Guides:Anti Siege Strategy

Survivor Tactics

The information on this page or section discusses a survivor strategy.

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Task Order of Priority

1. Barricade

2. Heal

3. Kill

4. Dump

I have seen this strategy in variations (like 'Cade, Kill, Dump, Heal). The difference is almost always whether to Heal first or Kill first. I find this version (Healing first) the most sensible for the following reasons:

Efficiency for AP spent. Getting a FAK averages 1 found for every 2-3 AP spent searching a powered mall drugstore -- not hard to load up a good amount at all. You spend 1AP to heal 10hp (with first aid skill), while a zombie has to spend several more AP to cause 10hp worth of damage.

If the barricades are holding then the next most efficient thing to do is any healing that needs to be done. Keeps the survivor numbers up, saves many AP that are spent in total for a revive, and with a good supply of FAKs one can easily outlast a zombie... at which point picking them off is easy. Consider also that if their APs are spent then they can't jump up before being dumped, and they can't immediately go to work on the cades again (helping others breach) after being dumped. Much more efficient. As an example, I outlasted a PK attempt from someone with over 40 APs and shotguns while I started with only 19 APs and had about 9 FAKs (and a flak jacket).

I've been killed repeatedly while waiting alone for a revive in a non threatening location (a wasteland), while there were plenty or rotters threatening nearby resources. I've seen people work at killing zeds, while the 'cades are coming down and failing. Please keep the steps outlined above in mind, instead of wasting APs killing something that can stand right back up when there are other tasks that are much more necessary at hand. There are always plenty of people ready to kill zeds, but people well equipped to keep each other alive are harder to find.

Survivor Count in Sieged Building

Something I saw endlessly debated during a recent battle for the Whippey NT Building in Shearbank was how many survivors should be staffing the sieged building. There were over 400 survivors in one corner of the Stickling mall next door (with only a handful of zeds outside), while there were only on average about 70-90 survivors in the sieged Whippey building, with 300-400 zeds outside. When the survivors in the mall were pressed to move to the Whippey building, the response was, "Why, when we have no APs or are sleeping and the NT building is only one square away? We will step in when we are awake and can do something."

I think this logic is flawed, and here is why:

Meat shield. Even if you have no APs or are sleeping, being present in a sieged building can do a lot to keep it from being taken. Consider the following:

More meat = more to chew.

More to chew = more APs spent.

More time to chew through the survivors and clear the building for ransacking = more time for people awake with APs to get help, get the cades up, heal, etc (remember, barricade - heal - kill - dump).

The point is to avoid the building being cleared of survivors and ransacked. Why? Because once a building has been ransacked, survivors can not re-barricade so long as a single zombie is standing inside.

Yes, you may die... but better to die and save a revive resource then to lose the resource. You will die eventually either way, and if you want to get living again than these resources need to be protected! Being a meat shield can make all the difference in a building being attacked but holding, or being lost and ransacked... which is the tipping point and MUCH harder to recover from. Try clearing a number zombies from a building without being able to barricade it... killing, dumping bodies all while the doors are wide open for more to come in, or for the freshly killed to stand up and come back in.

If Whippey had 200 of the 400+ survivors that were in that mall corner it would not have fallen -- even if most were asleep. The sheer amount of time/APs the zombies would have to spend to munch everyone and clear the building would have given plenty of time for a small amount of awake survivors to keep the building secure. And if people would focus on healing before killing (as outlined above), then it could have been done with minimal loss of life, and a lot of frustrated zombies burning away APs.

Note: Being a meat shield is a last line of defense, only applicable to holding out against a large coordinated attack (like Shacknews). At all other times stay safe and alive. Down to 2 APs and being attacked in a smaller fight/minor breach? Then step next door (if it's safe) and rest, preventing the large amount of APs needed for revives.

Think about it.

--exonecro 09:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)