Survival Guide - Alpha 13

This guide will remain asis to assist those that want to reference this page when they revert their game to Alpha 13

How To Survive in Alpha 13.x (Settler play style)

Introduction - Part 1: Surviving

This guide is intended to be the most comprehensive guide available and will give you the necessary information to survive throughout the harsh nights in 7 Days To Die.

If you are absolutely brand new to the game, the very first thing you have to do is create a profile/survivor. It's been a while since I have done that myself however the options are pretty self explanatory.

Starting a new game

Step 1: Scavenging and Crafting

With the release of alpha 13 came a completely new system for crafting, scavenging (for most things), cooking and forging. If you are new to the game, it is highly recommended to start your first game in the Navezgane map in order to learn the basics of everything the game has to offer.

When you start a new game it is important to make sure you have all the required materials to survive the nights and have proper preparations for day 6 and night 7, as that is when you will be truly tested for the first time. The first thing you're going to want to do is loot any nearby containers (if there are any) and then find 5 Small stones, 2 wood, and 2 plant fibers (stones can be found on the ground, wood can be obtained by punching a tree and plant fibers come from grass) to make your very first stone axe. Once you have those, you can open up your crafting interface with "TAB" (Default key) and stone axe should be near the top of the crafting list on the left. After you have made that, you will need to be able to defend yourself, even if you have found a weapon it is strongly advised to make yourself a Wooden bow (6 wood and 3 plant fibers) as it will help for hunting for food later on.

Once that is completed you will then need ammo for your new bow, which can be made with 1 feather, 1 wood and 1 stone per arrow. Feathers can be found in birds nests littered around the landscape, or from hunting chickens. Once you have found a good number of all three basic resources, you should start making Stone Arrows as soon as possible, you will never have too many and it will probably be a while until you find something better. About 100 is a good starting number, but more is always better. (Before you can use your bow or any "new" weapon, you will have to reload it first by pressing "R") While you are gathering resources, you will notice your axe degrades after each successful hit, it is best to repair it before it breaks (1 stone vs 6 resources) However once you start making or finding better quality tools and weapons, each repair will degrade the item slightly, until it reaches the lowest quality which is 1 (The quality is now displayed on the health bar of the item).

Step 2: Finding shelter

Finding shelter is important if you intend to survive the night and many days to come. Once you have your basic tool and weapon ready its time to find a home. If you are playing in Random Gen it is advisable to find a good 2 story house, if one is hard to find then any little shack will do in the meantime, as it takes too many resources to construct your own house in a short period of time. The best biome to create a home/base in my opinion would be the forest, as any crop can grow there, and every resource (besides oil shale which is found in the desert) can be found underground (E.G. coal, potassium nitrate, lead, iron). While looking for a suitable location be on the lookout for:

• Campsites (For a cooking pot, and destroying tent blocks will give you cloth fragments)
• Stores (Working Stuff for tools, Shotgun Messiah for weapon parts, usually spawns with lots of zombies however so be careful)
• Water Sources

Before you decide on a location you will want to be near a water source (as infinite water is harder to make now) and to be far enough away from points of interest you intend to loot again. (if loot respawn is enabled) About 800m - 1000m is a good distance.

Step 3: Setting up defenses for your new home

Once you have found a suitable location to make a home, (If it is a pre-built house you will have to destroy the door or windows to gain access, and make yourself a Secure Wood Door (10 wood) if you can't unlock the one currently there) you will most likely want to respawn at that location should you ever die (hopefully that doesn't happen if you're reading this guide). To do so, you will have to make a bedroll (20 plant fibers) and/or put one down (if you found one). After making one place it in a suitable spot in your new home where zombies wont be able to get to it even if they break through the walls.

You will probably want some more storage space if there aren't many containers in your new home, you can craft secure storage chests (10 wood each) which have a very generous amount of space. Just make sure to place them out of reach from the zombies or you risk losing everything in the chests if they are destroyed.

After you have done that you're going to want to dig a "moat" around your home to fill with wood log spikes (20 wood each) to damage and slow down zombies that feel like investigating your new home. You will have to make a stone shovel for the first little bit until you find or make a better one, you can do so with 3 wood, 3 stones and 3 plant fibers. I recommend digging a little farther away from your base to give yourself some running room, which helps if you find you need to get out of there at any time. 3-5 blocks away from your outside walls should be enough room to allow you to safely get in and out anytime you need to. You can make the moat 1 or 2 log spikes wide, however if you happen to fall into the moat with 2 wide, it will be harder to get out. It's difficult to tell how far blocks go so if you need to, you can always craft (which you should anyways) wood frames (10 wood each) and place them down to determine where blocks start and end, they can always be picked up if you don't intend to build there.

(Pro Tip: While landscaping, some blocks tend to rise up a little higher, or if you just want flat ground, you can place wood frames {Or any block you can pick up after placing} on the trouble spots to flatten them out)

Once you have a moat you can craft wood spikes (100 wood each) to further protect you during the night, these spikes do more damage but get damaged faster. they are best placed directly around your walls as that is where zombies will spend most of their time, you will just have to be careful not to run into them too often unless you like to constantly heal yourself. You can always leave 3 spaces in front of your door and just fill it in when your expecting company. Most blocks in the game can be upgraded. (I boarded up a metal shack and wasn't able to upgrade or fix those walls however) You will need a stone axe/claw hammer/wrench/nail gun to do so, and the resources required for each stage. 1 wood frame is upgraded to Old Wood walls with 10 wood, Reinforced wood walls with 10 more and Metal Reinforced walls with 20 Iron.

Step 4: Food, Water, wellness and temperature

-Food-

The next crucial step for surviving is food and water. You can eat from canned goods, but they are better off being saved for later, when you have no other choice, as they do not increase wellness and are not very good food items. Once you have a good amount of arrows (try to aim for 100 to 250, which is a full stack) you should start looking for pigs or deer. You could hunt rabbits or chicken, but they are quick and hard to target and yield very little meat for the effort. Try not to get too close to bears, as you will not be equipped well enough to handle one yet .

After finding an animal to hunt, make sure your bow is loaded and enter sneak mode, as it will do 2x sneak damage if you hit successfully and haven't been detected yet. While aiming you want to aim a little above your target (if it is not moving), it is tricky but you will get used to it eventually. Arrows cause your targets to get a bleeding debuff, which makes them lose health over time, a few shots will make a deer or pig bleed out and die (And 1 crossbow shot should be enough as well).

Once you have taken down your prey run up to the corpse and start attacking it with your stone axe to start getting raw meat. If you got lucky, a knife/machete will get you hides as well, which is a very important crafting material. If you don't have a knife at this point just attack the animal until the bar reaches 0 to get some bones (deers and pigs will give you bones, as well as bears if you can take one down). You can craft one of these bones into a bone shiv, which will be your first knife, and enable you to get hides now.

{one important note about meats/foods with a smell range and the icon that shows up - Zombies will be able to notice you from farther away if you are carrying meat in your inventory. So it's best to place those into a chest or container until needed.}

Now that you have some meat, it is important to cook it first as food poisoning will make you lose 10 stamina per second and wellness as well. To cook anything you will need a Campfire (8 small stones). Craft one and place it somewhere you wont be running over it, or you will catch on fire while it is cooking. A bandage, first aid kit, water or about 5-8 seconds of time will stop the fire on you if it does happen though.

If you weren't lucky enough to find a cooking pot yet you can turn the meat into charred meat, but it will make you thirsty. (camps, sinks and good 2 story houses will be your best way to find one.) This can be useful for wellness however, as you can drink goldenrod tea afterwards.

Once you do have a cooking pot, boiled meat can be now be made and has the lowest smell range of all the cooked meats. Just drag the pot to the right spot at the top right of the campfire, its the first one of the 3 slots available. The next slot is a grill, which can cook bacon and eggs and grilled meat and the last slot is for the beaker, which cooks antibiotics (with moldy bread and potassium nitrate) and bio fuel / oil Shale (Not confirmed yet). If you ever find yourself starving you will start to slowly lose health, and most likely wellness, same goes for dehydration. So it is best to keep well fed and hydrated.

-Water-

The next important step is making sure you have water. If you have not found a cooking pot yet, you will have to rely on cans (obtained from looting, and after eating canned foods) as those are the only water items you can cook without a much needed cooking pot. (cans stack to 500 empty, 15 murky water, and only 1 boiled water, where bottles stack to 15 for all). Bottles are the best for boiled water so it is advised to find or craft a cooking pot as soon as possible. Once you have a lot of containers for water, go to the nearest water source and fill all of them up by right clicking when near the water. This will give you murky water, which gives 12% chance of dysentery. Dysentery will give you diarrhea (not sure what this does) and -1 stamina per second, so it's strongly advised to not drink murky water unless absolutely necessary. If you do happen to get dysentery, you can alleviate it with goldenrod tea (The yellow flower bushes, and is made with a cooking pot, 1 Goldenrod and 1 bottled water {The boiled water}).

-Wellness-

This stat is very important, as it decides what your health and stamina levels are. Everybody starts with 100 wellness, and the whole purpose of this guide is to keep it there and build it up. The max level for wellness is 200, and there are a few ways to get it up.

• Food - Meat stew is the best food item to raise wellness.

• Drinks - such as goldenrod tea.

• Staying well fed and hydrated.

• Antibiotics - The devs have stated that this is no longer true but as far as I can tell, it still does.

There are also a few ways it will decrease, such as drinking coffee or grain alcohol, dehydration, Food poisoning, Getting hit a lot, and dying (-10) going from least to worst.

-Temperature-

There are 4 stages for each temperature range. Basically, you will only start losing health at these ranges.. (120+ degrees, and 10 degrees or lower) and stamina before that for both, as well as hydration for hot weather, and food for cold weather.

There are a few factors for temperature:

The Areas temperature - which is the temperature of your surroundings, deserts are obviously hotter than forests naturally, and snow biomes are the coldest areas.

Core Temperature - which is the temperature of your character. It is affected by the overall area temperature and the type of clothes your character is wearing. Heavier items will generally provide more heat and a few clothing items such as puffer jackets will provide a lot of heat as well.

This handy page has taught me everything i needed to know about temperature, which should be read too, as it is very manageable with this information.

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?35698-Weather-Survival-Demystified

Step 5: Forging and Points of Interest

-Forging-

After you have a steady supply of food and water, and your home is well defended, you're going to want to start looking for better gear. One of the first things you're going to want to do is make a forge, which requires bellows (crafted with 8 wood, 12 animal hides and 1 short iron pipe - can be found in most loot containers). After you have one of those you will need to grab your shovel again and take a look at your map. The darkish brown spots on the map will hold the next key ingredient of the forge, clay. Dig up 50 clay for the forge (50 clay, 50 small stones, bellows and 1 more short iron pipe) and it doesn't hurt to get a lot more, as it will be needed to operate the forge as well. Once you have made your first forge, make sure to place it in a spot that zombies wont be able to get to, even if they break into your house, as any materials put into it, cannot be taken out again except through forging. Cooking and forging will raise what is called the heat map of your area, which attracts screamer zombies, so be aware of that. (They will scream and summon hordes of zombies for you to deal with unless you take them out fast) To use the forge, you will need to put clay into the input slots, and any other material you wish to use, such as iron. You wont be able to forge anything until you burn some wood or other combustible object, and the material gets melted into the forges inventory, which is seen next to the input slots. Once you have enough materials in the forge, you will be able to smelt forged iron, which is the next key item to start making better weapons, tools and armour. It is also used for secure metal doors, scrap iron walls, etc.

-Points of Interest-

After you feel confident about taking on zombies, your going to want to loot as many bookcases/mailboxes as possible (for schematics, the only way to fully progress through the game without cheating). Trash piles/trash cans/Zombies will also hold schematics every now and then but it is rare. While looking for more loot, be on the lookout for these points of interest to better equip yourself.

• Camps and Kitchen Sinks (If you dont have a cooking pot yet, tents will give cloth fragments and they usually have some sleeping bags you can scoop up)

• Working Stiff (Building supplies and tools, as well as the notorious auger)

• Shotgun Messiah (Weapon parts and ammo)

• Born and Noble (Useful for a lot of book cases = More schematics)

• Pop-N-Pills (Medical Supplies)
• Shamway Foods (Great for beginners if you can find one. After a while these will be less important as you build your stock of food)

• Police Station (Navezgane one has a munitions chest, maybe random gen too?)

• Gas Stations (fuel for power tools and the minibike when you get one)
• Towns (Much like city POI's, however with less zombies and usually smaller in size with most of its buildings intact. Usually has a lot of garages with the garageStorage box that can potentially hold auger/chainsaw parts - mostly beginner friendly, proceed with caution)

• Cities (Usually bigger than towns, has lots of zombies and most of the buildings will be half destroyed. Found in the wasteland biome, (as far as I know) Cities are very dangerous and its best to stay away from these until you have good equipment)

• Army Recon Camps (Lots of loot containers and has 2 munitions chests each, be careful as lots of zombies usually spawn in these)

A few more notes

• Find as many skill books as possible, If you find crossbow schematics but not leather tanning, you can take a wrench to a full car to get some leather.

• Working Stiff, Shotgun Messiah and Shamway Foods crates (Not sure about food crates, needs to be confirmed) need to be broken open before you can loot them, just try not to destroy the crate afterwards or it will be gone forever.

• Keep a lookout for air drops (If you have them enabled) They will contain very useful medical supplies and sometimes weapon pieces. If you cannot find one that dropped, press the tilde key ` (to the left of 1) and look for the line that says "Spawned supply crate" the co-ordinates it lists will look something like "-1229.6, 243.3, -810.7". The middle number is just the height, so it can be ignored and the .6 or whichever number can also be ignored. The other two numbers are backwards in order from the ones in the map so in this example I would write down "-810" and "-1229". Negative numbers (-) will be West and South, positive numbers (no - sign) will be North and East. Open up your map and look for the right numbers, set a quick waypoint and go get your supply crate. (Sometimes it may fall through the map, hasn't happened to me but it will show up in the debug as a yellow line, pretty easy to see).

I hope this helps you survive for as long as possible, and will be posting a video for this guide soon. Afterwards I will write the second part of this guide, but that will be a little later on.

New Updates Pending - Will be revisiting this guide soon for more helpful content for all survivors!

Contributors

- Gzed Gaming.

- Roland (The page about Temperature)

--GzedGaming (talk) 19:16, 19 December 2015 (UTC)