Talk:Hiding In Plain Sight

Run?

Note: If you get a kick out of playing hide-and-seek with the 300 strong zombie group next door then this doesn't apply. If there is a lare population of zombies in your suburb then your should probably get the heck out of there. Meanwhile while you spend your AP saving your own skin, others are being productive and saving the human race. Sure, if it takes 1-2 days for zombies to move on then go ahead and dig-in, but otherwise it is better to never confront the zombies... they're gonna win.

Hiding

Ah, but doors open or shut? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 22:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

shhhhhhh... loud debates only attract zombies! --WanYao 22:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Open. Almost every zombie that's a threat can open doors, and closing gives away your position. --Tempest56 23:50 GMT, 25 March 2008

Yes, I know. But some people don't agree... Let me get some content onto the main page, please... ;P --WanYao 23:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

This is no use since zombies will check this article. --Violent-kun 23:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Uhmmmm ... dude ... they already check the threads... this isn't a new idea... it's been talked about forever... and it's currently being talked about a LOT on many forums. Zombies already know we sleep in Ruins. Yet... it still works... My own survival, and that of countless others, is the proof... So why knock my attempt to try to educate survivors on some new and effective tactics, just because you're scared of ZMOBIE WIKAH SPAIZ? Seriously... --WanYao 23:42, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Strike points

Following on from this. What about the idea of strike points? Its simple.

Say 5 or more friends are wiped out and the suburb goes red.

• Coordinate them all within one ruined building. (With no non friendly zombies present.)

This is quite easy. Pick a random empty ruin. A passing feral looking for a meal will probably think you're meatshielding and move on.

• Send in a character with needles for all. Revive the 5. But don't dump the bodies.

As effecient as a revive point in a Very dangerous suburb. Doesn't even matter if the reviver dies, as 5 of his friends will soon stand up.

• All 5 survivors stand (Using their emergency fak to heal any infections.)

At this point either.

• A- Blitz a revive point. (If you're stocked and its near thats 20revives in one strike (DirtNap) is the way forward.

• B- Repair and barricade all empty buildings you can with your AP before sleeping seperately (In Ruined Buildings away from your repaired ones.) Being spread out means that one of you is more likely to survive.

--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 18:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

much of that goes a little beyond the scope of this article. but, in some form i can maybe work some of it in. many of your points fit under "make friends", basically. and i will probably be talking about revives, etc., at some point. but the very last part i don't agree with at all. AP has to be conserved in Ruined burbs. therefore, i advocate repairing and cading only a very few decoy buildings. also, the more Ruins out there, the harder the shell game is for the zombies. it's all about the shell game. keep most of the burb ruined and the zombies think it's theirs and stay complacent. start cading left right and centre, and you attract attention. bad idea. and this guide is written not only from "theory" but from personal experience. this is how i have stayed alive for a long time... --WanYao 19:20, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

but i appreciate your input, thanks! even if i disagree with some of it, the dialogue helps me clarify my arguments. --WanYao 19:26, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Repairing ruined buildings

I have a proposal to make, and this strategy page seems like the right place to do it. It's a plan to retake Malton's buildings from the zombies, and it uses parts of Rat_Tactics, Barricade_Strafing, Lying_Low, and even Fertilize_the_Land_Policy. There is work in progress in this article that points to this, but I'll make my proposal, and then we can discuss it freely. It consists of two main points:

MAKE ZOMBIES SPEND AP

This is achieved through two simple tactics

1. Repair ruins. No, I'm not crazy. As pointed in the article, it only takes a Toolbox and 1 AP to repair a ruin, and zombies need 6AP to ruin it again, so it's more efficient than Headshot. Every time you find an empty ruin, repair it. If it's a NT building, you can even resort to Combat_revive to clean and repair it.

2. Barricade non-TRP buildings. As per Barricade Strafing tactics, the more barricaded buildings, the more AP zombies have to spend, just to check if there are survivors inside. In fact, the most efficient way to do this is to barricade until QS++ (almost 100% probability, you can check in Barricades). Since zombies have to spend 3-4 AP destroying barricades per AP survivors spend building them, it's a cost-efficient way to distract and deplete its resources.

RESTORE MALTON'S POPULATION

This is obvious. We survivors are too few, and the use of Rat_tactics implies admitting that zombies have won. So, first we start a plan to recover ruins, because right now survivors are getting revived and up only to find the entire suburb ruined and being unable to survive long enough to help more survivors getting alive again. Once we have enough barricaded houses to confuse and disorient feral zombies (since there's no feasible tactic to counter megahordes like The Dead right now) survivors can scatter through them and live long enough to stock on syringes and FAKs, thus helping to restore Malton's survivor population to normal (50%-60%).

This would be achieved through [Trans-mortal tactics]

1. While survivor, revive. Don't combat-revive unless it's an NT building on stake, by Fertilize_the_Land_Policy. While you're reviving, you can recruit some of the survivors that are currently in zombie form. I will explain about this in point 2. After all, if somebody is waiting in a Revive Point, exception make for the usual rotter, it's likely to be a survivor. If you tell him/her how to help the survivors cause, he/she will probably make some effort, if only to be revived sooner. Note that this would serve best in long (about 50 zombies waiting) and clogged Revive Points, where survivors often have to wait for days for a revive, even when using the [DEM Request Tool]. Don't forget to tell/spraypaint often the TinyUrl for this tool: http://tinyurl.com/zmmas.

2. While zombie, help survivors. Even if I usually play as a Dual_Nature character myself, i reckon this is time to search for Equilibrium, balance. We need to boost the survivor population, lest Malton becomes the Full Undead Populated City. Once reached that dreadful situation, the game is over. And I like this game too much to let it be spoiled forever. ¿How to help survivors? Hear their requests as you are waiting in a Revive Point. Now I'd like to point that the zombie with the adequate skills (Ankle Grab being the fundamental) is the perfect fighting machine, once it has claws maximized. See here, here and here. So, why waste good AP's while waiting for a revive? Kill other zombies! Ok, it's not much help in the vast majority of the situations, because killed zeds will just stand up again for 1AP. But it can help dispose of the zombies being inside nearby ruins and ransacked buildings that make impossible for the survivors to regain control of them. Remember the 1/6 AP relation about ruins. If survivors in zombie form kill, or even better weaken to 1HP, the zombies inside the houses, a lone survivor can go there, shoot once (preferably Headshot), dump the body/bodies and repair/barricade. This way we'll retake more buildings, more quickly, and will provide a greater number of distraction objectives to wandering zombies, and shelters for just revived survivors. To make the long story short: We help the functioning of the Revive Point.

That's all for the moment. Please provide new ideas or discuss mine. If this gets too big, I'll move it to its own survivor tactics page. Scarbrow 20:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

again, a lot of this is beyond the scope of this article. a lot of also goes directly against HiPS theory and practice as i am proposing it. first of all, i oppose repairing/barricading large numbers of ruined buildings, for reasons which i just added to the article, and you may not have had a chance to read. secondly, HiPS is not about "retaking Malton" so much as it is a strategy for survival, both short and perhaps medium term. and surviving is the best way to "win"... the more survivors who, well, survive... the easier it becomes to reclaim suburbs and regions. see the "critical mass" section of the article, which i just added.

don't get me wrong... i appreciate your ideas and there is nothing wrong in them, far from it. and even when i disagree, like with rosslessness, the dialogue actually helps me clarify my own ideas. the newest sections i just added are a direct result of talking with rosslessness. and, any and all new ideas and tactics are good -- survivors have to start thinking outside the box more, get more creative, up the level of their game... so the dialogue is healthy... thanks for paying attention (to this article) and being part of the process! :) --WanYao 20:49, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank your for your appreciation. I'm only trying a new idea and i'm not bold enough to post a new Policy or proposal out of the box. I wanted to discuss it a little first with other people with good ideas, like you and rosslessness. If I can get what I see as a good piece of work done, I'll move it to its own page for community to discuss. Thank you Scarbrow 21:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem with that is that after your zombie has killed another zombie, you still need humans to come and throw them out of the building. And you need to find a way of making sure that youre zombie isnt killing another 'friendly' zombie. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:08, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

That's right. Any idea how to make it work? Scarbrow 21:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Pass. Unless someone runs in, DNA scans the zombies, and passes their profiles on to the other zombies who add them as contacts and attack them. Or something. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay... I only skimmed that part. ZKing is just silly. ZKing is the worst waste of AP possible. The only time it might be okay is getting a zombie down to low AP so others can headshot him. However, all a zed has to do is gesture at himself and say, "Barg mah zambah!" and ... all that effort is wasted. No. Concentrate on getting an efficient revive process going... --WanYao 21:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I addressed these comments and some extensions and rewriting of the draft and decided it was getting too big to be a comment here, so I moved it to Retake And Repopulate, a new page about tactics. Thank you for your comments, if you wish to keep revising it please do it in the discussion page of the new article. Scarbrow 17:36, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Minor Points

Personally I think that danger report pages history are better than the suburb map. EG. [[1]].

If a suburb is constantly being editted over a couple of days, like in the above report, you know that its contested. If its changed once a month you can tell its a ghost town and numbers are low or similar. Look at Dentonside. Hasn't been green in a year.

Also. Put the bit about not sleeping in TRP's in giant flashing letters.

Finally, mention junkyards. They can't be ruined and as such are an interesting point. personally I dont hide in them as an unknowing zombie may think "Why has noone ruined this building"?

As for Rat tactics. Even if we were on 99% survivors, we should be following most of these ideas anyway.--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes! I was just about to add junkyards as a bad hiding spot, an important note in my opinion. --Fifth Element 22:14, 11 April 2008 (BST)

Why are junkyards a bad hiding spot? The zombies know they can't be ruined, so not being ruined doesn't make them stand out. I've lasted longer in junkyards than in ruined clubs & museums. Of course they double as good decoys too, particularly if you light and cade one with a lone zed inside. I agree with everything else in the article --Explodey 00:25, 30 May 2008 (BST)

Junkyards can't be ruined, so they stand out from the crowd. Meaning, in theory at least, zombies tend to peek inside. However... in practice, you know what? My zombies usually walk right past them... For that exact reason, because I don't expect anyone to be inside! But if I'm in a wasteland and I'm hungry, I will look inside the usual non-descripts... But I do it pretty randomly, I never search every non-descript, just a few while wandering. Which is exactly what I mean by playing a "shell game" with the zombies... No one said Hiding In Plain Sight wasn't risky: it is. But it's much less of a risk than being inside one of 2 or 3 barricaded buildings in an otherwise ruined suburb =D --WanYao 13:36, 18 June 2008 (BST)

Maps

There is a remarkabout the scent map being unreliable compared to the EMRM and the burb danger map which I removed and Wan Yao put back. I've removed it again because it is s subjective and unsupported claim. It is not something that should be stated as fact in an article on another subject. Garum 08:48, 22 June 2008 (BST)

Ahem... Are you going to argue that the basic statement that zombies tend to be mobile, and thus the scent map can easily be out of date -- are you going to argue that's wrong? If you want to reword the sentence into something that you feel isn't somehow a "slight" to the scent map... if you think I've gone too far... okay, fine... But deleting the passage wholesale... No. If you're going to edit this page, please edit "constructively" -- as opposed to wholesale deletion of entire passages which are not factually wrong. Thanks. --WanYao 10:25, 22 June 2008 (BST)

I did edit constructively - by removing one sentence which was a piece of subjective judgement presented as fact. That's hardly 'wholesale deletion of entire passages'. 'Constructive' doesn't mean 'makes the article bigger' it means 'makes the article better.'

I've done a word of caution on map data in general, rather than trying to evaluate the maps here, which isn't really the topic. I also disagree that the scent data is less reliable - information is objective, and greyed out when over 7 days old, unlike with the suburb map (which is subjective and hard to check the age of the data). The EMRM is objective and dated, but the frequency of updates means that it doesnt keep up with events. As I've seen from updating the scentmap, the levels of zombies/bodies in a broad area does vary quite slowly, so for horde tracking the map works pretty well.Garum 11:15, 22 June 2008 (BST)

Evaluating map data is the issue here. That's the topic of the whole effen section of the article! As I commented on your talk page, the idea that all maps have elements of inaccuracy is inherent to the entire paragraph. However, I deal with each major map on its own terms. That is on purpose. Now, if you're disputing the claim that the Scent Map can go quickly out of date... Dispute THAT... you edits don't actually address that... Come on, man. --WanYao 11:29, 22 June 2008 (BST)

Anyhooooooooooo... Whatever one might want to say about the old version, it's all moot. I don't think it can be denied that the new version kicks friggin' ass and is a very reliable intelligence tool. --WanYao 16:59, 11 August 2008 (BST)

Dark Buildings

Sleeping alone in a dark building is probably safer than sleeping in a light building. Even if your more likely to be found the zombie to find you can't kill you. If your on your own it can't groan to alert other zombies. If you are found you will simply wake up on half hp and maybe infected(The chances of a bite being on target in darkness is 15%). Of course this is better with first aid kits. By sleeping in a dark building being found is not going to kill you. --Fernley

The chance of a bite being on target in the dark is actually 25% if the zombie bothers to use claws first, and has Tangling Grasp. If the have 50 AP to work, a zombie can generally kill a survivor in the dark. Doesn't make them bad places to hide though; they may go looking for easier prey.  Swiers 19:39, 12 July 2008 (BST)

I've edited the section to deal with this better... I'll work on it more, probably, at some point. In the short run, if you only need to hide for a brief period, and you can check back by logging in soon (say 8-10 hours max), dark buildings are ideal places to hide! actually, i go in them very often for safety. but many zombies DO check inside there, exactly because they know survivors like them... and while there's a good chance a lone zombie will only get frusrated and leave, or fail to kill you before you log on again, there is always the feeding groan... or the metagame... in any event, it's a waste of FAKs... be wary. --WanYao 16:57, 11 August 2008 (BST)

Game Update

This guide needs to at least acknowledge the new game update giving zombies a hit increase in the dark. Whether or not that will affect the guide much, is another thing. Dark buildings still may be the way to go. But it is now much easier for zombies to kill you in them. --Hockeyruler 00:58, 25 August 2010 (BST)