What's a good safehouse?

[Avenger]

Hello! just took up temporary residence in an average one floor house to escape from the zombies, and I was wondering, is it a good temporary residence? 

[EnigmaGrey]

My brainss say no.

My desire for brainnnsss says yes.

(It depends really -- so long as there's a convenient window to leap out of when things go wrong, any house is a good choice for me.)

[poww10s]

This house is good (Single floor surrounded by Fences) and the large warehouse to the west of it.

[TinnedEpic]

I highly disagree with you there poww, It's a death trap. Those fences go 2 ways and if zombies do invade they can box you in and trap you. There would be no escape.

 

 

My guide to choosing a safehouse:

If your new I highly recommend you choose a safehouse away from densely populated areas. Mainly because like in all the great zombie movies, the most densely populated areas are the areas that have the most zombies in them. Houses along the outskirts of town don’t often see heavy zombie activity, thus making it easier for you to survive. Typically what you look for in a house is (in order of importance): Multiple exits, moderately large size, open spaces, remote location, a second story.

 

Why Multiple Exits?

Really self-explanatory, if you’re getting attacked by huge numbers of zombies which is a highly likely scenario you need to be able to escape. Most common form of multiple exits is a front and back door. But windows can be highly effective escape exits too (if they are easy to access).

Why Large Buildings?

1 downfall of smaller buildings is that they can be easily surrounded, effectively blocking all exits and preventing escape. Additionally the larger the house the more rooms/doors zombies will have to go through when invading. Giving you time to escape. The larger the building the more escape options you have.

Why Open Spaces?

This refers to the space around the safehouse. If you don’t have enough room to dodge and move outside your base in the scenario zombies do get a surround on your house then you have a greater chance of getting caught. If you can’t get away from your base because of walls/trees blocking your way then again zombies have a greater chance of catching you. Ultimately multiple exits do you no good if in the end your stuck trying to push your way through dense forest to get away from fast moving zombies.

Why Remote Locations?

Most zombie populations (especially towards the start of the game) are concentrated in the heart of Muldraugh. Therefore the outskirts contain fewer zombies. That can of course change with metagame events like gunshots, helicopters and jets (soon to be NPCS and Rain). But in comparison to the inner city the outskirts are easier to survive

Why A Second Story?

While not mandatory it’s recommended. If a gunshot goes off during the night and the resulting gunshot leads zombies to your house, a bedroom downstairs is more likely to be invaded than a bedroom upstairs. It’s the whole idea is that zombies stay on the bottom floor and thus second stories are much safer. Unless something draws them up or they just happen to wander up, upstairs is very safe.

 

My rule is if any building can meet 4/5 of these criteria (3/5 if those 3 are multiple exits, large, open spaces) I would consider a good safehouse.

A building that would be deemed a good safehouse would be:

http://pzmap.crash-override.net/#0.5585739682519455,0.4353238727740028,114.0740740740741

Multiple Exits: yes

Size: Moderately large

Open spaces: No, lots of tree cover blocking escape, creating blind spots

Remote location: yes

Second Story: yes

4/5 of the criteria have been met.

 

A building that would be considered a challenging safehouse would be:

http://pzmap.crash-override.net/#0.5540901371717778,0.4246720160525052,96.19739205122202

Multiple Exits: No

Size: Small

Open Spaces: No, Solid fences with only 1 exit. If zombies invade there is no escape.

Remote Location: Yes

Second Story: No

1/5 of the criteria have been met.

 

These are favourable houses of many players thus why I chose them specifically for examples. Keep in mind with enough time and Effort ANY safehouse can meet 4/5 of the Criteria. Once you get used to playing Project Zomboid you may wish to choose a challenging safehouse. Just because a house is remote or meets the criteria doesn’t make it zombie proof. The innate building attributes will never be enough to overcome a zombie invasion. That's why building and barricading become important in the later game.

[Fabrix7777]

nah, that house is very good, you just need to extend the fence at the entrance towards the road to give yourself a multiple choice for escape. For me in fact this is the best house to hold up.

[CrazyEyes]

Not to mention if you found a hammer and got your Carpentry skill high enough you could build stars and a walkway around the fence, allowing you to jump or sheetrope down if things get too bad.

 

I personally think it's a great safehouse. It's remote, provides easy access to the warehouse and logging company without requiring you to go through town, there's a forest right outside for all your construction needs and best of all, the land is already walled in with fences the zombies can't see through.  The main drawback is that the house comes with very few storage containers.

 

If fortification is your playstyle, this saves you dozens of planks and nails and gives you better protection than your transparent makeshift walls would.  If you can't find a hammer to make another exit it may become a deathtrap as TinnedEpic says.  Once you find one, however, you may find it advantageous to move to this spot rather than construct a wall around your own building from scratch.

[TinnedEpic]

That's true it is remote, but no safehouse is completely 100% zombie free (not even the farm). I've heard of more than 1 case of people getting boxed in there. I personally don't think it's a brilliant safehouse for new players especially with the Sadistic Metagame AI.

 

With enough time end effort you can make any house a great safehouse, but like you said that takes a higher carpentry skill which isn't something you can just jump into in the first few weeks of play.

[Fabrix7777]

you totally can. Find a carpentry beginners book, just board the windows (5 board each)  and you are already at level 1.5 .  Make a couple of rain collecting barrels + 1 wooden box to hold all of your carpentry and gardening tools and you'll be at level 2+  and sorted the lack of storage inside the house too. Then design a good entrance fence with multiple stages and multiple entrances ( i do 3) and you will be fine. Mind you though, no house is bulletproof, so prepare yourself to be spending some nights elsewhere and attract Zeds attentions away from the surrounding of your house, whatever it is.

[ghostfall]

This house is good (Single floor surrounded by Fences) and the large warehouse to the west of it.

I tend to use this house also. but its also true that it can be a deathtrap. wait for carpentry lv3, if u are able to build stairs, u can make yourself some fine emergency exits

[Brick]

Choosing a safe house is the same as choosing a real house-

 

Its all about location location location!

 

 

You want to be close enough to town to raid and return without having to travel too far

[Soupee]

This house is good (Single floor surrounded by Fences) and the large warehouse to the west of it.

 

For starters it works, I actually spawned there and eventually relocated (after a couple trips back to that house to empty it) to the farm north and east of there in my latest "life". 

[Avenger]

Ok... since I have the TMI mod so that I can get a good start on a new life (I'm not a noob, just been lurking for about a year.) I will read some carpentry books and get a hammer+nails, and start fortifying. Thanks! feel free to add more, this is a good topic for starting newbies. 

[Cdr.Keen]

i prefer places where i can connect two or three houses with wood walls or similar. takes more wood to build, but you have more space overall, more ways and exits

[Avenger]

Yeah that is a good point... would take a while though!

[EnigmaGrey]

I still take a nomadic approach to the game: Any house is good, so long as it has something to eat.  I usually just sleep in chairs then bug out a window if the zombies take any notice. But I usually only last a week or two before I get bored of that life.

[Tweek]

while you all are havin trouble with the zombies im save and sound farming 

 

http://pzmap.crash-override.net/#0.6819237080358699,0.4153835322900919,34.382858939186114

best place to be in my opinion.. just make some rainbarrels and start the farmin

[Avenger]

Out in the middle of nowhere though... what if it wasn't the crop season? and it would take a long time to get there....

Hmmm. good for long-term though...


but how do you take your pictures? I think there's some kind of keybind that I've forgot.


my current safehouse is next to tattoo 42, here. http://pzmap.crash-override.net/#0.36636365233089535,0.4674629351722411,102.66666666666669


I'm probably going to loot the farmers market for agricultural supplies. Need to build a wall though.

[Fernando]

http://pzmap.crash-override.net/#0.5469648335234722,0.4321151656346733,74.26697530864205

 

This is my base.

 

I like it because it's two stories, has a forest nearby for me to cut down, looks nice, and runs along a path for me to use to run directly to the city.

 

But I'm not the kind of guy who escapes. No. I'm too stubborn for that. At the moment, there's a horde to the west of me sitting just on the corner of that road thanks to the alarm of a house nearby.

 

I've built a shit ton of walls and fortifications around my home, and I'm not going to let that effort go to waste.

It doesn't matter where you build so long as it's out of the way of zombie traffic. Later on, you can just go outside with a few shotgun shells and draw them away while thinning them out a little in the process. That's what I've been doing.

 

I've taken out three hordes like this.

[Avenger]

Well. Bump because I want this to get bigger 

For da newbz.