friends valuable AP looking for you. Always ensure that you have enough AP for a safe getaway, and do not be afraid to break off and leave your job half done if the RNG gives you a rotten streak. It is better to live to kill another day, than to die burying your axe in the face of your foe. It's less epic, but still better.

Picking your victim

This is the second best part of the entire experience. Picking the person who shall be slain by your hand. Consult your Roleplaying excuse for your murders. Do you pick on necrotechs? Older survivors? Trenchcoaters? This shall be your first step of target selection. A decent building should offer anywhere between three and ten targets, depending on your motivation. You can then add other categories, like how likely they are to have a Flak Jacket (lower level means less likely to have a jacket), how much HP they have remaining (50 HP is preferable to 60 HP, and fresh revivees are a much more delectable 25-30 HP)

Killing your victim

The first thing you should do is come up with a quip that shows your reason for killing the person. Write it in a word processor such as notepad. It could be something as simple as "SHIT! HE'S GOT A GUN!!!" (Another example from the wonderful Pker organization, the Malton DEA), and copy it into clipboard (Highlight it then Ctrl + C).

The second thing you should do is open fire. You keep shooting your victim until you need just one shot to kill him/her, then paste your pre-written one liner into the speak box, shout it, then blow his brains out. Dumping the body is optional. Personally id say you shouldnt do it. While there is the small chance that he could stand up inside and be revived quickly, more often than not he will be dumped by soemone else, or, if you are really lucky, he will stand up inside, Mrh, and get a headshot for his trouble, which is always funny.

When killing someone, be sure to keep your eye on your ammunition totals in your pistols. If a person only happens to have 6 or so HP remaining and you finish a clip, and you happen to have the axe skills, as well as an axe to use with them, not to mention a few spare AP (you should budget enough to run away anyway), it's probably better to kill them with the Axe. Half-loaded guns are a complete pain in the arse, especially deep in your gun stacks, and make it so you cannot carry as much ammunition as is optimal.

Take it easy

Remember, it isn't a contest of who can murder the most. Be sure to pace yourself and reload often at the local Police Departments and the Mall. Running out of ammunition is a real pain, so make sure you keep your ammunition stocks up. Nothing sucks harder than walking into a building that has just been attacked by zombies, and not having enough ammunition to dispatch all the surviving people in a lovely massacre. Try to keep a stockpile of three clips on you at all times.

Escaping the law

The game is very generous in that not everyone knows your dark murderous secret. This makes it possible to hide from justice. As I mentioned earlier in the survival section, it is best to hide in locations that are off the free running paths of the area. Also, it is a consequence of your activities that people will get upset. Especially if they are on the receiving end of your fun. As a result, no matter how hard you hide, eventually enough people will be watching out for you that an area becomes too hot for you to kill in. I personally consider this to be about a week. Once this happens, its probably best to hop several suburbs away, and lay low for a few days reloading before restarting your reign of terror.

However, if your RP reason for Pking exists only in one area, after it becomes too hot to actively hide there, you can move to hiding in neighboring suburbs, free running in to kill victims whenever the mood strikes you. So long as you hide in different spots each night, you should be able to get away with it for a considerable amount of time.

Join a Group

This step isn't for everyone, but many a time, joining a group can greatly enhance your game experience, especially when you go PKing. One man alone cannot do much, but a pack of 20 can clear entire buildings and deliver a massive amount of roleplaying at the same time. Its really a matter of personal preference, but it is my opinion that playing a Pker as part of a group brings an excellent element into the game, and makes roleplaying that much more enjoyable and exciting.

Final Thoughts

Your Brain: Use it or Lose it

When playing Urban Dead or any other MMORPG, it is always best to use your brain to figure out new tactics, new strategies, and new ways of using old things to get completely new effects. Consider all the implications of new changes before you trash or praise them. Figure out how to fit them into existing strategies, or even come up with new ones. After all, your brain is the best tool you have for playing this game. If you don't use it, there are a large number of zombies who would be most enthusiastic in confiscating it.

Credits

A lot of the ideas came from the time spent in the Guns of Brixton survivor group developed by the RRF elders of the times alts (of which i was a part). As such, a large part of the basic guerrilla warfare strategy was invented by them as a group with elaborations by myself. The survival stuff is entirely my own survival strategies though. Others may use them already, but I was the one who wrote them down, and I developed them independently.

Cheers to my proofreaders,

You guys were a great help.

This guide was created to celebrate the 2 year anniversary of The Grimch joining UD.

User:Grim s/Grims guide to staying alive