Breakdown DLC
Beginner Tips & Tricks
Breakdown Level 1 – Getting Started
Joining the Community
Nothing is easy in Breakdown. Starting out with a random character, you’ll spawn with a melee weapon, a snack, and a bottle of pills.
First order of business: join a community. Don’t explore yet – make a beeline for the closest major road or home. The goal, for now, is to grab a car and drive to one of three random marked communities.
Open the map to check the communities out. Every potential home site is still available in Breakdown, but you’ll only have three options to start. Later, you can move expanding communities to the warehouse in Marshall or the Fairgrounds.
The Kirkman or Savini Residence are a good place to start. These two homes are located either in West Marshall, or in the sleepier town up north.
Avoid the Alamo, the camping center far north, and the church. The Alamo is located right at the center of the zombie problem, and it’s hard to defend with the starting survivors. The camping site is so far away from resources, you’ll deplete yourself of items fast.
The Church isn’t a bad choice, but the location sucks. The surrounding area is hard to protect with outpost locations few and far between.
The farm can work, but you’ll need a steady supply of cars to go on long drives for supply runs.
Make things easier – try to pick one of the two residences. There’s plenty of supplies in each of the towns, and the variety of locations make setting up outposts to protect the home from hordes as breeze.
Once you’ve chosen a base, drive to the mission location and find the survivor on the map with a green question mark. Talk to them to join the community. Now the real fun begins.
Defending the Community
On harder Breakdown levels, zombie hordes will immediately swarm the area. That’s going to happen on Level 1, too. With very few resources, weapons, or alternate “friend” survivors to switch to, things can get hairy fast.
Find a pickup truck or van. Don’t drive directly into hordes – back into zombies instead. Hitting swarms of zombies with the back of a vehicle significantly reduces damage. Keeping vehicles in good working order is imperative, especially later on when the car selection plummets.
Use cars to wipe out threatening zombie hordes on the map before they reach the community. Now it’s time to lock things down.
To keep the community protected, you’ll want to establish outposts down every approach. Booby-trap each one to instantly destroy incoming hordes. The explosives take time to recharge, but the cost is worth it for a little peace of mind.
To establish outposts, clear a house or building of zombies. Step over every black circle on the minimap and destroy any threats. A red circle will appear over the location on the map, indicating a safe zone where zombies will not spawn.
Now, stand inside the home and call Lily. Then select to establish an outpost. It costs influence, so be sure to go scavenging for items to drop off at the community supply locker.
Building the Community
Outposts aren’t required to move forward, but you’ll want to build them whenever possible. Create a circle of safe zones, with outposts, around the community as you play – earning materials, resources, and leveling survivors.
While that is going on, you’ll also want to start constructing facilities at the base. The most important facilities are sleeping areas, medical areas, and workshops — in that order.
Both residences have bedrooms. Fix them up in the community tab by selecting the red facilities. This costs no money.
To avoid contagious sickness, construct a medical facility as your first major construction project. It’ll help injured survivors recover while they’re out of your control, and it will stop sickness from spreading.
Sickness can quickly cripple a thriving community, and letting a survivor stay sick for too long will result in death – which results in zombification. Don’t let that happen, unless shooting a dying survivor in the head sounds like a cool afternoon activity.
Less important at Level 1 is the Workshop. These facilities will repair damaged items, vehicles, and so on over night when left in the supply locker or parking spaces, depending on which upgrades you unlock.
To build the medical area, you’ll need construction materials. These valuable items can usually be found in garages, construction sites, warehouses, or hardware stores.
Don’t forget, if you find multiple material crates in one location, don’t waste your time making two runs. Grab one crate, then call on the radio for a supply run.
Weapons & Ammo
At this early stage in Breakdown, zombies are relatively tame. The situation becomes savagely difficult later on, so take this peaceful time to load up on the biggest guns and the most ammo.
In Marshal, you’ll find a gun store and a police department, each packed with weaponry. Loot both, and travel to the military checkpoints near the fairgrounds on the western side of the map, over the pair of bridges, to find special Military Stashes.
The army hospital is dangerous, but later on in Breakdown venturing there is straight-up suicide. When you feel ready, raid the area for armaments. A few LMGs or Grenade Launchers will make life much easier in the future.
The RV – Moving Up to Breakdown Level 2
Eventually, Lily will point at an RV on the map. Drive down to the mission location, and a special RV icon will appear on the community management tab. Select it in the bottom left corner.
To fix-up the RV, you’ll need to find medical supplies. These rare supplies are located most often in home bathrooms, or more certainly in pharmacies or clinics. Beware cracking the material crates open for items – you’ll need the resource points.
Once the RV is disinfected, you’ll be able to leave the valley with 5 survivors of your choice.
Leaving the valley will create a new Trumbull instance, complete with new resources, respawned weapons, and harder enemies. Every time you level up, you’ll want to go in prepared.
Survivors aren’t the only thing you can carry over. All items stashed on survivors you bring in the RV will retain their items, and all items in the Supply Locker will go with you.
Influence (State of Decay’s money) is reset to 0. If you want to start strong, load down your player-character with valuable items to “sell” back to the Supply Locker for an easy infusion of influence.
To bring survivors with you, select the RV once it is disinfected. Then, go to the survivor tab and select each survivor you want to bring. Press [Y/E] to load them onto the RV – a message will appear over their face.
Remember, items equipped to Survivors not on the RV will be lost. Switch to them and unload their inventories before leaving.
Cleaning Up
Before leaving Breakdown Level 1, you’ll want:
1. Tough Survivors
Any friendly survivors should have some fighting skill, and you’ll want a healthy supply of ammo. Automatic weapons are ideal, but moving up to Level 2 with just Pistols or Shotguns is enough.
Bring melee weapons – these can be found in every construction material crate if broken open – to help survive the start of a new Breakdown round. If you’re dealing with multiple hordes and your weapon breaks, you’re going to want those spare crowbars and axes.
The starting hours of a new round can be brutal. Bring pills to stay alive, and especially take food and coffee. Food will refill stamina, while coffee will replenish lost maximum stamina.
If you’re familiar with State of Decay, the first round isn’t so bad. But, it’s also the start of a difficult journey. Don’t waste this early opportunity to stock-up.
When you’re ready, select the RV again to begin Breakdown Level 2.
Breakdown DLC
Beginner Tips & Tricks
Breakdown Level 2 – RV Bases & Heroes
RV Home – Moving Base Locations
Past the first level of Breakdown, the survivors will appear in a random location outside their broken down RV. Influence and resources are reset to 0, but all items in the Security Locker or on survivors transitions over to the second instance of Trumbull Valley.
The survivors are, pretty obviously, very vulnerable with no defenses. Run off to the nearest construction sites, or use Lily to find materials for construction, then find whatever base you want.
Just about any home base location will work. The walled-off home in the southern town or northern town is a good mid-level homestead, with enough resources to last.
The difficulty level hasn’t increased dramatically, yet. Buildings are less likely to contain valuable resources, and cars are just a little more scarce.
It takes longer, but Lily will eventually find the RV. Just like before, you’ll need to drive down to the location and fix it up.
At Breakdown Level 2, you’ll need to clean the inside of the RV, then fix the engines (20 Construction Materials, 5 Fuel, 100 Influence) at an additional cost. Each instance of the RV mission becomes more difficult to complete, requiring more resources, as Breakdown progresses.
Remember – you can establish outposts while at the RV base. Set outposts around your future home location if you’re into planning ahead, it’ll help keep the brain-munchers at bay.
Hordes stick to the roads, usually, so it’s best to block any concrete approaches first. Collect materials, move into a safe home, and start improving the homestead.
Unlocking Heroes
Heroes are some of the most useful survivors in Breakdown, and if you want to survive, you’ll want to get a few of these guys safely into the homestead.
The last tab in the management menu has a list of challenges. Completing these challenges unlocks unique hero characters. These guys and gals are armed with special weapons and skills, making the later stages, or starting over, much easier.
There are several challenges that are easy to accomplish while completing regular chores around the community.
The Bruiser (Kill 100 Zombies with Blunt Weapons):
The Enthusiast (Kill 100 Zombies with Blade Weapons):
The Cop (Kill 50 Zombies with Pistols):
The Sacrifice (Go Out in a Blaze of Glory):
Earn “The Cop” and “The Sacrifice” to fill out your roster of survivors before moving on to Breakdown Level 3.
Breakdown DLC
Beginner Tips & Tricks
Breakdown Level 3 – Scavenging & Car Dealerships
Scavenging Tips
Always bring silenced weapons to deal with single zombie stragglers. You’re almost guaranteed to draw gangs of zombies if you fire an unsilenced weapon outside the safe zones.
When scavenging, grab the hero with the highest “Wits” skill level. They’ll find more items and make less noise while searching.
If you find lots of extra resources in one location, grab one and then drop it on the ground. Dropping resources (RT + RB) will create a permanent marker on the map, giving the player a handy beacon.
When going on ammunition, weapon or gun scavenging runs far away from your home base, establish an outpost in the area. You can’t deliver resources to outposts, but you can deposit items into the Supply Crate.
Unlocking the Dealer
At this point, cars are rare. It’s likely you’ll spawn in an area with very few cars, and crashing can quickly cripple your progress.
Cars are crucial to survival, and you never want to be stuck without a steady supply of cars. That’s why “The Dealer” is required for future Breakdown levels – he has the radio command to call in vehicle deliveries.
Start early, unlock this hero as soon as possible. It takes killing 400 zombies with the car door attack. Because cars are so rare later, it’s better to start now – cars are still prevalent in the town centers of the valley.
Seriously, you’re going to need cars. State of Decay is notoriously buggy, and losing cars is just a fact of life. Get the Dealer, he’s worth the grind.
Even More Freaks
Freaks become far more prevalent in Breakdown Level 3, and more Juggernauts will appear all over the map. Armored Zombies are now commonly mixed in with the regular hordes.
Armored Zombies are immune to bullets, but you’ll still need to bring guns. Why? Bloaters show up all over the place. Take a silenced gun to quietly dispose of annoying bloaters, and aim for the head if you don’t want to cause a messy explosion.
Collect mines, and keep them stashed away for special occasions. They’re a killer anti-freak tool.
Breakdown DLC
Beginner Tips & Tricks
Breakdown Level 4 – Survival Checklist & Overview
Once you’ve reached Survival Level 4, you should have a pretty clear idea what it takes to survive in Breakdown. To make things easier, here’s a checklist to keep you going in the right direction;
1. Locate and survey the closest area to the RV, or your planned home base.
Suggested Inventory
1. Melee Weapon (Best: Edged w/ Specialization)
Additional Survival Tips
Noisemakers and snacks can help you evade almost any dangerous situation. When you’re in trouble, drop a noisemaker and eat a snack, then sprint away. The noisemaker will draw zombies off you in a very large radius.
Avoid Juggernauts. These fat freaks are rarely worth fighting. If one is in the area, or is alerted to you, just leave. They’ll draw more zombies and make life hell.
Lily and your special hero survivors are incredibly useful. Use Lily to find materials – she’ll always pinpoint a location. Army survivors can call artillery strikes to destroy hordes. The Dealer can summon cars. These abilities are invaluable at later stages of Breakdown.
Arm the survivor on watchtower duty with a LMG. They have infinite ammo (when equipped by a survivor) and good accuracy. Open the survivor menu and scroll through the faces to see which character is assigned to the watchtower.
Edged Weapons are the best available if you choose the edged weapon specialization. The increased decapitation chance allows your survivor to kill most zombies with a single hit.
The game becomes more difficult as you play. By level 4, outpost safe zones will shrink. After each level, enemies become tougher, faster, and do more damage. Cars are weaker, and weapon durability is lower. Later on, zombies will no longer appear on the minimap radar. Keep that in mind!
Cars are weak by Level 4, driving through a horde will cripple your car. Tires will always pop, even when backing into zombies. Avoid zombies at all costs, and don’t run them down unless you’ve got spare wheels nearby.
Keep one outpost slot open. When scavenging far away from home base, establish an outpost and deposit items from your inventory into the Supply Locker, then destroy the outpost.
Because of the randomness in Breakdown, there’s no way to cover every aspect of every level. Take these lessons, and apply them moving forward. Stay alive as long as possible. This is Breakdown.
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