State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition Home Site Tips

With State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition, we often forget about our primary objective, instead growing obsessed with stockpiling supplies. Well, that extends to expanding on and securing our Home Site, ensuring that we have the necessary Facilities to keep all of the survivors safe.

There’s a lot to consider, such as how many survivors you have, and whether or not you want to keep your current Home Site or move to another one on the map. Today we’re going to look at all of your options, breaking down some of the features of each. It’s still up to you where you opt to settle, but at least this way you can make an informed decision.

Survivors Required

Each Home Site will require a certain amount of survivors before you can occupy it. For example, the Church of the Ascension requires five, which makes sense given that when you arrive there will be six. As your survivor population grows, however, you’ll need more Facilities and the ability to occupy larger Home Sites. Once you hit 12 survivors you’ll be able to move to the Snyder Trucking Warehouse or the Trumbull County Fairgrounds. Of course, there’s more to this than a set number of people. You also need Materials.

Required Materials

Let’s assume you have the proper amount of people to move to a new Home Site, but you’re still going to need a certain amount of Materials, and that seems to be the hardest resource to find in the game. As an example, if you opt to move from the Church of the Ascension to the McReady Farmhouse you’ll need 30 Materials. That’s not too bad, seeing as how you can find that with only two Rucksacks, but if you wanted to take up residence in the Trumbull County Fairgrounds you’d need 50 Materials.

Expanding Facilities

Each Home Site will also come with a certain number of slots reserved for Facilities. Players can then use Materials to upgrade those slots, adding things like Storage, a Tower, Workshop or even a Library. This would be ideal if you’re happy to stay at your current Home Site, but would like to upgrade it a bit and make the living conditions more comfortable.

Establishing Outposts

This is one of the most important aspects of your game, as it helps to not only keep your Home Site secure (less zombies in the area), but also stops you from having to go all the way back to your Home Site to use the Supply Locker. In order to create an Outpost, you must fully clear the building of all zombie threats, then use your Radio menu (Down on the d-pad) to establish it. This will cost you 50 Influence, but placing several Outposts strategically helps with scavenging. Try placing one in the middle of some un-checked buildings for easier depositing of goods.

Choosing a Home Site

To give you an idea, the Church of the Ascension is not the best example of a Home Site that is easy to defend. It has some vulnerabilities in its walls, and it can be attacked from many different directions. You can lower the chance of this happening with Outposts, but a Home Site like the Savini Residence is a more easily defended location. That home is built close to steep banks, which means it can only be attacked from one direction. If you choose this location and take some of our advice on Outposts, you might carve a nice little post-apocalyptic existence for yourself.

If you played State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition on the Xbox 360, and want to transfer your data to the Xbox One, we can help you with that. We can also help you get started with some basica game concepts and tips.

If you’re looking to get your hands on all of our State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition content in one place, visit our State of Decay guide and become the ultimate survivor.