Apocalypse survival base building games?

Any of these recommendations any good for single player or playing with randoms?
Enshrouded sounds interesting.
Edit: just bought enshrouded, look forward to giving it ago.
Not with randoms, but Abiotic Factor maybe? Not played enough to judge it. I know someone who played it co-op and enjoyed what was in it at the time, was a few updates back though.

Maybe something like Subnautica? Fairly basic base building though.
 
Tried Icarus and Enshrouded, they're decent if you like the solo survival/with friends, but I like building towns with villagers so the more colony sim survival games are for me, Enshrouded let's you get villagers but they don't actually do anything, they're just glorified shops would be cool if they actually worked like a colony sim

Give Soulmask a look - decent gameplay and all sorts of base building options where you enslave villagers to do the gathering and crafting etc!
 
@Angilion - excellent ‘review’….I wasn’t looking for a game to play but happened to drop in to the thread, read your post and now I’m desperate to play this!

For all its faults and the glacial pace of development (11 years now and it's still in alpha!) and the dev's decision to move the base game away from survival and towards RPG (with very little actual RPG), it's still an excellent game. It averages about 20K players on PC at any given time. How many 11 year old games do that?

I'd suggest playing it vanilla on default difficulty to begin with, for two reasons. Firstly, it's a good way to find out what you don't like about vanilla and thus what you'd like from a mod. Secondly, most overhaul mods are much harder than vanilla. 7DTD is noted for having a pretty steep learning curve. Vanilla is trivial for very experienced players, but it's hard going for new players. The Steam forums are very active. Mostly complaints about changes to the game, but if you search existing posts or ask a question directly you'll probably get an answer. Just expect to die repeatedly when you start playing. Everyone does. It took me at least a dozen tries to get to the end of the first ingame week without dying. The penalties for dying can be changed in the options, all the way from nothing to permadeath. I'd also suggest turning off "Blood Moon", the tower defence game within a game. But maybe that's just because I don't like tower defence games anyway.

The only thing 7DTD is bad for is PvP. It isn't a PvP game, never was a PvP game and is never intended to be a PvP game. Thankfully.

Co-op PvE is fine. Solo is fine. Most people play solo or on a private server with a few people they know. 7DTD multiplayer only officially supports up to 8 players on a server, but that's also fine as it isn't an MMO.

7DTD also has the world's rudest trader, Rekt. He's the first trader you'll meet in vanilla. I find him entertaining. Some people find him dreadfully upsetting. There's a setting in the options to filter out his swearing.
 
100% agree with this - I'm at around 2,200 hours and still go back to it regularly!

Currently playing the 'Escape From Tarkov' mod and this alongside Darkness Falls and various other overhauls have added so much to the game!

Escape from Tarkov will probably be the next 7DTD mod I play, although I'd like to wait until it's developed further. The devs for the mod have said they're working on turning it into a full overhaul mod. But I've seen gameplay with the EFT mod as it is and it's miles better than vanilla for guns and for other animations. Since I usually play mainly melee, it would be a change for me.
 
Escape from Tarkov will probably be the next 7DTD mod I play, although I'd like to wait until it's developed further. The devs for the mod have said they're working on turning it into a full overhaul mod. But I've seen gameplay with the EFT mod as it is and it's miles better than vanilla for guns and for other animations. Since I usually play mainly melee, it would be a change for me.

I have to say I'm loving the EFT mod - they have added a lot in terms of extra weapons (although you could argue too much - the sheer volume of different types of ammo is mind-boggling!) but it's the little things that I'm liking - the eating animation and the reload animations in particular!

*edit* just out of interest since you play melee, what is your go-to melee weapon of choice?
 
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I have to say I'm loving the EFT mod - they have added a lot in terms of extra weapons (although you could argue too much - the sheer volume of different types of ammo is mind-boggling!) but it's the little things that I'm liking - the eating animation and the reload animations in particular!

*edit* just out of interest since you play melee, what is your go-to melee weapon of choice?

Club. I've also used spear since it was changed to make it viable (A20? A21?) by removing throwing it (which never made sense - it's clearly a melee polearm). I've also used knife and then into machete (which was also altered in a recent alpha because prior to that change a machete was no better than a hunting knife so there effectively wasn't a 3rd tier blade weapon).

But my melee weapon of choice is clubs. It's down to the playstyle I prefer for 7DTD. No stealth, no subtlety, reduced emphasis on mobility. So I go with heavy armour because I am going to get hit and I want a melee weapon that has strong stagger and knockdown and high DPS and sustainable stamina use because I'll often be in a prolonged fight against >1 enemy. Club fits the bill well and has a lot of progression. Q1 wooden club with no mods and no perks barely does the job against early enemies, but a Q6 steel club with mods (especially weighted head mod) and perks (especially the Batter Up perk that refills stamina on a kill) enables full on "stand and bang" play against almost anything in vanilla. You can use constant power attacks and they're very effective. Most zombies are at least staggered with one headshot. With lesser zombies, I've had times when one hit has killed a zombie and sent the corpse flying to stagger another zombie. I've hit birds clean out of the POI. You also get some degree of AoE damage with a club at higher levels of progress with clubs, mods in the clubs and perks, in the form of glancing blows on zombies near the zombie you're hitting. With that in mind, I think club is much better than sledgehammer. Which makes sense, since a sledgehammer isn't designed as a weapon (and is too good as one in 7DTD, despite still being inferior to clubs).

Baton can be better for crowd control, but only once you've got a stun baton with the repulsor mod. Which I don't like as it flings zombies away too much for my preference.

Machete is good now, but it favours a more mobile style of melee (and rightly so) than I prefer in this game. Also more precise because the strength of a machete in current alphas of 7DTD is an increased decapitation chance, which requires a headshot.

Spear is good now, but it favours a more precise style of melee (and rightly so) than I prefer in this game.

Backup for me is a full auto rifle moving into a machinegun. That's for when I'm getting overrun and need all the bullets flying right away. Preferably a pair of M60s with drum mags. 240 rounds should clear the way with spray and pray and reloading is for afterwards so it doesn't matter if it's slower. Say hello to my little friend!

So I'm not saying that club is the best melee weapon in 7DTD. I'm saying that it's the best melee weapon for the way I like to play 7DTD.

The eating animations in EFT aren't so new to me because I've played other overhaul mods with eating animations that are much better than vanilla (though not as good as EFT). The gun stuff, though, that's where EFT is a new ball game. What got me was seeing a player reloading a revolver. They'd fired two rounds, then reloaded. The animation showed them reloading two rounds. In a cylinder with two empty chambers and the other visible chamber still loaded. It's details like that which make EFT's animations a "Yes, that's how it should be!" thing. Does it really matter in a game? No. But also yes.
 
Hunting knife all day long for me - progressing into the machete (although as you say there really isn't much difference!)

Ranged stealth weapon (typically crossbow or silenced rifle) and then pump or auto shotgun for the "I don't care how much noise I make" scenarios!

I also like to mine as far from the screamers as possible (so at bedrock) - I think I must be a bit claustrophobic because nothing terrifies me more than being in a mine and a screamer attracting dozens of zombies with no easy escape!
 
Hunting knife all day long for me - progressing into the machete (although as you say there really isn't much difference!)

I said there wasn't much difference in earlier alphas. Until an alpha or two ago, machete did more damage per hit than a hunting knife but was slower than it. Now the machete has a higher decapitation chance, so there's much more of a difference. Enough for me to notice when I saw the change and gave bladed weapons a playthrough.

Ranged stealth weapon (typically crossbow or silenced rifle) and then pump or auto shotgun for the "I don't care how much noise I make" scenarios!

Or how big a hole you make in the POI you're in. Shotguns are a demolition tool in 7DTD. I made too many holes in floors I wanted to walk on for shotguns to appeal to me. But that's at least in part because of my poor aim.

There are issues with combat in 7DTD, but one thing that does work well is the viability of different ways of doing it.

I also like to mine as far from the screamers as possible (so at bedrock) - I think I must be a bit claustrophobic because nothing terrifies me more than being in a mine and a screamer attracting dozens of zombies with no easy escape!

There are some mods with cave POIs that bother me.

The vanilla POI that bothers me the most is the opposite extreme - Two Bit Tower. There's far too much scurrying along narrow ledges 10 storeys up for my taste.
 
Thanks to this thread, picked up another two copies of Conan Exiles to play with my kids, and having some fun. Setup a private server and enjoying the exploration and crafting together.
 
First of all, Thanks for the replies. :)

Actually i purchased 7DTD a long long time ago when it first came out and was super cheap, Not sure why i didn't get around to actually playing it but its definitely in my steam library so i will have to install that and have a bash!

See, I love Open world online survival games that you can choose you're path, I'm more of a "loot and base building" chill kind of guy these days rather than going hardcore PVP (Ie. Rust) But as many know in these type of games (especially online) you have to sink a TON of hours in and be online a lot to keep away pesky raiders and maintain base.

With that last line of your post, my advice when you try 7DTD is to turn off "blood moon" for your game. It's in the options. There are many options because 7DTD is intended to be a very user-changeable game. Some of the options are for creating a gameworld and can only be changed when doing so, but the "blood moon" options are one of the ones that can be changed at any time, before or during a playthrough. As well as that, a large proportion of the game is controlled by plain text XML files so with a bit of research you can mod the game a lot with nothing more than a text editor. Then there's the thousands of mods. And I mean "thousands" literally. Nexus alone lists >5000 mods for 7DTD and there's a whole site solely for 7DTD mods (https://7daystodiemods.com/). The vanilla install of the game creates a subdirectory called "mods". Put a mod in there, job done. Load order is handled automatically and it works. The devs deliberately designed the game to be highly moddable because they understand that's the key to longevity. The only issue is version compatibility. Since 7DTD is still in alpha and still subject to major changes, new alphas often require new versions of a mod. No getting around that issue. Mods for older alphas might or might not still work.

"Blood moon" is the tower defence game-in-a-game in 7DTD. It creates a horde of zombies that are magically aware of your position at all times and which will come at you using the path of least resistance. The attack will last all night. The maximum number of zombies setting is only for the maximum number simultaneously. The more you kill, the more will spawn, maintaining the maximum number you set. It's intended to be incessant through the night. So you have to sink a lot of time into gathering materials, building a defence base, fighting the horde and repairing the damaged base afterwards to be ready for the next horde. Not my thing. Doesn't sound like it would be your thing. But it can easily be turned off in the settings. Or turned back on if, for example, you're well along in a playthrough and decide you want a horde attack for a change. Most players who like blood moon build two seperate bases. A home base for storing materials and crafting and a horde base for fighting the blood moon hordes.

7DTD doesn't have the "always active gameworld" issue. If you play single player, nothing will happen in the gameworld unless you're playing. It's technically an online game, but in the form of a virtual server for you only that only exists while you're playing. I don't know about how co-op PvE works in that respect. I only ever play solo.

In normal play, there is a chance of your base being attacked but only when you're in it or very close to it. There are two mechanics for that. The first is wandering zombies. Most zombies in the game are spawned in POIs and will only leave the POI if you're close enough for them to detect you and leave the POI to attack you. Some zombies are wandering and can appear anywhere. They're actually spawned in, of course, but the spawn point is "near where the player is now". In vanilla, this will be anything from a single zombie to a small group of zombies. Unless you mod the game for bigger wandering hordes (which I do, but which I wouldn't recommend for a new player). The second mechanic is one for which the balance is controversial - spawned summoners. They're known as "screamers" in 7DTD. They're zombies that summon zombies. The ingame mechanic/reasoning is that they scream very loudly, which attracts all nearby zombies. Hence the name. The screamers themselves are "attracted" (actually spawned) by activity (confusingly labelled as "heat" in the game). That can be all sorts of things. Lights. Noise. Smoke. Even just bright cloth. In effect, it mainly about running player-made workstations (most controversial being a dew collector for gathering water, which is completely silent), lighting (but not all lighting - the easiest workaround is to craft lamps for lighting as they create no "heat") and noise. Crucially, this only happens if you're close enough to your base. The gameworld is divided into fairly small chunks and only the chunk the player is in is active.

Finally, a few words on performance because 7DTD is atypical in that regard. Since it's a fully voxel world with constant realtime structural integrity calculations, the main load is on the CPU rather than the GPU.
 
7DTD doesn't have the "always active gameworld" issue. If you play single player, nothing will happen in the gameworld unless you're playing. It's technically an online game, but in the form of a virtual server for you only that only exists while you're playing. I don't know about how co-op PvE works in that respect. I only ever play solo.

Multiplayer co-op works on the same basis - time only marches on when there is a player on the server.

There is nothing more fun than 4 or 5 players are working co-operatively on a private server!
 
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