This game has a tough start. Basic clothing and a knife. That's it. The task is to scavenge for item to stay alive. It is mostly a single player sandbox, with AI infected, and AI bandits, AI soldiers, and AI wildlife. You can build almost every where and go anywhere. There are contaminated areas that will kill you without proper protective gear. And it has 20 or more drive-able vehicles with various speeds and gas consumption rates and storage options.



Rule #1 - Avoid contact with infected, and wildlife, and bandits, at the early stages. Your clothing offers no protection and the knife is weak and ineffective. You also lack medical supplies like bandages to heal from injuries.

Remember to PRESS J for Journal to have the skills and quest tabs show up for your stat information and skills tree. There is also a time of day clock, very important if you don't have nightvision or a flashlight to see in the dark. Night starts at 19:30 and end at 6:30



Your spawn location is also random. As of update 0.7e, the spawn points are along roads throughout the Map. But there are many spawn possibilities, so we can impart principles and suggestions, but each play-through is unique. Given this is an open world and you can move anywhere, there is a lot of random going on. If you find yourself swarmed by numerous infected, jump or climb onto the roof of a car or van. You can stab them in the head from up there.

If you find yourself attacked by bandits, running towards a horde of infected will give you a chance to escape from the bandit runners chasing after you, because the infected will distract them and obscure the aim of the bandit snipers trying to shoot you in the back. Trees are good for that too. But don't stop and hide, their tracking is not just visual line of site, instead run serpentine, and because you have no equipment, your movement speed is slightly faster than the bandit runners.

As the game starts, you need better weapons, clothing with storage slots, and backpacks with carrying capacity. You will find these items in building and houses and barns and motels and campsites. What you find, is also random. You start the game with only eight slots for inventory. That's insufficient. Choosing what to take and what to leave behind is tough. But you absolutely need to find a backpack, and the bigger, the better.

If you have no gun, bullets are useless. If you find a gun, luckily it has dedicated space in the tool bar and doesn't affect your inventory. Food and water and medical stuff are priority early on. Lockpicks are also useful. Yet finding a decent melee weapon will help survive those first few days.

If it double tasks all the better. Fireaxe for example; dispatched infected and chops wood.

The main problem is, the places with the better items also have infected walking around. Its a classic catch-22, you need better gear to take out the zombies, but you have to go through the infected to get to the gear.

If you find any books, read them immediately. They add to your skill points and your leveling up. There are plenty of books out in the world, but if you are hoping to up a particular skill there is a dedicated Book Seller in the Safe Zone offers books for sale.


Also look for clothing that will net you additional storage slots. Replace the starting pants with zero slots with a pair of heavy jeans with 8 slot pockets. You get the idea. And remember to rip those old pants into cloth and craft rags from them. Eventually that starter shirt will be an 18 pocket parka or military Jacket, and the ball cap will become a military issued battle helmet. Your night vision goggles will attach to the helmet eventually.
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The left side of the inventory screen has all the important slots that you can use to customize your player character and the protection and function of their interaction in the world. Always look for better clothing, and look for clothing that offers protection. As in armor.



The weapons slots are fairly straightforward. Two long guns, rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, assault rifles. Be aware that the same pickup weapon can have different stats for damage and critical hit effectiveness. Check the numbers. The same gun is not always the same stats. Compare. There is a slot for a hand gun, either a pistol or flare gun or sawoff shotgun. The desert Eagle hand cannon is also an option.

The 4th slot is the melee weapon. Machete, katana, fireaxe, cleaver. Keeping upgrading to the strongest option.

Below the weapons are the functional tool slots. When you find these, you slide them into these quick access special slots. And each is obvious and self explanatory.
FlashLight
Binoculars
GPS
Compass
Fishing Rod

Flashlights need a battery to operate. Just drag it from your inventory to attach.
The binoculars help you mark and target the bad guys at a distance.
The GPS put your arrow location on the game Map.
Compass adds a headsup display of the cardinal direction points. North South East West
And the fishing rod helps you catch dinner.

And the first empty slots, that is for the throwables you can place there. Molotovs, grenades, noise makers.


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And if you look down at the bottom of the screen, you have dedicated quick key for 6,7,8, this is where you put your medical bandages, health kits and radiation pills, for quick use. If you start bleeding bandage it up immediately. If you break a leg from fall damage, use a splint. If you gas mask stops working, take radiation pills to counteract the effects.
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It takes a lot of scavenging to find the gear necessary to fill those slots. Suitcases lying around can offer clothing items. There is an option to rip clothing into usable cloth. Always do that. Cloth has many uses including rags and bandages and sleeping bags.
Garbage dumpsters will have items to pillage.


Sometimes there are piles of crates boxes lying near car collisions or vehicle wrecks. Check everywhere.

Gas Stations have cans of gas and vehicle repair kits. If you see a car with thick dark smoke rising from the engine block that vehicle can be drive-able. You have to add gas and repair the engine. Whether or not you find a car is dependent on your spawn point, which is random and the direction you decide to walk, which is random, and the location of the vehicles that change each time you start playing the game. Lots of random. Gas stations also have food items and piles of junk that contain resources.

As mentioned above, you simply drag and drop the items you want to use in the "empty" slots in your hot bar and inventory.

And the key word here is EMPTY.

If there is something filling your pants slot for example, then when you try to drag your better pair of pants into the slot, you see a big red outline and it doesn't change out.

The game works more like reality, you can't just swap them and magically they change , you have to remove or drop what you are currently wearing or using, then the slot is empty, and then you add the next weapon or clothing item . It is just the game's way of doing it. not a big deal. But now you know, and it will make it easier.

Works the same way for mask filters, or batteries, or weapon clips, or Jackets or melee weapons, or shoes. Drop the old, which makes space EMPTY, and available for the new.

And as a natural progression, if you want to be able to press R to reload your gun, you should have multiple magazines full of cartridges sitting in your vest slots, then they will quickly change out during use. The empty magazines are usually placed into the backpack storage space, so make sure you have some empty space big enough to accept them. When there is a break in fighting, refill those magazines with bullets and move them back up into you vest slots.

There are other humans out in the wilderness that are not a threat to you. They are Friendly Scavengers. They usually have a small camp with a functioning campfire and cooking area and a basic crafting table. They also have guns to protect themselves.



If you find yourself being chased by things that want to kill you, draw them towards these friendlies and have them help. Be it wolves, or bears, or Bandits, or Infected these NPC will engage the threat on your behalf.


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Whether you need to boil Water or cook raw meat, these camp locations can be helpful for when you are starting out.

Be aware that Friendly Scavengers are not hostile towards you unless you attack them. Don't run over their dog by mistake, they don't take to kindly to that.

Eventually there is supposed to be more interaction with these Non player characters in the future. It will be interesting to see how they develop. Plant your own base tent in their vicinity it gives you a high level of protection in the early days.

Add your own sleeping bag to the Scavengers Camp.

Add your own tent to the Scavengers Camp.

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After you have created your custom character you are dropped into the map. Except you don't know where in the map you are. Most of the spawn points are in the top right quadrant of the map. In the North Eastern area. One benefit of using the map, is discovered location get highlighted on it. For example, if you spawn into the game and spot an abandoned house and run to it, it will be discover in your game and the location will show up highlighted on the map. (Press M)

Discover a second location and you will know your place and general direction on the map.

There is one gadget that you need to find in the world to determine your exact location. It is the GPS. Once you find one of those, and add it to your tool bar, your location will be indicated with a white arrow going forward.

The second gadget is the Compass. It will give you the orientation bearing of North, South, East, and West. Given these gadgets are randomly generated. How fast you find these tools and can take advantage of them is variable.

Once you have both, you know where you are, and then can determine where you want to go. Try to avoid the undead at least until you have some body protection and a weapon that can kill them swiftly.
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There is a Valley safe zone in the central area of the map where the three rivers converge.

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When you are starting out the Safe Zone is a good starting point. But don't get to comfortable, the game happens out there outside the safe zone. Embrace the danger. Go explore.

There is also the town of Elwood in the north/Eastern area of the Map. It has dozens of places to explore and set up camp. It also has a Locked house with some untouched crates inside. Go find it. The food store roof is a great place to setup a camp.

It may take a while to acquire the GPS unit or the compass. If that happens, and If you don't know where you are, and don't know where to go, scan the horizon for options. There are things to look for that might present a possible route to proceed. Look for landmarks against the horizon.

Radio towers have a communication center with items.


And also watch out for smoke. Smoke from a bandits camp bonfire is a tell tale sign of potential threat. it is a telltale sign of danger and staying clear of that area will help keep you alive. Keep your distance unless you have the gear to challenge the threat.


Even the roof of a small structure can aid in improving your view. Here for example are the tell tale signs of TWO bandit camps. If you go in that direction you will encounter bandits. And yes bandits on occasion patrol and area and move around looking for threats.


Choosing to climb hills for higher ground and a better vantage point might help you discover places to investigate, like the pharmacy in the distance down the road. Firewatch Towers are great for this also.

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Once you have unlocked the icons from a few places on the map, you can reference you location relative to the contaminated areas in the spawn zone. These are indicated as brown circles amidst the green grass. These areas will kill you quickly from radiation poisoning. You need gas masks and radiation pills to survive the effects. Avoid otherwise.


The Town of Elwood has tall buildings that can be seen through the trees. One thing to remember with towns. The amount of infected increase in populated areas.

Dirt roads that lead off the main paved roads almost always lead to places worth investigation.

Windmills and water towers are usually attached to farms. Unfortunately at this time the Massive Windturbines simply churn to the wind. That may change in the future. But if you move towards the turbines from your spawn start location you will definitely find items of interest. Just do it carefully.


Loud explosions can be heard throughout the valley, and these are usually followed with an update that a helicopter has crashed in the Valley. It pays off to go find these. As with the bandit camp, a thick smoke rises from the crash site.


There are atleast two down C-130 cargo transport wrecks in the Valley, both on main roads that are visible from a distance. Lots to dig through there.



And the shopping Mall is visible from a distance.

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Antenna Towers use line of sight, and are usually on top of hills with a view of the surrounding areas. Use that to your advantage, and see if it offers a direction to proceed.

Hopefully you clear your first base, and use that as your home going forward until you find something better.

Your chance of survival will depend on the resources you find. The more you can carry the better your chance of crafting items that will keep you alive. Having a gun, but not any bullets for that gun is useless. Having a gun without a silencer will simply draw attention to you position and bring a horde down on you. Melee weapons are more silent.


Machete, Katana are long blade weapons.
Fire Axe doubles as a weapons and a tree harvester.
Pickaxe doubles as a weapons and a stone harvester.

Always check the hitpoint damage rating. Higher number, more stopping power.

Find an hatchet, and find a pickaxe. The first is for firewood, and the second is for harvesting stone. They are also good for dispatching zombies. After finding it remember to slot it into the 4th weapon slot.


That 4th melee slot may need to be changed often depending on if you are trying to defend yourself or looking for resources like wood and stone. Always have your hatchet and pickaxe handy to collect enough stone and firewood to make campfires.
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Thereare different level qualities for both the nightvision goggles and the gas masks. The top tier for the night vision is the Green Hue and large view area.
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Helps with driving at night and with finding those rare resources that make this game interesting.
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Have not seen the Rocket Launcher since the latest update, but there still is the grenade launcher with similar results re: carnage.

A C-130 heavy transport plane drops cargo from its rear doors and the crates drop to the ground with parachutes. Color coded smoke billows from the packages.



Green = Gear and Weapons
Red = Medical Supplies
Blue = Drinking Water and MRE food stuffs.

They can be dropped anywhere in the Map, but due to probability they fall into the center of the map most often. They land on roads, rooftops, rivers, infected towns and amidst hordes, and just about anywhere in the Wilderness.



If you have GPS on your tool bar, an indication of the drop zone is shown on the MAP. Press M when you are notified of an "Airdrop incoming".


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Having a vehicle will help get you there faster. But if you hear a plane in the sky look up, and watch if it drops in your vicinity. It is a quick way to gear up and stock up.

Red = Medical


Green = Gear and weapons


Blue - MRE and Drinking water

Every once in a while you are going to find key cards out in the world, either in crate or on the bodies of the fallen enemies that you engage. These keycards open doors. Usually they are doors to bunker and hangars, and restricted areas, with the better loot inside.

Currently they are numbered Level 0, Level 1, Level, 2, Level 3, with the Level zero being the most common,

Over the course of a 155 in-game days, I've picked up a lot of keycards. And have visited every major contamination zone atleast 2-3 times, so have used many cards to enter into those bunkers already.

currently in inventory:
10 - Blue Level 3
35 - Orange Level 2
120 - Yellow Level 1
182 - White Level 0

The distribution is as you would expect. Higher level keys are less common and harder to find.



Originally keycards had the names of the locations for the doors they opened. I thought that was a more interesting design choice, because you would find a keycard with the words OIL RIG written on them, and go search for the oil rig. Same for Creek Prison. It was a game design motivator.



This is just to let you know, if you find them save them. They fit in both the wallet or the briefcase and they are valuable as the game proceeds. Generally you do not have to buy them, cause they are out there. For example, you will find keycards on the surface base area of FOB Bravo that can be used to gain entrance to the Bravo Bunker area. As usual the contaminated areas are where most the good item lay waiting to be discovered.

Moving around on foot can get tedious, and the map is fairly large. If you find a vehicle getting around is a lot safer and easier. Drive able vehicles have a thick dark smoke rising up from the engine. As you walk closer to it, if you can drive it, the highlighted text will show giving you the option to get in.


There can be as many as 20 vehicles on the map. There location though is random. They are usually on paved roads, or the small connecting dirt roads that tie the main roads together. Some players report going days and days in game and not finding a vehicle. But they are out there. If you have trouble finding a vehicle, you can BUY a golfcart for $7500 and then you can drive around and find your next car sooner.

The Vehicle trader is located near the only function bridge on the map. His bright yellow Sportscar makes him easy to spot.

Recent Vehicle Dealer Upgrade lot.

The vehicle trader offers almost every vehicle available in the game for for a fixed price. You will also need a vehicle Repair kit and a can of Gas to make the car run for any duration. Now the GOLFCART is the absolute lowest price, and has a ridiculously fast speed, and can help get you to your next better car. The downside, the cart has a very low hitpoint amount, but almost no strength, avoid hitting things or it will not last very long.


The Charger, the Humvee and the Pickup truck are fast options if you have the coins to spend.

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Besides being quick , the GolfCart is particularly adept at climbing terrain and mountains.


Important note: Car do not handle river water well, just like in the real world. Even the Humvee will stall and die submerged in water. Drive careful out there.


There is also a Police SWAT van in the basement of Police Headquarters. Remember to bring two extra gas can along with the Vehicle repair kit, because the generator to run the door needs gas too.


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Places that usually have an abandoned vehicle. Near FOB Alpha, Near the Observatory, near the RaceTrack, Near GrainValley, Near the Radio Communications base, near the Harbour, near Creek Prison, near FOB Bravo, near Richland.
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Good luck out there.
And if you find the Humvee...

Hunger and thirst are an important component to this game. You need to regularly eat and drink.

Problem is, it can be difficult to find food. And even when you do find it, You might find a can of beans, but without a can opener you can't open the can to eat it.

Always be on the look out for a can opener.

BLue Airdrops provide a large amount of MRE rations and water canteens, as well as containers of petrol and whiskey bottles for making molotov.


There are other options for food. Rabbits and deer are plentiful in the Valley. Both are particularly prone to being roadkill. Always harvest the dead animals for raw meat.

Then cook them at any campfire location including the safe zones and scavenger camps.

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Also remember to collects and save your empty water bottles and jugs, which you can refill in the rivers and lakes. You do have to use water purification tablets or boil the water at campfires to make the water drinkable.


Every safe zone and solo vendors camp has a water well to provide water for you also. You can fill bootle if you have empty ones in your inventory or you can drink your fill. Remember to purify the water if you bottle it.

There are literally a hundred different ways to make money in the game.

Scavenging items and bring them to safe zone to sell to vendors is a lucrative option to make money
that you can spend on the things you really need. The Valley Safe Zone has 2 merchandise vendor/traders, a book seller for skill improvements, and a resource trader. The zone also has a Black Market trader to convert cash to credits.



Gun attachments like muzzles and sights take up little space but earn you large amounts. Even those samll throw away items like smartphone and toilet paper can stack and accumulate to earn you dollars.

You can also chop wood or go fishing, but chopping wood isn't even close to the most lucrative. The vendor simply do not pay excellent amounts for crafting resources.

By Selling weapons you don't need, you can easily earn you 10-12k in the span of one day.

Then converting that money into credits, will allow you to buy the high tier legendary weapons from the special vendors.

Now If you do accumulate a days worth of wood, or scrap metal, or stones, build yourself one or all of the three crafting table, and build component for a house, or fencing to protect your base, or storage crates for your valuable resources.

That's the point of the game. Resource use and management.


The other main selling zones are the Scavengers Safe Area, which can be in one of three different locations, and the Crashed Ship Safe Area.

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And always remember to pet the dogs in the safe areas.
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The Scavenger Safe Zone has a trader, just like in the Main Safe zone but it also has a special extra Character: Settlement Officer. This guy with his fancy unifrom is a quest giver. It is the AI equivalent of a quest laptop. You pay a fee for intelligence information, and you get the option to go find a classified weapons chest, or clear out a camp of bandits or Coyote Soldiers.

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Alternate Scavenger Zone Location, has protective turret to keep the infected away. It also has a crafting station and a water well, all useful amenities to help you stay alive.


As a general rule, only use the vendors to sell your accumulated items. To make money. Their prices are 8 times higher than your selling price. And everything they sell in out in the world for you to find. A couple exceptions. Gunpowder is rare to find. Buy it. The black rifle cases are very useful. Buy them. And fishing vest, not to wear but for organized storage in you backpack.
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And remember that the safe zones are generally a NO BUILD area, but you can build your camp a short distance outside the perimeter.
And it's always nice to park your vehicle out front of the safe zone camp. Show off the spoils of your explorations.

These two vendors are randomly place on the map various possible locations and usually on the side of the road and difficult to find.

But they sell legendary level equipment and weapons, and they generally take the converted credits of the Black Market Trader. $1000 = 1 credit

IceCrem Trader
Clown Mask


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Military Trader
Anonymous


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So for example, the Large Coyote Back is 35 credits which would be the equivalent of $35,000
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There is also a Wandering Trader that in the past carried legendary weapons and equipment, though after the latest update started supplying more standard items. Whether or not that will shift again, we will see. But if you notice a guy with a big back pack looking at you, he's got stuff to trade.

This is the new look for the Wandering Trader, changed now in June2025

That's a reasonable question, so let's count them out. We are talking about each individual trader with their own inventory. Some are generalists, focusing on gear and weapons, other sell resources for crafting. Other sell skill books, vehicles, Mission objectives.
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There are Safe 3 Zones with traders, these are the big camps, and each of these have 3 or 4. So that's 7-8
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Then there are individual traders, just guys or gals selling stuff from their fortified trailers. There are 3.
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And there is one guy just selling Vehicles (cars and trucks) There is 1
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There is an Ice Cream Truck Trader. Moves to different locations... 1
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There is an Military Truck Trader. Moves to different locations... 1
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And then there are atleast two Wandering Traders, guys on foot, spending the evening in the safe zones and walking along roads during the days... 2
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ALL counted, there are at least 15 Vendor/Traders in the game at any one time.

One other important fact. The Wandering Traders sometimes offers better prices for the goods they are selling.

Finding the three indie traders is a bit of a challenge. They are located towards the outside perimeter of the map.
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One is in the rural lands in the southern portion of the Map, Halfway between FOR Bravo and the Airfield.

Single Trader offering good from a trailer. Each of these indie Safe Zone Trader area also offers a crafting bench and a water well.


UPDATE: they just added a new Medical Vendor at the Main Valley Safe zone location selling bandaged and stuff. A useful addition. So let's 16 vendors now, maybe even more.

Finding and using backpacks are the single best way to manage your resources and assure you have the required items when you need them.

Surroundead has a nesting feature what allows you to place backpack inside another pack, increasing the available slots to sort stuff. There are also additional containers for food and crafting and ammo that can help sort your resources.

You can turn this nesting feature off in settings for a more realistic experience. Your choice. But there is something liberating and mind bending being able to carry a couple thousand items in a backpack inside a pack inside a pack. Eventually there may be a weight calculation added to the items, which will slow movement speed.

Always check the number of slots for any given backpack, and the configuration. There might be 40 slots, but if they are all designed as small pocket, You might not be able to put a rifle in there. Some of the longer sniper rifles need 7 slots of length to fit.

Some of the different game Backpacks


As far as gameplay, if the option is available for sorting your resources you can use it. There are dedicated containers for ammo and weapon attachments, medical supplies, food stuff, tools and repair kits, and crafting resources.
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Large Coyote Backpack has 76 slots

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One of the best 4 slot storage items is the Fisherman's vest. 4 slots = 24 slots of storage.

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The other is the Rifle Case, for basically the space of a sub machine gun you can sort away 4 long guns, or attachments, or multiple pistols.
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Always remember to leave empty space in you backpack and pants pockets. This is where cash from vendors and empty weapon clips get stored. Empty space assures they do't get dropped to the ground or floor.
There used to be a large Laboratory Backpack that had 84 slots, it was gold Legendary and has the full 7x12 = 84 slot space. That one was available in previous builds of the game.
There is currently a purple Laboratory backpack that is smaller, Broken up into 65 slots of storage pace, but as mention has the smaller side pockets that are great for organizinf, but sometimes are a challenge to get longer sniper rifles to fit.

What is this, how's a tent the best piece of equipment in the game?

Well, to start, you can put it anywhere, like the scavenger camp mentioned above, or out in the wilderness, or right beside where you found it.

A tent also gives you a place to sleep through the night in relative safety.

It also give you storage. A fair amount of storage. And it will always remain there after a save with the contents you added inside intact and available, as long as you "placed" the tent yourself in the location. But more importantly it offers color coded, which can be organized into whatever system you want storage.


There is a blue tent for food and water,
Red Tent for Medical supplies,
A yellow tent for Gas and equipment.
And a Green tent if you need to store away gear and weapons.

Now you don't have to use the color coding system, but its a nice option if you do.

Most other storage happens later in the game, but you will usually find a tent in the first hour playing. Always place that tent when you find it, especially if you don't have enough storage slots on your person. You can always come retrieve it later when you have more carry capacity. It will be available to you for the rest of the game. As you acquire more stuff, start stocking those with the necessities you find, like a second GPS or compass or Vector gun. They might come in e handy later.

Whether you claim an existing house, or warehouse, or fire station, or fire watch tower, or existing underground bunker, your base camp is where you will store your stuff.

Centrally located makes a lot of sense. Somewhere close to the safe zone so you can have easy access to the vendors there.


Other player decide they would rather be closer to the POINTS of INTEREST locations because those sites have the best potential gear to find.


The choice is yours, you can build the base just about anywhere on the map. Top of a mountain, on the river bank, along a road, or the roof of a gas station.

Craft and drop a campfire at your location choice, it is one of the ways that stops infected from spawning in your area. And with the build crafting table, craft a Base Marker flag and place it in your base. This will add an icon on you MAP to show where you base is relative to everything else on the map.


Some locations are more practical than others.

You also want to place crafting tables in your base of operations, allowing you to craft storage container to be placed in your camp for all the accumulated resources and gear you collect.


There are certain vantage points being high up, like on the roof of the food stores in the towns. The choice is yours.


Whether you want to build your camp out in nature, or move into one of the already built building and bunkers, the choice is yours.
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Just remember, airdrops tend to be more common in the central area of the map.

And if you pick an already built location, sometime you can't clear it out and will just have to make due with the space you have available. We are survivors, make it work.


Since you can build absolutely anywhere or claim any built space, the choice is yours. Close to a town, lots of resources, close to a contaminated area, lots of legendary, close to the safe zones, access to vendors. Middle of the map, less driving to any other location. Just think about it. If you build your base at one edge of the map, you have to drive to the other side. Set your base in the middle somewhere; always half the drive time to any other location.

Currently, Infected can't climb or lunge and jump, though that is always a possibility to change at a later date, therefore building on roofs is a good safe option for a base. If you do it in a town, it gives you a central start point for pillaging the available resources. The watchdog is optional.

These are distributed around the map, not easy to find, but do re appear in different play-throughs. Again random, so they maybe there in one game and not the next.

They usually have a mix of gear, weapons, MRE, and meds.


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Keep an eye out for them in various locations, including farm houses and barns, beside rivers and fences, and against rocks and trees.

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And sometimes where you least expect it, floating on the water.

If you start noting where these barrel location are, you can eventually do barrel hunting trips. I have found Level3 Blue keycards in these barrels on occassion. Rare and necessary.

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Keep your eyes open for these additional stash barrels. They are not always obvious.

There are a few smaller tools that make all the difference whether you can access gun cabinets. Bolt cutters and wire cutter help you break into gun cabinets and storage crates.


Lock picks are necessary to open safes and locked doors. Lockpicking also has a skills upgrade in the Journal Menu. Use your skill points to upgrade.


Can Openers, open food cans to eat.

Find these tools, save them and use them. Remember, these cutters degrade over time with use, they eventually need to be replaced. Always collect them and store them for later replacement.

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Some weapons Lockers, usually the ones behind a lock-picked door will simply open on search, but other will ask for either a bolt cutter or a wire cutter to break into. Have a stock of these cutters on hand because they do degrade on use.

There are a decent array of locations that will provide more and better weapons and gears. Some of these area are contaminated and will need a higher level Gas Mask and they will be swarming with the infected you will need to clear out. Grenades, molotovs, rocket launchers and grenade launchers can help with this.

Laboratory


Second Laboratory

You do need to find the generator in the lab to power up the facility to open more doors.


Oil Rig


Observatory


Air Field




PoliceHeadquarters




Hotel Resort


.You can even get onto the roof of the Hotel, if you craft yourself some stairs and get a view of the world from up there.
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GunShoppes


Redacted Tunnels


Highest Point on the Map


Docks Harbor


CoastLine

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The currently unfinished Nuclear zone of the Map

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Creek Prison
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View the world from up high. It takes a bit of effort, but players can climb he construction cranes, with a bit of gravity defying parkour.

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Climbing a Transmission Line Tower though, that's a whole other level of craftiness.

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Eventually you die in game. It happens.

The game gives you options in the setting menu how this eventuality will be handled.

Do you lose all your accumulated items?
Do you lose all your skills and experience progress?
Do you respawn at a set location or someplace random?
Do you want to play with perma-death, and raise the stakes?

Do you want to load a previous save?

These are all options, choose what's best for your play style. And the game gives you your stats at this tragic end point.


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In the player menu you have the option to tick Keep Inventory on Death.

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If you don't choose the keep inventory option, you have to go find your Death Location if you want to retrieve your weapons and gear.

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There is something quite morbid with looting your player's dead body. But there you have. This game gives you the options, and that help you decide your play style.

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Please note, that the Death Location is only retained for the next life start. Which means you have to go retrieve your stuff right after you respawn. You can't close the game and expect it to be there at a later date. It's not a bug, it is just the way the game was designed and SAVES coded. If you want it different, go make your own game. All sorts of game design decision get made that way.

Also, as mentioned, the death location inventory is retained for the next playthrough only. So, you hurry along to find and retrieve your items from your fallen player character, but if there are still threats at that location, be they infected or human enemies, you have to be very careful. Cause if you die before you collected the previous inventory, then you died empty and the previous death inventory will be lost forever when you respawn the third time.

I know. The world is a cruel violent place. Get used to it. I'm just letting you know that is how it is set up. Again, not a bug. It is just the way the game resets and saves. Now you know.

It does make sense to create stash locations for this eventuality. Basically place a tent at some of the spawn locations you discover while playing, that way your newly respawned character can gear up quickly to challenge whatever death location baddies might be out there.
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And remember to be careful out there. Particularly wolves. Sometimes we start to think we're invicible and bam, the sad truth emerges. You can die on day 200 the same as day 1.

Abandoned High Tier Crates are special bonus awards for clearing out an area. They are in all the large Point of Interest locations.

Some are obvious to find, like the roof of a building, some are less obvious on a balcony, and even other are hidden away in a simple bungalow's living room.

Rooftop


Balcony


Bungalow


If you take out a boss in an area, there will likely be a high tier crate there too. Check the Map and hover over the POI icon, it will highlight if the crate has been found or not.

It will be dark down there. Make sure you have a flare gun and the highest quality Night vision goggles. The subway entrance are a set of stairs from the street level.



The Subways are connected underground, you can fast travel to the various town underground.


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Special crates can be found underground as well

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There is also a vertical ladder entrance to an underground sewer area near the Factory. As you would imagine, there are a lot of infected down there. And lots of good loot too.

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Plan to add more info here at a later date, or perhaps another guide for advanced.

Most the gas masks offered in the game are insufficient to stay in a contaminated area long enough to properly scavenge, and the rate of radiation will degrade your health quickly.

The gold Legendary gas Mask has the best stats to counteract these negative effects.

Find one, our buy one. Absolutely necessary for contamination zones.


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You can set how many random events with Soldier Coyotes and Bandits you will come into contact with. These events happen in various locations. The default game setting sill trigger these events. Helicopter crashes, abandoned truck hijacks, Missing Convoy, and Coyote investigations, and bandit camp locations.


There can be as many as 8 enemy combatant at any of these event locations. Use your binocular to identify the targets because they will try to flank you once you engage the targets.


Do not engage these enemies until you have body armor and sniper rifle and assault rifle capabilities.


If you succeed in the battle the rewards can be beneficial to your long term survival. Always drop a crafted campfire in any area that you clear. That will help keep it that way.


Abandoned Truck Hi-Jackings usually have heavily armed bandits vicinity. You have to deal with them first.


Then get rewarded with the loot that can be recovered.


The Medical Evacuation Tents are also a random event. Might be there in one play through but not the next. If they are visible, player can expect find some useful medical supplies, and a whole bunch of infected, including the big brute variety bosses.


Another random event is a snow storm and snow actually remaining on the ground for a short while. Remember to trudge through the deep snow and leave you rmark.


Another randomed that is usually noted with a HUD message, a chopper has crashed in the valley. There are usually some infected in the area that need to be dealt with. Nothing you can't handle.


More stuff being added all the time. stay tuned.

Peaceful difficulty is just a setting, it "zeroes out" a bunch of the AI sliders, so those types of AI do not spawn. This also includes Bandits and Coyote soldiers. All zeroed out. If you are finding the game challenging, this setting is always an option. This guide is assuming you have not changed anything and are playing the standard default setting.

But if you go into the difficulty setting you can change all sorts of individual game parameters manually yourself to whatever level you are comfortable with. Maybe you are comfortable with just the average zombies. As a player you can handle and can take them out one by one. But those fast moving sprinters, well you can set their sprinter and the feral zombies multiplier to zero, same for the zombie Bosses, and then you will only ever see the regular zombie. You can also adjust their damage infliction rate and their hit points, thus making them easier to kill or atleast deal with.

Spend some time in the difficulty settings, press the esc key, and choose the option, and play around with the sliders if you want. Can make the game easier or harder depending on how you interact with it.

You can choose to slow the speed of the zombie from the standard 1 speed to a .7 or .8, or you can change the amount of damage the zombies can take before they fall to the ground. Or the amount of damage they inflict on you. All these variables can be fine tuned in the difficulty setting for you to find the right balance for your play style.