This is a very basic guide. I didn't like my first few starts so I've decided to share what I've learned.

Skip the prologue if you can. Every time you start a game the RNG factor changes your first day. Sometimes you start with another character for your party, sometimes you don't. When you don't you normally have a hard night mission to get a survivor, normally wasting the first day. There is a beginning mission where you have to fight off a gang attack day one. Thankfully you get Trisha with her Assault Rifle and Medic skills to make it easier, but it is still a pain.

Also the game does not save when it should. It bugs out a lot. Good luck on it saving for you. I had a very good start and when I wanted to test the save it brought me back to day 1 with a completely different RNG.

This is a work in progress.

Every new day, you will be bombarded by crap. You'll receive quest updates. Storyline stuff, and a overview of what you aquired/used/created from one day to the next.

You will often receive a chance to trade or buy something. I've noticed that these are really good deals if you can afford it. Free levels for a character (pick your main guy), or just food for materials or some such thing. I traded 2 food for a large amount of materials, and I find this to be generally good trades to make. (Edit) I have noticed a couple not so good trades. So far 80/20 split.

If you did not pay attention, don't worry, when you go to travel the quests will be listed no matter where you pick so you can be sure you are going to the correct area.

If you did not set guards, and got attacked you will be screwed. They take all your food, materials and tools. You can't hunt because you have no tools. You can't craft cause you have no food, and you have no food so you can't heal properly. You have to rely on dumb luck to get food to be able to continue. This is normally where i delete and start over. Sometimes I set a guard and the game decides I didn't.

Cantina

This is where everything happens.

Challenges

useless as this is also in the Cantina.
Just a summary of your statistics. Not really useful except to maybe track achievement progress.


Jobs

Useless because you can assign jobs in the Cantina.

Shop

Useless because you can shop in the Cantina.

So you have left and right tabs, when you select a left tab, only the left side changes, so if you select a right tab, the right tab changes. This is usefull to select a character on the left, then go through each right side tab to ensure they are doing what you want.

Left Side
Back
will take you back to the main page.

Inventory
with a character selected, will take you to their inventory.

Party
to toggle between different characters.

Shop
to buy at the shop. To sell go to the gear tab on right.

Stats.
See the explanation in the main menu. redundant.

Right Side
Gear
This shows everything not assisgned to a character's inventory.
The Equip button works if you hace the Inv. or Party tab open on the left and a character selected.
Sell will sell the selected item, works with every Left side tab.

Med. Help
Allows you to heal a character with Party or Inv. Left side tabs open.
So your characters will heal 20% of their max hp every new day. This is how you heal additional outside of combat. This will also let you see what healing you have available in combat, if any.

Combat Skills
When your character levels up, you can assign points here. Points come from a shared pool between Combat and Job Skills, meaning your 7 or so points can go to either or both skill pages. Each skill point spent in a skill increases the succesive point costs. so 1 point for level 1, then 2 points to get level 2. Training higher levels is more expensive.

I'll go into more detail on the Skills pages.

Job Skills
Shows a character's job skills , allows assignment of skill points into job skills. You must have at least 1 point into a job skill to do that job with a character.

Jobs
There are 6 jobs. A character must have at least 1 point in a skill to do the selected job.
Characters that perform jobs are not in your party for traveling.

The numbers (0/2 for example) indicate how many have been assisgned to that job, and how many can be assigned to that job.

The numbers (10/1 for example) indicate how much resourses you must spend to assing someone to do this task and how many you have. For Hunter it also shows the expected food net.

Blacksmith
Make bullets or engineering supplies.
costs 1 food.

Doctor
Make medkits or Medical supplies.
costs 1 food.


Hunter
costs 1 tool for a skill based food gain. 2+ hunters may not increase your food as much as you'd like while costing 2+ tools.

Outfitter
select a piece of gear to craft. You craft 1 piece of gear per day. I think when you aquire enough people it would be worth it to start outfitting your "away team".

Gunsmith
create guns. costs 1 food.

Guard
There is a Zombie and Punk Threat at the top of the screen. Assisgn a guard if those indicate anything other than 0 and it should reduce the threat. Sometimes a quest or gossip on the day change or talking will hint that you need a guard. I would have everyone at least get 1 point int he jobs skill to be able to guard and also it improves their combat blocking effectiveness, not a wasted point by any means.

If you did not set guards, and got attacked you will be screwed. They take all your food, materials and tools. You can't hunt because you have no tools. You can't craft cause you have no food, and you have no food so you can't heal properly. You have to rely on dumb luck to get food to be able to continue. This is normally where i delete and start over. Sometimes I set a guard and the game decides I didn't. Good luck.

Cantina
Cycle through your quests a the Cantina right side tab.

Each character you get has a mission attached to them. A scripted event that you should complete as soon as possible. Each event has a negative effect if you either fail to complete it or make a decision the character doesn't like. For example, Bill is lazy, so if you want to continue he will throw a hissy fit and leave then not be available to your party for a few days. Jamaal wants to finish hunting. Try to finishin the quests to make your life easier.

Jack (or whatever you called your starting character)

So Jack is essential to have on certain missions as it is a requirement for the mission. He is going to have to be good at combat and on missions and your priority for healing.

I would recommend the following Combat Skills:
Melee, so he isn't ammo dependant and adds to group damage and some crowd control.
Medic, so he can buff himself. Increases hitpoints.
I've noticed most characters you get, besides Hank, start with a ranged weapon and are decent with it. Going melee for that knockdown crowd control is worthwile.

Job Skills:
Cunning: used to open things, block enemy attacks. The best skill in my oppinion.
Survival: used on mission to hunt for food, increases Critial Hit Chance.
The other two skills I would not take above skill level 4 as you won't be crafting with this character but you will gain some passive combat stats if you have extra points laying about.

Hank
He starts out with Melee skills and sucks at everything else.
He wants you to get his wife. Which opens up recruiting her and wooing her and who knows what else.
I haven't progressed far enough into the game yet but I think you may not want to be too dependant on him if you want to persue his wife...

Lydia:
She starts with Handgun combat skills and it is a very good and easy skill line to use. She has missions where you take her out to woo her. If you don't have Hank you can choose to get him or leave him lost. Not sure if you woo her and rescue Hank if there will be trouble, but i'd bet on it..

Handgun, she starts with some.


Jamal:
He comes with an assualt rifle, and has a mission where you go hunting. He is a good hunter and will probably be best as your food guy.

Assault Rifle, cause he starts with one, this uses a lot of ammo tho and you don't want to always make this kind of ammo.

Survival: I have him as my main survial guy. He brings home the bacon, literally.


Bill:
This lazy guy doesn't like going the distance. He starts with a shotgun.


Name:
She starts with a shotgun, you her ex boyfriend Dexter has a gang of punks looking for her, claims to be a cop.

Liz
starts out with a Nurses outfit and a pistol. Is good at Medical and Medic.

Larissa
starts out as an Engineer who can make nail traps and throw molotovs. Engineers are not good. Her date mission is a unnecessarily difficult because she is kinda useless as she can't even heal.


Thats all the characters I've Unlocked so far.

I recommend 2 person teams to start. Your main character (preferably melee), and the first character you get (preferably pistol/shotgun).

Do all the quests you can as finishing the quest unlocks further quests. If you have 3 characters, have one craft the item you need for a quest, or go hunting, or make more ammo. 2 characters are fine up untill level 10/20 of the early missions.

Combat Skills.
Melee. Everyone should have 3 points in this, because Breakthrough will allow people who do have ammo, and other melee charcters to do more damage when they hit a zombie with this debuff on them. You can run out of bullets, this is how the the gunslinger is less useless without ammo.
Melee has Eliminator at 5 skill, this will take an enemy out of combat if it lands for 2 rounds while you can continue to beat on it. Landing Eliminator will drastically improve your survival chances.
Exploit vulnerability, land this on a target stunned with Headshot to deal better damage, also deals more damage with Breakthrough already applied. Melee is best paired with Survival as the critical hit chance improves Eliminator.

Shotgun
Ranged type, low ammo usage, lots of multiple hit options.

Handgun
Ranged type, low ammo usage. Has Headshot which is fantastic to stun an enemy. Wary eye is good against certain enemy types that only melee attack. Stunning volley improves with Survival for the critical hit chance.

Assault Rifle
Can be better damage, high ammo usage.

Engineer
Uses rarer resourses. Not early game stuff really.

Medic
Better for healing in combat. A great skill to secondary as it increase your max hitpoints. and level 3 is required for all characters to use medical supplies (must be equipped) to heal.


So for a 2 man team you want a Melee and a Ranged specialist.
Jack or Hank
Lydia or Jamal or Bill.

When low on health and not mission dependant rotate between them.
So if your completely out of Medical supplies and Med. Gear. then rotate to try and progerss. Otherwise I'd stick with a primary duo/group.

Weapon upgrade kit. Cost 24. Adds 1 level to a weapon, adding minimal damage. This does not improve the weapon type. Some enemies will resist earlier weapon damage types. When Brass weapons will do less damage, it is time to use Steel. This item is kinda useless then.

Medical Supplies Cost 15. Used for First aide at level 3 skill. Its expensive to buy, and its amazing to find and will improve your level progress.


Pistol brass 15 Damage
Pistol Steel 25 Damage


Old level. 1-3
New level. 3-5


Can of Soda
Burger
Small healthpack
Medium healthpack
Large healthpack

Combos.
Headshot from Handgun or Smokebomb from Engineer + Wait a round, then Exploit Vulnerability from Melee.
Headshot takes an enemy out of combat 2 rounds. Use it, then wait a turn and break it before the stun wears off with Exploit Vulnerability. This combo doesn't work if you have an uncontrolled NPC because they will probably break the stun, so try to do it immediatly or just don't use Headshot when NPCS can break the stun.

Eliminator from Melee + Ground Volley from Assault Rifle. All three shots from Ground volley hit and the enemy is still on the ground.

Eliminator from Melee ot Fire Through from Shotgun + Execution from Melee. combo for 200% damage.



Breakthrough is very good at keeping the damage up, especially on multiple attacks and area of effect. All enemies can block attacks, the breakthrough debuff also improves the damage on your blocked attacks.


So you need Medical Supplies in order to use the First Aide skill at level 3. This is necessary for all characters. Getting medical supplies to heal will increase your success a lot. You want to use strategies to maximuse your healing effectiveness. KOS and Stuns on the last surviving enemy will let you heal until full or out of supplies and make it that much easier to progress.

Skills to have:
Cunning: for locked items.
Medical: for lost children.
Melee: for police cars perched on the precipice of disaster.

Having higher health also increases chances.


Drops.
Old Clothing - level 1-3 gear.
Gas
Bullet casings
Old weapon parts.
Medical Supplies.

Events:
Airplane drop
good, loot, bad ambush.

Case with wire
good, loot, bad damage.

Police cruiser
good, loot, bad ambush.

Enemy types Zones 1-10

Vagrants.
125 base hp. Immune to KO and stun. Seems to have high armor, recommend Breakthrough to normalize damage. Spits. Double attacks.

Nurse
75 base Hp. Heals undead. Poisons you fpr 50% 4 rounds.

Pedestrian.
75 base hp. Bonus to damage to other zombies. Charges.

Cheerleader
200 base hp. Buffs an ally as an action with team spirit giving 50% str 2 rounds. vomits.

Suit
150 base hp. Low Blow can stun. Multi attack. Bite can cause bleed.

Scavenger Charger
150 base hp. Retaliates to melee attacks. Armored. Shotgun. Charging shot, hurts if he hits you next round.

Scavenger Brawler
125 base hp. Immune to KO and stun. Armored. Ticking Bomb 2 turns then BOOM.

Infected Police officer
190 base hp lvl5. immune stun/ko. armored. awareness to melee. take aim for double crit chance

Bitten Police officer
190 base hp lvl5. armored

1. Game doesn't save properly. I've went from day 3 to day 1 a few times now. I recommend leave the game after every day just to make sure it load and you should only lose 1 day at most then.

2. If you improve your medic skill, you actually lose current hitpoints while gaining max hitpoints. This is rediculous. You should always apply skills while in the Cantina then.

3. Getting raided, getting all your stuff taken to the point where it is almost impossible to continue. So if your hunting for food, you bring it back to your base, then it gets stolen? All the materials you aquire while out on the road killing zombies gets stolen? This happens. This is a huge frustration. Always set a guard, hopefully it works. Apparently the calculations for getting your stuff taken is after your away team comes back. Even if you have no food, materials or tools, you have to set a guard or you will lose the stuff you bring back.

4. Some starts are significantly better than others. Getting the Hank or Lydia start is probably the best because you can get a quest to find the other and have a larger party earlier. The Liz start is difficult as you have to get past a night mission at level 1 Any Start with Trishia and/ror the Sheriff in your party is significantly easier as they do great damage and you dont have to worry about their stuff.




Showing i had nothing but what I brought back.


And it's gone. No guards, the stuff you bring back is gone.