Guides:Short simple guide to staying alive

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This advice is for the starting player, the new survivor who just wants some simple rules to live by. There are many long, detailed, and well-written guides, with lots of thought and explanation behind the advice, and some deep strategies and double-thinking. There are also other guides that discuss how to operate within a group, each specializing in one support role, or as part of a larger community. Read those later, once you're experienced the game a little and can appreciate what they're talking about.

This Guide is simple, nothing fancy - it will let you hit the ground running and keep running long enough to understand the game. Creating another character is easy, so you can later go outside these lines with a second character without any problem in a week or two if you want.

Once you are experienced, there are more subtle and important tricks to learn. But for now, here's how to stay alive for your first week or so.

Class

Start as a Firefighter.

If you didn't, don't panic, read on - or start again (you can have more than 1 character). It's not that it's the only "good" start, it's just that it gains experience the fastest to start with. And experience means more skills, and your character won't stay alive until they have a few key skills under their belt.

Firefighters start with an axe, and a 15% bonus to use that axe on top of the standard 10% starting skill that everyone has, giving them a respectable 25% chance to hit with every swing. And an axe never runs out of ammo. Every day, you can get about 10 hits on a zombie, and in 2-4 days have 100 experience to get your first survivor-critical skill.

Cops and military start with only enough ammo to maybe kill 1 injured zombie - and then they spend days looking for more ammo, ~IF~ they can get into a Police Department to find it (see "Get Free Running" about barricades, next.)

With Fireman, you can quickly get 4 basic skills that will serve the rest of your survivor career.

Skills

(If you didn't start as a Firefighter, then go to a Fire Department and "Search the Area" until you find a Fire Axe. Use that at 10% (no ammo required!) to get 100 experience and get Hand to Hand Combat - that skill is your first goal. This will get you the same 10+15% = 25% as Firefighters have. Then you're good to go from here on.)

Your 1st Skill, Staying Alive

First new skill, get Free Running.

All skills are only 100 experience for a Fireman, not too far off.

So, why Free Running?

Every building can be barricaded, as protection against zombies. Stronger barricades (aka "'cades") provide better protection, and slow down the zombies from breaking in and eating your brains. 'Cades have different strengths - if 'caded more than "Very Strong ++", you can't get in.

The only way in is to find a nearby(?) building that you can enter, and then use Free Running to cross into the heavily 'caded building. (It's described as hopping from rooftop to rooftop, or something like that.)

(The Scout class starts with Free Running, but they can't gain experience to save their life - a week later they're still hiding and cowering and trying to use a fire axe at 10%. Very slow. 10% chance to hit with an axe (which you first have to find) is maybe only 6-15 experience/day, painfully slow when you're looking at 100 as your goal.)

2nd skill: More Experience

Your next (2nd) skill: Hand to Hand Combat.

If you started as a Fireman (or are playing catch-up), your Axe is your friend - it's what's killing zombies, and getting you experience. By adding another 15% to axe (to 40% total), you can now kill a healthy zombie all by yourself with less than 50 Action Points* - and that's 60 experience points/day.

(* (10% base + 15% hand-to-hand + 15% axe =) 40% each swing x 3 damage/hit = 1.2 damage/swing on average. So 42 swings = 50+ damage, enough to kill most zombies. There are other modifiers - see Combat, below.)

(If you didn't start as a Fireman, find an axe, then get Hand-to-Hand, then Free Running, then Axe Proficiency for 40% with that axe.)

3rd skill: Protect yourself

Your next (3rd) skill: Construction.

Construction is what survivors use to build barricades, or rebuild them when they are torn down. It's what turns an open building into a safe(r) building. It's what stops, discourages or at least slows the zombies from just walking in and eating your brains.

(It also repairs radios and generators and ruined buildings ~if~ you've found a toolbox - but that's outside a "simple guide".)

4th skill: Stay Healthy

Your last (4th) important skill: First Aid.

This is not as critical as the other skills, as now you're moving into "optional but recommended" skills. If some other path is calling your name, feel free to answer that call.

You'll get wounded, you might get infected. First Aid will help you heal yourself better - 5 pts without, 10 pts with First Aid. (You still need a First Aid Kit, either way!) It will also let you heal others that much better, and healthier neighbors are more likely to fight rather than run.

After this skill, you have all the basics - after this, read some of the other Guides about skills to figure out what you want next.

(And if I had to suggest, if you aren't sure, then take Body Building next - 60 hit points instead of only 50 is bigger than it sounds.)

Equipment

When you're starting out, don't waste time to "search the area" - you have your fire axe (or get one!), you can't break it or lose it, so you don't "need" anything else. Right now, you're just trying to get your first 4 skills to stay alive.

If you find yourself there, you could search a Hospital and get a First Aid Kit (aka FAK), for emergencies, for yourself (at this early stage). Some zombie bites can infect you, and that makes you lose 1 Hit Point/Action - you don't want to die while looking for help. This will let you heal yourself if you have to, but usually you can get to a Hospital and sleep there - Doctors tend to lurk in/around hospitals to heal you up, that's what they do, they live for it and do it better than you can.

Simple Rules to Live By

Rule #1: Plan ahead

50 Action Points - that's how many "actions" you get, at most. You get 1 new AP every 1/2 hour, 2/hour, so only 48/day.

So if you don't plan well, if you run out and are not safe - you sit there for a half hour, then get only 1 action - and then another single action in another half hour, etc. This is how survivors die.

50 Action Points is the max you can have, and it's good to wait until you have that max, or nearly so - if you only have 30 or so, you can't do as much outside before spending X number of points to find safety again.

Rule #2: Hide

You always want to sleep/hide inside at the end of your turn! Never run out of points on the streets! This means finding a building that is barricaded at Very Strong or less - you cannot enter a stronger barricade from the street! (You can enter it once you are inside an adjacent building - but you have to get inside that building first - and that means Very Strong or less!)

So - if you are inside, find a VS building to leave from, and remember where it is. (You can jump from a stonger 'cade, but it might hurt you slightly - 5 hit points.) If you are outside or moving long distance, save ~15 Action Points to find a VS building, get inside, and then move to a Extremely Heavy barricaded building to sleep. Better to stop with 10 AP remaining and have those tomorrow morning than to run out and be a zombie tomorrow morning.

(Once upon a time, Police Stations and Hospitals were all kept at Very Strong for ammo/1st Aid access to all survivors. And every suburb had a "barricade map" on the wiki that was more or less reliable. Zombie spies and other tactics have changed that. Today, Fire Departments are often VS, but that's not guaranteed either.)

So - before spending almost all your Actions killing that zombie or traveling across the map, make sure you know where you're sleeping!

Expect to have problems finding VS buildings! Rule #1: Plan ahead!

Rule #3: Don't be obvious

Police Stations, Hospitals, NecroTech buildings - these are obvious targets for zombies, especially for groups of them. Auto Repair shops and Fire Departments can also be targets. Malls and Forts are strong, but can be targets for big hordes of zombies. Any large group of survivors may seem safe, but it also offers a tasty banquet for a horde.

Use Free Running to go somewhere nearby, somewhere non-descript - more than a couple blocks away is safer than right next door to an obvious target. Even once you start looking for ammo or other items, it's a good idea to search, then Free Run next door, then come back and search more if you have to.

Rule #4: Don't be a hero

Not yet.

Until you have more skills and understand the game (and zombies, and zombie players) better, if you see trouble, leave. Run. Run with great fear. Go somewhere else, and with your last 15 Action Points find somewhere new to hide.

By "trouble" I mean a group of a half-dozen or more zombies, or indications of lone zombies on every block, who can combine to take down any building. Or if you go to sleep in a building that's Extremely Heavily Barricaded and wake up to one that's only Very Strong. Or if a Zombie is standing next to you. Any of these are hints that the neighborhood is going downhill.

(Look at the suburb map, too - red is dangerous, green not so much.)

Rules misc.

• If you find a dead body in a building, dump it outside. Dead bodies rise as zombies.

• If you can only close the doors to your building, then do that. Some experienced zombies can re-open doors, but not all.

• If you have been outside, and you find a group of survivors, and you have information to share (about zombies, esp groups), then spend the 1 Action Point to "Speak" - tell them how many, and where. You have 50 characters to talk/type - give as much info as briefly as possible. (If you've seen a horde, not a bad idea to detour through a Police Department, Hospital or Mall - always seem to be survivor groups there.)

• Once you have the time to Search (after your 1st 4 skills), always carry at least one First Aid Kit, for yourself, for emergencies. Best place to find these is in Hospitals. (If you want, always carry two, one for you and one for that desperate survivor you find. Healing another player (not yourself) is 5 experience points.)

• Be aware that there are Zombie spies and Survivor Predators (aka PK'ers, Player-Killers). Some play as Survivors (with Free Running) but talk via chatrooms/etc with zombie groups. Some destroy barricades and generators, and/or kill other survivors. Some do other things that are unexpected for a "survivor". Some are just insane. Can be frustrating, but that's life, and that's this game - accept it. You can kill them just like they can kill you. Just a heads up.

• You can click on the name of a survivor (or a zombie that's interacted with you) and then add them to your "Contacts" list. You can then "color" them differently. This is good to keep track of good guys/bad guys/whatever, especially when they are zombies - you recognize players in your contact list when they are zeds, but if they are not in your list all zombies are generic.

Combat

Couple quick notes:

If a building is "dark", you have less of a chance to hit. So does a zombie. Sleeping in a dark building is a good idea. Fighting in one is not. Searching in one is less productive than in a lit building. ("Light" requires generators and fuel - this is intermediate stuff, don't worry about it for now.)

Don't count on being lucky in combat - plan ahead, plan on missing when you need to hit. Run away, get full Action Points, come back later.

Guns are great for killing lots of zeds (zombies), but they require ammo, and when that runs out guns are just weight until you go and search and find more ammo. Most gunfighters spend days ammo'ing up, then have one day of fun - and then start over. And they need 5(!) guns skills to get up to 40% with both pistols and shotguns. That's why we only use our trusty axe to start with.

And one "advanced" trick - if you hurt a zombie, you get 1 experience for each damage you do. If you kill a zed (zombie), you get the damage + 10 xp. If you find yourself in an area where each block has different zombie groups, try attacking each group once until you find a wounded zed. Easier to kill a zed with 40 hit points than one with 50 (by many swings!), and the few Actions to run around are often worth it.

Halp! I be zobmified!

Ooops - well, that happens to everyone sooner or later.

Now, you have 2 choices - play as a zombie until, by chance, someone revives you (not very likely), or find a Resurrection Point (aka Revive Point) and wait to be revived there.

Resurrection Points are organized and recognized blocks where zombies go to become "alive" again. Other players use other skills (necrotech) to do this. Many Revive Points are labeled (via tagging), but not all. The best way to find one is via this Wiki - type in the name of the suburb you are in, into the "search" box (left hand margin), and hit "Go". Then scroll to the bottom, for the suburb map - find the blocks that have "RP" on them - and go there, and wait, and hope for the best.

(If nothing happens in a few days, or if the "line" is more than a few long, try another Res' Point - zombie destruction or danger levels can cause doctors to flee an area and ignore a distant/dangerous RP.)

So - that's my advice - that, and read this wiki, a lot! There are lots of advanced tricks, and other things to consider, and different approaches and opinions, but this may be close to the simplest and fastest to get a new survivor character to where they are "real".

Good luck!