Guides:Ghost Town Reclamation

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Ghost Town Reclamation

Ghost Towns?

A ghost town is an area with little survivor or zombie presence. Normally they occur when a large zombie horde has destroyed an area and no one has tried to reclaim it. As the horde move on they normally leave a cloud of ferals in their wake. These zombies were drawn by feeding groans and are looking for easy kills. Most feral zombies tend to shamble on after a couple of days when they realise there is no more survivor meat to be had. Ghost towns are self sustaining. Zombies pass through looking for survivors, and finding none move on, whilst most survivors enjoy sitting inside a powered building with 30 or so of their brethren. Whilst they are safe there is no overwhelming reason to leave.

Now believe it or not, Ghost Towns are among the easiest places for survivors to thrive. Here's a rough guide on how to do it.

So here's a pretend suburb; I christen it Riotville

  54 55 56 57 58 59  
71 Hospital Building Walk Park Avenue Auto Repair
72 Monument Plaza Club Railway Station Street Church
73 Cinema Hotel Hospital Fire Station Bank Road
74 Plaza factory Building junkyard Place wasteland
75 Fire Station warehouse NT Building Building Police Department Place
   

Phase 1. Scouting

The First Thing you have to do is scouting. A single survivor who knows how to hide in plain sight could scout an entire suburb in a couple of days. You don't even have to be alive. Living or dead you primary goal is to find out where the zombies are.

A living scout with construction can find you the exact repair cost of buildings, that is their advantage, a zombie scout can go about his business unhindered by the living dead. His information won't be as accurate but its a personal preference.

You can even formalise your scouting on a wiki map like this one of Eastonwood. So lets say you've done that, as below.

  54 55 56 57 58 59  
71 Hospital
Ruined
18ap
2 zombies
Building
Ruined
24ap
Walk Park Avenue Auto Repair
Ruined
37ap
72 Monument Plaza Club
Ruined
1 zombie
Railway Station
Ruined
36ap
Street Church
Ruined
34ap
73 Cinema
Ruined
Hotel
Ruined
40ap
1 zombie
Hospital
Ruined
27ap
1 zombie
Fire Station
Ruined
33ap
Bank
Ruined
Road
74 Plaza factory
Ruined
32ap
Building
Ruined
40ap
junkyard
QSB
Place wasteland
75 Fire Station
Ruined
28ap
warehouse
Ruined
32ap
NT Building
Ruined
52ap
4 zombies
Building
Ruined
28ap
Police Department
Ruined
29ap
1 zombie
Place
   

Looking at the scouting map of Riotville you notice several things.

  • Only 10 zombies
  • Clusters of zombies inside the TRPs
  • Repair costs are pretty high
  • Someone's barricaded the Junkyard.

Now only one of these points is important.

  • Only 10 zombies.

Malton is a city full of Hospitals, Necrotechs and Factories. No one cares about a specific one. Wherever you're character is in Malton you're probably less than 20ap from whatever resource building you need, fully repaired and powered. Let the zombies have these for now. Whilst they worry about holding a building, you can reclaim a suburb around them.

Repair costs mean nothing. You only need to click "Repair" Once to undo days, weeks or months of ruin. The number is meaningless, merely the ruin state matters. That's what puts 99% of survivors off coming to the suburb.

As for the junkyard, its a single badly maintained building. In the overall theme of things its not really important. Its probably only like that because it can't be ruined. Your goal is the suburb, not the Mystery of the empty Junkyard.

There is no way that ten zombies should be holding an area of nineteen buildings. Although numbers may vary this is a fair example of an area ripe for reclamation. Its time for you to move in.

As a group, you should have a rally point. The location is up to you, but it should be somewhere quite nearby with a maintained revive point, because you're going to get eaten. Quite a lot. At least to begin with.

Equipment

Basically you all need a Toolbox and the Construction skill. Generators and fuel and needles for everyone, plus first aid kits if you get infected and the odd member carrying shotguns to shift the particularly stubborn Rotter.

Phase 2. Dying

Phase 2 is the key to reclaiming the suburb. You need a suicide repair run (I'm assuming five members). All five survivors enter the suburb and repair the first building they discover that is empty. If targeting a dark building, don't forget you will need a generator and fuel. This will probably leave all your groups members in Negative APs.

  54 55 56 57 58 59  
71 Hospital
Ruined
19ap
2 zombies
Building
Ruined
25ap
Walk Park Avenue Auto Repair
Ruined
38ap
72 Monument Plaza Club
Ruined
1 zombie
Railway Station
Ruined
36ap
Street Church
Ruined
35ap
73 Cinema

Powered

REPAIRED
Hotel
Ruined
41ap
1 zombie
Hospital
Ruined
28ap
1 zombie
Fire Station
Ruined
34ap
Bank
Ruined
Road
74 Plaza factory

REPAIRED
Building

REPAIRED
junkyard
QSB
Place wasteland
75 Fire Station

REPAIRED
warehouse

REPAIRED
NT Building
Ruined
53ap
4 zombies
Building
Ruined
29ap
Police Department
Ruined
30ap
1 zombie
Place
   

Now normally standing in a building with no barricades for a long period of time is suicide, but remember, ten zombies. Ten zombies who probably don't log in everyday, otherwise they would have followed the horde to fresh feeding grounds.

One of survivors' biggest flaws is that they generally play as if they were their character, and because of this, hate dying. The sooner you come to terms with the fact that dying is part of playing Urban Dead, the better a survivor you will become.

It should be noted that your low numbers also give you another advantage. Being the only survivor in a building means that even if zombies do find you, a feeding groan's range will be only one block, certainly not enough to attract large numbers of zombies.

We're going to take the worst case scenario. The zombies notice the repairs and horde over, killing you all and ruining the buildings again. You're dead before you even wake up.

  54 55 56 57 58 59  
71 Hospital
Ruined
21ap
2 zombies
Building
Ruined
27ap
Walk Park Avenue Auto Repair
Ruined
40ap
72 Monument Plaza Club
Ruined
1 zombie
Railway Station
Ruined
38ap
Street Church
Ruined
37ap
73 Cinema
Ruined
2ap
1 zombie
Hotel
Ruined
43ap
Hospital
Ruined
30ap
Fire Station
Ruined
36ap
Bank
Ruined
Road
74 Plaza factory
Ruined
2ap
Building
Ruined
2ap
1 zombie
junkyard
QSB
Place wasteland
75 Fire Station
Ruined
2ap
warehouse
Ruined
2ap
1 zombie
NT Building
Ruined
55ap
3 zombies
Building
Ruined
31ap
Police Department
Ruined
32ap
1 zombie
Place
   

Phase 3. Dying (again)

It takes you a day to stand up and wander back to that RP you set up or identified. Another day to get revived and to save up APs. Then you return. Now remember those zombies that killed you? You've got two new advantages.

  • You know their profile IDs (Contact List any zombies who ate you, infected you or ruined your buildings. Share this info with your team mates.)
  • They moved to attack you

Only the most determined of zombies will fall back to maintain long term ruins. A feral will normally follow the meat. If yesterday he saw you in a hotel, he'll probably be waiting for you to return. You on the other hand will strike somewhere else. Repeat Phase 2 again. Ignore the buildings you have already repaired. Focus on other empty buildings. Try to link up a large area of low repair buildings if possible. The buildings you already repaired will have a very low repair cost, but to the average passing zombie, they'll still looked ruined and abandoned. Remember, we want no incentive for zombies to stay around.

  54 55 56 57 58 59  
71 Hospital
Ruined
21ap
2 zombies
Building

REPAIRED
Walk Park Avenue Auto Repair
Ruined
40ap
72 Monument Plaza Club
Ruined
1 zombie
Railway Station

REPAIRED
Street Church
Ruined
37ap
73 Cinema
Ruined
2ap
1 zombie
Hotel

REPAIRED
Hospital

REPAIRED
Fire Station
Ruined
36ap
Bank
Ruined
Road
74 Plaza factory
Ruined
2ap
Building
Ruined
2ap
1 zombie
junkyard
QSB
Place wasteland
75 Fire Station
Ruined
2ap
warehouse
Ruined
2ap
1 zombie
NT Building
Ruined
55ap
3 zombies
Building

REPAIRED
Police Department
Ruined
32ap
1 zombie
Place
   

You'll probably get eaten. Again. Doesn't matter at all, just go and get revived and repeat again until all buildings discovered to be empty have their repair costs reset. At this point you've probably got the profiles of most of the zombies about. If you enter a building and it's got a contact listed zombie inside without brain rot, you can always combat revive him to remove him whilst you repair the building. What could go wrong? You're probably going to be dead anyway...

Now this is where it could all go wrong. You may discover a hyper organised zombie horde has moved in. (or more likely a major survivor group declares that they are about to reclaim the area, and every local zombies swarms over to stop them.) In this case its best to reassess your option and maybe think "Where have this horde moved from?" & "Can I repair there?"

If that doesn't happen, eventually Riotville will look something like this:

  54 55 56 57 58 59  
71 Hospital
Ruined
23ap
1 zombie
Building
Ruined
2ap
1 zombie
Walk Park Avenue Auto Repair
REPAIRED
72 Monument Plaza Club
Ruined
1 zombie
Railway Station
Ruined
2ap
Street Church
REPAIRED
73 Cinema
Ruined
4ap
1 zombie
Hotel
Ruined
2ap
Hospital
Ruined
2ap
Fire Station

REPAIRED
Bank
Powered

REPAIRED
Road
74 Plaza factory
Ruined
4ap
Building
Ruined
4ap
1 zombie
junkyard
QSB
Place wasteland
75 Fire Station
Ruined
4ap
warehouse
Ruined
4ap
1 zombie
NT Building
Ruined
57ap
3 zombies
Building
Ruined
2ap
Police Department
Ruined
34ap
1 zombie
Place
   

Time for the next phase.

Phase 4. Standing your ground

So now is the time for a big push. Get yourself revived and get barricade strafing. A single survivor can barricade a building to VSB for approximately 10 AP. It should take a zombie 40 AP to undo the same barricades. You can raise four buildings to VSB. Factor in the now-low repair costs and your five survivors can do something like this:

  54 55 56 57 58 59  
71 Hospital
Ruined
23ap
1 zombie
Building

VSB
Walk Park Avenue Auto Repair

VSB
72 Monument Plaza Club
Ruined
1 zombie
Railway Station

VSB
Street Church

VSB
73 Cinema
Ruined
4ap
1 zombie
Hotel
Ruined
2ap
Hospital

VSB
Fire Station

VSB
Bank
Powered

VSB
Road
74 Plaza factory

VSB
Building
Ruined
4ap
1 zombie
junkyard

VSB
Place wasteland
75 Fire Station

VSB
warehouse
Ruined
4ap
1 zombie
NT Building
Ruined
57ap
3 zombies
Building

VSB
Police Department
Ruined
34ap
1 zombie
Place
   

So now you've done that, you can forget about your fallback area. Pick a building and all pile in. By removing your travel costs you can now save up your AP for focussing on the harder targets. Start resetting those other buildings with pesky zombies inside. With the rest of the group close by, you can begin coordinated attacks. One member can suicide repair whilst the others raise cades to protect them.


  54 55 56 57 58 59  
71 Hospital

VSB
Building

VSB
Walk Park Avenue Auto Repair

VSB
72 Monument Plaza Club

VSB
Railway Station

VSB
Street Church

VSB
73 Cinema

VSB
Hotel

VSB
Hospital

VSB
Fire Station

VSB
Bank
Powered

VSB
Road
74 Plaza factory

VSB
Building

VSB
junkyard

VSB
Place wasteland
75 Fire Station

VSB
warehouse

VSB
NT Building
Ruined
57ap
3 zombies
Building

VSB
Police Department

VSB
Place
   

Of course then, you have the difficult problem of the zombie held NT. Zombies love to salt the land when it comes to these places. Don't forget the wonders of NecroNet Access. Hook up and power a generator and you can combat revive all of them. Indeed a single survivor can revive four zombies and suicide repair the building on their own. Barricade them in nice and tightly and prepare for the zombie onslaught.

In addition, if zombies are in a neighbouring block, lighting an NT is the perfect way to draw them out so you can sneak in and repair the adjacent buildings.

Further Thoughts

Remember that if you're combat reviving, that any building barricaded above VSB can be turned into a piñata. In the short term it's not necessarily an issue, but remember it's easiest to repair the empty buildings first.

Your biggest issue is dark buildings. You will need gennies and fuel. Other than that a toolbox, some needles and a few FAKs is all you really need.

As you get better at these reclamations you can become more advanced. You could employ Vampire Tactics to avoid having to retreat to be revived, or start targeting those zombies you know are the least active. If you were really flash you could set up flares or feeding groans to draw zombies out of the area.

Remember, if you want to discover the rough AP cost of repairing a building whilst a zombie, you can look at its internal description.

Finally, think long term. A reclaimed ghost town is the perfect place for a new survivor group, so do everything you can to encourage survivors to settle. Powering VSB TRPs will create the perfect conditions for the spawning of new characters. Even if people stay in the area for only a day, it's one day where zombies have to work harder to make headway.