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Terminus: Zombie Survivors > Guides > Suddenly Matt!'s Guides
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Terminus Tips and Tricks
By Suddenly Matt!
Herein, I'm going to lay out some things I wish I knew about Terminus' systems and such when I first started. This is my first guide, so feel free to add our own tips in the comments below and (if I have the energy and AP) I'll throw it up here.
   
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Created by
Suddenly Matt!
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Category: Gameplay Basics
Languages: English
Posted
Updated
22 Jan, 2022 @ 1:21pm
29 Jan, 2024 @ 7:52pm
4,488 Unique Visitors
22 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
Get a move on! 
Cooking is Good 
Zombies Suck 
Living your Life, in Cars 
Playing with Others 
More to Come? 
Comments
Get a move on!
Your AP gain is influenced by all of your visible conditional stats, and Health. If you're well fed, high morale, and high energy, you will get some sweet bonuses to AP per turn.

Consequently, if you're low (like 3 or less, I believe), you will get penalties to AP regen. Try to time it out so your Energy and Morale are depleted by night time.

Oh, and couches increase your Sleeping condition by 50% to start, which is a great bump and also a pretty good night's sleep. It helps to forget you're sleeping in other people's farts.

s seem to stack for defensive and warmth benefits. It baffled me that there wasn't an actual "clothing equip" thing, so don't worry too much about it.
Cooking is Good
Rotten food sucks, but if you have a lighter and a frying pan, you can turn those negatives into positives! Cooked rotten food pieces turn into a fresh-ish home-cooked meal that won't leave you with the green apple splatters (or in game terms, Disease).

According to grubber21 and... intense_butt_stabber in the comments, the above isn't true anymore. Good news is, if you're already Diseased, you can't get MORE diseased, so treat it like that bag of yesterday's Taco Bell. You've already eaten the first death burrito, may as well finish that bag.

There's also no reason to save food if your Satiety is low, so stuff your face whenever you can. A lighter pack is an easier pack to move around in.
Zombies Suck
When fighting zombies, a head shot is a kill shot. Gut shots make them weaker, but they'll still be wandering around. Leg shots turn them into crawlers.

Now, should you kill or evade zombies? I personally find that, overall, clearing them out as you're going along is a fine pastime and a great way to get rags. Sometimes, you can even get other things too (increased with a specific skill you can learn whose name I've forgotten), so I think by default it's good to go clubbin'.

Speaking of, if you find wood glue or duct tape, you can repair weapons and tools. Sewing kits work for clothes.

And also speaking of, your clothes seem to stack for defensive and warmth benefits. It baffled me that there wasn't an actual "clothing equip" thing, so don't worry too much about it.
Living your Life, in Cars
A car is worth the time. You're exchanging a unit of fuel for having to have 9-11 AP to wander to the next location, and a trunk to hold your extra stuff. It's 2 AP to check it out and, if you have a wrench, you can get to repairing the busted ride you found. Not only is this great for exploring new areas, but you can zoom through previous locations if you have the fuel! Did you find that axe that the Fortified House was looking for? Zoom on back instead of spending a whole day backtracking!

If you DON'T have a car and you're stuck hoofing it, be sure to arrive at the new location with as much AP as possible, because zombies tend to hang out near where you arrive. Don't show up with your pants down, and let them get free hits on you. That's a recipe for getting bloody or worse.
Playing with Others
Fortified Houses will let you trade, but it helps a ton to get their trust first. Ask them what they want, and if you have it, give it to them. Then, trading will default you at one level deficit instead of three or four. The levels are (if memory serves):

Poor
Medium
High
Very High
Extraordinarily High (I think?)

More importantly, you can only trade five items on each side at a time, so if you want something Very High, you'll want to throw your best at it. That said, if you can't use cigs, booze or coffee, they are all (usually) medium value.
More to Come?
This is all off the top of my head. I may add more to it. I may not.

Special thanks to the game maker. Terminus is a nice little roguelike game that, even in an early access state, is fun to play and has its own specific charm. I mean, I spent the time to write this guide, which is saying something.
6 Comments
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intense_butt_stabber 29 Jan, 2024 @ 7:11pm 
As of 1/29/2024, cooking will not unrotten the food but u can still cook them for satiety bonus, I will advise players eat them (rotten food) when u already have a disease as they dont stack anyway
grubber21 29 Jan, 2024 @ 7:05pm 
Outdated. Cooking rotten food no longer removes disease.
CatOnFace 19 May, 2023 @ 10:07pm 
For me, the best skill so far is the one that reduces search time. You get that twice, and you only need to use 1 AP to search thins. Huge speed improvement.
I chose that,
Head damage +
Cats eyes (night vision +)
Most games I only have enough time to read 3 books, but if I get the student, I also get,
Cold resistance, XP increase, Weapon durablility.
shattered fractal 17 May, 2023 @ 2:08pm 
Looking at this game for the first time now, and this is the first review I read. I was going to :thumb: it already, but the last line in the review really earned a ":ADNalert:"
Moonlighter 18 Sep, 2022 @ 6:09pm 
Most of the skills are situational, so it's hard to tier them. i.e. cat-eye is generally pretty good, but it has less value if you already have tons of small flashlights.

You can get value out of even situational ones like Ariadne's Thread if you figure out how to use them well. For instance, that one makes backtracking fast enough that you can back out immediately if you travel to a bad area.

I think the more xp one is the only trash trait unless you're taking an extraordinarily long time to finish the game. Longest game I've had was 12 days but generally I finish closer to 8, which just isn't enough time for the extra xp to break even, much less be worth being down a trait early.

Best class I think is the Athlete. Construction worker is a close second. Student can be good, but you're at the mercy of the book RNG for what you get.

For stats, I value Strength and Health. Everything else is nice but a few points of those are essential.
FluffyGuy 12 Sep, 2022 @ 8:56pm 
skills?