State of Decay is a survival/strategy game developed by UndeadLabs Studios... blah-blah-blah.
I never read this crap and I assume you don't either. I also assume that you know the basics of the game, AND you posess a higher IQ than a field rat.

Boring bits:
I do apologise for my English, is my 3rd language.
If you do have questions about this FAQ or game, check UndeadLabs forums - you can find me there as Tahadar. If you have something to contribute, something meaningfull, well... do an effort and find me somehow. We'll work something out :P

Normally this section shoud've been placed at the end of the guide, but I know myself... I usually read hints and tips and leave the boring part (eg numbers and ♥♥♥♥) unread.

• if someone dies, he dies for good.
  
• a big community is a pain in the back. More members = more moral issues, more resources consumed, 0 benefits.
  
• game can be finished with 4 people (Lily Ritter being one of them).
  
• certain survivors must die in a point of the story - don't bother trying to save them, is not worth your time.
  
• caracter traits are more important than fighting skills.
  
• one medic and one horticultor - is all you need for long term survival (and I mean years, not days or weeks)
  
• game is keep spawning zeds. Your resources are limited. Killing zeds gives you nothing but resources consumption (ammo, painkillers, snaks)
  
• if a character is max. level at fighting skills, try to avoid using that person to fight.
  
• people from your community are more important than people from other communities.
  
• cardio is easy to level. 36 snaks = 6 levels of cardio:
  (Position your survivor at the corner of the yard in your base facing the fence, press run (W) and sprint (shift) and block the keys with some paper. Have snacks selected, and when he's down on stamina give him a snack. Unless he's having a negative trait (Bum Knee or something) 36 snacks should be enough).
  
• double load trick:
  (Start searching a location you don't plan to turn into an outpost. Search it all. If you found food, ammo, medicine, material or oil you can radio home - alt key. But while you waiting for scavengers you can also load the package in your back and run home with it. If you found more than one stack, just load one then press X. After that use radio to call for runners. After you called the runners, you can load the other stack and run home with it. Runner will come to location and after a search will go home with one resource loaded on his back. You will get two on a price of one :) Your load and runner's load.)
  
• kill unwanted puppy trick:
  (Just take control of the annoying idiot and get him in a location where he can be killed by a horde or even by some stray zeds. (-25 morale) After he dies you can retrieve his backpack and bring it home for +5 morale.)
  
• kill uncontrolable survivors:
  (Some are simply annoying - Sam for example. Others are just fun to kill and get their guns - Alan. Just wait for one of the Hunt feral missions. Escort the prick to location and when the fight stats just keep avoiding hits by rolling (C key) or just dodge (ctrl). After the idiot is dead you can kill the feral or BigUn. Mission will be complete, you will not get the -25 morale hit.)
  
• every stack of supplies can be broken for imediate gain. Food gives snaks, ammo - ammo and maybe a gun, medicine - painkillers, oil - molotovs, materilals - weapon.
  
• every outpost gives you 3 outpost resource and takes you 1 material (per real-time day, not game day). Empty outposts gives ammo.

There are story characters, normal survivors and rare survivors. Don't get excited, rare survivors are only that... rare. They usually suck in terms of skills. Their visual model is rare or unique. Here worth mentioning the hooded guy, hooded girl or psycho biker.

A lot of them are extremelly annoying with no usefull skills to compensate that.

Story Characters:

• Marcus Campbell. You will play the prologue as him, and because in the prologue you can't die, you will end with a pretty much leveled up survivor. By the time you reach the Church he should be about lev. 4 fighting / powerhouse / leadership.
  
• Ed. Marcus buddy, hurt in prologue. He can't be healed untill you finish Wilkerson's quest. And yes, he can die because of the wound.
  
• Thomas Ritter. Dies in prologue. He drops a watch you are supposed to recover later on.
  
• Maya Torres. My personal favourite. Ex-soldier who fought in Afgainistan. Story implies that she have a soft spot for Ed.
  
• Lily Ritter. Immortal. Annoying. Radio girl who keeps pushing you to do things. Did I mention annoying? And immortal?
  
• Father William. "Words of Inspiration" on radio, restores you max. stamina once a game day. Killed by Alan.
  
• Alan Gunderson. Watchtower shooter, ex-ranger, patronizing but usefull. Kills the priest and get killed by you - if you chose so.
  
• Sam. Church smartass. Almost as annoying as Lily, but this one can be killed.
  
• Jacob Ritter. Lily's brother. Annoying, but vital to storyline... to a point. (after the house quest can be killed)
  
• Erik Tan. Army sargent. Ex-commander of Maya. Vital to storyline. Unlocks "Death from above" radio action.
  
• Wilkersons. Job and Mickey. Rednecks, moonshiners, drunks. Mickey is an excelent sharpshooter. Radio action for his quest.
  
• Judge Lawton. Useless goveronor wannabe. Fortunatelly story kills her soon enough.
  
• Marshall Sheriff. After you complete his quest you can use radio to call SWAT Support.
  
• Quentin. Once you've found Jack you can use "Fast Construction" via radio - 200 influence.
  
• Ray Santos. Car provider once you finish his quest.

There are, of course, other storyline characters, but those are the most important. The others does not bring anything usefull, skills or radio actions.

Positive and negative. Most of them are obvious.
Basically you want the skills that are beneficial for a comunity and avoid the ones that might cause unrest.

Negatives: drunk, braggart, loner, sleaze, autocrat, alcohoolic, eccentric, jerk, glutton, etc.
Positives: team-player, father figure, kind, team mom.

Game developers had this strange ideea to implement skills that have absolutelly no use in game.
According to an interview they wanted to tell people that in a case of zombie apocalipse, not every person is fit to survive with their skills. We got that, Undead Labs. Doh.

So, we have here a bunch of usefull skills:

• Medicine. Comes from Dentist, Paramedic, Doctor, Pharmacist, Army Medic - can use the medical lab and cure people
  
• Leadership. Comes from Born Leader - better trust and friendship gain
  
• Powerhouse. Comes from Natural Athlette or Strong as an Ox. - more carry capacity, special fighting moves
  
• Chemistry. (Demolitionist or Taxidermist) - can use Munition Shop, avoid explosions whrn making explosives
  
• Horticulture. (Farmer or Liked gardening) - can work in Garden/Greenhous, better food yeld.
  
• Reflexes. (Nimble) - stamina regeneration, special fighting moves
  
• Construction. (Engineer, Architect, Handyman) - cuts down the time for building facilities
  
• Training. (Dancing, Studied kickbixing, boxing) - can use the training room, can uprade it to dojo.
  
• Research (Historian, Studied Lingvistics) - can work in Library, cuts down the research time

Useless skills:

• Counseling (Stylist, Preacher, Teacher, Funeral Director) - in theory having people with this skill mimimise the conflicts occurence. (I've listed this as useless skill because I've dug up in game files and I found NO evidente of fate events ocurence taking this as modifier)
  
• Modeling
  
• Gossip
  
• Arts and Crafts
  
• Sales
  
• Jurisprudence
  
• Sexting Guru
  
• Sports Trivia
  
• TV Trivia
  
• Beer Pong
  
• Hoarding
  
• Etiquette
  
• Literature
  
• Sudoku
  
• Reality Show Trivia

Basically story events are like this (I eliminated the ones you can skip)

• reach Ranger Station
  
• do the 1st survey
  
• rescue Maya
  
• get back to Ranger Station to find the dead ones
  
• escape and reach Church
  
• do the 2-nd survey
  
• get medicine
  
• meet the Army (and scold Tan if you play with Maya)
  
• rescue Jacob
  
• rescue squatters
  
• get Doc
  
• do Eyes from the Sky
  
• do Home away from Home quest <- this one unlocks the Settle New Home radio option
  
• move Homebase somewhere else
  
• do Insubordonation quest
  
• do Law and Grange quests (they are not optional unfortunatelly)
  
• get to the bridge and Tan blows up the baricades (and opens Fairground Home Base)
  
• search the barrage
  
• get the expliosives
  
• destroy the wall
  
• end game

Your 1st home base is Ranger Station. You can't do anything there, is just the prologue, so you can move on as soon you rescue Maya.
Church. Your 2nd home base. Depending on your play style, you can stay here 3-4 hours or 3-4 days. (4 outposts)
After you finish Jacob's quest Home away from Home you unlock the ability to relocate home base.

• Kirkman Residence - small - 6 OP
  
• Daniel Farm - small - 6 OP
  
• Savini Residence - small - 6 OP
  
• Alamo - tiny - 4 OP
  
• Snyder Warehouse - medium - 8 OP
  
• County Fairground - medium - 8 OP.

By far best location is Snyder Warehouse. Not because it has something special, but is the least crappy from all.

• Command Center - is where the annoying Lily sits pestering you with "do this, do that, dont forget to do that"...
  
• Bedroom - 8 beds when fully upgraded. If you go there you will count 4 beds, that means your team already taking shifts with sleeping.
  
• Kitchen - can cook meals or feasts. Useless but people will freak out without one.
  
• Dining Room - in theory people eating together will have a less chance to argue eachother. Useless room if you ask me.
  
• Watchtower - ugraded to Shooting Platform. A must have. Shoots stray zeds, provides trading opportunities for ammo.
  
• Infirmary - upgraded up to Med Area. Also a must. Heals sick people. Whem manned with a medic, 80% chance of healing.
  
• Library - a place where you can research a lot of things, most important being Greenhouse.
  
• Garden - upgraded to Greenhouse. A must have, provides food for a lot of survivors.
  
• Trainig Room - can be upgraded up to Dojo. Stamina boost + Figting XP boost. Useless.
  
• Workshop - can be upgraded to Machine Shop or Munition Shop. Repairs your damaged guns/weapons.
  
• Munition Shop - repairs your damaged weapons, basic repair of cars, makes explosives
  
• Car Shop - fully repairs your cars, 75% repairs of weapons
  
• Storage - increases your storage capacity, provides trading opportunities, decreases food spoliage
  
• Refrigerated Storage - upgraded Storage. Make fuel from food, preserve food for other Enclaves, etc. A must have.

Like I said in Hints and tips section, a lot of survivors means a lot of problems. The game is pushing you to form a biiiiiig and (not so much) happy community, neglecting to warn you about the issues.

+ more people you have, more personality conflicts will appear (same applies with the mood people are in. A "relaxed" survivor will allways iritate a "depressed" survivor; when you have 8-12 people is almost bearable. But when you have more than 20, this quicly becomes tedious)
+ more people you have, more of your precious resources they will drain

But who else do you keep and who you use as sed bait?

• get rid of people with bad traits, no matter how usefull their other skills are. Never keep a jerk or an autocrat.
  
• people who keep getting you in trouble (as in ones that are constantly in a jam, or missing ones, or ones going after freaks)
  
• people who are constantly scared, or have a bad attitude (see "X is started to annoy people")

This is how I do:
I keep a 12 people team until i finish the Home Away from Home quest, (and I move to Warehouse) then I start culling them off.

Story related.

• Father Williams and Alan die anyway. No need to bother.
  
• Sam - I never liked smartasses. Hell, if you dig in game files, in characters.pak/characters.bmd she is called church_smartass. Zed food.
  
• Funeral Director and Drunk Student - zed food.
  
• Jacob - daydreamer, no special skills. Zed food.
  
• Ed - no usefull skills, he's allways shaken up or scared. Zed food.
  
• Law enclave people - you get them after Lawton and Sherrif are killed. Pink hoodie - autocrat. Zed food. Ex-cop - usefull... to a point.

No, I do NOT look for / keep Shark Hoodie guy - he's Braggart and Alcoolic and One Pack a Day, neither for Blue Hoodie Girl (Autocrat).

Maya - I keep her just because I like how she talks and her visual model.
Any person with Horticulture that happens to be team player.
There is also the English teacher from local school, he have powerhouse and leadership and father-figure. Usually wear shorts.
An ex-soldier who have team-player and demolitionist. Sometimes powerhouse. Yellow shirt, thief hat.
Local stylist girl. Team mom, counseling, leadership. Red shirt with big cleavage - looks nice when shes out of stamina lol.

Usually a max. of 6 people is more than enough after I get settled in Warehouse.


Base setup (Snyder Warehouse):

• repair all existing base facilities (bedroom, storage, machine shop)
  
• med lab - inside the base - 1 spot
  
• kitchen - outside
  
• garden / greenhouse - outside, near the kitchen
  
• watchtower / shooting platform
  
• library (until I research all that is to research) then demolish and build storage / refrigerated storage
  
• munition shop (until I finsh all the research) then demolish and build storage / refrigerated storage.

+ Greenhouse with an expert farmer will yeld 18 food / day. Without expert - 12 food.
+ Each 4 game hours you have the trading opportunities (if you have decent reputation - eg bigger than 300).
Watchtower - 3 ammo
Storage - 5 food or 3 ammo (and you will have 3 storages)
Each 90 minutes you can transform 3 units of food in 3 units of fuel. (storage)

Outpost setup:
You can have 8 outposts.

• any food location around Warehouse is to be cleared and build OP (will give you 3 ammo / day)
  There are 3 places near it, that means 9 ammo and -3 mats/day
  
  
• any construction location around will give you 2 Materials / day.
  There are 4 such places around Warehouse; there is also a construction site near the houses from the hill, usually here can be built the last outpost - materials.

Total: 9 ammo, 7 materials, 12 food (without counting trade opportunities)

Each survivor eats 1 unit of food / real-time day. Usually 1 unit of ammo / day.
Like I said, I keep my team at ~6 people.

Bottom line: +3 ammo, +6 food. (3 from that food gets transformed in 3 fuel) => 3 ammo, 3 food, 3 fuel every real time day.

Still, if you ever get in trouble and need a certain resource, you can ask Lily to look for it. In 20 minutes she will find a place with that respurce.