@morlac Here is the difference between the map things. This info is 100% different from the game pre-June as they changed the way plague hearts, outposts and plague zones work. Make sure any info you are reading about SoD2 is from this year.
Infestations : This building is filled with 1-3 screamers and a dozen or so zombies. You can safely ignore these until they start really stacking up, then you want to run out and clear some of them up once your people start complaining about them a lot.
Plague Territory: This medical building is inside a plague territory which means it is too close to a plague heart to turn into an outpost. You can go there and clean it out, but you can’t claim it. Also, buildings inside a plague territory are usually more dangerous and have lots of plague zombies nearby. You must get rid of the plague heart(s) that are in the area before you can claim any red outposts. You may only claim outposts with white map markers! Red map markers are still in plague territory.
Plague Heart: This building has a plague heart in it. If you take this out then the surrounding plague territory goes away, allowing you to claim nearby outposts and also removing the plague zombies from the area. The moment you kill this thing, all the remaining plague zombies in the area explode. (Note, that other zombies in the area are unaffected and there is usually a feral roaming around somewhere who sticks around after you kill these)
In the example below, if I want to make the Renovated Barn an outpost, I can see by the info window that it is being affected by 2 plague hearts. The two hearts are highlighted on the map if I have already discovered their locations. So I need to deal with both of those before I can claim that outpost.
Also, There are two other bases nearby I could technically claim but I would not recommend claiming bases that do not have the circle target online around them. Bases with the circle around them are upgradeable now and give you more resources as you develop them!
Hope this helps! All of this is pretty new to most players but I really like these changes to the game. I hope they bubble forward to SoD3 or something like them.
If you want to experience all the new stuff, be sure to play a campaign on the new Trumball Valley map. There are new quest lines and stories there that you don’t get on the other maps.
Ok, wow good stuff. I see my errors and yes totally different than I remember from last year when I tried to play it. Still not happy about npcs and zombies disappearing into the nethers but I am now motivated to get back at it!
Well, I’ve made it to Day 20 in Nightmare mode with 3 new survivors and no boons. I honestly did not think I was going to make it this far =) I’ve lost about 6 guys, and have 8 in my camp now. And I have a new appreciation for a couple of things:
Driving Backwards - infestation killing 101
Sniper Cover - This radio command is incredible. I have two of them because of another enclave. These things will kill blood juggs, which is handy because by day 20 they are coming in pairs and usually with half a dozen other freaks =)
Choose your battles, and know when to run!
Climb on stuff. I’ve never used this strategy much before but now… I climb…
Apologies if this was already answered, but does this game feature offline play/progression? As in, will evens continue to pile up when you’re not monitoring your community? I’ve tried the game briefly and rather enjoyed it, but I don’t have enough time for supervision every day, so I’m wondering if I can just let my camping be without any threat of repercussions, or if I need to log in every day and fix whatever needs fixing?
Nope. No offline play/progression. Progress stops when you leave the game. Best to make sure your community member is in a safe place when you log out though.
Also, any missions you have listed or partially done go away when you log off. They come back eventually, but any progress during missions is lost if you log before completing.
I feel you Fozzle, I just finished a lethal playthrough and it was crazy, I lost one of my 3 guys as soon as i spawned into the map. An armored plague feral took out 1 guy outright and almost killed another. There were 34 plague hearts on my map. After losing another guy later I stopped going outside at night altogether.
Until i could make more silencers i only used the crossbows, until this point i had never used them before. And everything makes noise and the cars are fragile eggs you hit anything and the thing almost blows up.
And you’re right climbing on things is the best way to stay safe, and I started taking out the hearts from outside as much as i could, i would park the car near a window and shoot through.
I also now always load up all my guys with supplies and rucksacks right before I do the final mission so my next playthroughs are a bit easier
Climbing seems to have been improved at some point, as my people are able to pull themselves up onto and reach places I swear they could never have accessed in earlier versions of the game. It is a lifesaver at all stages of the game, and while it feels a bit exploity at first, I always remind myself that in zombie movies and TV shows the characters always use climbing up on stuff as a way to gain advantage/escape.
Driving backwards with doors open on both sides is both highly effective and fun! Watch out for bloaters though, and never stop too short when there is a feral around, those doors will be gone in no time.
When you encounter a new enclave, if you’ve never explored the building they occupy it will still be explorable with containers you can loot. It is hilarious to loot good stuff while the enclave looks on approvingly, then sell the rest back to them. “Oh hey, that is some nice stuff! Let’s trade!”
Pipe Bombs are Plague Heart destroyers (Soda Can bombs too, though it takes a couple more per heart). Cheap and easy to make, and you can toss them in through a broken window if you’re skilled enough, one right after another. The knockdown effect makes cleaning up easy too (just don’t be close enough to get knocked down yourself).
Yep, I would. Its the map with the most NPC color right now. For difficulty, I don’t know how comfortable you are in the series, but the difficulty settings can have a pretty big affect on your playstyle.
There are now sliders for different parts of the game, and the one I think you might want to crank up higher then your comfortable level is the Map Difficulty. On lower difficulty levels you will end up with a Scrooge McDuck stockpile of resources. You may want to crank this back a bit to give yourself a bit more challenge without adding harder zombies.
Never, ever enter a plague heart building if you can see it through the windows from the outside. Stream death, via pipe bombs and fuel bombs, through the window. If you’re quick and accurate, you won’t take a point of damage killing it.
It’s the hearts in the back rooms, where you gotta go in and dig 'em out, that are the killers.
You can, but I believe it resets the map - you’ll keep everything you have, but be put back into the starter base, with everything else reset and respawned.
A good setting to start with is a custom difficulty, keep the ‘action’ difficulty on default and max out the ‘map’ difficulty. This way you get a game where the fighting is manageable, but has more of an ‘apocalypse survival’ feel, where resources are no longer ridiculously over-abundant.
For those who want to play through the State of Decay “story” in order:
State of Decay 1
State of Decay 2 : Juggernaut Edition - Heartland
State of Decay 2 : Juggernaut Edition - Campaign - Trumbull Valley
You can obviously play any way you like, but doing those three in that order will give you the proper sequence of events and introduce the NPCs at the proper times for the overarching story of State of Decay to make the most sense.
