Two Noobs Strategy

(You can refer to this also as "The Coward Strategy", but there are other coward strategies existing too!)

***Preamble:***

There´s a lot of strategies and strategy mixes possible for official devast.io (normal mode). Each has it´s pros and cons. If you are a team of at least 2 absolute beginners, you might want to checkout this not so common one here. If you play alone, you can also do so, but I suggest to rather tryout the sniper stage for noobs strategy. Be aware that you always will play for a VERY LONG TIME (3 or more hours, up to a complete day is usual), if you want to reach some satisfaction in your progress and game course. You have been warned, and maybe you better shoot for the moon and start straight with the more difficult but quick speedrun-strategies described somewhere else in this Wiki or shown on Youtube. Caring for a base always takes up very much time, that´s why it´s avoided in other game plans.

I often watched and played in noob-teams and usually they all don´t last more than one hour with zero success and frustration in the end. Amateurish teams often face the following problems in a short amount of time:

* Losing important parts of the base and interieur because of death of the building-player.
* Running out of food because nobody cares himself about it and due to exhaustion of local resources.
* Team shortening (they simply leave and don´t come back).
* Team players that do nothing else but stealing your resources, eating your food and watching you grind away. (The type I like most.)
* Less power against player attacks despite of being a team.
* Too slow progress to keep up base against armoured ghouls.
* No idea about how a stable base should look like and where it should be build.

But all this doesn´t have to be, if they would ever have ANY strategy. This (more noobish) one here, the sniper strategy for noobs, or any other more professional one, described in some other Wiki pages. So lets see about the pros and cons about this special beginners game plan:

***Pros:***

* not much needed to know for starting, easy to learn by doing (no special techniques used)
* most stressless gameplay, less risky (no speedrun)
* good chance for noobs to make some progress and have fun
* you can build up basic experience in fighting more stressless
* it´s not all about fighting, also about building up and progression
* less dying for at least one player, lot´s of dying for the other team members - you can chose and rotate roles

***Cons:***

* takes a very long time, even when playing in a team (be warned!)
* very slow progression

* you shouldn´t bother with being called a coward

***And here´s how it works:***

* First thing to do is some **role splitting**: One player is the builder ("B" in short), the other one(s) is the getter(team) ("G" in short). Each role has a very different game play and will face different experiences. Maybe you want to swap roles each time you play to have most fun and get allround experience.
* Second basic thing to do: **XP splitting**. Since XP is hard to get for B, it´s necessary to **coordinate who unlocks what feature**. Some features are not often used (e.g.stone floor tiles, wooden low walls/doors, repair hammer, chests, etc.), so B can invest his skill points in other things. You will learn by yourself, who should unlock what when, maybe you want to add this list here - feel free to edit this page.
* **B (the builder ) :**
	+ As his name suggests - he builds everything that you see on the map and he takes things from workbenches, because only he unlocks the builder-x2 feature, and taking stuff gives XP.
	+ The making process on work benches itself is not only dedicated to B, G can also build stuff but doesn´t take it from benches.
	+ He **should never die**: G (the getter) has to protect him as good as possible and therefore sleeping bags are at first for B, only later in game for G too.
	+ He cares for food stability for himself with little overproduction, achieved by a garden of 5-7 plants. Tomatos are essential, oranges are good for having food until tomato cans can be made, and also for gasoline production later. Always make tomato-soup-cans, never waste tomatos by eating them raw! He always makes enough seed for replanting (remount). It´s essential and sufficient to have 1-2 fridges later in game.
	+ He avoids any risk, that´s why it´s one of some possible coward strategies. The benefit is a stable base, that lasts for hours and withstands ordinary raid attacks.
	+ He only goes out when he has at least one sleeping bag, enough food savely stored in fridges, and all his equipment is stored in boxes as a duplicate. If he dies outside, nothing is lost.
	+ His job is the "house keeping": Care for food and seed, repairing the base, crafting lapabots etc., and later crafting sleeping bags and basic equipment for G to enable him to get the things needed.
	+ He also has to do most progression on XP and later should enable G to do so too. This is done by safely killing ghouls through a (stone, later metal) low-wall fence at the entrances/exits of the base. As basic weapons you can use spear, bow (crossbow against armoured ghouls) and nail gun against explosive ghouls or those far away. All other and near ghouls can be killed by pickaxe or metal axe. Have a repair hammer and nails ready.
* **G (the getter):**
	+ This is either your companion, or a bunch of team players.
	+ As his name suggests - he gets everything needed for B to enable him to fulfill his role. Usually B is the "commander" and tells G what things in what quantity are needed next. B also will request G to unlock specific features to save him from wasting skill points. Since people don´t like to be commanded, I suggest to change roles every time you play.
	+ G should bring the stuff and put it into the chests that B prepared for a quick handover since B won´t have any slots free most of the time.
	+ **He always can die**, so he shouldn´t worry about respawning often with less XP and zero equipment. Only later in game, when a stable base is achieved, enough sleeping bags are made, and better weapons/armour is crafted, G can have a longer life span.
	+ He will face many fights on his journey to earn the needed stuff for B. Since fighting is not everybody´s favour, it might also be here too a good idea to change roles from time to time.
	+ He always should take care of food for himself. Later B will have surplus in food, but not at the beginning.
* Suggestion/Example for a small, but most powerful, stable and expandable base see here: Example Base For 1-2 Players
* There´s no guarantee, especially for beginners, to get far in this game, because **there´s lot to learn in detail** and the biggest part is always plain luck.
* Before your team starts, each player might want to do some level rushing (for noobs, or experienced players).
* Before you go for building a base, I strongly suggest to check out the base location basics and the example base pages!
* Corners and handy houses (e.g. the internet-cafe with lots of stuff for strong bases) are often heavily embattled. But I recommend to search the map for a good place to start. You can start everywhere, but it´s worthwhile the time you invest in chosing a lucrative location. Keep in mind that less good places are also haunted by savages. You won´t find peace anywhere on the map.
* Though lapabots are a guarantee for a most stable base, they are dispensable in some base designs. They can be killed through walls by grenades, so they might need to be sheltered if possible.
* 1 lapabot per base-side consisting of full stone walls/doors won´t be enough to protect against armoured ghouls. So you have to take care (and additionally repair manually), as long as your walls/doors are not made of metal!
* For extra raid-protection leave 2 fields free as a distance to any base-interior. That´s because if some raider throws a bunch of grenades towards your base, any objects in range of 2 fields (wall/door+field+field) will get destroyed. There´s a 2nd reason why 2 fields of free space are useful towards the base-sides: This way you also have enough space for your lapabots and for reliable player movement.
* Build a fenced-in area as a front yard by setting low walls twice, next to each other, for doubling the hitpoints and gaining more distance to attacking ghouls. Without such a court, B won´t be able to kill ghouls (yields most XP!) and therefore progress will be extremely slow in lack of the needed skill points.
* Have all unused floors covered inside with wood, and doors outside with wood or later stone plates. Many hours later you will have to make the base bigger to have enough space for tesla things, if you still want to spend another bunch of hours. When it comes to waste time, here you can do world´s best. ;-)
* For better independency you later might want to use extractors too.
* Although a good meant feature, also the Ghoul Drug unfortunately won´t be of interest for beginners, since you´ll rather go for a smelter (and lapabots) than for an agitator. The Goul Drug isn´t easy to create (5 items!) and it´s more an option in mid or late game if ever.

These are the main things to know and the details you will find out soon in practice. Feel free to edit this page and make it better in content or readability. Hope you enjoy this alternative strategy and have some funny team-plays in devast.io!

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