For whom this field-tested strategy is for:
If you are a single noob or humble experienced player or a 2-3 player team and would like to get longer involved into game action or simply want to hunt for a more or less reasonable but feasible achievement degree in official devast.io, then this article is for you.
Warning:
Going for sniper stage by using this strategy here will take you as a solo player around 3-6 hours, depending on your respawning level (18, 20, 23), your skills, amount of resources around, type of house(s) nearby and the absence of early savages and and/or house-occupying players, and last but not least a certain amount of good luck (like always).
Why is the sniper so important that you should aim for it:
If you want to keep your base alive, then you can go either for lapabots or alternatively for the sniper. It´s a very economical and safe (distance) ghoul killer (9 bullets for armoured ghoul at night, at day less). You need to kill ghouls to defend your base and level up in XP. It´s also good for defending your base against almost any enemy players (except the laser-type). After the sniper you can go for a kevlar and swat suit. Then you can go for an AK47, a rapid firegun that will help you in emergency situations e.g. when you collect stuff inside houses. Once you have set up your base and sniper, AK47 and ammo in your inventory you won´t have to fear others, unless they have laser and/or appear in big teams. After that you can develop further to the laser/tesla-stage, if you have enough leisure time left.
And here is how it works:
Thanks to some extremely bad game mechanics, at first you have to do the boring part of Level Rushing For Noobs / Level Rushing for about 1 to 1,5 hours until you have reached XP level 18, 20 or 23.
After respawning (and taking care for basic survival - food and fire!), the actual game that you wanted begins. You have to chose a suitable location for you base and begin to settle there, building a small but very powerful base.
Since you are going for the bare sniper with some ammo first, below is a chart that gives an overview of what you will collect and craft (but some simple things are leftout, e.g. cans for tomato-soup):
Collect the following first:
- Outside:
- seed - the more the better - any type: orange (for gasoline), tomato (for tomato-soup-cans), tree (for wood in case of base siege)
- wood - large amounts (for some builds - pitfires, workbenches, weaving machine, pitfire fuel and also spare wood for siege protection)
- stone - large amounts [for full stone walls most, also for entrance/exit building (full doors at the core, half doors outside, stone plates)]
- iron - mandatory for alloy, but try to have around 50 for shaped metal production too because houses resources are often limited
- sulfur - for gasoline and alloy: at least 15 (12 for alloy, 3 for gasoline)
- animal fat - at least 4, better 8 for the first
- tendon - optionally, if you don´t finde strings in house
- leather - optionally, if you can´t get it in house
- oranges - optionally, if you don´t have orange seeds (for gasoline - let them rot away, do NOT build a compost)
- Outside - summary (for your clipboard, raw/minimal values):
seed, wood, stone - all you can getiron - 50sulfur - 15animal fat - 4oranges - 12
- Inside house(s):
- energy cells - at least 4, better 8 (for 2-4 fridges - "builder x 2" unlocked mandatory)
- junk - at least 12 (for alloys)
- electronic parts - 1 piece for smelter
- shaped metal - optionally, if you don´t have already at least around 50 iron
- gasoline - optionally: it´s good to have more of this, but concentrate on self production (rotten oranges & sulfur on research bench)
- strings - optionally: for armour later, ideally 18 if you don´t have tendon
- leather - optionally: for armour later, ideally 20 if you didn´t collect that from wild animals outside
- Inside house - summary (for your clipboard, raw/minimal values):
energy cells - 4junk - 12electronic parts - 1
Craft the following first:
- plant all your orange- and tomato-seeds, maybe some tree-seeds too, and make tomato soup cans
- make your base safe, mainly by quantity: wooden floor inside, wooden traps, stone plates outside, stone low doors, stone walls, later 2 full stone doors & repair hammer & nails
- 2 workbenches
- 2 pitfires: stable fire, good as food storage and for making lots of shaped metal and seeds too
- later: hammer - for house-resources and replacing low doors with full (metal) doors at base core
- 2 fridges (later more, avoid unlocking chests if possible)
- 1 smelter: for alloys - try to craft 12 with 3 gasoline at first
- 1 weaving machine (it´s good to have at least the leather jacket as armour for safety, but it´s optionally)
- craft sniper and at least 1 ammo package at research bench
First you should go for sniper, then for the armour (leather jacket, kevlar suit, swat suit). After that you should go for AK47 as an emergency weapon (consumes a lot of bullets!). If you want to quit then, you can give your stuff to someone you believe in (no savage), or simply hide it deep in the rad city.
Screenshots from such gameplays can be found at the base wiki-page and some additional screenshots of a "top border base"-game follow here:
Game course info:
- Complete solo play on a calm server (see top 10 list) without using enhanced vision due to lack of knowledge (though I´m no noob after playing this game for years!).
- Level rushed to XP 20, then respawned (no sulfur axe).
- Settled at around middle of top border between A3-A4. Only one, but good house (stone house with 2 computers) nearby.
- Tried out compost, but this gives no advantage since you don´t need much gasoline and you need your time either way. Instead of compost a 2nd pitfire would have speed it up much better.
- Some interactions with enemy players. One occupied the house - that was time consuming and a drawback.
- Around 4,5 hours played in total (including level rushing). With level rushing to XP 23 (sulfur axe when respawning!) and some practice you certainly can be faster.