Infection Free Zone: 7 Beginners Tips

[@johanlundstrom1561]

The more I play, the more I go everywhere by car. In the latest playthrough, my main gathering method was driving four squads in four cars and just cleaning ah area out while mutually supporting. The Pickup, or better yet, the Truck, are amazing.

[@brianhum8765]

I've found a super efficient early game method; get the car the game always gives you and prioritize looting weapons until they have at least a few ARs, make that squad your Quick Reaction Force both for transporting loot and fighting (I believe the preset maps have far more buildings identified than random locations which is kind of an annoyance; the early game can be miserable if you don't find guns). Then manually have all other squads drop their loot in the street rather than run all the way back and have the car squad do all the transporting; you will notice your loot rate go WAY up. Similarly at night, use this QRF squad to quickly reinforce your other squads and towers as needed making defense far more manageable (still have them get out before shooting there's a big shooting debuff in a car). Once you run into hostile people, especially during certain events, you can similarly use this squad to overwhelm them.

[@johanlundstrom1561]

@@brianhum8765: Yes. But if you're offered more vehicles (that has always happened to me so far), you can skip out on walking on foot at all. Last game, I got the truck, and I did something similar to your idea, but where the regular cars loaded up the truck, which then shuttled the goods to the base.

[@johanlundstrom1561]

* Machete-only squads are perfectly fine in the daytime. They have to stay close to home at night. * Gun-armed squads can be fine at night if you're careful. * Once you get a car, exploring at night is easy instead of tricky, and it makes everything easier. * Shift-click buildings to queue up exploration. This is extremely practical. * Brick walls are nice. I prefer wooden towers to wooden palisades. Arrow towers also don't eat up ammo. A few watchtowers shooting together kills Zs fast. THEY MUST HAVE OVERLAPPING FIELDS OF FIRE! Workers don't need to sleep either, so they can work all day and sit in towers all night. * Once you get huge hordes of attacker, defending from a warehouse is nice, since you can pre-stock it with ammo. You can definitely run out of carried ammo. * Some maps have no books. If this happens, you're just screwed with no way of saving things. Check the map to make sure.

[@c0ur5ge4]

That last tip needs a fix 😢

[@johanlundstrom1561]

Yes. For one thing, it seems fair that you could find books in people's homes...

[@RN-19924]

@@johanlundstrom1561 kind of, the reserch lab produces science if no reserch is selected passivly, so doing a big building may be benefical as you will produce scince faster, i try to get one that has at least 10 workers otherwise the reserch is very slow. you get science lab unlocked once you do the book mission, so far it always spawns in my playthroughs

[@Regrozeer]

Are there no books in exploration to find? If so I guess im screwed

[@johanlundstrom1561]

There might or might not be, depending on the map. But yes, you always get one book from a quest at least, and while it royally sucks, you can then get new books using research.

[@starfuryms582]

You can click and drag with the fields to lay down a line of them at once.

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Oh didn't know that. Good addition, thanks!

[@CrowsRevenge1]

Worst thing about this game right now is any and all maps are finite and will run out of food. If you want to do a longer map, make sure to set up in a large city or a way out in the woods. As until they release an update, there is no way to resupply wood. So once all buildings are deconstructed and forests harvested on your map, your on a countdown until the food dries up as every can or ration takes one wood to make. So all maps are doomed to starve out eventually as of now. Edit. This was fixed in a recent update as trees will regrow now once cut down if able.

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Wow that's grim. Hope they introduce some way to fix this

[@lunarlegion7157]

Indeed

[@kennethstickings3644]

Have they fixed this?

[@Stealth17Gaming]

@@kennethstickings3644 The latest update added tree regrowth. Haven't read all the patch notes yet but it looks promising

[@CrowsRevenge1]

@@kennethstickings3644 yes. It looks like it was added in. May delete this post

[@Diesal3]

6:32 It's probably worth mentioning that your survivors only eat once per day exactly at 12:00 noon. You need to have enough food to feed them all at that time or else they will begin to starve and you will get negative effects on y our workers and eventually they will die if they aren't fed a few times. If you add the food after the 12:00 hour it will just stay there until the next day, the ones that did not eat will not eat right away when you put food in storage.

[@brianhum8765]

Finding the right base is certainly a tricky thing; you want a high concentration of buildings (different than most games where you can create buildings without preexisting ones) and they need to be organized in such a way that you have good sightlines) and then a sizable dead zone around that to use as a buffer and to fit all your defenses. The Italy preselected start is a really cool and defendable island; has a lot of buildings in nice rows, already has a brick wall and only 3 narrow entrances, but still a solid amount of loot without having to go super far. Zeds travel far slower in water so make no mistake... water is still a very good buffer; like a massive ocean of barbed wire that just doesn't do damage. Play around with tower placement... they seem to not be able to shoot over some buildings until you move the tower "close enough" to said building and then will have complete LOS over it; strategically placing them can greatly simplify defense. The single biggest difference maker is to prioritize the car and guns early; a single QRF squad loaded with ARs will make your early game so much smoother. If you're ok micro managing your squads, have them drop their loot instead of bringing it all the way back and just have the car squad do all the transporting; this greatly speeds up your looting (the car the game gives you on day 2 like quadruples that squads inventory and obviously makes them much faster). This squad can also quickly zip around and reinforce your other squads and towers at night and can swarm and overwhelm hostiles once you encounter them. Cars are also fast enough to safely kite without taking any damage. You don't need to prioritize making food until year 2 if you have at least 4 squads looting and one hauling in a car even if you have like 60 or 70 people; you can easily find enough canned food to get by.

[@gunnergoz]

I recall trying the demo a while back and thought it would be cool to set up a scenario in my home town. Soon enough I'll get to try that out! Thanks for the tips video, I'll be sure to buy it using your partner link.

[@HistorianOfVaelris]

It’s a bit weird that each ‘day’ in the game is a whole month. Winter comes way too fast. I get not having a full 365 day calendar (way too easy), but they could have abstracted it so that each month lasts at least 10 days (making each season 30 days, like in Rune Factory). One day per month is way too fast.

[@TaSwavo]

They have moon nights where the Z don't travel so much (i.e. full moon) so, as they are not every day then more likely a 'in game day' is a fraction of a month

[@WiseArkAngel]

I just used my own neighborhood as an HQ as a joke, at first. Then I figured out that the Section 8 Apartments across the street from me work fantastic as a Warehouse/Research/Shelter hub.

[@MaJumboo]

Did the same thing😂

[@ColinoDeani]

As a New Player that downloaded yesterday and made bad choices this video is gold for my up comming second try. This was well narrated and explained... My thanks bro.. You got my Sub

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Good luck on your new playthrough :)

[@Quid100]

Thank you for this! I didn't know the shift-order command, what a lifesaver!

[@myst3151]

What really needs to be talked about are the finer details, like how to give your squad ak47s when they are in the warehouse or how to equip health packs. how to put a squad back together if you split them up to bring a car back, other than disbanded and re enlisting them. How do you make health packs if you can't find any? You did talked a little about farming, thanks for that it helped, but most of things you discuss are in the tutorial. There are so many questions. Thanks for the info you did provide. Maybe the Dev's have just not added some things I ask to the game yet.

[@BarakYisrael]

I think its so cool how you can partially adapt buildings and basically make one big building into multiple roles as a result.

[@lordplenty]

Water slows Zeds down, this can be better than a wall if there is enough water, as your turrets have more time to shoot. Also, you can build a wall on your side of the water. Furthermore, if your location is by the ocean/sea, with the entire side being water, zeds will not come from this direction, as there is nowhere for them to spawn. Wood grows back eventually, so with a large area cleared, you will stabilise eventually. I had a base in Cardiff docks, East side to ocean, no zeds. West and South docks, zeds had to swim. North narrow land bridge, with the kill-box just by the fog-of-war. Got to ~1250 population, until metal (for bullets) started running out. I'll have to search for huge, fully walled-off area (ideally a castle by the sea) in the future games, to defend with bows (at a smaller population), if I want to create a safe zone that could last forever.

[@commando2000talker]

HQ is essentially the ideal bunker/fortress. It's warehouse, shelter, and barracks all combined. And it also increase command limit for squads. I realized this and got my second HQ on the other side of my zone asap. Now I just need enough assault rifles to arm all my squads. I also notice if the building for HQ was too big, it will only be partially adapted. But I can entirely adapt it later when I get enought supply.

[@timstatler7714]

As a city to try. Cape Girardeau, MO, USA. Has a university with plenty of open space with plenty of different sized buildings.

[@Diarmuhnd]

Thanks for the tutorial and tips. Have fun!

[@Regrozeer]

I'm in year 2 and haven't built a single wall yet. Just get enough squads to defend. the hordes don't even get to touch my buildings yet. Also I'd personally go for weapons and research with a squad first. more weapons is more squads and more research is faster progression

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Interesting way to defend. Hadn't considered that option yet

[@puppypiranhaforever1729]

A very nice tips video, appreciate the time and effort you put into this.

[@Chafasoo]

Excelent vídeo, thank you so much and salutes from Chile

[@biofringe4983]

Great video. Thank you very much for taking the time and putting in the effort. Much appreciated.

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Good luck surviving :)

[@Omegawerewolfx]

Thank you for the tips. I am buying the game this week and just wanna putz around in, or near, my current residence.

[@TexasGTO]

2 days gentlemen

[@bryan-7997]

I find the place where I live is a big apartment building. I tried to do it in my first play through but discontinued it because I found out every other building near it is also a big apartments and the rest is fields and forests. I restarted and setup at a suburb near my place (also an apartment complex). I use the abandoned buildings as makeshift walls and close the gaps with brick walls to save up space. Now I need lots of farms.

[@hankmiller2762]

Thanks for the tips, especially that you can use only parts of a larger building instead of a full house.

[@WeaselDancingTime]

Damn that part-building tip is amazing. You run out of space so fast with all you end up needing

[@Zultron-sy1sv]

Problem is you cant readopt building and expand it later

[@TheCaptainbeefylog]

Cars also carry quite a bit of resources, so they're handy for transporting goods back to base.

[@firestorm165]

Started at Puckapunyal and found that guns and ammo were everywhere. Though it being an army base may have factored into that

[@bobby82392]

You can also easily kill hordes with 2 squads in vehicles and have one aggro mobs while the other follows. Cars won’t take damage so long as you don’t stop

[@sullyvanbastien4526]

being in huge city is easier to defend. There's more loot, more space for your buildings. Just place walls between roads and buildings, it's easy and fast to be safe. At the start, we should always pick up the max squad possible. Use the unarmed to scavenge near the HQ and the others to search for vehicles / books. Then, 3-4 squads is good. This game has just released, there are a lot of updates incoming, there are a lot of meta to be discovered. To me, the biggest problem is that wood, metal, and bricks are not infinite ressources. Once you have a big colony, you need a lot of wood to cook. And when you don't have any more trees, you must destroy buildings. Once there are no more buildings, there are no more wood, no more food. Maybe the meta actually is to go scavenge outside your area with a lot of vehicles, but it don't seems viable.

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Yeah maybe we'll get something like a forester to regrow forests, bit like in Manor Lords

[@penname8380]

Is there a "Patrol" tasking, with "waypoints" for a squad to "guard" certain buildings that are used, but not guarded by anything else. (no towers yet)?

[@NotScouty]

what do you do about wood situation? eventually you run out of trees and if you decide to demolish buildings, you're gonna have to somehow get rid of the bricks

[@josephdurham4950]

There is a forest planter. Most of these games have a way you can start manufacturing resources instead of gather

[@bryan-7997]

I hate how the most reliant resource is wood. Always. Even deconstructing gives me lots of bricks and like around 15-26 wood.

[@JeffAM1986]

Wish they would add in a sally port for the workers instead of only main gates. Really enjoying so far.

[@Taluien]

Think the video might be up a bit early, Humble still not selling it. ;) Oh well, guessing if it releases there today, shouldn't be much longer. Edit: nvm, release date is the 11th, so, hope I remember to check back here then to use the link.

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Yeah release is 11th, I know :). Already getting the video out so people can start getting interested

[@Taluien]

@@Stealth17Gaming Fair enough, hope you got a video ready for the 11th then. ;) I'd like to kick some referal link conversion to you.

[@Stealth17Gaming]

@@Taluien Thanks man. Not really sure what other video would be helpful. I'm not going to run a series on it

[@CDE9]

Just started today,I lost about all civillians because of hunger,at first i looted a lot i completely switched my focus on resources ,guns and cars till i realized i have a half fortified with only 7 civillians left,the fact that i need to kind of keep them in a cycle of salvage and build at day and guard at night makes me worried that i have to start over.

[@TrueGunnar89]

Good Tricks, I love this game and thank you for this movie :D I'll hope to survive in Post Apocaliptic Stuttgart

[@ianjohnson1232]

You should rush metal walls. I was having a lot of trouble with repairing the wood ones constantly that the wait for metal walls is worth it

[@TheMillionDollarDropout]

I lowkey wish the graphics were the same as that in the main menu when u load up the game. Its so realistic, reminds me of this modded RTS game I saw gameplay of a while back. HUGE ZOMBIE HORDE in America! is the name by a YT named DiplexHeated or something. Amazing graphics for this type of game.

[@r000ty]

I do 4 Squads then send 2 Squads to just find a car. A car is important to find more cars. Most of the time i retire 1 Sqd because building warehouse space can't keep up with the looting.

[@COOKIEBOY-k2m]

I usually start with making a warehouse first and horde as much bricks for making walls then forgetting about making a shelter a week in game later XD

[@the_hate_inside1085]

The Farm is marked grey for me, say something about me needing to scavenge my surroundings. I have got tools in the HQ, have no idea how to unlock the farm...

[@LCOfficerUNIT097]

Aw man, zombies can traverse water??? So I can’t make a settlement on Rikers Island and have the zombies funnel into a bridge??

[@Maximilian260592]

wait for mods it will come

[@Mordring]

Recent announcement from the devs covers their plan to change horde AI to favour bridges and pathways when available instead of crossing water.

[@RocketHarry865]

@@Mordring Also I think zombies should get massive speed debuff when swimming so even if they can cross water it takes them far longer making them more vulnerable to being shot at

[@confusedcrayons5481]

So my main issue is it says "too many houses" and it just literally wont let me start the game, yours obviously lets you and it has more buildings than mine does. But all it does is say "open map editor no more than 100 buildings for smooth gameplay" and im like okay??? But im sure my PC can handle that thank you game. That and the map editor is super weird and not really intuitive, theres also little to no guides on it whatsoever. I hope you have an answer for this?

[@KelleyStrzelczyk]

How do we get outside the secondary map area. Can we move farther across our map. I see I can drive into them areas but not search, or zoom in.

[@CrowsRevenge1]

thats all you can do with them. send your squads to scout them out. As far as I can tell, you only get zoom in and actively search building by building in your starting 9x9 area.

[@IndyPatriot]

How can I go outside of my grid to get resources?

[@illusiveman8408]

I wanna play this so bad!!! 😭 I hate this because I'm teased constantly and I do best a I can and I work 40 hrs a week and I cannot buy a computer! I cannot even buy a car that will last more than 1-2 years.. I don't need millions and travel the world! But if I could at least distract myself and get some enjoyment where I can find it by delving into fantasy and gaming il take it! More and more the thought arises that nice people just finish last and I'm invisible to everyone I've never felt more alone.. I refuse to let the world change me into a cold person and even though more and more lights go out in people's hearts, know anyone can find warmth in my light ❤️‍🔥 though I am a Illusive light to find in a ocean of darkness

[@stormy9196]

i always get attacked at night so have to have htem back home

[@edwinnunez6954]

I am having trouble with neutral group. Can I add them to my population? It does not seem to give me the option.

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Should be able to. Did you approach them with a squad?

[@dragomirdanut2451]

I keep my fields outside of the base , you get atack by nighttime anyway and the zombies do not atack the fields:D

[@liambanfield3392]

Once pistols have been equipped to a tower. Even if I take the workers out of the tower they do not take the pistol back to my hq inventory, any way I can do it manually they seem to get stuck. Thanks

[@MOHsimon]

You can tell the tower to switch to bows, they should bring the pistol back and the ammo they have stored back to the warehouse or hq

[@liambanfield3392]

@@MOHsimon I will give it a try when I'm on next, thank you !

[@TheMillionDollarDropout]

I was trying to figure out how to send out unarmed survivors to give food to raiders lol but thanks

[@ace_0-9]

I have had the army encounter a few times and i wonder, can i kill the apc and keep it to myself? ( I tried to kill it with 4 squads armed with mostly pistols)

[@frankobeans7239]

You can go in building and they dismount

[@joshbannink1312]

Me with at least 40 hours into the game just now finding out you can shift+click locations to chain search sights, instead of having a squad search one at a time

[@janovmi2]

do loot and wood replenish over time ? i plan long play in jerusalem so i want to know beforehand

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Yes you can have a forester replant the trees

[@geedeebeejay]

@@Stealth17Gaming where and how is this done?

[@Stealth17Gaming]

@@geedeebeejay At the radio tower. Might need research

[@geedeebeejay]

@@Stealth17Gaming I'm not seeing it at all, are you sure?

[@Stealth17Gaming]

@@geedeebeejay I'll check next time I'm in game. Maybe it's going to be added later

[@Thecanadiangamer25]

This game reminds me alot of Emergency 4 and 112 but with zombies

[@daveyjove]

Clearing out old Trafford as we speak. Small HQ next door

[@BeamngRampage]

is there any chance to unlock other titles bwcause ı have a mission calls exploration

[@Stealth17Gaming]

I think that might come in a future update

[@KeisersozayHTTC]

Bro one simple Question How do I get the Game on PC i Love the concept and the playthroughs reminds me of a amazing game i use to play with my Uncle POWER MONGER

[@JulienPlays]

On steam it releases April 11th

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Release is on Thursday

[@baoo5843]

i think squad takes more time to search a building at night .

[@timothylong3110]

One day boys!!!

[@kaloianmitrev6279]

if you follow this guy's advices your colony wont make the week out you can scavange at night for the 1at 3-4 days without gun and you will meanwhile find food, guns and ammo faster. 2nd he is making the food way to important ..all houses can give food, 3rd wood is for no walls, build 3 towers in the middle of your building s that cover each other thats day 2 max day 3.. give them guns then you can lure the hordes in them and masacare them ..4th find cars end 2 squads per car and micor the squads to load the car, cars are mobile wherehouses you can swipe whole square in 1-2 nighs

[@johnnyenglish583]

Am I the second person to comment? Huzzah!

[@qintharaadikancana9057]

nice vid

[@hape7539]

26:51 im american houses there are 20 weapons in every unit , minimum. 😋

[@rezkyrivaldo6369]

Can't load game, please solution 😢

[@Stealth17Gaming]

You can ask on their Discord. I'm not tech support for this game.

[@Xeros06]

Already ??

[@mccdynasty3529]

I cat find scientific materials or technical books either

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Might need a different map

[@mccdynasty3529]

@@Stealth17Gaming ok, because i spent a few hours not progressing

[@CrowsRevenge1]

You can research the books. Find a bigger building and make the science facility. If they are not actively researching an item, it will generate books. Bigger building, more people you can put in it, faster per book generation. The map will always generate at least enough to research the radio with the quest that comes on every map and its assigned to a spot. Pretty much the only things you cant generate right now are stone, wood, and steel. So be careful with the repairs and try to avoid using wood to much on anything other than food or youll be ending your map faster until they make the resource generatable.

[@TheEpOorklep]

NL?

[@Stealth17Gaming]

Ja

[@cristyzaharia2023]

I learned all these thing în the prologue...

[@paoweeo]

I accepted all survivors and now I’m outta food and they starving

[@Stealth17Gaming]

It's a hard world now. You may have to turn people away so your people can live.

[@yonblek4542]

Loot far away first. Loot the close by stuff at night when you need to stay close to base..