Kinda obvious, but make a secure base before looting buildings and cities. It may seem more fun and exciting to loot the first city you see, but the first blood moon will come quicker than you think. - Always carry a spear along with a bow and arrows. They are (imo) the best two weapons in the early game. Easy to make and very effective. - Always carry wooden frames or cobblestone frames. This helps to quickly get out of any unwanted situations (unexpected zombies in a bedroom, getting the highground on dire wolves and zombie dogs, etc.). - Farming is crucial and one of the easiest ways to have a stable food source. Putting points into the "Living off the land" perk allows you to get more from each crop you harvest. I also recommend starting your farm on the roof of your base. This makes it less likely for your crops to get damaged during the hordes. - Bacon and eggs are one of the best and easiest food sources. They give +36 hunger while charred, boiled, and grilled meat only give +10 hunger. It costs the same amount of meat (5) to make all of these items so you'll get the upperhand making bacon and eggs instead. Eggs are easily found by looting bird nests found on the ground (usually by trees). - Honey will cure early stages of infection if you do not have antibiotics. There is a book from the "Wasteland Treasures" series that gives a chance of getting honey from harvesting trees. - You can harvest dogs and dire wolves for meat. You can also harvest vultures for feathers. - Scrap everything you can. Don't leave things like cans, doorknobs, and fishing weights behind. They will give core materials that will allow you to craft things like bullet casings and bullet tips later on in the forge. - Sell (some) books to the trader. Books that teach you how to craft things like seeds will be learned later on anyways from upgrading perks. If you do happen to find a book you wanna read, read one and sell the other to the trader. You get no advantage from reading both and will gain 160 dukes per book sold. In addition, if you find a book and are unsure if you've read it or not yet, open your inventory and look at the small white book icon on the upper left corner. If the book is closed, you haven't learned it yet. If it's open, you've learned it already and there's no need to read the book. Sell them both to the trader for extra dukes :). - If you want to sell items such as armor or tools to the trader, repair them first. It makes them more valuable and you'll get more dukes for it. - If you see that the trader is selling "Bottle of acid", do everything you can to get dukes and buy it. You'll usually find that the trader sells these in the early game. Bottle of acid is an uncraftable item that is necessary for creating the chemistry station along with other things such as military fiber (used to craft military armor). Though bottle of acid can be found while looting things such as sinks, janitor carts, etc, it is unlikely. In the "Wasteland Treasures" series, there is a book that gives you a higher chance of finding acid while looting and disassembling certain items. - Hunting knives are important for harvesting animals. Though they are rather difficult to get early game, there is a solution! Finding bones will allow you to create a bone knife. This is a way better option to harvest with rather than your stone axe. - Heat attracts zombies. It's a good idea to keep things such as forges away from your main base. When left on for a while, it may attract "screamers" which will attract more zombies until killed. Campfires of course let off heat, but they aren't usually left on for too long, so you shouldn't have to worry too much. - When looting a house, there is a saying called "follow the light". There are usually things like flashlights and lamps laying down on their side throughout the house. It emits light pointing in a certain direction. Follow that. This is the order that buildings are meant to be looted. It saves you the trouble of having to break down locked doors and allows so you don't miss any loot. - Vehicles have their own storage. Putting points into the "Pack mule" perk is not very necessary. Bicycles and minibikes are fairly easy to get early on in the game and allow for more storage while looting. - Doing quests from the trader are an easy way to get dukes and items you might not already have. They're fairly easy and don't take a lot of time to complete. Putting points into the "Daring adventurer" perk allows you to get more dukes and more options for rewards. - You can get coal by destroying ember piles, burnt trees, and wood from burnt stoves. - Upgrading your wooden frames: You can get cobblestone rocks (next upgrade from wood) by destroying the pallets with the blue tarp. You can get cement (next upgrade from cobblestone) by destroying the pallets with the white stacked bags. Use a shovel for both of these. - You won't get a crucible (added to the forge and allows to make forged steel) until later on in the game. But, you can get forged steel from disassembling street lights, gun safes, and chandeliers (use a wrench). - Always break paintings when looting buildings as there is sometimes hidden loot behind them. - If you see a bear, run. They have 1600 HP (regular zombies have around 125-300) and are a death sentence unless you've got the proper weapons and highground to handle it. if this helps your welcome