State of Decay: Tips to reach Level 10 Breakdown

As a small break from my recent Farcry posts, I've finally reached level 10 in the Breakdown DLC of State of Decay and thought that I should share some tips for anyone else trying to do the same...

Know Your Valley
Regardless of what level you are on you will always be stuck in the same map only with less and less resources and more and more zombies. Make a mental note of where to get building materials and fuel as those will be your PRIME concern later on. In my case no matter where I start, I always head straight for the base with a tree house. Even at level 10, if you put two outposts in the houses just on the other side of the road your team can deal with all inbound hordes.

Unlock Those Heroes
Heroes have a "hero" trait that make them tougher than every other character. Even if you can't bring them due to space restrictions or they die, there is a chance that they will respawn with one of the enclaves in the later rounds. The only ones you shouldn't be actively trying to unlock are the ones that require you to die. Also, unlocking "the father" is a bit of a pain - and is best done on level 1 since you need every single type of building at max.

Train in Wits
Again a job to do in the early levels. To train, simply search search search. The higher this skill is, the less chance you'll make a big sound which will attract all the zombies around (the odds of which go up as you go further in the levels). You -really- want to avoid doing this by around level 5. Also, for this same reason you will love the "dead man" hero as he comes pretrained with max wits and the "ninja" specialty, enabling him to move faster in stealth, always be able to open doors silently, and will never make noise while searching.

Influence and Cars
In the first few rounds (probably up to level 3) you will have an abundance of influence and vehicles to go around. Use them! Unlocking and keeping Ray with you is a big help with his special ability to spawn a car near you. Finding vehicles later on within reachable distance is near impossible, and they become fragile pieces of paper so the farther you get, the more careful you have to be with hitting zombies (ie. don't). With influence, always have a partner in the first few levels to assist in training up but around level 4 you'll need to start flying solo. The reason for this is two fold: a) you'll need a lot of influence to repair the RV and b) your assistant can get themselves killed if they decide to go home (tired or enclave mission start or RV found). To this end I've also been getting by with only constructing the basic medical tent in my base and nothing else.

Packing Your Stash
Somewhat carrying on from the last point, all your stuff goes with you to the new level BUT your influence will drop back to zero! Make sure that whoever is going takes a big backpack and loads up on bullets before you leave, then puts the bullets back in when you get to the next stage. Bullets have the best influence trade ratio of 1:1 where other items will lose influence when traded in. Also there is an item limit which will really be annoying later as you won't be able to put in weapons for influence. To that end, when you loot be sure to pick up stackable stuff like meds, snacks, clocks etc as you can fit more in there.

Strength in Numbers
When going scavenging far from base (far could be a mere two blocks in the later levels due to the amount of wandering hordes, individual zombies and specials) it is always best to bring allies. In the earlier levels you can simply spend influence to get a follower but later on, when you are trying to save all the influence for the RV, you'll need to time your runs when others so happen to join you. In other words during enclave missions, or training missions, or best of all - survivors joining missions, make a detour to search a few spots for things you may need. 

Runners and Dump Trucks
Zombies respawn at an ever increasing rate, so especially in sites that are far away it is a valid plan to load up all the bagged goods and dump said items on the street, then make a few rounds of picking them up with a vehicle. It's a lot safer for a curb side pickup instead of having to go into a house again (zombies love spawning on your vehicle). Also, when using runners you have two options in the later levels: a) shadow them and escort them all the way or b) get the hell out of dodge. The second option only works because of how the zombies populate. They spawn in a radius around where -you- are (memory saving for the game). Thus if a runner is in your vicinity and you are not helping him out then he will be in trouble. If you are on the other side of town then he'll pretty much have a free run.

Silence is a Virtue
Stealth and silenced firearms become more and more important as you go up in levels, though ironically the firearms are really only useful for the unarmored specials. I say this because the amount of zombies wearing body armor (bullet immunity) later on is quite high. It will pay to figure out the best "bush concealed" paths earlier in your run before you really need them. Remember that "z" will instantly kill a zombie from stealth BUT it will make noise! Sometimes it's better to just ninja your way past everything.

Know when to Flee, and when Not To
This is more common sense than anything. If you spot something you can't handle, go the other way and come back later (when it despawned or moved on). If you make a loud noise while scavenging, drop everything - jump out a window (or nearest door) and get to your car or nearest shrub, ready to dodge roll your way out of trouble if needed. If you have 3 other survivors with you and an enclosed room however, it maybe a better idea to stand and fight where the zombie swarm can only come at you a few at a time. This generally goes out the window around level 8 or 9 as the zombies are just too numerous and too strong for defense in a non-barricaded house. Guess I should mention barricades attract "active" zombies and can serve as a good way to thin out an attacking force instead of them all coming in at once.

Down Time
Time continues while you are not playing. While in the lower levels having a high morale will prevent bad things happening to you, later on (for me level 7) regardless of morale if you left someone missing you'll come back to find them dead. Treat your team oriented missions as high importance before logging off. Never mind the enclave stuff so much. Also, after sometime you will get the "rumors of an RV" mission which saves you having to drive around randomly to look for it. Just gather up as much material and fuel as you can (ammo and food are easier to find) until you get the exact location of the thing.

Fate is Against You
Each level not only do the zombies become more numerous but they also get stronger, faster, deadlier and have more specials, infestations and hordes. You on the other hand will get tired faster, have a harder time breaking their holds (ferals become almost certain death), and will slowly notice your radar become unreliable as it slowly no longer tracks hordes nor displays the little dots for zombies making it easier for them to get the jump on you, especially in the dark. Unless you are really good then you'd best time your game time to coincide with day time.