Clearing the city

So you have been surviving for a long time, you have a good base, you have plenty of food, a selection of guns, ammo, explosives, and medicine, you may even be scavenging the cities, that's when you notice the big picture, the city is so dangerous to scavenge in, the deeper you go, the more zombies there are, what's the solution to scavenge an area peacefully? KILL THEM ALL!!!

This is one of the hardest end-game goals in the game, this guide will show you how to exterminate the many zombies and monsters that plague the city, but think hard first before you consider obeying this guide, you are playing with fire after all, sometimes quite literally...

What do you need

• Guns and plenty of ammo - you can't easily clear a city of dangerous mutants without these. Depending on your strength, you may be able to carry more bigger and powerful guns, alongside the other things you need (see below).
• Infection treatments - antiseptic is preferred to clean bite wounds unless you want to suffer the status effects of an actual infection.
• Bandages are needed in case the zombies cause you to bleed with their attack; skeletons, feral predators, and zombie hollows are especially prone to causing this effect.
• A good melee weapon, for both killing zombies and pulping or butchering them. The machete is good for butchering; the katana is even better for all-out combat if you don't care about the zombie's meat and bones. (When would you care? Perhaps you want to make zombie pheromone or mutagen, or get some bones for charcoal.)
• A wooden weapon to use against electric enemies such as shocker zombies and shocker brutes as they will shock you if you strike them with conductive weapons. A nail bat or nail board is a good start, but a wood axe or fire axe are a better option.
• Armour or high dodge - you need good protection to defend yourself from the zombies attacks as staying away will fail at some point. It is recommended to modify your clothing with Kevlar using a Tailor's kit.
• Explosives - these are very effective against the big boss monsters, such as zombie hulks and shocker brutes, and can weaken hordes too. Even a Mininuke isn't overkill here if you can lure the horde to it, but watch radiation.
• Fire is very effective against hordes if you have avenue supply of alcohol to make Molotov cocktails. Do note that this will also destroy any loot you might want.
• A gas mask - this item actually provides good damage protection as well as protecting you from bloated zombies and smoker zombies, though having it always on will significantly impair your stamina regeneration.
• A tazer with some battery power - some zombies are very dangerous with their special abilities at close range; a tazer will stun these monsters long enough to be finished by a barrage of gunshots whiles stunned.
• A bullwhip is also good for stunning enemies from up to two tiles away. Its low damage isn't really suited for killing them by itself, but its stunning effect will leave the enemy vulnerable to a few hits before they regain composure.
• A car? Ramming zombies is surprisingly fun and effective be it your custom deathmobile with several auto-turrets or a Beetle with 4% gasoline remaining, though it is still risky as streets can be littered with car wrecks, heavily harming your mobility. Just keep the doors closed.

Tips for extermination

• Consider this task separate from your typical scavenging, as such aggressive strategies will produce a lot of noise and chaos, you shouldn't worry about travelling light as you are more focused on fighting over searching.
• Start at the edge of the city, as you would when scavenging, you need a good exit if things go awry, and clearing areas of the city starting from the edges wil give you room to escape.
• Watch your HP - if it goes halfway down on anything, be it limb, torso or head as you are doing this task, consider running away and calling it a day and coming back later.
• Watch your Pain - it is number one player killer. Make sure not to let it get to too debilitating levels - use painkillers such as Aspirin, Tramadol, Oxycodone or Morphine. Try not to consume much lest you suffer an addiction. Or just use Sensory Dulling bionic.
• Watch your Stamina - this is cruicial for melee fighters as low stamina slows your actions speed and nullify your combat effectiveness. Getting Winded status effect is really bad, too.
• Summer is probably the worst season to do this task as due to temperature you will be either forced to fight nude or face the temperature slowdown from heat.
• Don't forget the big rule of the cataclysm, butcher or smash the zombie corpses, you don't want to kill all those zombies only for them to revive again. Butchering will train your survival skill, but you can pulp them if you don't have time, although that consumes a little stamina.
• If you want to kill a lot of zombies with melee, use bottlenecks - windows, alleys, doorways etc. and kill one or two at a time without getting overwhelmed.
• Don't use fire in the rain; spring is a season plagued by regular rain, this makes fire and incendiary weapons very ineffective.
• If you don't have the Psychopath trait, prioritise clearing parks and schools last in an area of the city; killing a lot of zombie children can cause a hit to your morale, train it on more thinly spread zombie children to slowly get used to killing them until you stop getting the morale penalty.
• The zombies will evolve over time, starting from mundane zombies and will slowly become almost nothing but deadly hulks, feral predators, and corrosive zombies to name a few, making this task harder and harder as the days go on. Train hard as many days as you can...

Mutant advantages and disadvantages

Mutants, as one can expect, have their own advantages that can make killing zombies and clearing the city much easier, this list will rank some of the late game threshold mutations paths, from worst to best.

• Bird mutants are the worst mutant for clearing a city, they have very low carry capacity, are EXTREMELY fragile, and have no combat advantages save for their large talons, beaks or their fast speed, one might fare ok with using pistols against zombies due to their high perception, but overall city combat is best completely avoided from a bird.
• Elf-A mutants aren't that good - they're very fragile and can't carry much equipment but can fight for longer due to Tireless. Their only advantage is easier time recruiting NPCs to join you, if you have them on.
• Alpha mutants have no differences in clearing the city to ordinary survivors, save for their increased stats and maybe Disintegration), causing the player to lose a little health slowly which will eventually force them to retreat.
• Medical mutants have amazing HP and pain resistances, are immune to infections and low immunity diseases, keeping the fight going longer, and making summer combat much easier, but they bring nothing special to the table in terms of combat and utility mutations save for acid blood, Just bring the right stuff you would as an ordinary human, and run when your HP is halfway down on a body part, your speed is not effected by loss of HP due to lack of pain, the more the zombies hurt you as a cenobite, the more you can focus on building up your combat skills even further.
• Insect mutants can vary depend on what traits you mutate, Mandibles can give a decent unarmed attack, but Proboscis cannot, Acid Blood can defend you, and Chitinous Armor gives passable protection, and their higher perception combined with their night vision and infrared vision can make them good shooters and stealth attackers too.
• Troglobite mutants are liable to be able to utilise good stealth and combat tactics due to their night vision, they can also eat zombies after killing them and can heal faster after the fight, but there are no special combat mutations save for higher strength, though they do have lower dexterity than an ordinary survivor. Ninjutsu is recommended for a trog to pick out zombies at night with weapons such as a katana.
• Fish mutants are a mixed bag, cities are more likely to be easily cleared if there is a river or lake near the city for you to quench your thirst or hide in, and they have quite a few handy utility and combat mutations that can help kill the monsters easier, with a crippling Achilles' heel against shocker zombies, shocker brutes and incandescent husks.
• Cephalopod mutants are slightly slow, but they are dexterous, stealthy, and have their tentacles, beak and tentacle rakes for extra unarmed attacks separate from their initial melee attack such as with a weapon, and have a shell to protect themselves against attacks.
• Mouse mutants are super-fast, dodgy, stealthy but very fragile. Counter-intuitive - this makes them a good night melee fighters thanks to Hyperactive, Unassuming and High Night Vision. They also get Eater Of The Dead which synergizes well with Gourmand and Fast Metabolism.
• Spider mutants can kite enemies, trapping zombies and monsters in their webs and then using their folding fangs and strong venom to poison and eventually kill the monster, their night vision and infrared vision makes it easy to focus on one monster at a time, their urticating hairs can also stun or blind enemies, making them even better during summer as they will have better defenses even when without clothing.
• Plant mutants are more suited for clearing cities than other locations such as underground ones, they are slow, but have amazing defences, including their damaging thorns, and can use their vines to whip enemies.
• Slime mutants work well with their adorable slimesprings, who can not only fight the enemies, but they can cheer the host up, with the morale getting their focus back up, and heal bleeding and bite wounds. Their slime hands and venomous traits also help a little.
• Raptor mutants are dexterous, perceptive and can use their infrared vision to sneak up on unsuspecting monsters at night, then can kill them quickly with their toe talons and Long Fingernails.
• Lizard mutants only a bit better defence-wise with their Thick Scales, but they are MUCH better melee-wise - they have their Large Talons and Thick Tail at their disposal, and are able to heal faster after the battle with Reptilian Healing.
• Cattle mutants are even slower, but they are a LOT stronger and have even more HP than a lizard, and have Horns and Hooves for their extra attacks.
• Lupine mutants have high stamina, better dodging, better hearing, high strength, night vision, making night combat decent, and their fangs and an extra attack.
• Feline mutants may not have the highest health and defences, but they have the best dodging capabilities which more than make up for that, combined with their Retractable Claws and Saber Teeth, this ranks them next to beast and lupine.
• Beast mutants along with the ursine mutants have the highest strength altering mutation in the game; Insanely Strong, they also have balanced abilities of both lupine and feline, have higher HP (though not as high as ursine), and have Claws and Lupine Muzzle as their extra attacks.
• Ursine mutants are an omnivorous version of cattle, with their high HP tied with cattle and their insanely strong trait shared with beast, they also have night vision, and work better in the dark as they are near sighted during the day. Their only extra attack is claws, a little less than some others, but this mutation's high HP and strength makes up for that.
• Rat mutants are surprisingly suited for clearing zombies, especially at night, they have better dodging, Rat Claws, which eventually becomes Stainless Claws, as well as incisors, even better suited for city clearing, rats are able to eat zombies to make up for their fast growing hunger without being poisoned. Rats are also have infection resistance, making it less riskier to fight zombies.
• Chimera mutants are called Chaos for a reason; they are the ULTIMATE city clearers, both day and night! They have amazing combat abilities, have High Adrenaline and higher HP and have almost all manner of extra attack mutations; Club Tail, fangs, saber fangs, curled horns, hooves, and large talons. They also have acid blood as a defence. Best of all, chimera can eat zombies after killing them without being poisoned, this puts Hyper-Metabolism to great use as it allows the chimera to restore their HP as they are clearing the city.

The aftermath

What happens after you clear the hostile streets? You are safer to scavenge deeper parts of the city for whatever you need for longer survival as well as later cities you travel to, you could also repopulate the city if you want to...