When is it best too?

[Chopper]

Hey Guys,

So a topic which I personally have put a lot of thought into is when it's optimal to do certain things.

Now none of this is necessary in anyway, it's just something I like to think about.

At what point in the game does it become quicker to hoard and kill rather than kill on sight with say a Ray Gun?

At what point in the game does it become quicker to move from a wall gun to a box gun, and still be able to kill immediately on sight?

At what point during the late 20's to 40's do the levels start becoming slightly quicker as the spawn speed picks up?

Any ideas?

[Blamco177]

To be honest I use mostly honest bullet weapons to kill my zombies, not a lot of the Wonder weapons. So my opinion may not be the best.

I would say the later rounds at around 25-27 really start to pick up the pace, while the mid 30's start to become much longer, large kiting type rounds.

In my experience the 22 round is usually when I pick up an MP5k and start emptying out on a horde. Instead of having a cluster then pulling out a weapon such as the Law, or other a-o-e type weapons. The exception being monkeys. Since they are there for a more... defensive/support class.

Going from wall weapon to box really depends on what you get, a sniper is actually good for any round if you have a good team, if otherwise it's rarely a good idea. An Rpk or other mg's should be used in the 15-16 round range.

Most other weapons, manly assault rifles, differ for everyone.

Just my opinion.

[Tom852]

Good question, but very difficult to answer. The zombie health and speed increases very fluently, so it's super hard to mention a strict boundary.

You also have to consider the circumstances. With the M14, solo, Round 10, you will get overrun. So the answer to one question would be: "Start hoarding in 10". But when I go to a very low frequented area in a 4ppl game (e.g. Speed Reload in COTD), carrying a Ray, you can kill on sight until 40. As well, when you are all 4ppl together and one giving you thunder support, 2 giving you ray support, you can camp and kill on sight quite a bit longer, then if the teams primary guns are M14, China Lake, RPK and CZ75.

SOLO:

Would kill on sight max till 15 with Ray. 15-20 slight approach of an unfinished train, 20+ starting to gain max trains with Ray.

With wall guns + Bullet guns, you will have to gain max trains already in 10-12, when all become runners.

Some exceptions might exist, such as an upgraded Krauss might do a 'kill on sight' until 13 easily. An papped Python (Cobra) with speed reload, with perfect aim and seeing zombies from far will allow you maybe up to 18-20 to kill on sight.

Killing on sight always brings you the risk, that you go into ADS (tunnel vision) and get surprised by zombies coming from left and right. To avoid this, I highly recommend to start doing trains in 10 with your wall gun.

Or, you hit the box at 10 and see what it brings. If you get a good gun, you might be able to wait a bit longer with hoarding.

The key is just round 10 there, since sickle will no more be a one hit kill, and all zombies will now start to run.

The boundaries I would mention for an average coop game (thinking of spawn Ascension 4ppl, each in different area).

Round 15 (+/-): Wall Gun Damage starts to become low to kill on sight.

Round 20 (+/-): Unupgraded Wall Guns too weak, upgraded acceptable.

Round 25 (+/-): Upgraded Wall Gun Damage starts to become low.

Round 30 (+/-): Ray starts to feel slow (approx 8 shots to kill a zombie...)

Round 40 (+/-): Ray starts to feel "That thing does nothing".

The answers to your concrete questions:

-At what point in the game does it become quicker to hoard and kill rather than kill on sight with say a Ray Gun?

Never, kill on sight is faster forever. To make max progress speed, you must reduce each zombie's life to a minimum. And when you kill him as soon as you see him, he lived shorter than when you let him alive for 10-40 seconds to bring him in a train. The problem is, this is not realistic, since it's a bit ammo intense, and you cannot shoot all the spread out spawners so quickly after each other

For a realistic speed run: Round 20, start to hoard + Thunder.

-At what point in the game does it become quicker to move from a wall gun to a box gun, and still be able to kill immediately on sight?

If I could, I think I'd say Round 1. But to get it realistic, just bowie till 9 and 10-15 maybe Wall Gun and 15 maybe Ray. For speed runs Ray asap, best

-At what point during the late 20's to 40's do the levels start becoming slightly quicker as the spawn speed picks up?

Increased spawn speed and increased amount of zombies equalize each other for a while. But a round will normally not be significantly faster than the previous round. Especially in 30+ the increased hoards and life points will make the rounds longer. Maybe this answers your question

We can theorize as we want, best will always be: When your feeling tells you that you kill not on a max or almost max speed, get some new equipment.

[Chopper]

Damn that was on point Tom. [brains]

I thought I could kill on sight for longer with a wall gun than you actually can, but from some Verruckt earlier it's apparent it's more like 11 or 12.

The main one I want to know is, and Tom gave his answer on at what round does the speed of spawn overwhelm your ability to select zombies and kill, within a very small moving area.

And it's somewhere between 15 and 20, which on thinking about it I agree with.

[Superhands]

Yeah, as Tom said it's a hard question to answer in the case of co-op games.

In solo, I pretty much kill on sight with the big blade before round 10. Round 10+, they start running, I like to hoard them up and kill them instantly with either M&S or Ray Gun. With certain areas - the spawn rooms of both Ascension and Moon being good examples - doing it like this, rounds 10-15 are gonna take just over a minute each.

Round 20 I still use the same strategy but generally switch to a wonder weapon to do the killing.

Round 35+ is when they start spawning in really fast so I may often change my strategy to take advantage of this - starting this strategy at round 30 or even a little later doesn't always work too well, spawning is still slightly too slow. The spawns in these cases can take around 30 seconds per group, so with 4 or 5 groups at round 35 we're looking at about 2-3 minutes to complete this round.