Death And Respawning
Death happens a lot in the game but it doesn't feel bad after you understand the mechanics of the game. Save often. When you die in the game, it will restart you at your last save point so save often.
The game is unique in that it integrates death into the exploration of the game. What happens in this game is when you die, you will reload the game at the last save point. All your character unlocks, recipes, gear, and exploration are retained at the point of that last save point.
The only time it feels bad is when you've overcome a big battle or did an hour of crafting at your base only to be killed unexpectedly only to find out that you didn't save. At that point, it is on you. Take a break, come back later, and do better.
This game found a balance between penalty and gameplay experience. Save and save often if you plan on taking on something risky. This way you can continue progressing in the game and not feel bad for dying. You will die a lot. It happens. It is ok and doesn’t feel as bad as in other games.
Character Creation & Unlocking New Skills And Technology
CHARACTER CREATION Allocate skill points strategically: During character creation, distribute your skill points wisely to enhance your character's combat, survival, and resource management capabilities.
Prioritize your character builds for combat rather than NPC interactions. You’ll have access to every type of weapon (Melee, Bows, & Guns). Ammo is the biggest limiting factor on ranged weapons. Consider putting your points on health, stamina, body toughness, health regeneration, and strength rather than a ranged weapon specialization.
Start off with melee and/or archery. As you gather an armory, then level into what you have available to you. For example, you might have a ton of 9 mm ammo and handguns but have put all your points on 7.62 ammo & rifles. If you had waited, you would have been a better shot with the handguns and saved a ton of ammo.
I found that once I had a base I could make different types of grenades which were great at taking out hordes or knocking down obstacles. This allowed me easily to pickup materials or farm dead dead bodies.
Each map is procedurally generated so there’s no guarantee that you’ll run across a trader or another NPC. Buying/selling to the trader is not a guarantee. Putting beginning points into charisma-based options feel like a waste.
LEVELING UP The way you unlock new skills and technology in this game is by converting the special zombie remains into Blue, Green, or Red vials. Each level of skills require an increased number of colored vials.
Whenever you kill an infected, they have a chance of dropping mutant tissue and special infected flesh. When you combine the mutant tissue and the different special infected flesh droppings in your crafting menu, you get Blue, Green and Red vials.
There is a 4th building technology category. This category can be further unlocked by sacrificing the required building components such as stone axes and sheet metal. Hover over the building category item you want to unlock to see what items you need to collect.
Combat Tips
COMBAT
Use melee and archery for stealth kills. Melee weapons are silent and perfect for stealth kills. Use them to take out isolated zombies without alerting nearby hordes.
Utilize firearms sparingly: Ammunition is scarce in Zed Zone. Save your firearms for emergencies or when dealing with powerful enemies. Rely more on melee weapons or other alternative methods whenever possible. While it is entertaining to pop off zombies, it is not fun to run across a tank-style mutant that runs you over because you didn’t have bullets or grenades ready to deal with them.
Aim for the head: Zombies in Zed Zone can be tough to take down. Always aim for headshots as they deal the most damage and can eliminate zombies more efficiently. There is a zoom-in option when shooting that helps you hit zombies at a distance. Take into consideration the surrounding as there is nothing more frustrating than emptying a clip only to have a tree block your shots. As you better level into ranged weapons, headshots will become easier.
Save used soda cans and small water bottles. Once you build a campfire and cooking pot combo, you’ll be able to make fuel from biofuel. This will allow you to create Molotov cocktails. Use grenades and cocktails for when you come across large hordes of zombies or mutants.
Resource Management
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Scavenge and explore: Explore every nook and cranny of the game world to scavenge for valuable resources, such as food, water, medical supplies, and crafting materials.
Prioritize essential resources: In the early stages, prioritize acquiring food, water, and medical supplies to sustain your character's health and stamina. Once stable, focus on obtaining materials for crafting and upgrading equipment.
Crafting and upgrading: Utilize the crafting system to create essential items like bandages, lockpicks, and improvised weapons. Upgrade your weapons and gear whenever possible to increase their effectiveness.
Crafting Basics
- Scavenging: Explore the game world thoroughly to find valuable materials. Search houses, abandoned vehicles, and other locations for items like scrap metal, cloth, chemicals, and electronics.
- Resource Nodes: Keep an eye out for resource nodes such as mining deposits, plants, or fallen trees. Interact with these nodes to gather specific resources like ores, herbs, or wood.
- Starting out, look for world generated crafting stations. These stations include workbenches, forges, cooking stations, and more. They provide the necessary tools and workspaces for crafting.
¬¬- You can unlock several crafting stations by acquiring the correct building materials in your skills panel. The materials must be in the main backpack to register and be used for the unlock.
- Upgrade Crafting Stations: Invest resources to upgrade your crafting stations. Upgrades can unlock new recipes, increase crafting speed, and improve the quality of crafted items.
Basic Crafting Recipes
Bandages: Tear down all unused clothing into cloth. In your crafting menu, turn cloth into bandages. Bandages restore health and stop bleeding. Also, place bandages on your character’s body parts to heal it over time. Consume the bandage to slowly restore some health. I once walked over encumbered for miles and rotted out my legs. I used medkits to restore health, but I couldn’t heal my legs until I placed bandages on them, removed my gear, had full health, food, and water, and slept.
Lockpicks: Combine small pieces of metal with a sturdy wire to create lockpicks. Lockpicks are essential for opening locked containers or doors.
Improvised Weapons: You can make your own improvised weapons if you have the right materials. I use a spear due to the distance and ability to repair it with basic items like wood and rock. These weapons can provide a temporary solution in combat if you don’t have ammo or can’t find a weapon.
Advanced Crafting Recipes
Medicines: Craft healing items like med kits by combing bandages and painkillers. Use bandages to heal limbs and med kits to restore health back to full. These medicines can restore health, reduce pain, or cure ailments.
Food and Water: Kill animal life for the meat. It takes three days to expire raw, three days after it is cooked, which means you can have a piece last you 6 days if you only cook what you need or want to carry on an adventure. Gather water by picking it up from the ground when it rains. Place the water on the ground into empty containers (water bottles, buckets, thermos, gas cans etc.). Do not drink. Place in the cooking pot to produce clean water. Place clean water in containers for later consumption.
Ammunition: Use bullet casings, gunpowder, and appropriate materials (lead, scrap metal) to craft ammunition for firearms. Ammunition is scarce, so crafting your own can be a valuable skill.
Armor and Gear: Utilize various materials like leather, metal plates, and cloth to craft protective gear such as armor, helmets, and backpacks. These items provide additional defense and inventory capacity.
Upgrading Weapons And Gear
Weapon Upgrades: Enhance the performance of your weapons by attaching weapon mods. These mods can improve accuracy, damage, or reduce recoil. Salvage parts from dismantling unwanted weapons to acquire mods.
Gear Upgrades: Strengthen your armor and gear by using upgrade kits. Upgrade kits allow you to add additional protection, durability, or special abilities to your equipment.
Recipe Acquisition
Exploration: Discover new crafting recipes by exploring the game world. Search hidden areas, complete quests, or interact with NPCs to obtain rare and unique recipes. Often, recipes are dropped after butchering zombies.
Skill Development: Allocate skill points into crafting-related skills to unlock new recipes or improve crafting efficiency. Focus on skills that align with your playstyle and desired item specialization.
Vehicles
There are two types of vehicles in the game: Wrecked and Fixable. Wrecked vehicles are shells of vehicles left to rot. You can search them for gear or destroy them for building materials. Beware of car alarms that might attract zombies. Fixable vehicles are found in parking lots, garages, and repair shops.
Inspect the condition of the vehicle. You can fix the engine, frame, tires, and fuel tank. You can remove batteries, tires, and lights and put them together on the car you’re working on. You can build a vehicle repair kit at one of the workbenches and use an item repair kit to recharge the vehicle repair kit. The vehicle repair kit has several charges that are used each time you fix a part of the vehicle. These are also found throughout the world.
Each vehicle has different gas usage, storage space, and durability. Currently, it is more efficient to use the vehicle to destroy trees, street obstructions, and other cars than it is to destroy hordes.
Use the vehicle as a mobile base and gear mule rather than for transportation since fuel is a problem. Drive to an area you want to explore and leave extra weapons and gear in the car storage then go forward on foot to explore and scavenge. When you get too full, return to the vehicle and gas it up, and return to your base to create more fuel and put up your new loot.
Exploration And Side Quests
Explore cautiously: Be mindful of your surroundings while exploring. Keep an eye out for valuable loot, hidden areas, and potential dangers like traps or ambushes.
Engage in side quests: Interact with non-playable characters (NPCs) and take on side quests. I haven’t seen any yet, but I have found notes that indicate locations where I can complete tasks. I consider these side quests as well. These quests often reward you with unique items, experience points, or valuable information about the game world. NOTE: I'm not sure if there will be a traditional quest tracker included in the game. When I say side quests I mean that the developer has included places of interest that you can explore and if you do there will be something and possibly rewards or maybe a trap. Regardless, it is something exciting to do!
Survival Tips
Manage your stamina: Stamina is crucial for combat and exploration. Avoid exhausting yourself completely, as it leaves you vulnerable to attacks. Use stamina wisely and consider resting or consuming energy-boosting items when needed.
Please comment with your own survival tips. I will add yours here attributed to you.
Suggested Playthrough Progression And End Game
Survival/Traveling Stage: Head towards urban environments and prioritize food, water, medicine, better clothing, and backpacks. Stay out of the rain. Save canned food and drinks for emergencies as they have a long shelf life. When you stop to make camp, do it inside. Build a campfire and put down a bed roll. Cook food and clean water to fill up before sleeping. Sleep through the night then cook another batch to refill up and have some food on the move.
Base Building: Find a central location near a POI such as a trader or military base. Take an existing structure with a door. Prioritize placing a campfire in the corner away from workstations, storage, and bed rolls because you’ll heat over the longer you stand next to a heat source. Create storage space in the corner and workstations along the corner in case you must fight zombies, miss, and damage your surroundings.
Advanced Modifications: You can only access mods and advanced building materials by unlocking the building tree. Establish a base you can bring items back. Experiment with crafting for more advanced items.
Missions/Questing: The game will give you missions you can undertake by leaving your notes lying around. If a specific location is mentioned, there is something to explore. Once you get established, try these missions out but don’t forget to save frequently.
Game Ending: The game is early development so its true ending is unfinished. The developer included a placeholder ending for those wanting to "beat" the game. To finish the game, all you have to do is gather the materials to repair a boat located on the coast. The coast is very dangerous so only go there if have the best gear and all the materials ready to go. Here is the current materials list needed. 20 Iron Tube, 100 Copper Wire, 20 Mechanical Components, 100 Ally Sheets, 100 Wood, 1 Plastic Bucket, 1 Portable Gasoline Generator, 1 Water Jet Engine. Once you repair the boat, you'll see a thank you note from the developer with the promise of more content to be added to the game.
Experimentation And Discovery
Trial and Error: Don't be afraid to experiment with different combinations of materials and items. Sometimes, you may stumble upon undiscovered recipes or alternative crafting options.
Community Interaction: Join forums, online communities, or social media groups dedicated to Zed Zone. Share your crafting experiences and learn from other players. They may have discovered recipes or tips you haven't encountered yet. The game is in early access and is already promising to be one of the most unique indie game experiences on the market. Share your discoveries with others as the developers work on the game.
Conclusion And Change Notes
With this Zed Zone playthrough guide, you're equipped with the knowledge and strategies to overcome the challenges of the post-apocalyptic world. Remember to adapt, stay vigilant, and make smart decisions to increase your chances of survival. Good luck, and may you conquer the Zed Zone!
Zed Zone Survival Guide 1.0 Change Notes
Added basic content
Will add pictures to illustrate
Will flesh out how to specific processes
Will add reader survival tips
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2989237223
More ZED ZONE guilds
- All Guilds
- (Some command and cloth id)
- ZED ZONE Guide 25
- ZED ZONE Guide 19
- ZED ZONE Guide 16
- Some Console Commands
- save file location
- ZED ZONE Guide 8
- Fix for bugged skill tree/Corrupted save file
- Tips (Tips for newbies)