First week survival guide

Goal: end the day indoors with a weapon, a bag, two days of food and full water bottles.

• Close curtains, lock doors and search every room of your spawn house before stepping outside.
• Take anything that can hit: a kitchen knife, hammer, frying pan or rolling pin. Upgrade the moment you see a bat, crowbar or axe.
• Grab the biggest bag you can find. A school bag beats your pockets; a hiking bag beats everything early on.
• Fill every bottle and pot you find at the sink. Water is easy today and hard later.
• Loot your own street only. Sneak, peek through windows, skip any house with more than two zombies.

Goal: pick the house you will live in and collect the tools that make everything else possible.

• The base: two floors, few ground-floor doors and windows, curtains everywhere, and stores within walking distance. A quiet street beats a big house.
• The toolkit: hammer, saw, screwdriver, nails and a few planks. Check garages, sheds and toolboxes.
• Escape route: tie two sheets into a sheet rope and hang it from an upstairs window (it needs a nail). If the stairs are overrun, you climb out.
• Start a stockpile room: food in one place, water in another, tools in a crate. Organized survivors live longer.

Goal: one careful trip to the stores that matter, then home before dark.

• Clear the outside of a store before going in. Shops often hold a crowd.
• Do not overfill your bag: heavy loads slow you down and tire you out.
• Mark every store you visit on your map with a pencil, with a note on what is left.

Goal: a base that can survive a bad night.

• Barricade ground-floor windows with planks and nails (hammer in hand). Start with the windows facing the street.
• Water reserve: fill pots, buckets, bottles and the bathtub while the taps still run.
• Eat the fridge first. Fresh food spoils, and once the power is gone it spoils fast. Canned and dry food can wait.
• Clear your street. One zombie at a time, at a fence or doorway. A quiet street means safe loot later.
• Sit down and read a skill book in the evening. Reading is quicker sitting down.

Goal: skills and supplies that keep you alive when the water and power stop.

• Read first, then practise. Skill books multiply the XP you earn. Carpentry and Cooking are great first picks.
• Magazines teach recipes: look out for the generator magazine, and recipes for rain collectors and traps.
• Water plan: find a river or lake on your map, collect empty containers, and know how you will boil water.
• Food plan: seeds and a trowel or shovel for later. In Build 42 crops have seasons, so check what grows now.
• Watch TV and listen to the radio while the power is on. Some channels teach skills.

Goal: a way out of town, and a safer place to sleep.

• Car keys are often in houses near the car or on zombies. Check a car's condition and fuel before you rely on it.
• A car is a loot truck: its trunk carries far more than a bag. Park it facing the exit.
• Engines and alarms are loud. Never start a car next to a crowd, and drive away if an alarm goes off.
• Keep a spare gas can full. Fuel matters more every week.

Goal: know where you stand before week two.

• Count your food and water days. If either is under a week, make it your next job.
• Check every wound and bandage in the Health panel.
• Update your map: stores looted, stores left, danger zones.
• Sleep properly. Tired survivors make fatal mistakes.

If the water and power are still on, enjoy it. On default settings they can cut out at any point in the first month.

• While taps run: fill everything, including the bathtub.
• When the taps stop, the water left in sinks, toilets and tubs is no longer safe. Boil it or purify it before drinking.
• Rain collectors catch water for the long term. You need the recipe and some Carpentry to build one.
• Rivers and lakes never run dry. Boil that water too.
• In Build 42.21, 86 more fluid containers can purify water in the right oven, so most pots and bottles will do.

• Fridge and freezer food first. After the power cut, fridges and freezers warm up over the day, then food starts to rot.
• Canned and dry food last for months. Keep them as your emergency stock, and keep a can opener with them.
• Cook raw meat and eggs. Raw or spoiled food makes you sick, and sick survivors fight badly.
• Food changes your weight. Overeat junk and you put it on; go hungry and you lose strength.
• Long term: farming (mind the seasons), foraging, fishing and trapping.

• Lights, fridges, ovens, TV and radio all stop when the power goes.
• Cook on a campfire, barbecue or fireplace instead.
• A generator brings power back, but you must read its magazine first, keep it fuelled, and run it outside. They are loud.
• Collect flashlights and batteries now. Nights are long.

• Bandage every wound, disinfect it, and change dirty bandages.
• Get wet and you get cold. Change into dry clothes and stay warm, or you will catch a cold.
• Endurance, fatigue, hunger and thirst all lower how well you fight. Never go out tired.
• Panic and stress make things worse. Books, music and a full stomach help.

• You have a base with a sheet-rope escape and barricaded ground floor.
• You have at least a week of food and water stored.
• You have a good weapon and a spare.
• You have bandages, disinfectant and painkillers.
• You have read at least one skill book.
• You know where the nearest river, hardware store and gas station are.

Goal: turn a week of scrambling into a routine you can repeat.

• Fresh food rots first. Eat what is in the fridge and the freezer while the power lasts, then move to canned and dry food.
• Plan for the shut-offs. Water and power go off at a random time on default settings. Fill every container you own before then, and keep a way to boil or purify water.
• Read skill books first. Books speed up XP, so read them before you practise that skill.
• Expand your range. Clear one more street, pick one store to visit, and write down where you found what. The map helps.
• Think about the long game. Start reading about farming and crafting before the loot thins out.

• Be indoors before dusk with curtains closed and doors locked.
• Keep lights low and out of sight from windows. Light draws attention.
• Sleep only when you are in a room you can seal, and keep an exit route ready.
• If you hear glass, a siren or a helicopter, stay quiet and stay put until it passes.
• Use the night to craft, cook, read and plan, not to loot.

• Few entrances, so there is less to barricade.
• Curtains or blinds on the windows.
• Enough storage for your loot and water.
• Useful buildings close by: a store, a hardware shop, a clinic.
• A manageable number of zombies nearby.
• At least two exits, and an escape route you have walked before.
• Pick a temporary house first, then upgrade once you know the area.

Close curtains and secure doors and windows as soon as you move in.

1. Food and clean water.
2. A weapon and a backup.
3. A backpack or bigger bag.
4. Medical supplies: bandages, disinfectant, alcohol wipes, painkillers and tweezers.
5. Basic tools: hammer, screwdriver, saw, nails and a knife.
6. Useful clothing.
7. Store what you do not need yet at base instead of carrying it.

• Separate zombies from groups and keep them in front of you so they cannot surround you.
• Retreat when a fight turns bad, especially when tired or injured.
• Walk around blocking groups instead of fighting them when you can.
• Walk by default. Sprinting drains Endurance, so save it for emergencies.
• Treat bleeding as soon as it is safe, and check the Health panel after taking damage.
• Do not ignore moodles.

• Water containers, so you have a reserve when the taps stop.
• Generator, fuel and tools.
• Building materials: planks, nails, sheet metal.
• Food and cooking equipment.
• Keep clean water and food at base, and carry enough for longer trips.

• Week one: secure food, water and a place to sleep. Find a hammer, screwdriver, saw and knife.
• Use skill books and TV only when it is safe.
• Back up your saves before any Unstable patch. Build 41 worlds do not work in Build 42.
• Start with no mods, then add them one at a time.
• Official Multiplayer and Host (Co-op) are in the main menu. Unstable updates can break ongoing games.

To connect a generator you need one of: the Electrician or Engineer occupation, or the magazine How to Use Generators. Some guides say Electrical 3 also works.

You cannot pick up a connected generator. Disconnect it first.

Evolved recipes

• Take food off the heat once cooked. A sandwich cooks in about 5 minutes and burns at about 20.
• Burnt food cannot go into recipes.
• Below Cooking 7 you cannot use rotten ingredients. At 7 to 8 they give about 5% of their value, at 9 to 10 about 10%.
• Fridges and freezers only help while they have power.

Boil water on any heat source, or use purification tablets.