Hello gamers! Breakdown, the first DLC for the brutal zombie survival game State of Decay has been released! If the main campaign is an apple, then the Breakdown DLC is definitely an orange. Both fruits, but both very different. Crappy metaphors aside, the DLC is fun and offers a challenge that was really lacking in the main campaign. It is my hope that you will gain some valuable knowledge with this guide that will allow you to go not get torn to shreds by zombies.

Watch the video for the best experience!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LSXxT6IJEk&feature=share&list=UU39mHkY-c48JzrMY57N8hOw

Your first loadup of the DLC will start you at "Level 1" with a random hero. You will also see that there are various heroes that can be unlocked at different levels by completing certain challenges. If you are starting out you won't have access to the other heroes, and have to select the random one. Take a few times and re-roll your character, you do not want to have a crappy character with bad stats. For example, the trait "Bum Knee" will make it so you lose stamina whenever you are crouching.

Some of the Traits that I look for

• Great Reflexes- Great Reflexes is an amazing trait to have, and it is absolutely invaluable later on. I do not care for powerhouse, for the simple fact that a fully maxed character with Great Reflexes gains 100% faster stamina regen, and can also unlock a very strong spin kick that will instantly knockdown zombies, including ferals.

• Improved cardio- Cardio generally levels up much slower than wits and fighting, and having a bonus to it will help you level it up much quicker.

• "Shop abilities" - Shop abilities are ones that allow the character to run a buildable room, such as Pharmacist or Doctor allowing the character to man the medical area. You'll want to get some of these characters and bring them with you to each stage.

What you do NOT want...

• You do NOT want any characters you have to babysit, avoid characters with traits that cause negatives. Bum knee, absent minded, and coward are among some of them. At higher levels, you will not have the space to bring lousy characters with you.

So you've loaded into the world for the first time, the first thing you'll see is several locations on the map with survivors. Picking a place will establish your first base. First order of business will be to check your new survivors stats. From the moment you start you need to start planning who to take on the RV with you.

Of all the locations, I like the Savinii Household the most. It has 6 outpost slots and is located in the always well-stocked town of Justice. Remember the point of Breakdown is to keep going, so don't feel like you have to move to the warehouse or to the fairgrounds, because that will take extra time and resources to complete the move.

After playing for around a hour, Lily will radio you with the RV location. Going to the location will add the RV to your facility, and you will also need to fix up the RV. There are a few things to keep in mind with the RV.

You will need fix the RV, tires, decontaminate, engine fix, etc. This will cost resources and there is also the chance you will need to find a component, similar to when you build a facility and need super glue or a punching bag. You can take 5 characters on the RV, plus the one you are using, for a total of 6. Lily always goes and does not use a slot. Anything you have stashed will transfer with you, but keep in mind that while you can stack bullets higher than 60 in the stash, exiting the game and reload will cause all of the extra bullets to disappear.

Make sure when you are ready to go, you put your players on the RV BEFORE leaving the level. On Mouse/Keyboard defaults, this is done by pressing E on the Home Screen (The one that displays all of your survivors). Some of the ones you want may not be at home, which will require you to "Check in" and find their location on the map. Going to them will give you the option to send them home, or straight to the RV.

• Stamina and stamina management is crucial. At higher levels, it won't be uncommon to have suddenly a dozen or more zombies descend on you at once. You can't easily dispatch them with low stamina, and you may need to run, so high stamina is helpful. The Dojo adds stamina and vitality, and is a worthwhile addition to the household. I don't normally build the kitchen, but the Savinii house comes with it so you can also get more stamina with a Feast.

• Look for abilities- Powerhouse and Great Reflexes can greatly increase your odds of survival, and I personally prefer Great Reflexes. The stamina regen coupled with the instant aoe knockdown is amazingly useful. Plus, you can cancel the spin kick by hitting the execute button before the animation finishes, killing the zombie quicker and saving you time. Comparatively, the double exectue ability with Powerhouse expends a great deal more stamina than the spin kick with great reflexes.

• Start out ahead- When you go to a new level, you start with low influence. You can help fix this by taking a powerful and expensive weapon or two the map before, and instantly putting them into the stash in the new level. This will help you establish outposts, fix the RV, and fix up your house much quicker.

• Guns- Gunshots will draw dozens of zeds in higher difficulties, put a silencer on the gun or don't use it at all!

• Take care of your people- By your people I mean the ones you will take with you. Give them a melee weapon and go ahead and give them a good gun, and SILENCE it. If they get up in the watchtower, they will fire silenced shots and murder everything that gets close to home. And if they have a loudass gun, they will pull everything in the neighborhood. I had this happen once when I was loading up the RV and my watchtower guy was loudly blasting at zombies, I ended up having one of my best guys get killed by zombies because so many got drawn in.

• Zombie management- Armored zeds are a pain in the ass, and at higher difficulties beeline for you and will attempt to grapple you. These grapple bites hurt badly, and leave you exposed for extra damage from surrounding zombies. Pace yourself and remember, as you expend stamina you will have part of your bar turn yellow, this part takes more time to regen than the non-yellow part which will put you in a bad place if you burn through all of your stamina and have no food on you.

• Leave the deadweight behind- Don't bring crappy characters with bad stats along. Leave them in the dust. I would suggest finding and always bringing a medic with you, and I personally always bring someone who can man the dojo and I have a researcher. I got extremely lucky on this play through and with the first group of survivors in my level 1, I found a character who has medical knowledge and is an electrician, giving me a great deal of flexibility. This is pretty rare, so don't count on having such good luck! But if you do get someone who has two such skills, guard them with your life!

• Use Heroes- Heroes have set starting weapons and stats, some of them are better than others. Doc Hanson, for example, adds a godlike Medical call that you can utilize if you get low in health. While you may want to grab all of the heroes, keep in mind only 5 people can go with you to the next level, so pick and choose who you take carefully.

• Outposts- Utilize all of your outpost slots, and try and arrange them in a way that protects your main base. You won't always be able to do this because of the randomness of item spawns, but try and do the best you can.

• Shaken not Stirred- Molotov cocktails are very useful. Well placed cocktails can kill entire hordes and make your life a lot easier, and safer!

• Start Survivor Missions- Start missions for other groups of survivors, generally when doing a mission for another group of survivors such as infestation wipes, they will follow you. Bring them along with you and go clear houses and buildings, it is much safer and if they die, big deal.

• The Auto and Munitions Shop- This is one I recently discovered, and did so after producing the video. Your research at the Library will go with you to each level, which makes sense given the context of Breakdown. If you live in Synder's, the large truck warehouse, it doesn't make sense to have a munitions shop as Synder's has a built in auto-shop. If you research the munitions shop items, box mines, steel bombs, etc, they will be available to build at the Auto shop. It seems that the game doesn't check to see what kind of shop it is after you have completed the research, so research the upgrades early and enjoy them throughout the your entire run.

Note that in the above tip, I have not been able to get this to work in any location except for Snyder's.

With that said, I have a few more tips that I'll call scumbag tactics. I discovered these while playing through Breakdown, and I by no means will claim credit for being the first to discover them. So this may be stuff you already know, but I will warn you that two of these tactics make gathering resources significantly quicker and more time efficient. But again, it's kind of scummy. So please like, subscribe to the channel, and rate the guide please if you are leaving, and if not, then lets cover the last four.

• Double Resources- This is the best of the them. So you just finished searching a building and have discovered it had a nice resource, in this case materials. Call home and have Lily dispatch a runner, then right after she confirms a runner is inbound, take the resource and run it home. You'll see your runner start heading for the building. Fast forward a little bit and the runner will run the resource home, effectively doubling your haul. This is kind of a scumbag tactic and maybe an exploit, but I'm so over gathering that I have zero qualms about using it.
  
  
• Outpost resources- This is another resource one. So when you go to establish an outpost, the outpost will set up with the 1st resource listed if there are more than one, or will take the last remaining resource. For this to work, at least 1 resource must remain. Call in to Lily to set up an outpost, you'll see the outpost be set up and the resource will be flagged. Now, take the resource and run it home. You'll see the outpost resource is still there. You can also stack this with the previous trick, Establish the outpost, call runners, take the resource yourself!
  
  Please not that you MUST wait until the outpost finishes setting up (The green resource flag appears) for this to work. If you set up the outpost and then call runners too quickly, the outpost will not set up.
  
  
• Live Runners- This can become a major problem later on. So if you have runners retrieve resources, they will have to brave the streets alone. At times, particularly when they are just leaving the safe zone of the base or returning, they may get attacked by loads of zombies. Runners will not die or be knocked down if they are not in your line of sight, but if you can see them fighting they can take damage, and can be killed. I'm guessing this is because you are expected to help them, and if they could die when they are nowhere near you it would piss people off. Take advantage of it when you can, sometimes the best thing you can do to guarantee safety is to drive the other way.

• Copy Save- Navigate to your save file within steam and copy the State of Decay file. If you lose your base, you now have a backup to draw upon.
  Generally, it is located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\10937998\241540\local , with 10937998 being your personal SteamID number and the primary save file being Class3.0save, but I would just copy the whole folder for good measure.

With that last tip, we have come to the end of the guide. I hope you find this useful, please remember to like the video and subscribe to the channel if you wish. This is Axiom with Good Time Gaming, and remember to always have a good time gaming! If you want to talk games or play some, feel free to send me a friend request on steam and we can do it up!

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