By Samson Lancaster
This guide was made for SP (Alpha 12.5)
No recipes needed to get your base established!
Who is this guide for? First time players, however some of these tips I had not discovered myself until 200+ hours of gameplay!
Day 1 (Get your basics and Hide)
- Collect Grass, Sticks & Rocks to craft Stone Axe & Stone Shovel (Stone axe is good for collecting materials, and killing zombies with a few shots to the head. You will need the shovel when you find your base.)
- Collect more grass and sticks to craft a Bow, more sticks, stones and feathers to make many arrows. (Birdnests are abundant in forest / desert; collect the eggs too, you will want them later as they are the best snack in the game.) Again aim for headshots with the bow, they won’t die right away keep shooting. In general you want to avoid large groups of zombies the first day or so.
- Collect cotton if available to craft cloth fragments to craft Cloth Armor. (Also useful for making simple bandages, keep a few on your tool belt at all times.)
- Chop down several trees (Be careful, yell timber and run, trees will kill you if they fall on you), use the logs to craft wood planks to craft one storage container & 3-4 wood frames. (Wood frames much like the companion cube in Portal, are your best friend, always keep several on you. I’ll explain later.) Wood planks can also be crafted down to sticks for more arrows, and you will want several wood spikes, 6-12 sets!
- Find a house, place your wood spikes to block the entrances, hide in the Attic for the first night, put your storage box here, dump any misc. items in it. (This will free up your inventory for collecting). If you have extra wood planks, make a door / hatch to seal yourself in for more safety.) Be sure to pick up a bed / sleeping bag and place it in the attic so if you die you will respawn there.
- I can’t stress this enough, DO NOT MAKE NOISE the first night, no fires, no light. If you need something to do, hopefully you’ve gathered enough junk to craft things, like arrows, wood frames, armor etc.
DON’T DIE, losing wellness sucks!
Day 2 (Scout a base / Collect food & Water)
- Time to find a base, the house you found yesterday is probably pretty weak, so look for a stronger, taller structure. Preferably something made of stone, brick, or concrete. Don’t pick a building that is in a town or city, these are zombie spawn points and they will make things difficult for you. Instead find a lone structure, or something in a really small town – 3-4 buildings.
- You need food and water, your starting items have probably ran out by now. Collect jars, find a pond, river, lake etc. (if you are lucky, you have found a place near a water tower, crack that sucker open, carefully.) Fill your jars with water (DON’T DRINK IT YET!). Use small stones to make a fire, hopefully you have found a pot by now, so you can boil your murky water. (Best places to find a pot, campsites & kitchens in houses.) You will need wood, or other burnable fuel sources to cook (chairs, couches etc).
Day 3 (Reinforce your base)
- Dig a pit around your base that is 3-4 blocks deep and 2-3 wide. You may not have time to make a full pit around the whole building but this will be your best bet. If you can at least put pits blocking your entries in the interim. Use more logs to make Log Spikes to place in your pit. Use your best friends (Wood Frames) to build a removable bridge to get in and out of your base. Be sure you remove the bridge at night so zombies can’t get in!
- If you want an extra layer of protection, place a row or two of wooden spikes outside of your pit, they won’t last as long as the Wood logs spikes in your pit, but they are guaranteed to kill zombies for you! (NOTE: don’t fall on your spikes, they will kill you, but if you have wood frames, you can “noob tower” out (jump up and place a wood frame underneath you, you will grow to love the wood frame, treat it well).
- Next you will want to establish your HQ on the roof of your chosen structure. (A wooden ladder on the outside will do nicely for entry). You will want to make an eave out of wooden ramps to place along the edges of the top of your building to keep climbers out of your base.
- Reinforce the lower levels – Place wood blocks to fill windows, create wood blocks by placing wood frames and using a repair tool with wood planks in your inventory to right click and “upgrade”. If you do not have a repair tool yet, you can make log cabin wood with wood logs (CHOP DOWN ALL THE TREES, deforestation is the name of the game!).
Day 4 (Continue to reinforce your base)
Explained above.
Day 5 (Continue to collect food and make ammo)
Explained above.
Day 6 (Last minute checks)
- Be sure your base is secure, pit in place, spikes in place, lower levels are double or triple thick. All lower level entries besides your ladder should be sealed! Zombies are easier controlled if you only have 1 point of entry to your base, they will flock towards it and fall in your pit.
Day 7 (Survive the Wave)
- If you have done everything right, zombies really can’t get to you at this point. Use your bow to pick em’ off from the edge of your pit. The first 7 day wave should come around 22:00 on day 7, not at the stroke of midnight from day 6! The moon will be red as an indicator!
Day 8 (Aftermath)
Replace broken spikes and any damage to your base, clear meat blocks.
Repeat the above steps until you are a zombie killing god! Now go explore, find a city and have fun! 😉
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