Building question

[Dead Smarty]

New PS5 player here.
I'm starting to build a horde base and wondered what the difference is between bars and railings. I like to build something suitable to keep the zombies out while allowim me to shoot/stab/club the horde during my first blood moon.

[warmer]

I THINK you can stab and I KNOW you can shoot through railings and bars. But you can't melee swing "through" them. If a Zeds head sticks through you can hit it, but your swing doesn't do damage beyond it. I am not 100% sure about the spear. You would think that would work because it's a forward stab vs. a horizontal swing.

[Dead Smarty]

 

15 minutes ago, warmer said:

I THINK you can stab and I KNOW you can shoot through railings and bars. But you can't melee swing "through" them. If a Zeds head sticks through you can hit it, but your swing doesn't do damage beyond it. I am not 100% sure about the spear. You would think that would work because it's a forward stab vs. a horizontal swing.

Quick response, thanks!
From what I've seen spears should work but I started as Pummel Pete so I gues I need to use a hatch as kind of half door if clubs don't work.
Any idea if bars are different from railings?

[theFlu]

Interesting, I hopped into a test world -thinking you wouldn't be able to melee through railings at all. Or if you could, you would be able to with any melee weapon. But based on this very little testing, it seems you can Only melee through railings with a spear.

 

So, Bars block melee entirely, Railings allow you to swing a spear through. You'll hit the block a lot, aim for the gap, instead of the zed - and hope the zed is behind the gap at the right time...

 

For other melee weapons, you'll need blocks with a wider gap, the current meta tends towards either Scaffolding ladders or Poles and Pole Doubles

[Vaeliorin]

You can also reach through railings to repair things, but not through bars.  I don't think I've used bars since A16 (maybe A17?) because I just don't see a point to them any longer.

[warmer]

1 hour ago, Vaeliorin said:

You can also reach through railings to repair things, but not through bars.  I don't think I've used bars since A16 (maybe A17?) because I just don't see a point to them any longer.

That is an interesting distinction I was unaware of.

[Dead Smarty]

Thank you all for the response. I made the mistake to go for bars since the gaps looked wider so it seemed the logical thing, still time to replace them with railings and change my club for a spear. Or just take a block away and get a hatch in the choke point.

[8_Hussars]

Consider using the Scaffolding Ladder block.