Don’t forget the video camera to film it, then you can pick one item of your choice to be your loot drop for finding the set piece you just made in a left4dead level.
plot twist, the jeep is electric and there is a spinner-bike in the back you can use to charge it with. Only four short days of pedaling will get you 100 miles!
Never understood that about the walking dead. Gasoline stops being vital after 3-6 months, so years into the apocalypse and everyone’s driving cars, and Daryl has that sweet frankenbike. What are those things running on?
Gas is no longer in prime condition after 3-6 months, but is still combustible for at least a year or two. Old gas will damage your engine over time though. Most of the degradation is due to oxidization, so if the gas were in sealed cans, maybe it could last longer.
But yeah, 5+ years in and most gas is unlikely to work in an engine. You’d have to be making some kind of bio-ethanol at that point.
I’ll take a foldable solar panel, a tablet PC with its entire storage full of porn, and the dog.
Everything else I need I’ll trade in exchange for a half hour in my dog-guarded porn booth.
You could instead have a solar panel, light laptop with lots of nudes, and a printer. Source out the ink and paper from office buildings and trade nudes for stuff.
LOL, imagine thinking a motorcycle or jeep would do you any damn good (especially after the gas you can siphon from abandoned cars has gone bad), when what you really need is a bicycle. Bikepackers and touring cyclists will be the kings of the apocalypse.
Assuming best case scenario (a new jeep is shat into my driveway with a full tank of gas) I think the jeep is a MASSIVE boon. It increases movement ability and hauling capacity, and can be used to clear many obstacles you’d otherwise have to go around. Is its life finite? Yes, but it’ll give you that leg up at the start of the situation that may very well set you up for success long term.
Anything blocking paths. Can’t move broken vehicles, downed trees, etc with a bike. Sure a bike can go around, but with a jeep, I can go through, and have space to haul a bike back.
There are diesel Kawasaki KLR motorcycles that will run on literally anything, not that they’re very fast but they would at least preserve your stamina for when you need it.
They’re also extremely robust and simple to repair.
The earlier in the apocalypse, the more panicking humans running around, so you’re absolutely correct there. Unfortunately, depending on where you live and how early you realize what’s happening, the roads might be utterly jammed with no hope of getting away from population centers. The bike would be less of a tank, but you’ll almost certainly make it farther - but is that any good? Unless you’re confident in your ability to go full bear grylls, it might be best to just hunker down and make as little noise as possible for that initial pandemonium.
I’d probably stay clear of basically anywhere that you’d wanna go in an apocalypse for those 72 hours, because everybody else has the same idea. Find somewhere with a second story, block or preferably destroy the staircase, and stay as quiet as possible while scavenging what you can.
Fire Axe - for fire wood collection as well as wood based structures for shelter and defense. Also it is a decent weapon that takes relatively little skill to effectively wield.
German Shepard - loyal and lethal companionship, living thinking alarm bell, will instinctively assist in protection/attacking, could be trained to track game. Will gladly accept food scraps, the bones and flesh of my enemies, and pets as payment for services rendered.
Body armor - reduces risk of infection through scratches to body as well as mild protection against various weapons. Also an added insulative thermal layer for the cold. Body plate can be replaced with old thinkpads as needed
Almost nobody picks the katana. Even the people who pick it mocking the sword!
I can’t really blame them because they didn’t give you the option to pick the complete set for the katana to shine. If you use it with fedora you can teleport behind the zombies and kill them!
Nobody knows that the katana has this hidden skill bonus if you use it with fedora because this hidden mechanic only passed to the few chosen people in the secret society hidden under the house that people like to call “the basement”
If we’re going on “brain damage to kill” rules you’re going to need to clean sweep their head off or find a way to the brain. As cool as it is, that’s a big ask for something designed for one swift body shot. I’d look for the spear since it’s the most effective peasant weapon and be real, we’re all about peasant skilled.
Gas will expire eventually and you could just hotwire one of the many abandoned cars anyways, if the roads aren’t blocked by said cars. Bullets will run out unless you find a gun shop, in which case you get guns anyways. Water purifying is easy enough to do without a machine.
My picks would be German Shepherd, Axe, First Aid, and Radio.
There’s a reason we domesticated dogs, they are useful in so many different ways like hunting, defense, and security (and companionship). Especially German Shepherds, you can see the damage they do when used by police.
Axes are survivalist 101 and some are practically multi tools despite being simple.
First Aid because infections, zombie or not, are the real killers throughout history.
The radio’s more of a gamble, but it’s your best chance to find a new settlement, monke strong together and all that. Also you can maybe stay informed on what’s happening in other parts of the country. (And it lets me flex my Amateur Radio License).
I think I’d take the night vision goggles over the radio. You’re much more likely to find a radio. Situational awareness at night will be a huge survival factor.
Its a relatively recent development that u can just walk into the supermarket and buy a bag of dog food that will last a month, u won’t have that in the wild - how u gonna feed the dog?
It’s good for general protection too. It can soften blows from other humans or just accidental injury while scavenging dilapidated buildings. What we consider to be minor bumps and scrapes now can be life threatening when you have inadequate medical supplies, malnutrition, sleep deprived, no sanitation, etc.
I don’t have a PhD in zombiology but zombies will bite you wherever they can. Depending on what kind of zombies we’re talking about a bite alone might turn you or not. So body armor could be useful for some kinds of zombies and utterly useless for others.
He’s right, unless you study up on making biodiesel. Then you have the upper hand in the argument, as a diesel Jeep can be run on biodiesel. Rendering those fatty zombie corpses to fuel should be a functional disposal method.
Not a terrible play, but it has a BIG downside you might not be considering.
99.99% of the corn grown first world, and a lot of other food crops, are sterile hybrid varieties that don’t readily reseed themselves (Monsanto and company HATE when farmers don’t have to buy seed every year).
Once there is no more harvesting or maintenance on stockpile equipment, that supply will dwindle faster than you might expect.
Fuck corn. It is patently one of the worst feedstocks for ethanol. The only reason you hear so much of it is because there is so much money wrapped up in it already and it is a way to use up excess stock. No, switchgrass is the answer. Hearty, more biomass per km² than just about any other crop, has high cellulose content (which is what gets turned into ethanol), and can be cultivated just about anywhere on the continent with little maintenance or involvement. You could probably get away with planting a few fields in pockets around a stronghold which could be checked on a couple of times a week and harvested for an extended period, then you just have to process it as usual. It is even relatively short and dense, so zombies would struggle to hide in it and it would act as a natural barrier to slow the advance of both Zs and any nairdowells that would seek to assault you. Fuel source and defensive emplacement in one.
That and after a while gasoline expires even in the tank of a car. After like a few months he would have to be making his own fuel anyway, because whatever gets siphoned can’t be used.
I’m swapping the first-aid kit for the crossbow, but spot on for the rest. Body armor is rare and definitely raises your odds of survival in the short term after the initial spread. A machete is the ultimate all-purpose blade, good for defense as well as butchering, breeching, and it is easily maintained. And the water purifier is a no-brainer. Waterborn diseases are a real problem in any situation where public utilities become inaccessible and clean drinking water grows scarce.
Assuming that I am obviously able to expand my kit as I survive, the ranged weapon that uses easily craftable ammo would be ideal. A first aid kit could be cobbled together over the course of a few days of persistent scavenging. No promises on the crossbow, they are far less common than bandaids, gauze, sterilization solutions, and splints. Really the thing that would likely be the hardest to source is the suture needle that you should have in there.
I always loved 10k in Z-Nation for using the wrist rocket slingshot because that is truly the king ranged weapon for a survival scenario. Lightweight, ammo that is infinite and easily accessible, and lethal out to ranges that matter. Not to mention that they are very easy to maintain and repair.
All that said, I would likely accumulate the aforementioned electricity/fuel items as I am familiar with the production of biofuels and can build some alternative generators (wind, methane, solar concentrators) for electricity once I have somewhere secure. Methane in particular has always been attractive to me for survival scenarios because anaerobic decomposition is a great way of dealing with biowaste and what is left over ends up making really good fertilizer. Just need a couple of propane tanks, some steel, and a car battery to rig as a welder and you can turn one into a digestor and the other into storage, then get a couple 2 cycle lawnmower engines and some AC motors and you can get a power supply running. At least enough to run some incandescent bulbs. Need a voltage regulator for more complex electronics to keep the line clean, but that is a different conversation.
They only have to be serviceable, which is manageable just like they were made in from antiquity to the modern era, wood. It might take some practice, but a hand-carved shaft that has the tip dipped into molten lead or pewter could make a rather effective bolt. You could use more modern materials as well; various types of piping, scavenged hardware like nails and dowels, etc. They may be less accurate and harder on the crossbow, but they don’t need the longest range in this topic and the wear and tear on the crossbow may be justified if you know how to repair it and maintain it to ward off failure. Obviously, there would be trial and error, but it wouldn’t take too long to become a competent Fletcher.
Also, as I said, for usability and reliability in efficacy and ammo sourcing, nothing beats a wrist rocket slingshot. The weapon itself is lightweight and can use everything from ball bearings and buck shot to large bolts and nuts to gravel. There is virtually no terrestrial environment that you wouldn’t be able to find something that can be used as absolutely lethal ammo.
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