Crafting

How to craft

First of all, just looting a city is unwise. You'll probably run into trouble at some point, and breaking windows or smashing down doors can bring unwanted nasties even closer. Hell, some buildings are even alarmed. So instead of looting something, why not try and craft it?

There are plenty of recipes, but most require a high skill-- e.g to add a silencer to a gun you need to have your firearms skill at 1 or higher.

Here's just a few examples for starting weapons that can be made only a few minutes into the game.

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• • Nail board
• A two-by-four with a few nails in. It makes a nice club for the early game.

Tools!

• A rock.
• Some nails
• Some wood.

You wake up in a shelter. run outside and look for a suitable rock. Run back inside, smash up two or three benches. press & to open the crafting menu and you should be able to craft this easily-made club from the remnants. You can destroy plenty of furniture, windows and doors etc to get nails and two-by-fours.

• • Wood spear!
• It's a nice throwing weapon and it's pretty light.

Tools!

• Steak knife/combat knife/butcher's knife etc.
• A heavy stick/ a two-by-four.

Again, such a simple weapon. sneak into a local house, check the kitchen for a cutting implement. Unfortunately stuff like butcher's knives don't make the best weapons in the early game, but you'll need at least one for butchering animals for food anyway. Tip: Smash a window with your nailboard. Smashing windows drops some sheets (I assume this will be changed to glass sheets at some point) and a heavy stick, which I assume is some part of the windowframe. Voila, open the & menu and you have a pretty good throwing weapon. you can also find heavy sticks a short walk into any nearby forest, or just use a two-by-four from smashing some furniture.

• • Crowbar

You can destroy the locker in the evac shelter to give you a pipe. You can then find a rock near the shelter and craft a crowbar. It is very useful for opening locked doors and also serve as a good melee weapon. (requires one skill point in mechanic)

• • Construction!

Okay, so you've broken a window. don't jump through it yet or you'll probably cut yourself like some little emo kid. Press * to open the construction menu, and then g to select >clear a broken window. this means you can jump through it without damage. Also it's much, much easier to board up a window than repair a smashed door. Peek out a window and see if there's anything nasty nearby-- if there isn't, we can continue. press * and then f to move furniture. Use this to move things like armoires and dressers in front of windows-- but remember this is only really to block line-of-sight, and you'll usually want at least one or two escape routes (usually the front door, as that blocks light anyway.)

• • Boarding/Taping up a window

Tools!

• A hammer, two-by-fours, nails
• Alternatively, duct-tape.

Very, very simple. Breaks line-of sight, so you can hide easily. Try not to make any noise and hide in a central room away from the entrances. You'll need 50 pieces of duct tape per window, and you usually find duct tape in rolls of 100, 200 or 250. It's quick and easy-- and you can still break through if need be.

To board it up you need a good amount of wood and nails-- but most importantly, a hammer. If you're lucky you'll find one on a corpse or dead zed-- if not, you may be able to find one in a hardware store. A hammer allows you to do quite a lot of construction and can be used as an impromptu weapon if need be (but then again, so can tattered leather pants.) Boarding up windows and doors not only defends your supposed hideout, but blocks line of sight. Again, remember to save a few escape routes and try not to make any noise while inside, or the horde may just come a knocking. For extra survivability drag some furniture in front of your boarded-up windows. That should give you a few more turns to either wake up/finish puking/reloading etc and get the hell out of dodge.

• • Traps!

lets get to the meaty stuff. you probably won't be able to craft much at the start, but if you make 4 wood spears and somehow manage to obtain a mystical shovel (rarely in hardware stores, you can usually find them at farmhouses and barns so get exploring the countryside) then dig a pit from the * menu. You then enter the & menu and scroll through until you find the 'spike pit' trap.

Edit: Feel free to edit all this, it's very rough and I'm very sleepy right now.