Good sources of items
This page lists good places in the game to obtain items. These are easy to access, reliable, or have enough of something to make them a particularly-useful source of the thing.
- Rags - Smash or tear down windows of houses with curtains, and cut up the sheet. Smash couches and beds.
- Thread - Smash or tear down windows of houses with curtains. You'll obtain a long string. Disassemble this into small strings, and small strings into thread. Disassembling strings into thread is much faster than disassembling rags into thread.
- Rope - Remove seat belts in cars. Smash hay bales in farms for cordage.
- Springs - Disassemble car seats.
- Nails - Burn down a house, the nails will survive. Smash furniture made of wood. Also check abandoned houses or hardware stores.
- Rocks - Smash boulders in the wilderness. Burn down a house, the rocks will survive.
- Antibiotics (weak/strong/normal) - The back room in pharmacies will fairly reliably have these.
- Books - Libraries/bookstores. Houses. Textbooks can be found in schools.
- Salt water (useful for oxidizer powder for mutagen) - Some swamp map tiles will have pools of salt water; each is an unlimited source of salt water.
- Alcoholic beverages - Liquor stores often have kegs of various types of alcohol in their back room, plus what's out front. Bars.
- Tailor kits - Clothing stores have a chance to have these.
- Blades - Disassemble lawnmowers.
- Leather - Cut up leather clothing from clothing stores, or closets in houses.
- Nomex - Cut up firefighter gear.
- Kevlar - Cut up solider gear.
- Pipes - Smash Lockers, outdoor clotheslines, as well as certain furniture like display racks.
- Planks - Smash or disassemble wooden furniture. Cut down and saw trees into planks.
- Rubber hose - Smash refrigerators.
- Chunk of Steel - Smash (or have zombies smash) cars or smash metal furniture.
- Sheet Metal - Disassemble car parts, or smash certain metal furniture such as ovens.
- Copper Tubing - Smash toilets and sinks.
- Lead - Disassemble a car battery. Disassemble unwanted ammunition.
- Wire - Destroy chainlink fences.