A17.0 my attempt at a 'pure' melee base w fall-back. Had to use guns though.

[FileMachete]

What do you folks think?

 

My attempt at a pure melee base.

Only traps were a double row of barb wire flat on the ground in front.

Day 28 horde, GS=120. No rads, only a couple cops.

Even though base was designed for a fallback, I didn't get to use as they didn't breach first wall.

 

Melee damage output not nearly enough to keep up with zeds; which, in general, is expected, but by this much?

Wasn't even close if there were more than about four. At 4 they'd do a lot of damage to pole blocks while I was trying to kill them w machete. Combine the very slow repairing of a claw hammer w their dps vs. my dps & no choice but to go to guns.

 

Start_Day28_Lvl-58__GS-120__Kills-737

End_________Lvl-61__GS-126__Kills-853

 

Three groups of 42 each, so at 116 kills I got almost all of the kills.

Went through 100rds shotgun, 206rds 9mm & 10rds 7.62 (cops)

 

Zeds almost made it through the first pole wall. After they'd broken out a couple of the outside poles, I had a couple dicey moments when the remaining pole was below ~1000hps.

 

I actually should have retreated if for nothing more than to test out my fall back idea while under pressure.

 

Fall back is that the ladder inside the fighting area is hanging from a 1/2 block scrap iron frame.

When zeds are getting close to breaking through, climb up ladder and 'pull it up after you' by picking up the frame, which drops (destroys) the ladder.

Then can hop down into the 2nd fighting room, which also has rows of double reinforced concrete poles to fight through. And it's own ladder hanging off of a frame if the zeds start to break through it's pole wall.

 

If zeds made it through both pole walls then it's just a basic tower base (though U shaped) where you're above shooting down. The three sides making up the U are full blocks on outside with 1/4 blocks on inside.

Figured if outside were solid they'd hopefully come to the front where you're visible. And the 1/4s allow repairing the outside full blocks while inside the fighting rooms.

 

Full skirt of iron bars & a birdcage for vulture protection.

 

**This was a lot more fun, to me, than the tower bases I've mostly been using in A17.

--after testing it I wouldn't recommend attempting this design w cobblestone, not even for the very first bloodmoon.

 

 

 

[Junuxx]

What melee perks did you have?

[FileMachete]

Attribute: Strength 8/10 (so +35% dam), Sex Trex 2/5, Skull Crusher 3/5

 

Machete has dye, serrated edge & fire thingy mods

 

[BobTheBard]

The reason melee doesn't work and will never work as a horde night defense is because it's gated by two things, stamina and swing speed. While stamina can eventually be rendered moot with flawless play and SexRex 5 there is no getting around the fact that zombies come at you and your base faster than you can attack them with a melee weapon. Guns attack as fast as you can click and do just as much damage to just as many targets, with the pause to reload taking about as long as a single sledgehammer swing. That's why ranged is king in A17, since you have options for single targets (bows with their super-cheap ammunition and easy stealth kills) and hordes (guns) while melee only has good options for single targets. That said, I've been having surprisingly good luck using a pickaxe as my melee weapon of choice due to its extremely fast power attack. Been splattering a lot of heads with it lately, and I'm curious how it'll go in horde night.

 

Glad to hear about the design and the fun you had with it, though! I need to come up with some more interesting designs than the ones I've been using lately.

[FileMachete]

Yep, fully agree w you Bob. It's actually fairly interesting how seemingly small design changes combine to have a large effect. Slower repairs, z's all hitting one or two blocks, not being able to lure the z's sideways a couple blocks... and the loss of the log spike traps.

 

I'll have to try out the pick as a weapon, and I'm planning on buying a couple lvls of Flurry soon.

 

Was pretty fun tbh First time I've felt 'danger' during a horde night in A17.

[Junuxx]

You should really try again with maxed deep cuts, flurry of blows and skull crusher. The best stuff (including AOE damage, so multi-target) is at the end.

[FileMachete]

You should really try again with maxed deep cuts, flurry of blows and skull crusher. The best stuff (including AOE damage, so multi-target) is at the end.

 

I get what you mean Junuxx, and those perks would definately make a difference.

 

This was an in-game test, not done in creative. On this playthrough I'm pretty heavily spec'd for mining/crafting, so all that concrete & iron is legit, heh.

Didn't expect to be able to handle everything via melee, what w all the changes in A17, but tbh I was suprised just how weak my melee was for horde night. Haven't had any issues w the frequent screamer hordes. But of course it's easy to kite them around.

Though I guess, 'on the other hand', it's suprising that I was able to hold the first wall, at all.

 

Mostly I hadn't seen a base quite like this combo and was curious to see if would hold up, then when it did, figured I'd share & see what folks thought since there's always room for improvement.

 

Perception: 1/10, Boom Headshot 1/5, Salvage Ops 1/5

Strength: 8/10, Sex Trex 2/5, Skull Crusher 3/5, Miner 69er 2/5, Pack Mule 3/5, Motherlode 4/5

Fortitude: 3/10, Pain Tolerance 2/5, Healing Factor 2/5, Slow Metabolism 1/5

Agility: 1/10, nothing bought

Intellect: 7/10, Better Barter 4/5, Hammer & Forge 3/4, Grease Monkey 2/5, Adv Engineering 2/5, Yeah Sci 1/5, Master Chef 1/5

[Mday]

May be if you can weaken the zombie first, you can then kill them with 1 hit and can keep up?Also may be electric pole to stun zombies?

[FileMachete]

May be if you can weaken the zombie first, you can then kill them with 1 hit and can keep up?Also may be electric pole to stun zombies?

 

Electric fences would definately help. Just don't have any power production yet, but soon I hope.

[Jugginator]

Huh. I really dig that, actually. I'd be a bit worried about them knocking it down, with it being bare with no traps, but that's just me playing on survivalist all the time heh. I never thought about putting a ladder on an empty frame, that's a neat idea. How's melee with a sledge in there?

 

I'd maybe think about putting a layer of iron spikes on the solid walls on the sides, just in case they decide to beat on them, possibly using panel reinforcements for the sides, just to make sure they decide to go to the melee area. Hmm, maybe this may help for a "uh-oh" situation: I discovered you could put spikes down then place hatches on top of them, so maybe in another version put spikes down as a floor(dig 1 deep of course) and then put hatches on top of them so you don't walk on them yourself. Can open them up as you fall back. But very nice, I like

[FileMachete]

Huh. I really dig that, actually. I'd be a bit worried about them knocking it down, with it being bare with no traps, but that's just me playing on survivalist all the time heh. I never thought about putting a ladder on an empty frame, that's a neat idea. How's melee with a sledge in there?

 

I'd maybe think about putting a layer of iron spikes on the solid walls on the sides, just in case they decide to beat on them, possibly using panel reinforcements for the sides, just to make sure they decide to go to the melee area. Hmm, maybe this may help for a "uh-oh" situation: I discovered you could put spikes down then place hatches on top of them, so maybe in another version put spikes down as a floor(dig 1 deep of course) and then put hatches on top of them so you don't walk on them yourself. Can open them up as you fall back. But very nice, I like

 

Cool, was really hoping to get a critique from a more hard core player, appreciate it Jug

 

I probably saw the hanging ladder somewhere so not claiming the idea, heh, but I haven't seen it recently & that little bit made this a 'rational' build, imo.

 

I'm not very good w the Sledge so I haven't tried. Might need to add a block to the depth to fully use the sledges reach. It's about right for a machete, but that's about equal to the z's reach; I got smacked a number of times lol.

 

Part of what I was trying for was a small base that could be upgraded along the way. Initially I wanted to test with the 3 solid walls only 1 block thick, just to see if they would path to the front. Chickened out though.

With faatal's AI changes I'm guessing that the solid walls will need defenses like you describe. I definately had my hands full at the front the entire horde, so I would have had to abandon the front if z's had started on the solids.

 

I like the idea of hatch covered spikes! Wonder if a garage door would work?

 

In the end I was pretty suprised I was able to hold the first wall, even though it was due to guns.

It did allow a fair bit of melee, which I'd been sorely missing on horde nights. And I got almost all the kills

 

Don't think it's very viable past another 2-3(?) hordes though (as a melee centric base). Unless the AI or stacked z damage changes quite a bit.

 

Thanks again for the feedback