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Just discovered this game - questions!


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My wife and I just discovered this game and are having a blast playing it on our LAN. But we're struggling with a lot of questions. We're on Day 5 and just finished setting up our cobblestone fortress for the first horde invasion, with big plans for future base building.

 

1) What's the best way to get food and drink going initially? We keep getting told we don't have tools to cook and don't know how to make them. Which foods should we focus on at this stage, should we start farm plots and grow our own?

2) When and how will we be able to make better armor and weapons? We're still wearing plant fiber stuff, even though we've been collecting a lot of cotton. Should we try and kill animals for leather? Should we make a forge? Can we at this stage? Best progression path?

3) Is there a way to respec skill points? We started off putting in points without a lot of thought, and didn't even realize initially that there were tabs for other skill lines so we have a lot of points in perception and now want to redistribute our points. Is that possible, or should we just re-roll at this point. Where do folks recommend putting the initial points in, and is there another way to get skill points other than one small point every level?

 

Thanks for any insights or suggestions, I think we're going to have a great time growing with this game!

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1. The cooking tools can be made in a forge if you can't find them. One of the better spots to find the cooking tools is the food truck. It always has a cooking pot and sometimes the grill.

 

2. To make a forge you will need leather. Hunting will get you that, but it's a lot safer to breakdown leather furniture. Once you get the forge up and running a lot of opportunities open up. The plant fiber stuff isn't armor by the way. It's just really bad clothing. Almost(?) everything else is better clothing. Look for padded or scrap armor to start with.

 

3. To respec you will need Grampa's Forgettin' Elixer. You have to buy it from a trader, if I remember correctly. Doing the tutorial will give you 4 points. This is by no means a recommendation but my first five points always go into Sexual Tyrannosaurus, Iron Gut, Run and Gun, Master Chef, and Advanced Engineering. From there it varies depending on the build. (Others will undoubtedly tell you why that's a bad set of choices. 😅)

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1) First week for food there are two strategies. First is you raid houses for food, most houses have one or two tins. Supplement by doing quests and choosing food based quest rewards or spending the money at the trader and vending machine to buy food. Not sustainable in the long run, but will keep you going for a while.

 

Second approach is if you can get ammo, build a pipe weapon and hunt down small animals. Do not try hunting aggressive animals (wolves, bears, pigs, lions etc). And unless you get a head shot on a deer, you're unlikely to be able to take it down before it runs. So chickens and rabbits. https://7daystodie.fandom.com/wiki/Pipe_Rifle

 

Eventually you do want a farm, but in the latest rebalance, you need a few points invested in it to get it to become self sustainable. Otherwise you don't harvest enough to both eat and replant.

 

2) In my opinion, it's faster to find and earn armour than make it until mid game at least. You need armour parts which are rare, and as your skill goes up, the quantity needed per piece skyrockets. So I find it best to save those armour parts to counter the game's random loot generator... the number of time's I've had 15 steel helmets and not a single steel boot drop on me - or vice versa... well, being able to make your own solves that issue.

 

3) You can respec, but early game it's expensive. https://7daystodie.fandom.com/wiki/Grandpa's_Fergit'n_Elixir 5 hours in, to be honest, I would reroll on a solo game, but wear it on a multiplayer game. I often intentionally do that for long single player games. Like Mass Effect and Cyberpunk. I played a couple hours on each class to see if it was my play style before restarting and trying to actually finish the game.  But up to you. 

Edited by Pernicious (see edit history)
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For 2 people playing together, don't spend points on the same things. As others have said, do the tutorial first thing Day 1. Someone needs to put a point into Advanced Engineering so you can make a forge to make your cooking pot if you can't find one. Also someone put a point into Master Chef so you can start making bacon and eggs, the best food at the start. Both of you should put a point into Sexual Tyrannosaurus because it helps with stamina when swinging tools, melee weapons. To make a forge, you need 3 pipes, 3 duct tape, some clay and rocks and 10 leather. Pipes and duct tape(or glue which you can make duct tape with it with cloth). Leather can be tricky sometimes to get. In many poi's, you can find office chairs that scrape to either 3 or 4 leather, I forget which. Some benches in diners are leather, if you find boots they scrap to leather and you might be able to find leather at the trader. Those are some simple things. There are no functioning forges or workbenches in the game, you must make them. A second point in Advanced Engineering allows you to make a workbench. someone putting points into Better Barter lets you get more money from what you sell, things cost less and at the third point in Better Barter you get better options at the trader including weapons/armor and hopefully a crucible so you can make steel.

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4 hours ago, Apocalyptical Survivor said:

My wife and I just discovered this game and are having a blast playing it on our LAN. But we're struggling with a lot of questions. We're on Day 5 and just finished setting up our cobblestone fortress for the first horde invasion, with big plans for future base building.

 

1) What's the best way to get food and drink going initially? We keep getting told we don't have tools to cook and don't know how to make them. Which foods should we focus on at this stage, should we start farm plots and grow our own?

2) When and how will we be able to make better armor and weapons? We're still wearing plant fiber stuff, even though we've been collecting a lot of cotton. Should we try and kill animals for leather? Should we make a forge? Can we at this stage? Best progression path?

3) Is there a way to respec skill points? We started off putting in points without a lot of thought, and didn't even realize initially that there were tabs for other skill lines so we have a lot of points in perception and now want to redistribute our points. Is that possible, or should we just re-roll at this point. Where do folks recommend putting the initial points in, and is there another way to get skill points other than one small point every level?

 

Thanks for any insights or suggestions, I think we're going to have a great time growing with this game!

1) One of my first points from the starter quest always goes into "master chef" just to unlock bacon and eggs, as well as coffee (also grilled meat, if you find a cooking grate). You have to find a cooking pot, or buy one, but it usually isn't too hard to come by. I raid every nest I pass to stockpile eggs and as others have mentioned chicken and rabbits are "easy" meat that won't fight back. Sham is the best tinned food to eat early on.

2) The plant fiber stuff is clothing, and you'll find better clothing over time. I wouldn't bother making any, it's that easy to come by when you need it. Armour is a bit trickier. You will want the heavy stuff but it really bogs you down both in speed and how fast you move. You will consume "calories" a lot faster without a fair spec into heavy armour. Light armour (padded and leather) is fair. If you find you're getting beat up a lot, maybe stick to heavy but try to mind it. I've always personally avoided heavy armour. 

3) You can with a super expensive item from the trader that is always available. It can be made a bit cheaper with sugar butts, a candy from the vending machines (always recommend it for big purchases alone like vehicles or stations). I'd advise your first blush to be sort of a learning game. It's a lot to learn and a lot to get good at, especially at once. Have fun, enjoy figuring it out and that discovery then once you're a bit more experienced start a fresh server where you're a little more organized and you'll really love it. 

 

7 Days is a hard game to get good at, fast. Once you do, the game completely shifts to "I wanna build that thing, survive 200 days and raid everything indoors!!" I kinda miss not knowing what else was there, but it took me like 200 hours to get completely comfortable. Your mileage may vary. It's a damn good game for discovery. I liken it to a more adult Minecraft. 

 

Other tips I wish I knew: tree stumps and honey. Hack up every tree stump until you're sick of honey. Breaking down cars will be a hobby. Vending machines that aren't active have some high tier goodies. Read everything. Be a packrat and don't be afraid to make drop points. Throw snowballs.

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Another tip for you. Avoid drinking plain water. I always go for the Red Tea, it lowers food usage for a bit after drinking and the red flowers are everywhere, just grab em up. If you spend an early point into making a forge then you're guaranteed a cooking pot and you can make the teas. Any can food that has a recipe try to save for later when you can make those better foods. I know when you're new food is more of a challenge but save what you can, you'll be glad for those chili dogs etc later on.

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Here's a decent beginner plan (Just my opinion) :

 

1) Put two of your initial points into Master Chef 1 and Advanced Engineering 1. A point into archery and/or a melee skill is a good idea too.

2) Find some rotten corpses in the world. Already-dead zombies that you don't have to kill. Smack 'em with your axe and get some bones, and fashion 5 bones into a knife.

3) Beeline towards making a forge. The hardest part starting out will be leather, the best source of Leather I've found early on is leather couches/chairs from homes (Harvest couches with an Axe). You can also take on animals, but you're far more likely to get hurt since they're faster and don't stay stunned as long as zombies. If you want to take on animals do so from a couple blocks up so you can smack/plink 'em safely. Or if you can find snakes, they'll give a couple pieces of leather. Rabbits too, but they're hard to hit. ALWAYS USE YOUR BONE KNIFE TO HARVEST CORPSES. You get more leather!

4) Once you have a forge up, make yourself a pot and grill from it. They don't use much iron but they're vital for decent food.

5) Go out and search for chickens, snakes, and rabbits. Chickens can be run down on foot and smacked, but it's better to hit 'em with stone arrows. They die in 1 hit. Same with the snake. The Rabbits are faster and easier to spook, but yield the same amount of meat.

 

 

Other various beginner tips I wish I knew when I started out :

Always always always harvest dead animals with your bone knife. Eventually you can upgrade to a hunter's knife, but you'll get more meat from any knife than from stone axes. It takes longer to harvest with a bone knife but the extra resources you get are worth it! Machetes are the best knife, Hunting knife is second best, and Bone Knife is worst.

 

For clothing find a Savage Country store. They've got TONS of clothing inside, and you can very quickly and easily loot BDU top and BDU bottom clothes from the shelves. They generally have good heat/cold resistances. You can also find sewing kits which are useful when crafting better gear later on. Some of the clothes sell very well to vendors (Especially shoes!) and clothing scraps to cloth which is handy for many, many things.

 

For early game armor, you can craft 'scrap' armor from iron but it's noisy and will slow you down and incur a stamina recharge penalty. Alternatively you can craft 'Padded' armor from cloth which has no extra noise or penalties but it doesn't protect very well.

 

Eventually you'll want to work towards Advanced Engineering 2 early on. The workbench is necessary for many items, including ammo - forge and workbench are your two most important crafting items! You'll also unlock the cement mixer to let you make stronger bases, and the chemistry station to craft medicine and fuel. But the workbench is the impotant think at first.

 

I also like to work towards Fortitude 5 and Living off the Land after getting set up. Mid-tier food is amazing, stews will refill Hunger, Thirst, and HP and often give you a stamina boost. As you explore more and more you will find more and more plants you'll want to break down into seeds and farm. It takes a lot of work to set up a farm but it's worth it. If you need rotten meat, the corpses you find in the world always give a little. Zombie animal corpses (Zombie dog, zombie bear, etc) give rotten meat but human zombie corpses don't - only already-dead people you find in the world.

 

Quests from traders is a huge, huge help. Good XP, good loot, and if you do 7 of them you'll get a bicycle for free. The bike is a huge deal; it's much faster than walking, no encumbrance penalties while using it, has a bit of storage of its own, it can outrun zombies even on blood moon nights, etc etc etc. You can craft one if you want but there's no beating free!

 

Read every single book/recipe you find. Keep every single book/recipe you come across. If you already know it, you can still sell the recipe to traders. Every coin you earn selling an item to traders is another point of XP you get.

 

Pack mule is a waste of perk points. As you adventure you'll learn to craft pockets on your gear which gives you plenty of carrying capacity without any perk investment.

Edited by Khyron (see edit history)
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12 minutes ago, Khyron said:

It takes longer to harvest with a bone knife but the extra resources you get are worth it!

Pro-tip: Aim your cursor above the animal then right-click to power attack. Immediately after right-clicking, point at the animal you're harvesting. The animation will still be the quick power attack, but you'll get the same amount in resources. Repeat until the animal is fully harvested. Saves a ton of time!

Edited by Syphon583 (see edit history)
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8 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

 

Make your own determination on what you want to spend your perk points on.  Everyone has their opinion, but none of them are the absolute correct answer.  What works for one person is not the right path for others.

 

True enough.

 

FYI I do drop one point in lucky looter right off the bat.   I guess the math says otherwise, but my perception is that it helps.  Specially from garbage piles.

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1 hour ago, BFT2020 said:

 

Make your own determination on what you want to spend your perk points on.  Everyone has their opinion, but none of them are the absolute correct answer.  What works for one person is not the right path for others.

 

The only thing I'd mention here is that something like 1/2 to 1/3rd of the crafting in the game is gated behind Forges and Workbenches. So if you don't plan to put a couple points into Advanced Engineering you're gonna be reliant on RNG for a HUGE amount of items in the game. Even if you have the recipes for so very many of them, without a workbench or forge you may not be ABLE to make some items because they cannot be assembled without a bench.

 

Of course you can get a workbench/forge without perking into Adv Eng. You can buy a forge/bench from a trader, or buy the plans directly... if you can find a trader selling them or the plans themselves. Either of which is not guaranteed and you could go a LONG time without seeing them. Or you might find them day 1 in a wooden crate. RNG is RNG.

Edited by Khyron (see edit history)
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17 hours ago, Lenny Lettuce Lips said:

Don't shirk history, bro. Terrible things happened. Don't let them happen again. 

If it disturbs you, it's working.

What is it? Looks like a lifelike “adult Lion-o” from thundercats. Like, if he won all the battles and settled down and opened a small business, then retired early and wishes he were fighting like the old days, but that time has passed and the thunder kittens are gone and grown up with their own families so might as well walk around the fortress a bit and birdwatch. 

Edited by doughphunghus (see edit history)
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41 minutes ago, doughphunghus said:

What is it? Looks like a lifelike “adult Lion-o” from thundercats. Like, if he won all the battles and settled down and opened a small business, then retired early and wishes he were fighting like the old days, but that time has passed and the thunder kittens are gone and grown up with their own families so might as well walk around the fortress a bit and birdwatch. 

 

It used to be that iconic "Saigon Execution" image. Google it if you want to know more, but be warned it's not a pleasant image with a pleasant history.

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1) What's the best way to get food and drink going initially? We keep getting told we don't have tools to cook and don't know how to make them. Which foods should we focus on at this stage, should we start farm plots and grow our own?

The most important thing for you to get starting out food wise is a cooking pot. You can either loot one or you can make one if you manage to build a forge. On day one, one or the other always happens to me. Always put one of your first four points into MasterChef that way you can make bacon and eggs and a lot of other good things. You can survive for the first three or four days just on that. You need to hunt rabbits, chickens, or deer to get meat. I recommend leaving the dogs alone starting out.

 

I always put one point in living off the land that means when I harvest corn or potatoes I get two. It really helps out with farming don't start a farm unless you have living off the land one and at least 10 seeds of what you want to grow.

 

2) When and how will we be able to make better armor and weapons? We're still wearing plant fiber stuff, even though we've been collecting a lot of cotton. Should we try and kill animals for leather? Should we make a forge? Can we at this stage? Best progression path?

Pick a skill line that conforms to the way you want to develop. If you want to use pistols and bows, use agility. If you want to use clubs and shotguns that would be strength. You'll loot the armor you need. The various skill lines have armor you can spec in. Agility lets you spec into light armor and then you can make padded armor and leather armor. In practice you wind up looting armor and making very little.

When you start put two of your first four points into MasterChef, lucky looter. When you get to the trailer check the forge and you might look out and find the forge recipe. If you don't put one point into advanced engineering so you can make a forge. You must make one as soon as you can. Put the last point into whatever skill line you plan on using. I always go down the agility tree so the first thing I choose from the shadows.

 

3) Is there a way to respec skill points? We started off putting in points without a lot of thought, and didn't even realize initially that there were tabs for other skill lines so we have a lot of points in perception and now want to redistribute our points. Is that possible, or should we just re-roll at this point. Where do folks recommend putting the initial points in, and is there another way to get skill points other than one small point every level? Yes there's a potion you can loot or buy to respect points. No other way to get skill points. My first four points go to masterchef, lucky looter, from the shadows, and advanced engineering usually but not always. If I luck out and get the forge schematic I'll put one point into living off the land

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