7 Days to Die Things you may not know v1.1

Introduction

This guide is intended to be a compilation of tips & tricks to help new players and veterans alike. I don't claim to know everything, especially with new things being added every update. If you have something to add put them in the comments and if I add I'll give credit. I'll try to check comments periodically but no promises. I play the PC version so the keybinds I reference are for PC but shouldn't be too hard to figure out on console and most of the tips still apply.

The sections below with the alpha number ex. a19 will be version specific starting with the latest at the top. The other sections below the alpha numbers might not apply to your current version, but may still contain current tips, so keep that in mind.

The general and mechanic sections should remain relevant for most versions, I'll try to note if something changes with the latest version.

As with all guides use Ctrl+F to find specific keywords quickly.

V1.1 Stable

Doing all achievements for a category gives a completion reward, clearly intended as progression. Starting a new toon guides you through this but Y is my key to view them and there's an icon for it in the same view as skills etc.

Looks like they've gotten rid of the leg armor slot, that's unfortunate.

Doing your first Trader quest now gives a loot crate type of your choice .

Tier 2+ (non-basic) Level 1 items can have 2 mod slots and least the knife does (bone knife being basic).

There's new mods at least since the last time I played so maybe previous updates, dew collectors called gatherer, increasing collection speed. Legendary parts to make tier 6 stuff.

Stat mods such as +1 perception for head pieces .

Heavy swings at least with bone knife are much more generous in terms of how much stamina is used, it feels much better and balanced. Haven't tested other weaps yet. Normal use as well, wrenching uses very little stamina now which is great. Most cars are 1-3k hp so you need it at least until you're high skill in salvaging and get good tools.

Arrows used with the wooden bow (iron arrows at the time) have a red tracer so you can see them easier, which is nice.

Bird nests and other resources disappear now when you loot them.

Not sure if I previously mentioned but the different armor types now have buffs (and debuffs) tied to them, and if you have a full set they have an additional.

Light armor and running on roads definitely feels faster now. Which I have no doubt means heavier armor / overburdened will make you slower, this is a great addition IMO.

If your stealth meter (crouched) shows green, you're undetected; yellow when you are. This is good to know for when you hear zombies get agitated, if you're still green that means they're alerted to noise at the spot you're at, you can move elsewhere, where they can't detect you and they'll just run to that spot, and you can skill get a sneak attk on them, or leave undetected.

Your main inventory now has a lock toggle button, when you use it, you can select specific inventory slots that is ignored when using the buttons to move all to another inventory.

Seems like you get a little boost now when jumping to a ledge similar to what zombies get.

Reminder to use your map; for places you've discovered it has lots of info. White dots are Nitrate veins, goldish-brown dots are scrap iron veins, big gray dots are stone, blue dots are lead veins, and big black dots are coal veins (coal is one of the most efficient fuel sources for forge and camp fire). Veins meaning there's more under ground if you mine it. You can also zoom in and out to see better. Use map markers if you want to be able to find it easier at a later time. Maps also show elevation, you can tell by the bands / rings. You can drag around on the map to view more than just where you are to set waypoints, etc.

Reminder that early on you're probably going to need feathers to make ammo. Forest biome for bird nests are your primary source for feathers and eggs, looting is secondary, and the best is buzzards (unless you skill in animal tracker), which are usually on roofs (or in desert), chickens are great for feathers and meat if you can find them. If you want to go the chicken route, then 1 point into animal tracker in the perception tree is the best option, it's just good all around for meat, feathers, and leather.

A21.2

Corpses are easier to butcher now for zombies

It feels like it takes more xp to level now

A21 Stable

The crafting system has been revamped, you should read the patch notes, basically crafting isn't tied into your skills any more, you find crafting books while looting and your skills can increase your chance of finding the crafting books. Be sure to search ruined crafting stations at traders and POIs as they tend to have crafting station books in them.

You don't get bottles back when drinking water, or cans from eating canned goods, so early game food and water is going to much harder to get. It's highly recommended to get a water filter and use it in your helm as a mod so you can drink murky water without getting dysentery.

There's a lot of new POIs and they now have names / difficulty shown in the top right.

You can get honey (if you have the book) from normal trees, not just from stumps.

Don't wrench police cars, you're welcome. It tends to set off the car alarm and I suspect that breaking past the lock does the same. Side note, most of them are locked with goodies if you can lock pick them.

Be sure to look around trader buildings as several of the shelves are lootable in some of the trader's buildings. On the note of traders, secret stash seems to have been removed and to get better trader items it seems to be linked to the daring adventurer skill.

When doors are half beaten down, you can use weapons through the hole now. If you use spears this will be a good use of them.

A lot of vehicles have just one stage now when salvaging compared to the 3 stages they used to have. There are some 3 stage vehicles still but they're rare.

A lot of the player made craftable items that you could sell to vendors for good dukes has been nerfed, sad panda.

There's a lot of new block shapes available.

You can hold down the TAB key to get a radial menu.

Cotton crafts 1 cloth per now, it no longer takes 4 cotton. It probably has to do with the fact that bandages are no longer 1 cloth, it takes 10 now at least with base skills. Same for duct tape. Reminder, always keep a bandage available unless you have something better, to stop bleeds and other injuries. Likewise, always keep water available (even dirty) to put out fire if you're on fire.

If there's a dog kennel nearby...there's probably a dog too, sneaking is advisable. It's always a good idea to have either stick traps or barbed wire on your hotbar to slow down faster moving or deadly mobs like bears, so you can get away. If you don't have any available, you can try to funnel them to a door, put a block frame down and upgrade it, then take them out or run away while they're blocked in.

Plants and food stuffs sell pretty decent now, so probably worth it to collect for a new toon since they give small xp as well. Later on you'll collect them for drinks any ways.

A20 Stable

I see a lot of YouTube vids where people drag and drop from inventory etc. You can save so much time by using the related shortcut keys / Shift+clicking. Shift+clicking on something when you have just inventory open moves it to your toolbar and visa versa. Shift clicking when you have a container open moves that entire stack to said container and visa versa. Clicking on something you want to salvage, look next to the scrap button, there's a shortcut (S by default on PC) and using S will scrap that item so you don't have to click the button. Likewise with 'using' items (A by default on PC) say for example reading a schematic. Shift+clicking also does it silently because if you us R for 'take all' that is noisy and will alert zombies if you're trying to be quiet. Using E to open a container and close a container is quieter too, even more so if you're crouched. Just a reminder when crouched you can sprint to move faster as well, it's a little more noisy but still quieter than not being crouched.

Getting a wrench is always a high priority for me because I wrench and sell. The easiest way to find a wrench is from sinks, so the POI's with a lot of sinks are your highest chance, so that means motels, hotels, etc. If you perk into salvage and get the wrench schematic, for the needed mats to craft it you can get a lot of forged iron from wrenching broken workbenches, some from weight sets. 1-3 Steel from street lights. You can get both from power line transformers which also drop mechanical parts, likewise with gas pumps. Tier 3 batteries and above you'll want to use or sell out right.

If you have room (try not to get overburdened) while looting, try to keep all the trophies and doorknobs or anything that stacks and sells well, because if you salvage them, the salvage doesn't sell as well. Consider getting a point or two into the trading perk so you get more profit, which also equates to a little more xp (you get xp for items you sell assumed based on value).

Selling higher quality items is a good way to make coin as well. So whatever you specialize in say tool crafting, you'll make higher tier tools > sell that for more money.

There's ATMs that can be lock picked / broken and they have a lot of cash in them usually > sell for coins.

If you see a dog kennel, expect to see a dog. Fast moving dogs, wolves, ferals, etc. are the reason I always carry barbed wire. It's cheap to make and you can make it from your inventory. It slows mobs and sometimes causes bleeds, making it easy to melee them.

Some locked doors have keys next to them, if you interact with them, they'll unlock the door.

Meds are VERY scarce, it makes getting an infection a real problem, I actually really like this change, it makes Int perks and finding meds rewarding. It also makes vitamens really useful to prevent infection and sneak style gameplay more useful since it's slower but not getting hit is its own perk. Higher level buried treasure quests seems good for meds.

Bows got a buff to sneak dmg about 3.5x default which really helps early on but suffer a heavy arrow drop which is fair IMO.

Day 1 zombies don't take 25% of your hp anymore, it is very reasonable early on.

"Most pole and smaller sized shape HP values reduced by 75%

Most plate and similar sized shape HP values reduced by 50%"

Reading from the dev notes, this means that smaller equivalent non-block items of a material have less HP than if they were pure blocks. So a wooden pole would have less hp than a wooden block. Adds to realism IMO, but this will affect everyone's builds for non-blocks as they'll be weaker.

Brass cost per casing seems to be higher.

Death penalty seems to just be xp debt you have to work off not seeing a stat decrease which is good.

They've revamped random gen and it's amazing. Things mesh well, meaning it feels like it belongs there. You also start near a trader right off the bat.

You get a bike or a box of goodies as a reward for finishing 10 quests along with a special mission to another trader.

Forges give off a lot less light.

Smelting Iron is a 1 to 1 ratio not 1 to 5.

Trees and I assume farming items seem to grow really fast. Other users reported that crops give less and 50% less seeds so that makes sense for balance.

Aloe cream can be used directly to heal abrasions similar to sewing kits to fix deep lacerations.

There's a lot of day 1 available pipe weapons you can craft. They aren't as powerful but it's something, and can make use of ammo you find. There's also melee versions.

You may want to pay extra attention when building structures. It may have been a fluke but structure stability on my first 5x5 wooden structure collapsed on the 2nd floor, the first floor being on stilts. Just pay attention to if something is pinkish purple because that's telling you it will break if you try to place / a center support column may be needed in some cases.

They added a flying robot that you can get other schematics for like healing, dmg, and it alerts you of zombies. Unless they fixed it, it tended to dupe stuff from time to time when you relog.

Neat little gizmo but it can be spammy on vocals and may be distracting for some.

It appears that dyes no longer increase stats on clothing / weaps.

Car battery can be turned into 10 robotic parts which sells for ~300.

Stone shovel is way better than lvl 1 iron shovel.

Birds can keep up with you on a bike and you're like a beacon for them, seems very excessive IMO. Notes as of 4/2023 state they've fixed this / haven't tested.

Weather events are like 50%, excessive IMO.

Robot turret can be crafted right off the bat with 20 mechanical parts

3 scrap iron per ammo

I don't know if it happens even when not, but watching items craft in the forge show +xp like it used to, but not when not watching.

So far it feels good, I'm liking everything I'm seeing thus far.

A19.4

When riding a vehicle, you can left click and pan with your mouse to view things around you, this also enables you to steer with your A and D keys instead of your mouse.

Vending machines have candy with special buffs.

A19 (Stable)

I highly recommend you view TFP's (The Fun Pimps) https://7daystodie.com/a19-official-release-notes about all the changes, it's a big list.

The injury system has been revamped, basically the more you get hit, the more chance for a minor or major injury to your character. Untreated injuries get worse, as do getting hit while injured, so you'll want to treat said injuries asap. Note that sewing kits can be used to treat bleeding and they state in the notes that if you don't have a need for a splint or sewing kits etc, that it shouldn't use it.

The new sprites on your HUD are nice, showing you quest objectives / tracked things.

The new dynamic music system is quite good, its frequency can be set in the settings.

Lookout for the new tools such as impact driver which is faster than the wrench.

Someone said that hay bales no longer prevent all fall damage from any height, I need to test this to confirm.

Gamestage scaling was redone, so read up on that.

Several of the skills have been changed, the big things are reduction in the non-major skills going to 3-4 skill levels instead of 5, so that helps save skill points.

The ramp defense doesn't really work anymore.

A18

Look up / look in the rafters / ceilings for loot boxes.

As always since a16, hit every picture you see, there's probably something behind it.

Wood frames and other blocks, you can select different shapes by holding 'R' and clicking shapes, which will open a window to select the frame shape you want. Similar menus with other blocks.

Pallets of boxes and blue tarps can sometimes be looted.

They can also be axed for a good amount of resources. This includes wood piles.

Wrench the big street lights and broken vending machines for Steel Bars.

Like upgrading blocks, if you're placing lots of wood frames / blocks, you can hold down the placement key.

If you see a tall building, and you're just after the good loot, usually it's faster to use blocks to climb to the roof and work your way down, as the reinforced chests, etc. tend to be either in the basement, or the roof for the loot rooms.

Good XP in building / upgrading, so build your base up or just build if you have the mats.

Speaking of building, if your starter base is just reinforced wood, I would suggest you get clay and stone and make cobblestone instead, upgraded they have 1500 HP and will last you until you can get concrete etc. Clay is now in any dirt, not just in the dark brown spots on the map. You can find cobblestone really cheap on vendors.

If you sell anything quality 4 and up, make sure you repair them to full, because it drastically changes the value when you sell. This especially includes putting things in trader vending machines that you rent. And if you lower the price one time, your stuff normally sells quicker to NPCs. This does not apply to player vending machines (your stuff doesn't randomly sell to NPCs with player vending machines, only players can buy from them). Keep in mind, you can only be selling from one vending machine at a time, so you have to choose if you want the game buying your stuff randomly from trader vending machine rentals, or players if on a server.

Lanterns are probably the best light option for brightness and ease, since they look great, and can be placed upside down, or wherever, without needing a power source, they're very useful for dark horde nights placed on the perimeter of your base too.

Hatch elevators are gone now, sad panda.

Go to the map and use map markers for high loot places as you find them. I use a system where Capital letters and abbreviation show good loot. Such as a reinforced chest would be RC, a small safe would be s, a big safe would be S, etc. This way you know where everything is or can go to it quickly for what you need. Also, you don't have to input anything for the map markers, just hit enter and the icon will only show if that's your thing.

Speaking of loot rooms, and doors generally, if it's locked and you're going to mine the door, bust down the blocks around the door if they're weaker, with paint, they may just look tougher than the door, but might just be wood, 4 hits vs 20+ etc, this includes digging under if it's easier.

Axe / Mine / Shovel boxes for decent resources, such as the pallet of concrete / sand, etc.

Often at least for level 1 and 2 quality weapons, it's more profitable to scrap them into parts and sell the parts to vendors.

Scavenging loot level now scales with your game stage instead of a skill. There's one line of skill in Perception but that's about it for straight raising quality of loot. Seems like a good change IMO.

Wrenching broken food/water machines (they don't say anything when you go up to them) yield Steel / Iron bars when you wrench them down.

You can eat / drink multiple items and they don't over-write each other meaning if you eat two 15 stam foods, it will raise your stam to 30 if eaten right after each other. Not sure if this was brought in a17 or not but previously I don't think this was a thing, so it's nice.

Wrenching cars seems to be decent xp, so my guess is that the more items you get from wrenching or dismantling, the more xp you're going to multiply.

If you have multiple mods and you hit F / hitting F doesn't turn on / off the mod you want, hold F and select the one you want.

Breaking down weapons gives you those weapons parts that you can use in crafting those weapons and your skill that uses that weapon will determine the quality of weap you create. These components are decent dukes too.

Miner 69'er now dictates the quality of the tools you create along with the normal mining stuff.

Zombie kills in quick succession are still king for xp though.

Zombie reach is a little long for my taste, they're currently hitting me when I can't hit them with a spear so be careful. Speaking of spears, you can throw them by holding right click so a sneak attack with them is good, the caveat is they don't stack. Ranged will be king until the zombie reach is tweaked.

TFP says XP has been balanced instead of having to zombie kill / loot but from what I'm seeing, I'm not convinced. Wrenching is decent but that's about it so far.

The far right skill book in your character menu is the book versions you've collected, the ones that are separate from schematics. These are pretty cool as you can learn skills by just looting the schematic / series of books.

Leveling is much slower so plan out your build early.

Double Barrel is really nice, even at lvl 1.

You can sprint up stairs.

Throwing rocks / snowballs is back and much better, they also will distract zombies again (/dance). Now go distract zombies into traps for giggles.

A17 Stable

Several updates have happened such as vehicles, perks, etc.

Biggest things in my opinion are that quests are a much more viable way to level up, get dukes, and gear now. Leveling up the Intel perk that eventually gives twice the rewards is very viable if you plan to level like this. The more you do quests for a trader, the higher the levels of the quest go, and the rewards along with it. I personally would avoid the clear quests as sometimes, the red dots on your compass don't always show where the zombies are you need to eliminate and it can be frustrating if it's a huge prefab. And you should keep in mind that you can't leave the area (this includes TP / WP if you're on a multiplayer server with teleports) or die. If you do the quest fails and is removed from your log. This is a really good way to level now and once you get vehicles, it's even faster.

Seems like buying / selling to traders for xp has been nerfed. Top XP items are zombies, looting (like 400xp for untouched stuff, that's half the xp for a zombie), and quests.

Money / Dukes: Quests, sell the items back to the vendor, get to Tier V quests and the perk, you can make 5-10k a quests at times.

Side note: If you have level 4-6 items that you're going to vendor, consider repairing them. Usually it far outweighs the price of the repair kit and gets you a lot more dukes when you sell the item.

Hay bales have been nerfed; seems like broken legs happen now, doesn't appear you take dmg though (2 reports so far from different people).

The perks have been changed, so you will want to go through them and make sure they do what you think they do. Take for example sexy T-Rex which IMO is crap now. For the most part the perks are in a good place though so don't let that discourage you. With the next upcoming update, I heard MM said that you can pick one tree and go all the way down it and level up just fine so you're not obligated to certain perks. I hope this is true.

Not much to really mention with stable as the topics below should for the most part still hold true.

A17 Experimental

So much has changed you should really read the early release notes https://7daystodie.com/a17-early-streaming-release-notes/

-One big note, some items you're used to using with right mouse, is now left mouse.

-Some things such as bandages use both, right click is used on other players. Left click

is for yourself. Remember this when you're bleeding out and wondering why the

bandage is not working!

HP and Stam

===========

Stamina and HP totals will degrade depending on how you exert yourself.

For example if you do a lot of sprinting or anything that eats stamina, that's going

to reduce your max stamina until you eat something to remove the dark part of the stamina bar.

Drinking seems to increase stamina and HP regen .

-Dying lowers your caps by quite a bit for 30 RL minutes.

-Buffs and debuffs are a big thing now, temporarily raising or lowering stats.

Likewise with health. Environment and taking damage affect your max HP.

-Bandages remove the degredation. Even normal bandages when you're full as you can be

on HP.

Bleeds now stack it seems.

Stumps can be axed for a high chance to get honey.

Eating multiple food items appearently is supposed stack now.

-I've yet to confirm this

Inventory

=======

In your inventory the stickman with something on its back is the over encumbered slots,

you can put stuff there but your going to be slowed a % for each slot.

-You can use perk points to open up these slots to not be slowed.

-There are also steroids in game to temporarily open all your slots, use wisely.

Misc

====

If you find a can of acid or wheels KEEP them. An update made this easier but I'd still keep'em.

-2 wheels are needed for the bicycle and minibike and they're hard to find / craft now

-Vehicles require more

XP wise zombies are your best bet now.

-Since everything is closer together and there's significantly more zombies, averaging 700xp per.

-Mining xp seems to have been nerfed too which was number one in A16

You can now shoot through broken windows and like objects such as fences!

-This includes wood frames!

When you plant something and it's done growing, you have to use a tool or your fist to harvest it now.

-This is due to the new mechanics, one being the harvest will replant itself!

-Another is this allows XP to be given when harvesting

When you're crouched, you can't jump 1 block anymore, it's halved

-This will affect sneaking and remember jump eats lots of stamina

-It might be best to use ramp frames now so you don't have to jump

Scavenging

==========

Always look up when scavenging, there's probably good loot or a sleeper waiting for you :)

-Look behind pictures and vents

Since there's shared XP and grouping / parties, it would behoove you to group up with others.

There's no skill books per say like they used to work, they're now mostly used in recipes with some exceptions.

You can compare stats of items by selecting what you want to compare and mouse hovering over the other item.

Weapons and Armor

=================

Arrows will now stick in zombies and objects and can be retrieved some of the time.

-You can even take an arrow someone has in their bow.

-You can shoot zombies and retrieve the arrows to reuse if you're running low.

If you see wood breaking on a zombies face then you either hit another arrow, which destroys it,

or your arrow shattered on its own. It's random when an arrow is shattered it seems.

The higher the quality the more mods you can put on them.

Weapons including stone axe / harvesting is no longer affected by quality of the item.

-It is the same damage until it breaks.

-Stamina level doesn't affect this either

Important thing to note, any mod you put into a weap, increases dmg, even dye.

Hunting knife power attack has a new cool animation.

Machete has better reach than hunting knife or bone shiv

-Seems to be as good or better than the fireaxe but the fireaxe is very slow.

Quests

======

It's been reported that if you take a quest and you die, the quest automatically fails.

Zombies

=======

Zombie changes:

-Zombies can climb ladders even with the bottom rung gone!

-Zombies attack support columns when they can't directly find you!

-Zombies can now leap ~3 blocks!

-Zombies are no longer a pushover, this is a survival game again.

-Zombies immediately get up now instead of waiting a couple seconds.

-Zombies don't make as much noise now until they're hitting something.

-Zombies rarely can be looted, this is because they'll only have decent loot on them now,

not as much trash loot. (~2% drop rate, will be a yellow bag at their feet)

-Different zombies give different XP

-So far its the military / special zombies that give more xp, the fat zombies just give

normal. I'm sure they'll adjust this since they're obviously tougher.

-The more zombies hitting the same spot, they get a multiplier on damage!

-Zombies are attracted to sound much more now and they will investigate the slightest noise!

-Throwing rocks to distract zombies works again! If you're out at night and you can't

sneak away > throw a rock and go the opposite direction! Or have fun by setting up

traps and distracting zombies onto the traps :)

Alpha 16 (a16)

Now that A16 stable has been released I can put some thoughts in this section. The sections below still largely apply but keep in mind it's from A15 and lots of things have changed. So I'll start with general changes and try to expand from there. It's probably best if you read all the changes in the patch notes because there's tons.

Nightvision goggles work now and miner's helms attract zombies. *Slow dramatic fist pump*

Zombie sleepers occupy most buildings, this means crouch and sneak, then one shot all of them with the silent weapon of your choice.

Early levels (or any level really) if you have a big horde and not much ammo, you can still take them out. Make some molatov's, hold to throw (make sure there's nothing blocking your line of sight of the zombies because it will hurt you) and release (behind the zombies if you have to as it's a big aoe and spreads some) - Just make sure you hotbar some water just in case you hit yourself (water puts out fire now not bandages). You have to do this at least once just to see how cheap and effective it is. Keep in mind unless they change it, trap damage doesn't give your xp credit for zombie kills and I don't think molotovs do either but not sure. I hope they change this if not.

You no longer grind craft to get skill in something. I personally like this because it was too easy and very boring. The only problem I have with it is that the only real xp makers are digging / mining and zombies so they need to add more xp to different activities. XP is harder to get now and there are gates such as Steel. Steel needs player level 40 to unlock among other prerequisites. You need a wrench to progress too. You'll rely on traders to get what you need early in most cases unless you get lucky and find a wrench in cabinets or something. Remember that you can make / find a workbench and combine similar items to repair / upgrade the quality of the item so you don't have to take a quality loss if you repair.

Like I said above Digging, selling things to traders, and killing zombies seems to be the best so far that I've seen. On one of the experimental patches before stable I leveled nothing but mining / 69er, got a good shovel from a trader, and then went to town mining clay & sand and that made the levels zoom by. If you can find all the zombies you want then I'd say melee / weapon skills are the way to go but on MP servers that's sometimes not likely.

Stamina

Stamina seems to keep getting nerfed and they removed the run forest run perk. You'll need beer or grain alchohol for good stamina regen early game before you get the skills.

Money / Duke's

The best way I've found to make Dukes early is to find camp sites, use a stone axe on the tents and collect all the cloth you can hold. Find a trader and trade them in one at a time until your trading skill is high enough where trading in the stacks won't lose you XP. If you didn't know for trading xp you get xp based on how much something is worth. Starting at 1 you will get levels very quickly and you can't gain more than 1 level at a time so if you sell a stack of cloth and only get level 2 when you could have sold them one at a time and gotten level 20, you're only hurting yourself. Trading level affects buy / sell prices.

Another tip is when you click on high stack items you can press W to sell, you can also click on sell with your mouse at the same time. This really speeds up selling things one at a time. Once you get high enough skill you can start selling the cloth in stacks. You'll get 1 duke per cloth so those stacks are worth 250 guaranteed Duke's.

Later on when you get a wrench, breaking down cars is the most profitable imo. Anything in the game that stacks is going to be your stable way to make money (Bad mechanic skill can improve this). So wrenching cars, all the animal parts you get using a blade weapon, etc. are your way to make good money early on. Don't forget player trading as well / vending machines in high traffic areas /waypoints. If you get on a multiplayer server they will very likely have a bot running that allows commands and usually explain the commands in the MOTD when you log in.

I will reiterate the above and Leyarion even made a video of it in more detail. Sell as much as you can of something that won't make you go over gaining 1 level of the barter skill. Selling a stack of 250 cloth at lvl 1 is a complete waste because you'll only be level 2 after selling it. If you sold 1, gained a level, sold 1, didn't gain a level, then up your amount sold by say 5, and when you stop gaining a level, 5 more so say now you're at 10 at a time etc. You will get to a point where you're selling stacks and not getting a level once you're above 50 so this mainly applies to low barter skill levels. When you can, sell entire stacks for the most xp and in the long run, more dukes since your barter skill dictates the buy / sell prices.

Vulture's have replaced bees, they have a habit of falling through the ground this actually seems to be patched thankfully, when you skin them you can get around 80 feathers. Be careful as they have a high chance to bleed and infect. They usually make a squawk when they're coming, it's usually best to melee side step them until their hitbox is fixed.

Most of the things like scrapping (S), reading (A), and Crafting / Selling (W) have shortcut keys for them to make things more fluid instead of having to click buttons for everything.

Electricity

There's more in depth guides out there for this but I wanted to put a few things I feel are important.

You can currently have up to 3 (this may have been increased) power lines going into something that you can attach lines to.

Battery banks to me aren't worth the effort. I get the appeal of it being quiet but with how fast they drain to me it's best used for temporary power. You can hook up a generator to a battery bank and it will recharge it. Also the better quality batteries in the bank determines how much power you get out of it.

You can aim turrets and fire them real time. (better explained in traps section)

Make sure you go into your turrets and make them only shoot zombies on PvE only servers (by default they'll attack other players)

You can use turrets as camera's in the safety of your house if you position them correctly.

Personally I find the first turrets you get to be useless and chew through ammo.

Don't forget to lock your turrets so other players can't steal your ammo.

Zombies prefer to go to doors. Use this to your advantage and set traps there.

Traps

You can place the spikes upside down, this still damages zombies so they can't damage them and when they're walking on them they don't bob up and down.

Wire fences work really well to slow down zombies and put a bleed on them (yes they can die from it). You can just place the barb wire down if you want (barbed wire flat on the ground or in the air for example and it will still work.

If it has power and ammo, you can go into the screen where you put in ammo for a turret, click on the camera to manually pick it's aiming area, but you can also manually fire the turret which can be lots of fun. This allows you to put turrets just in reach to control where you're safe and you can remote control the turret for hard to reach angles and behind the turret. Or maybe you just want to use it to scout the area.

Loot

When you're going around looting and find yourself around the height you might break a leg, you can hold a wood frame looking down and spam the place key to lessen the fall height. You can also do this when near a wall or better yet, place them at an angle on a wall to traverse heights / get down safely. You only need 2 frames to do this as you can pick up the frame not being used and repeat. And nerd polling goes without saying, you can jump up and look down and spam placing a block to gain height, then at the top pick up the frames straight down when you're done.

A17 added lots of loot behind pictures, and walls (they look like the material is peeling)

There's hidden loot in the floors of some houses, especially burnt ones. Beneath the metal plates on the floors if there's loot the metal will be slightly elevated. It's faster to destroy the wood next to it rather than the metal plate itself. You can loot if you look carefully in the crack below the metal plate.

Traders will generally buy 3 of an item per cycle (the restock timer at the top when looking at what the trader has) but what you can do if say he won't take any more pistols, you can assemble them > shift click the parts to put them in your inventory > and sell the parts.

Trader vending machines that you can rent will randomly sell things (think npcs buying your stuff). This follows the same rules of 3 per cycle as the above.

Some houses have secret rooms in the walls. I've noticed the green ones tend to have this. Look for rooms that don't look as big as they should from the hallway.

Many people know there's loot in the police station but I find most people miss the safe in the first floor room closet.

At the 2 story motels I see people miss the safes in the maintenance rooms which are right inside the door to the right.

The new graveyard has a safe in one of the buildings in the corner. I find it easiest to just knock out the block where the safe is and bust it open that way instead of going through 2 walls or bars and then the safe.

Graves have coffins that are lootable in the ground. Look for disturbed dirt. Also some small graveyards have metal fences around them that can be one hit for iron.

Some desert biomes have Apache burial sites. Under the tall stone there's a special coffin with a chance to drop a special stone axe that has amazing stats both for block and entity (zombie / players) damage.

Some silos can have crates in them.

Stoves and fridges can yield wire among (I believe this was changed to mechanical parts / electrical parts) other items if you use a wrench on it with a high probability.

Tires around gas stations, burnt houses, and other buildings that are on the ground have a high chance to yield minibike tires if you destroy them, and you can sell these for several hundred casino coins (Dukes) or scrap them for a good amount of iron scrap.

Many of the fenced off dumpsters have safes on top of them.

If you find a gun and you're going to scrap it, assemble it first and it should empty the ammo in the clip giving you free ammo. And at the time of this writing it sells for the same price to vendors.

For easy stone, go to a ruined city (Beware ruined cities have mines on non-road areas, they look like round hub caps on the ground and they have dogs / all the annoying zombies) and harvest the destroyed stone around the buildings. They should be 1 shot yielding 7 stone and 2 sand per swing appx. (These are the white cobble looking stones the ground is made of. Iron pickaxe is faster than steel pickaxe for harvesting this).

You get more resources by putting items in the forge (smelting) instead of scrapping them. You lose around 25% if you scrap iirc.

Batteries can be scrapped or smelted for lead.

If you need cloth just find a camp site and harvest the tents, or harvest window blinds / furniture. If you need a bandage you make them out of cloth and if you're bleeding out, you can always use your shirt or pants etc. that you're wearing until you find something else. The quickest way would be to find 4 cotton in a field, make those into 2 cloth, and the cloth into a bandage. And it would behoove you to always have a bandage ready.

If you're looking for ammo, static corpses are a good place to get it which are mainly found on roofs of buildings. There's usually at least 2 on top of theatres, 1 on top of gas stations, and ruined buildings within a ruined city, among others.

If you didn't know glass is made by smelting sand in a forge. You can get sand on beaches, on roads leading off the main road, and by stone in a cement mixer.

Need plant fibers? Find cactus's in a desert / plains and use an axe on them. 15 per cactus and usually 1 shot if you have a decent axe / skills. This will also yield edible fruit if you're hungry and if you're thirsty you an take 4 yucca fruit and an empty glass jar to make yucca juice. This fills your thirst and adds a cooling affect which makes it great for desert biomes. Make sure you go from top down on the cactus because if you remove the base the top is destroyed, so on some cactus' it's more like 30 grass per depending how tall it is.

If you kill a zombie you can get animal fat by skinning them, and bones (which make glue > duct tape > in a campfire or chem station; chem station is more effecient - see below how to get one for free) by destroying the gore pile / bones (axe is best unless you have high blade skill then machete should yield more).

Chickens are a great resource for feathers if you skin them (use a bone knife if you don't have a hunting knife or machete). Deserts have the most bird nests which of course have feathers and eggs if you want to get them in mass.

Food / Health

Antibiotics still give wellness over time, so always try to have the buff up if you have a surplus.

*This may have been phased out haven't tested recently.

Red tea (red plant+water in a campfire) gives .2 wellness and adds a cooling buff of appx 15% which is great for deserts or biomes where you over heat easily.

If you're in a hot biome, you can craft a plant fiber hat for easy cooling clothes. A bandanna and sunglasses use to cool you off too but guess they took that out. The other piece of clothing that can cool you off are shorts and ponchos (made with leather). They removed the cooling that metal armor used to give as well, now it does no temperature difference at the time of this writing.

If you need to drink coffee, beer, or whatever in game beverage but are 100% hydration, use a pain pill in game and it'll lower your thirst a bit (50% now so that means it'll put you at 50/100 water if you're at 100 so be careful. This can be less severe with skills) so you can use the beverage of your choice.

Moldy bread is used to make antibiotics in a campfire with a beaker but is more efficient in a chem station which you can get in Pop n Pills in the back (mining pick it to low hp then use a wrench on it to put it in your inventory, same with all crafting stations). NOTE: The wrenching to get a full crafting station is changing in a16, you'll get parts now, and only get a full station in a land claim area isn't working as of 4.20.21

If you get the quest to punch zombies while drunk drink 2 grain alcohol (nurses, medicine cabinets, pop n pills, or crafted with cornmeal + water) to get the drunk effect on your character. I've tried 5+ beer and couldn't get it to give me the buff. Also, on that quest, you can damage them with other weapons to get their hp low, so you can finish them off with your fists.

For water, if you use a bucket of water on an elevated block, it'll fill the blocks around it with water, and if you scoop it quickly you can refill your bucket with the water you placed. It's not self filling water anymore but it's close.

Speaking of water, you can scoop water in tin cans and boil them on a campfire if you don't have any glass bottles but they don't stack. You can also scoop water with your bare hands by right clicking a water source but you're likely to get dysentery. If you have golden rod tea, vitamins, or antibiotics then that's not an issue and a good way to quickly refill your hydration. Also, if you have the water filter helmet mod, that completely negates needing to boil water.

You can get hydration in the desert with 4 yucca plants and a glass jar to make yucca juice, which also raises your wellness and regens stam.

General

NOTE: Keep in mind the below general sections some things may not apply as many mechanics have changed but several things remain the same as well.

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If you've already read a book, the icon in the top corner will be an open book, if you haven't read it, the icon will be closed. This is helpful for knowing what you can sell / store and not waste reading something you've already read. If you do read something you've already read, you will get some xp albeit minor.

When looting, I find it helpful to go to your map, right click the spot with an X and name it something like RCAttic or w/e you want, RCAttic to me tells me there's a Reinforced Chest in the Attic. You can always click on the marker and delete it with the ghost buster button. If you wanted you can put the day you looted it if there's long loot times so you don't waste time checking.

If you didn't already know looking at something and holding E (Default) will give you all the options for that item, such as lock, set pin, take, etc. Holding R while holding a weapon with multiple ammo types will let you change ammo, same with orientation of blocks.

A good way to get clay is to do digging quests, you have to dig for the quest box anyways.

Spike traps are an easy to make and decent damage tool for fast moving / high hp zombies. Place one while running backwards and it loves to remove legs and will slow them down. You can also stun them while on the spikes for more damage. Keep in mind that if the spike gets the final blow you don't get credit for the zombie kill. (They made this harder to make 100 wood and slow to craft, it really slows things down and some damage but think of it as barbed wire with a little more dmg so up to you if you want to use / carry) - Barbwire is the most efficient thing to use now IMO.

For minibikes until they fix them disappearing you'll want to always keep the parts in your inventory if you're not using it. You can shift+click the parts both in and out of the minibike / inventory, just note you can't do this with the chassis, you'll have to manually take that / place it.

If you don't know how to place it you put the frame on your hotbar, then right click (for computer) when it's green. You'll want to find a flat surface for this. Then you can access like anything else. When you take all the stuff out of the frame you can hold E and use the hand symbol to pick it up. Note: unless you lock it anyone can jack your ride so add a lock if you think that's possible on the server you're on.

You can throw rocks / cans (They removed empty cans ability to do this for some reason) to distract zombies (when it works and when you're undetected) by putting them on your hotbar and holding left click then releasing. Some of my fondest memories are putting traps out, then throwing rocks on the traps ^.^

Bone shiv can be used as a skinning knife and blade weapon until you get a hunting knife / machete. It's made from 5 large bones which you can get from corpse piles including tubs / animal corpse by hitting it until it disappears.

If zombies are chasing you, break line of sight and crouch and most of the time you'll go undetected again if you don't have something that smells or an upset stomach.

If you have issues with dogs, a spiked club to the face usually 1 shots them with high enough weapon / skill. Spike trap or barbed wire works well too and these can be skinned for animal hide.

Clay can be found from digging dirt.

Caves appear as black areas on your map. Caves are the best places to get most resources. Everything you need for gunpowder, stone, lead, etc. This includes scrap iron which can be mined at 15+ a swing. Also a good place for mushrooms.

If you are having trouble getting dirt to look green, just craft a green grass block using 1 fertile dirt. This is mainly for when putting dirt on stone or concrete and half the dirt wants to take part of the texture below it.

You can load different ammo types in a weapon by holding R (Default) and using the radial to select.

When you've been to an area that's been looted, sometimes when you remove what's in the container then exit out of it, it can spawn untouched loot if the timer has passed for that container.

If you hit Q (Default) whatever is in that toolbar slot that you have selected will be thrown to the ground.

Shift clicking something in your inventory (when not looking in a container) will put it in the first open tool belt slot (you can shift click items from your toolbar the same way). If looking in a container shift clicking will move the stack to and from your inventory if there's room.

Holding right click and dragging will split the stack. When you have multiple items on your mouse pointer, you can right click to put down a single item.

Holding E (Default) will attempt to pickup anything near you that's on the ground. Good if you can't see or accidentally hit Q.

If you right click on your map, you can set quick waypoints which show a red flag on your compass, and set custom permanent icons / names of locations. You can then share out these locations by clicking on them and clicking the share location button above that section. It will ask you if you want to show this for allies only (friends) or for everyone. When you share it's a limited time, it doesn't stay up forever.

Putting a lip around your building (wood crate, wire frame, etc.) prevents crawlers climbing to your roof and getting you. Most people put down wire frames so they can shoot through them too.

If you put a tool you make in the forge to smelt it, you'll get all the metal back that it took to make it. If you scrap it, you lose metal. So this can be used to level your tool making and misc skill if forging forged iron, and putting tools you make in the smelting slot. This is slower than making stone axes but it doesn't lose resources and you can gain skill in misc crafting too which means levels > skill points.

You can flatten / level ground by using wooden frames. This is also handy when making crops, just divide it all with wood frames and put your dirt in the middle. Wood frames will also get rid of water if you frame the area the water is.

You can setup campfires and when zombies walk over them they'll catch fire. You can also make pits with them.

If you're trying to be quiet, sneak obviously, but when looting a container use shift click to loot items and then press E to close the container not R which is loud.

Being undetected while sneaking gives a dmg multiplier based on your skill lvl (AGI tree). Make your first shot a head shot.

Zombies start running at 2200 and stop at 0400, what you may not realize is that at 2200 and 0400 there's a distinct sound that plays as an audio que.

If you didn't know already if a crate doesn't give you an option to open it, then that means you have to break the box around it. On the same note, if a safe is locked, then you have to use a mining pick or auger to unlock it.

If you have issues finding air drops, line up an air drop on your cursor, then go to your map (Default M) and look where you're facing, then make a quick waypoint far out from where you're facing, make sure it lines up on your compass when you exit the map and that should give you a straight line of where to head for the crate.

Your stamina level affects how much damage you do with a weapon so try not to let your stamina drop below 50%. This also affects mining yields. If you're constantly low on stamina drink a beer, coffee, or grain alcohol (lowers wellness quite a bit) for stamina regen. Also keep in mind the skills that modify stamina usage.

General 2

What you need to know about leveling weapons and tools is that it's based on the last hit of an entities or objects HP. Meaning say there's a wall that has 5000 HP. You use a mining pick on it until it's 14/5000 HP and then you use a shotty to last hit it. That shotty just got 5000 HP worth of xp, not the mining tool you used. Now as you're mining that wall sure you're getting small xp with whatever you're using but the big xp comes when you last hit. So what does that tell you? Find high hp things such as trees, get them low HP and then finish them off with what you want to level weapon or tool wise. This will save you tons of ammo. If you're out gathering resources you might as well level your weaps too. (Mechanics changed in a18)

Two tips that you should know about crafting / leveling. First, the higher the level of the skill, the more xp you get from leveling that skill. This means that you want to learn all your recipes you find in the world as early as possible because if you read a weapon recipe and you're level 98 in gunsmithing each recipe gives you +1 in that skill along with giving you the recipe but since recipes you find don't give xp, you missed out on the xp level 99 of gunsmithing would have given you, which is probably 1-2 player levels which is 5-10 skill points (The amount of xp was nerfed for this but now since zombie kills give tons of xp that's the best way to level) a good chunk. So keep that in mind. (Mechanics changed in a18)

When you have an arrow knocked back and don't want to shoot, hit R and it'll unload the arrow. Helpful since knocking an arrow back and holding drains stamina.

You can use wood frames to flatten out uneven ground and make water disappear. You can also use them to scale walls and mountains. You only need 2 to climb. Have one at your feet, then put one, one level up beside you, get on it, and pick up the one you just got off. If you're scaling a mountain / cliff and think you might fall, it's best to leave wood frames where it would catch you so you don't take a flying leap to your doom.

To upgrade / repair wood frames or any type of block you can use a stone axe, wrench (Mechanics changed in a18), hammer, or nail gun and each one has their own speed for upgrades so a nail gun is the fastest. And each have their own recipe you need to learn before you can make them except stone axe of course (Recipes are mainly found in bookshelves in bookstores and libraries along with some houses / buildings having bookshelves). The recipes can be found in other places of course but with much lower chance (Even zombies can have them). You can find wrenches underneath sinks / faucets in bathrooms and kitchens the majority of the time. All of these can be in working stiffs crates as well. Don't forget that traders at Trader Joel's can have these recipes as well and don't forget to check the far right tab of the trader as that's a seperate inventory from the all tab it defaults to (This is the secret stash tab that the skill increases). (Quality based on how many magazines you've found for the category; you find more related magazines based on skills you've invested in)

The desert has oil shale in the ground that can be converted to gas, since the desert is mostly sand it makes digging looking for the shale easier, just keep in mind to use wood frames to reinforce your mining area so it doesn't collapse on you. Keep the sand to make concrete or glass (smelt).

The dark black spots when you open your map are either coal or caves. Caves have many resources including mushrooms and stalactites / stalagmites which yield potassium for gun powder. The brown spots are clay, the gray are stone. Air drops are also shown which you can right click and quick waypoint. You can also share waypoints to the server or to friends only by clicking on a way point and hitting the share button at the top, it will prompt you.

If you're making concrete, it's more material efficient (mainly on scrap iron) to put down an iron frame and upgrade that to concrete instead of using a wood frame. Scrap iron can be a pain to get if you don't want to mine rocks all day and wait for it to smelt.

Speaking of smelting, in the forge you can convert your resources in the forge to base materials. For example, if you have iron in a forge, search for scrap iron and you can craft it. It'll take your iron in the forge, say for instance iron ore you smelted, and make scrap iron. Same with clay, etc. Great if you want to move a forge and not lose it's resources. Or to get resources if you're on a PvP server.

Earlier I mentioned: When you've been to an area that's been looted, sometimes when you remove what's in the container then exit out of it (If it doesn't say untouched) , it can spawn untouched loot if the timer has passed for that container. You can reverse this meaning say the area you're in you want to make sure it's you that gets to loot it, leave one item or a stack of junk in the container and the next person that passes by might not know and just figure the place has already been looted and move on leaving the loot for you when you come back after a while removing the junk and getting untouched loot.

The standard way for a player to level their skills is to raise crafting, medical, weapons, etc. Some friends and I discovered that if you put all your points into scavenging to 100 first, you'll be getting 500+ items which you can use a crafting bench to upgrade quality / repair to 600 (If you have the appropriate skill as you can only go 100 above your skill) and find everything you need instead of having to craft it. This is great if you're playing a nomad type playthrough. This also is the best way to get dukes early because your higher quality items will sell for more and it's my opinion that the higher the items value the more xp you get for the trading skill. This is not for everyone but is another way to play and you can get high quality stuff from like the 2nd day if you put all your points into scavenging (and remember scavenging also decreases the amount of time to loot containers). (Mechanics changed in a18)

If you want a easy to setup wall or cage for hordes you can use 2 of the cylinder blocks on top of each other and next to each other. It would be smart to put them on a strong base and just put a ramp or spikes in front of the base block. There's enough space that you can shoot / melee through it but zombies not to be able to get through. If you make a cage out of it be sure to put a lip around the top so spiders can't get on top and break through, you'll also what to make it 4x4 blocks at least so you have room to put loot boxes to throw horde loot in.

Update: an easier way is to create a single block elevated bridge to your door and put blocks every 2 lengths so they have to stop and jump up and over them which prevents them from running. Just expand the bridge and wind it back and forth at your base. To make it even easier, put a robotic sledge on the side and have it knock them off the bridge, it's great. Just keep in mind them zombies have to have a path that they can follow to get to your door or they won't use the bridge.

If you're short on time and have crawlers (wall climbers) coming, you can use catwalks on top of your walls for cheap with wood until you get time to build how you want. The problem is you can't shoot through the catwalk like you can with rebar triangles that I prefer to use (flat part on top so you can walk on it).

If your game goes to a crawl (low fps) then try hitting escape > video > hit apply > ok out and see if that fixes it. This works a lot of the time. If it doesn't and everyone else doesn't notice an issue then exit the game, and exit out of Steam, then relaunch Steam and the game. These two things solve many issues.

Helpful Comments From Users / Streamers I Forgot To Add:

JaWoodle - You can build ladders in corners by putting something down on the floor at an angle, then copying its rotation.

MaxIt - Wood frames are the best fuel per resource. (This is no longer the case, coal seems to be king again)

Triggered Gaming - It depends greatly on what tool/weapon you use to break the pictures. I use the fireaxe and get nothing but wood from wall pictures. (I'm running straight vanilla 7dtd)

Aidyn - For the XP, I find that upgrading blocks is the fastest way to level, IMO. Start with flagstone, which only needs stone and clay, upgrade with cobblestone, upgrade with concrete, upgrade again with concrete, you're looking at about 750-1000 xp per block. Don't have a mixer? Merchants sell concrete at (I believe) 250 dukes per 50. 50 concrete is enough for 5 upgrades, or something like 1200xp. (I may be mixing concrete and cement mix in the words, but concept remains the same)

AlexRobinet - If you are in a particularly hostile map with sheer ledges you can jump off them and log out before hitting the ground when you log back in you will most likely have broken line of sight for the zombie and you won't take the fall damage you spawn in on ground level. (Unconfirmed)

Neon Lights - Purses, Backpacks, Sports Bags, and Duffel Bags have a very high chance to give gun parts, sometimes even complete guns with ammo (Rarely)

Gipo - Toilets can contain complete pistols when you loot them.

|A51| PRODUCER UNIT :AKA: GSBS - Find more schematics in filing cabinets than book cases (minus book store) sorry, I'm just remembering things as I'm playing lol

(Truth)

And also yuka fruit + golden rod tea are a great way to keep stamina up early game ;)

(Anything that raises hydration adds stamina but yea I forgot to mention)

You forgot hay bales negating fall damage :)

(This seems to have been patched out sadly)

Conclusion

I hope you got something from this, thanks for your time.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=660211073

Things you may not know v1.1