• By far, the biggest problem with Really Bad Day is surviving the first 2 hours or so. The depression and drunkenness will wear off if you can get past that, and that opens a lot more options.
  
• During these first 2 hours, even basic threats such as plain zombies are terminally lethal. Even 14+ stats will crater to <5 with the handicaps you get.
  
• The fire you start surrounded by cannot be used for substantial cover; 'surrounded' means exactly that and it's guaranteed that some loving deadhead will have a clear shot at you. With all your handicaps you can't navigate rubble from the collapsed building either, you WILL get hosed.
  
• Starting with Shaolin Adept (tiger kung fu) and Unarmed 2 gives you a decent way to kill off most basic threats and costs 3 points (2 for the trait, 1 for the Unarmed point). Any alternate solution should require 3 or fewer 'sunk' points.
  
• Other starting combat style traits are forbidden - it's trading one load of crap for another.
  
• Solutions should have at least a 50% success rate (success being living to day 2). There's going to be some horseshit like running into a shocker zombie or hulk right out of the gate - that's inevitable.
  

• Find nearest car, use as distraction or getaway vehicle. Doesn't work. Cars are rarely functional and blow rear end as distractions.
  
• 2 bashing skill to start out with, grab a stick from a broken window. Doesn't work: Heavy Sticks themselves don't stun things the way cudgels do. You can get lucky killing one or two basic threats, but the pain stacking ruins you. Hard to find stuff that gives cutting without crafting a stone knife (which takes an hour - very unlikely to get away from pursuit cleanly for that long), and even if you do get lucky and find a steak knife or something, you're depressed for too long to cut one.
  
• Wait off the worst of things in the first basement you find. Doesn't work. Even toss-up if basement has threats, and even if they don't, the infection gets pretty bad if you sit on your hands for 2 hours. Still might be a useful strategy in combination with better plan.
  
• Try taking Tweaker for another point. loving awful. The meth withdrawal is worse than your flu and the drunkenness put together, and basically paralyzes you within 2 hours. Never do this.
  
• Take Pretty and/or Skilled Liar and Bartering 2, and schmooze your starting NPC. Might work. Pretty/Skilled Liar are useless, no guarantee your starting NPC will have appropriate options (or care about Pretty). Bartering 2 has potential. Seems to give 60%+ success rate for 'travel with me -> keep me safe'. Haven't investigated ideal AI commands yet.
  
• Start in Bank vs House. May be able to hide in vault. Doesn't work: vault does not open just because you started there, and it burns anyway. Useless.
  
• Start in Gun Shop vs House. Inner city is likely, but at least a guaranteed weapon. Generally good. Two main possibilities: store focuses on mods, which leaves you no worse off than a standard house (which will, if you're lucky, have a pair of shoes), store focuses on weapons and ammo, guaranteed weapon. Staying quiet is a lost cause in this scenario - the on-fire building will eventually collapse and explode, drawing attention from the entire reality bubble. Guarantees a weapon that will allow you to deal with a basic threat or two. Starting naked means you have no space to carry bullets, so a high-cap gun is preferable. Shooting out of the barred windows is acceptable/good. Doors are unlocked due to you spawning there. NPC is simple to find and may be murderable depending on nearby guns (typically not worth it). Fire will ignite ammo on the ground.
  

• Yeah fire is almost useless in a VBD start. Grab nearby goodies and get the gently caress out.
  
• Once you shake the starting zombies you can craft a makeshift knife very quickly if you wield a 2x4 or stick and use it to smash a bed and a fridge/oven. This lets you make a cudgel.
  
• Starting with Melee Weapon Training for Eskrima and 3 melee lets you use a cudgel, 2x4, or pipe for even more stun and damage. Don't bother with specific weapon skills unless you have points to spare. Cutting, bashing, and piercing don't unlock techniques.
  
• If you have Night Vision you can wait out the first day and then start looting or checking out cars at nightfall. Spend that time making a way to deal with shady zombies. I hear you can start at nightfall which makes this even better.
  
• Cars own at night. If they're intact, stash them and run over zombies later. If their wheels are busted, turn on the engines and use the horn to lure zombies. If they're totally gone, siphon the gas and kite zombies into them to slow them down.
  
• Guns own point blank even with no skills. A pistol or SMG should make your short term survival a done deal. Rifles and shotguns are better than nothing at 0 skill but take twice the time per shot.
  

Ms Adequate fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Jul 27, 2016

Ms Adequate fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jul 27, 2016