Qloos' Guide.

[Qloos]

The Human Element

You're in a group of 17 humans against 30 zombies, coming in waves of 3.

Now think that top part through, mathematically the humans could win by camping spawn with nothing but their pistols getting head shots. But unfortunately we don't aim like robots, we have difficulty hitting the moving dot which is their head. Others waste ammo; shooting more than required to kill a zombie. Others will be greedy or over confident and wander off alone looking for weapons. Simple human error and limitations will whittle the human numbers down.

Let me get something straight. No other player is obligated to follow orders, or even play smart for that matter. They're all there to have fun, and have no obligation to you. Furthermore: there's no sense getting angry if someone "blocks" you. If suddenly a large group of zombies rush around a corner and you and your buddies all panic and rush for the door, someone is going to get left behind, use forethought and planning to keep yourself alive. Mix that with some calm control of your aim and you can hold off a couple zombies.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE pay attention at all times if others aren't. You turn around for a second to pick up some pistol ammo, when you turn back a zombies already half way across the room, ready to chew on your ???.

Make your shots count, the only time you should let loose madly clicking or holding it down is when the flesh eating son of a ????? is right in front of you. Missed shots will leave you with nothing but a crowbar fast.


The Game has Begun

You've spawned with your trusty pistol and your melee weapon. Everyone has different play styles. I ain't going to tell anyone to "pick up this" or "drop this" but you better ask yourself if you'll even have a use for that certain "that" or "this" and if you don't: drop it.

Like in most horror films, the first thing the humans do is separate into more manageable chunks for the bad guys. However, this is also a benefit to the humans as well. A large group of 10 humans has it's downfalls. If a group is too large, it collects and shoots more ammo than needed. Those with the guns might not be able to get a shot off past the guy with the frying pan in front of him. Or people running from zombies might find their escape path blocked by some lard ???. In a nut shell: Smaller groups are preferred. A small group can more easily shoot around each other, collect more munitions in-whole for the whole human team and move more quickly. A group can only move as fast as it's slowest member. If you go out alone and you mess up killing that one zombie rushing you. We'll tough luck. The team you're with is not obligated to slow down to let you catch up. Keep up or get left behind people.

Flashlights are double edged knifes, they help you search for guns and ammo but they can act as beacons for zombies. But don't get the wrong idea, they can serve as beacons for humans too. If there are more humans than zombies on the map. Go ahead, shine your magic beam of light.

One of the most important things you can do to ensure human victory is simply not die, although it sounds like a no brainier, everyone has the urge to go out with their melee weapon searching every corner. This is a one way trip to a close encounter with melees swinging. Stick with the guys with the guns if you've got none yourself. They're not out to get you killed by taking your guns and will probably let you get something.


All Guns Accounted For

At this point, one team may already be pulling ahead. The humans may have lost little to no members with guns and ammo in their hands defending each other on the map. Or the humans may be in disarray, scattered with their guns. Trying to group up. But may their be mercy on your soul if you use your microphone asking "is anyone still alive?"

If there are still minimal zombies, then good. Sit tight so the zombies can keep finding you so you can blow away more of their lives with your Remington. If you keep this up without many humans dieing you've probably won. Although with some maps, even after you've ejected every shell and cartridge of ammo you could possibly find on the map there are still zombies left. Then you need to start being mobile to find the scraps, or at the very least, to keep them from attacking you all at once when you're out of ammo. You may need to decide if it's safe to try to group up with other humans. Doing so will give you the protection of their guns, but there may be a few zombies between you and them trying to get at them, (trying to get into the kitchen on zp_town for example.)

If the humans are scattered with guns, and things are looking a little grim, (8 human to 12 zombie ratio.) Then you really only have two options, keep mobile or barricade and barricading usually isn't an option unless you've already started work on it. To be able to hold a defensive position in Zombie Panic you need a few things:

-Enough time to make a barricade, or enough munitions to hold the zombies off while you make it, this includes having the ability to hold off an entire attack by the horde if necessary.
-Enough barricade material to completely block every entry way and/or enough firepower to hold them off at any additional entrance points you can't barricade.
-Enough people to hold the barricade in place to prevent the zombies from knocking it over or pushing it out of their way. These people are usually unable to shoot back invading zombies and keep the barricade in place at the same time.
-An escape path is also an added bonus to any barricade location, (zp_policestation)

The alternative to barricading is mobility, mobile teams are able to find more guns and ammo, are harder for the zombies to locate, and when they do locate them they need to chase them. The downfall of mobility is that you can be ambushed if your path is predictable. Furthermore, zombies can come from any direction while when you're barricaded you know your hazard points. The bonus is, Zombies will only be able to attack you in small groups as opposed to a dam giving way when you barricade.

The most horrid situation you can be in middle game is "last man standing" against the horde. It's you against 50 zombies. If you got a fully loaded magnum with 24 extra rounds. . . no you still don't stand a chance. Hide. . . hide in a corner and hope that there's a victory timelimit for humans. Keep your rifle close to waste the first zombie that finds you. Then run. . . and keep running. Don't look back. Keep running until you're positive they've lost you again. Then hide and repeat. Even this probably won't work. So I suggest you go out in a great ball of fire! Hold back the zombies until you're sure 3 or 4 are going to attack you at once, then throw a grenade at your feet. You'll be sure to get extra trash talking points with a move like that!


Late Game

After a set amount of time the ammo may have respawned on the map. Maybe even at your current location. If you've survived this long: It's probably a close game. Or theres a Zombie/Human hiding that the others can't find.

In a close game humans get tense and edgy with how close they are to victory. Zombies get cautious with their lives and group up in a safe location, (if they're smart anyway.) Just because you haven't seen zombies for a while doesn't mean there's only a few left. An organized zombie team will gather when they run low on lives for a final rush, they'll set ambush points and be as devious as possible. They'll try to waste your ammo. This puts you in an edgy situation if you're not behind a barricade. If you don't shoot them they'll be at full strength when they finally rush as once huge horde. If you do shoot them - and they get away - then you've weakened yourself. If you stay where you are, they'll gather for an assault, if you run you might get ambushed at one of their gathering points. In short, the zombies are going all or nothing, if you don't got enough force to hold em off then the team will at best be reduced, divided and panicked.

This is what you can do:

-Hold the location and make sure every zombie you start shooting drops, so that if your team does get routed the survivors will have fewer zombies to deal with. When the zombies start closing the gap right to you and you've run out of ammo in the gun, it's time to run.

-Agree on a direction for the team to move out to collectively, if the zombies are preparing to attack from multiple directions you'll have caught them unprepared for your sudden change in play style and will be undermanned to take on your team. This plan isn't as effective if the zombies are holding up behind a chock point.

-Get someone to drop everything except a pistol and have him bait the zombies out and ambush them instead. Might lose your sacrificial lamb though.

During the late game, impatient spectators might be changing their names to give messages. Trying to hide isn't recommended.

[v3rtigo]

Awesome guide, especially the last part.

[Qloos]

Sigh, text limit reached. Next half in this post.

Zombies Are Humans Too
Or atleast they used to be. . .

Zombies are human players as well, they're just as smart, but they're not auto aiming bots. If you're out of ammo, the zombie doesn't know that unless he hears the gun click. Holding your empty rifle might make the zombie hesitant to attack you, (don't depend too heavily on tricks, they're just bluffs after all.)

The more important aspect of this is that the zombie can only see what's in front of him. The only senses the zombies have is sight and hearing. If a zombie hasn't seen you, all the better. You can let him pass you by and you can live a little longer. Or you can run up behind him and take him out executioner style with the magnum when he stops to scratch his nose. When you're out of ammo in a combat situation, you can flank the zombie rushing your buddy and wack him with your shovel. Getting hit from any weapon is disorienting to a zombie, especially if the weapon has knock back. The zombie will spin around looking for foes and end up swinging wildly; giving your allies the ability to shoot down the zombie which has suddenly stopped it's head long rush.


Communication

Communication and knowing which type to use is important. Microphones give the zombies the ability to hear you, but are useful when it isn't safe to stop and type. Try to avoid direct references to your location, if you're walking downstairs all the humans know you're going down. So instead of saying "down here" you should be saying "over here" or better yet "up here." The microphone is also the most useful in an emergency, instead of stopping to type, you can call out zombie locations. Which allows faster reaction times by all humans, in an emergency direct references to the location should be used. You're not trying to trick the zombies anymore. They already know where you are! It's the humans who might not know where the zombies are. Call out their locations whenever you see them, it may be obvious to you that there's a zombie ahead behind the garbage can. The guy next to you might not of seen it though.

When you have the time, inform your teammates when you're low on ammo, and what sort of extra ammo you have and where you're dropping it. Create a stockpile in a safe location and inform everyone where it is. "hey I've dropped a whole lot of shotgun ammo in the park." Well not only is the guy with the shotgun going to have a better chance at living, but he'll be coming to your location. Which gives you some extra security. He might even give you something in return.


Maximum Firepower and Choke Points

Doorways are the balm of both teams, they are perfect for zombies that want to ambush you and they are perfect for humans who want to keep zombies at bay. The only thing better than a doorway is a vent or crawlspace. These locations are choke points as they reduce the amount of enemies that can attack you at once, it doesn't matter if there are 14 zombies if only two can rush in at a time. Once they get a beachhead past your choke point it turns into pandemonium though.

To make the most of your choke point when zombies are rushing in you need to be able to place as much firepower on that doorway as possible. Take the widest place in which you can all see the doorway, then form a line of humans to shoot at the zombies. If you're in front: Crouch so humans behind you can get a clean shot as well. If you have a melee weapon: Attack from the side and not headlong so you don't block peoples firing lane. If you have no weapons: Push things towards the doorway to beef up your choke point to reduce zombies attacking power and keep crouched and keep pushing it towards the door when the zombies knock it back. If theres nothing to push then stay out of the way or keep a look out for other possible access points.

Getting past a choke point can be dangerous, if you suspect there may be zombies up ahead: let the guy with the bigger gun go first. Peer around the doorway without going through it, check 180 degrees around it, once you've checked: Go through and do another 180 degree check. Never approach a doorway with a flashlight on. If you know there are zombies at the choke point keeping you at bay, then throw a grenade and have a team mate rush in to take them out.

[Qloos]

How to Run

A big problem a lot of humans have, is that they try to run and then get eaten immediately. This section of the guide will detail about how to escape a lethal Zombie attack and reach safety.

Knowing when to run is all about intuition. You won't have the time to reason everything out, you have mere moments to decide whether it's safer to kill them or run, or shoot them and then run. But if you suddenly find that you've foolishly let a Zombie get right behind you then you might already be dead, your fault, not mine.

I don't care what weapon you had. Drop your Rifle, Drop your Magnum, drop the 24 extra bullets you had for the thing too. It isn't worth your life. Unless you're certain you'll be able to kill the attacking zombies, then the next option is to run.

Run, and run now. You don't wait until the Zombie is within lunging range. If the zombie is jumping, and your weapon has good knockback, then fire off some quick shots into him. Knockback is more effective when they're in the air. Then drop everything and run. The fastest path is a straight path, skim every corner, crouch jump through obstacles. It's a game of cat and mouse, and you better be agile enough to jump the hoops.

You might find yourself pinned between two zombies. You'll need to fake out a zombie and get past him. Having a light melee weapon with heavy knock back might be useful in this situation. Don't just try to run past, you need to fake him out, alot. Hit him if he gets too close, this can disorient the zombie and give you the room you need to escape. If you can get to higher ground than the zombie, you can actually jump over their head(s). While running; always take peeks around you to see where the zombies are closing in from. Adjust your running style constantly. If you think the zombies have you, then do what they don't expect.

Have an objective in mind. There are two kinds of objectives while running: Reach Safety, or Lose the Zombies. Reaching safety either means you've found other Survivors with big guns, or you've found more weapons to defend yourself effectively. Losing the Zombies is a gamble. It means you've run so effectively that they no longer have any idea where you are, but don't fool yourself into thinking you've lost them.

You've run around multiple corners, and theres a slight distance between you and your chasers with plenty of places to hide in the next area: So use them. Sit around a corner that no sane person would hide in and wait until the zombie has passed you. Then wait a bit longer to make sure other zombies weren't with him.


Dealing with Dodging Zombies
Economical use of Ammo

It takes very few bullets to kill a zombie when aiming for the head, 7 rifle or pistol bullets to the head, 1 magnum round or 2 shotgun shells. But when a zombie isn't moronically charging you head on it becomes challenge hitting that spot. Unless the zombie is an immediate threat that needs to be kept at bay you need to hold off firing until he's in the "kill zone."

The kill zone is the spot that requires the least rounds as possible to kill a zombie without giving it a chance to escape. Extremely effective if multiple humans have an agreed upon kill zone and open fire at the same time, "Don't shoot until he passes the doorway tm" A kill zone which is too far away: the zombie will run away once you shoot him, A kill zone which is too close: the zombie will be able to maul or kill you.

If the zombie is running straight for you then patiently wait for him to get a bit closer and unload on his face.

If the zombie is strafing from side to side then you may want to switch to body shots if you're not confident with your aim. If you have the magnum then place your aimer at head hight and wait for him to run across your line of fire. With the shotgun it now becomes necessary to switch to body shots, (aim for the center of the chest to make sure the entire spread hits for maximum damage.)

If the zombie is jumping then aiming becomes ludicrous, body shots are almost necessary if killing him is a do or die situation. However the trick to getting headshots is dependent on where the zombie lands. This spot never changes, the zombie can't change his trajectory after his feet have left the ground and head hight doesn't change. Furthermore a zombie thats jumping is slower than one that runs and also compromises his own ability to aim. This allows teammates to run in with melee weapons and beat him up. If the zombie stops jumping to attack your teammate: then shoot him.

[Seer]

pretty good stuff

[Qloos]

Area Danger Recognition

You're on the map, how do you decide if the area you're in is a safe place to be? Well the number one thing you need is: Reaction time.

Distance and Reaction time.
The greater the reaction time you have to approaching zombies the better. Gives you time to shoot or run. Compare how safe you feel in an open field as opposed to approaching a corner. The closest object that can hide a zombie from your vision should capture the majority of your attention at all times.

If you're in a low reaction time area, then stick with fellow humans to cover you, stay out of each others way in case someone needs to quickly run and hold the fastest killing weapon you have. Do not reload until you've got the reaction time you need to reload.

Access Points and Reaction time.
Take the open field from above, and now imagine a giant wall next to you. Suddenly you only need to concentrate your attention to a 180 degree area. Have a friend watch half of the access points and you watch the other half and suddenly it's a 90 degree area you need to watch. If a column of humans are walking down a hall, the guy in the rear should ALWAYS be watching the rear. The guy in the front of the column should have the most health and have the rifle or some other power weapon to take out the zombies in the way since he'll have the least amount of reaction time. Anyone in the middle of the column watches the side rooms or covering the guys at the ends of the column.

The faster you spot the zombie more time you will have to react, limited access points give you the ability to spot a zombie faster as it's harder from him to come from behind.

Physical Obstructions and Reaction time.
ZPS Towns kitchen may be a great place to defend, but not unless you get the barricade up. Zombies come around and into that room within 0.3 seconds, you freak and shoot at them and they eat you anyway. You need the barricade up as it gives you lots of reaction time. Jumping slows down a zombie, crawling slows down a zombie, getting shot slows down a zombie. These obstructions can be to your advantage. If you're running and you hear the zombie behind you groan as it starts to lunge to catch up and eat you: Turn and blast half a clip into its chest just to keep it at bay and keep running.

Sense of Hearing and Reaction time.
If you're a survivor team serious about survivng. Shut the ???? up so you can hear approaching footsteps, so you can hear nearby groans, so you can tell if the footsteps are walking over grass, wood, water, metal or gravel. Information like this can be critical. If people won't shut up. Then disable microphone communication and turn off your in game music. Nothing they ever say is useful anyway


Barricades

A barricade is any physical object which impedes a zombies ability to get to you. Either by hobbling or blocking entirely.

To punt an object for barricade use, holster your weapon with the H key and right click the object to throw it a considerable distance. Please note, that the punt ability does not need to be directly pointing at the object, it has a considerable proximity radius to hit and fling an object. This allows the player to spin or fling an object more-so than he usually would be able to. The punt ability also has a considerable cool down period without notifying you when it's ready again. Practice punting objects to learn what the cooldown time is.

Early Barricade The weakest moments for a barricade are when it is being built.

To barricade, it's required to have your weapon holstered. This puts the player thats setting up the barricade in a weak position, any other player with a firearm should keep in mind players barricading, and protect them. Make sure you have the reaction time necessary to spot zombies before they rush in between the human defenders. If this requires you to stand outside the barricade location to have a farther line of sight of approaching zombies: so be it.

You may consider throwing lighter weight objects into the doorways first to temporarily slow zombie attackers while you move heavier things. Furthermore, a player with a gun can not be conservative with ammo when the barricade still isn't in place. If zombies get inside the barricade room while other players have their pants down setting things up; it'll turn into a slaughter. If you only have melee, check people for infection, starting with the people suspiciously standing behind the guy barricading. Then cover the guy barricading with an axe staying out of his way.

If you have no gun or melee weapon, and theres no other barricade material that needs moving: Go sit in a corner and stay out of the way. Do not try and help the guy barricading, do not try and leave to find ammo.

Merely throwing stuff at the door will not stop zombies from coming in. The horde will drag things from your barricade out into the hall to never be seen again; they'll toss objects back at you into your face, they'll flip them up and over other objects and go under them, they'll shuffle your objects to the side along the wall and slide past, they'll brute force the objects back while you painfully try to hold it in place. They'll even claw at you through the barricade trying to eat you despite the obstruction.

What you want from a barricade is to stop them, or hobble them to such an extend that a few heavy knockback and long ranged melee weapons at the door will keep them at bay. To do this, you want the heaviest-largest block bustin object right in front of the door. However, you don't want it to stick so far out that the zombies can make off with it like a dog with his bone. The next largest object goes behind that one: to support it and prevent physics damage from zombies bashing you in the face with the front object.


At all times a human must support the barricade with his body, or zombies will knock it over or out of the way.
Having a large amount of objects does not mean you have a good barricade. Any zombie can hop up and over a pile of filth.
In an open area, you are not the zombies equal in a melee fight. From behind a barricade however, you usually have longer reach than the zombie, and the zombie can't get at you.
Headshots become easier when the zombie is forced to a specific spot to attack your barricade.
NO GRENADES ALLOWED, they'll destroy the barricade setup and let zombies flood in. Which is exactly what grenades should be saved for; zombies flooding in. When the dam gives way and a horde of 8 zombies rushes in, a single grenade can easily do more than 700 damage to the surrounding zombies. Considering that each pistol and rifle bullet only does around 45 damage, thats a huge reduction in the amount of lead you need to put on the attacking force to save your skin.
Any direction a zombie can move an object out of his way requires a human to hold. One or preferably two humans to each side. Humans behind the object, humans beside the object, humans even ontop of the object. Whatever it takes.
Chasing down a zombie to finish it off becomes nearly impossible without being killed, if you shoot a zombie: Make sure you'll kill it.


Problem A: Zombies are brute forcing your barricade back and are gaining a foothold to flood into the room.
Solution: Anyone who still has ammo needs to eliminate zombies pushing the barricade, or if they can't be shot, the gunners need to be ready to open fire. Anyone else needs to jump onto, beside and especially behind that barricade to brute force in back. Standing behind other humans works as well, as they can't be pushed back as much when you're already behind them. Keep punting the barricade mass back towards them to gain ground.

Problem B: HOLY ???? THEY'RE IN, WE DONT HAVE ANY AMMO LEFT, SAVE ME JESUS.
Solution: Run for the door. The zombies are usually enraged that you kept them out with a barricade and will run far into the room looking for humans, which means there wont be a single zombie waiting at the door to block your escape.

Problem C: Trapped, no ammo, barricade slowly killing me from physics damage.
Solution: Get a teammate to stand beside you holding it and both of you try and time your physical punts with the zombies. Neutralizing their punts.

Another use for barricades is while running, while this may seem like an oxymoron. A simple obstruction on the trail behind you can gain you valuable time, you're not using your weapons anyway while your running; so turn and punt a shelf across the path you just ran. It slows the zombie and buys you time, but if punting it will slow you down: Don't bother.

[Madmx28]

Nice guide keep up the good work :P

[jackass77780]

can you write one about how to use the magnum?

[v3rtigo]

MAGNUM

Aim for the head

[Madmx28]

Magnum is pretty easy to use. Point towards head and shoot :P

[Qloos]

Added "dealing with dodging zombies" and "Maximum firepower and choke points"

my next step is adding pictures to the guide. Can't think of anymore text to add.

[Qloos]

Barricade Guide added. Is it possible for a moderator or administrator to bypass the text limit and combine all my guides into the first post?