I’ve been playing 7 Days to Die on and off for a couple of years now. It is a great game and with Alpha 20s recent release, it now has a TON more features. In this article, I’m going over 11 beginner tips to help you survive out there in the zombie apocalypse.
Tip 1: Buried Supplies Quests
Buried supplies quests are Great quests to take, especially early game. You get lots of food and clay which are both very important resources.
In previous alphas after looting the chest, a group of zombies would spawn and try to kill you. The zombies weren’t too hard to avoid if you were careful.
In Alpha 20, these zombies have a chance to spawn every time the circle shrinks during a buried supplies quest. So you will be fighting off a lot more zombies.
For this reason, you will want to come prepared. Have a decent weapon if you can. Don’t dig straight down and make sure you always have an escape from the hole you’re digging.
Your game could be ended quickly if you’re digging for buried supplies, spawn some zombies, and have no quick way out of the hole.
Tip 2: Stay Hydrated
Water is very important in 7 Days to Die, if your character gets dehydrated you will have a stamina penalty. If your hydration reaches zero you will start to lose health.
An alpha 20 getting clean water has thankfully been made easier. You can find empty jars all over the place and fill them up with the water found in the new sewer systems which are all over the city.
You can now also boil water without a cooking pot. It takes a while for the water to boil so getting this going as soon as possible is important.
Tip 3: Don’t Leave Holes in Your Base.
A new change and Alpha 20 is zombies can now crawl through 1.5 tile spaces. This will take some time to get used to, and luckily there are some easy ways to still protect yourself.
Alpha 20 came with a variety of new shapes to choose from. You can take a pole, and rotate it in any direction to close the one tile gap very slightly.
It’ll still leave room for you to attack the zombies, but not enough room for the zombies to crawl through.
Tip 4: Utilize the Trader
The trader is always amazing but especially early game. Questing gives great rewards and caps. You can sometimes get really good weapons early game if you can afford it.
A few great items to sell to the trader for extra caps are plastic, books, and junk terret ammo. Coolers are a great source of plastic.
With a bit of grinding, you could even craft a draw bridge and sell it for thousands of caps, which would be more than enough for a great starting weapon.
Tip 5: Food is Valuable
Never leave food behind.
You see a chicken? Run up to it and bash its head in.
You see a dear? Draw your bow and sneak shoot it in the head.
Nest on the ground? Search it for eggs.
Your best friend early game will be bacon and eggs, it’s super easy to make and is very good. Also, drink any red teas you find, they help with digestion, keeping you full longer.
Tip 6: Go Easy on Torches
Torches are nice to light up your base, but only use what you need.
Each torch will increase your “heat level” which will attract zombies the higher it goes.
Early game, you want to be careful not to increase your heat too much, hordes of zombies and screamers can be a headache without a proper base to defend.
Tip 7: Be Careful at Night.
At night time, zombies are faster, there’s more of them, and it’s hard to see. Early game you may not have the firepower to defend yourself from a horde of sprinting zombies. So, it’s best to spend your early game nights hidden, out of sight out of mind.
Once you dig a mineshaft about 10-15 blocks deep, you should be low enough to safely mine through the night without zombies hearing you. That’s a great early-mid game activity during the night.
Tip 8: Workstation in the World are Always Broken
In the previous Alphas, you could explore and have a chance to find a workstation that isn’t broken. In Alpha 20 they will ALWAYS be broken. So don’t even bother trying to find one. If you need a workstation you will have to craft your own.
Tip 9: Get a free bike
In Alpha 20 you no longer need to craft all the bicycle parts and put together your own bike, instead, you can do 10 missions for any trader and get a free bike as a reward.
Doing 10 quests is very easy, I’ve done 5 in one day before, so with enough focus, you could have a bicycle on day 2 which would be a HUGE advantage early game.
Tip 10: Pipe Weapons
I did a video testing all the pipe weapons in alpha 20. BY FAR the best one to use is the machine gun. And if possible, don’t even bother with the pipe shotgun, it takes forever to reload, holds one round, and the damage is laughable.
It took me nearly 3 minutes to kill a horde of 25 regular zombies while the machine gun took about 30 seconds.
Tip 11: Don’t Farm Without the Farmer Perk
I made a video testing farming in Alpha 20 and it’s a bit disappointing. Without the Farmer perk, it’s absolutely useless. So you will need to spend about 6 skill points if farming is something you like to do.
You can plant the seeds you find in-game for the resources if you like, but it will not be self-sustaining without the farmer perk.
Bonus Tip: Get amazing loot on day 1
Loot used to be determined by game stage, which went up by killing zombies and leveling up. It’s now determined by a factor called loot stage.
Base loot stage will be the same as your level and there are ways to increase it massively, even on day one.
In this video here, I got to level 9, had a loot stage of over 100, and found TONS of ammo, level 6 pistol, armor, and more. Check out that video to learn more about how loot stage works in Alpha 20.
