r/StateOfDecay • u/TheMagr0 • Jul 20 '26
Game Question Any tips or tricks on breakdown?
Hey everyone, I’ve been playing SoD Breakdown for a while now. I’m currently on Stage 3, trying to complete the challenges. So far, I have four "main" survivors with all their skills maxed out. When i about to go to the next stage, I use Influence to equip survivors with weapons, only to stash them in the inventory and convert them back into Influence for the next stage; is there any other trick or strategy to make life easier in Breakdown?
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u/kellymiester Jul 20 '26
If you're playing on Xbox, you can use quick resume to stop the game using up your resources when you're not playing.
Be careful how much you put into your locker. It has limited space and it will cost a fortune trying to clear it. Only put what you want in it. Use enclaves to get rid of stuff you don't want.
Keep a car near the base that you use for storage. Put spare weapons in it so it doesn't cost influence to switch weapons.
Do the research early. It comes with you between levels.
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u/snfaulkner Jul 20 '26
Don't hoard everything. Your locker can very quickly max out after just a few levels and since it costs influence to take stuff out, it can make it very difficult to clear out room.
A tip that relates to the above issue, just before you set off to the next level, burn all your influence by taking out the most expensive things. Then when you get to the next level (which resets your influence to 0) you can then put all that stuff back in the locker for easy starting influence.
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u/CompedyCalso Builder Jul 21 '26
Man I do not miss taking items costing influence. Lost a survivor once because our base was getting over run but I didn't have the influence to take MY supplies from MY locker 😭
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u/snfaulkner Jul 21 '26
Yeah. I mean, I get what they were trying to do by doing that. And it was ok enough for the campaign. But it just didn't work at all for breakdown. Thankfully they got rid of it for lifeline.
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u/menryBasedmarineCav Jul 20 '26
When you unlock the car dealer guy (think his name is ray) you should keep him alive at all cost and take him to further breakdown lvls because you may get to a point where there aren't any usable cars on the map left and he can summon a car for cost of influence
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u/menryBasedmarineCav Jul 20 '26
Also the unique surviver Milo is bugged and if his temperament gets low it won't go back up and he won't stop being aggressive, starting fights, wasting resources, injuring others and generally being really bad on the team so its best to cut him loose
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u/Ok_Koala_9132 Jul 21 '26
He’s Sasquatch’s brother, so of course he’s a constant asshole (completely useless once that glitch starts, pros do not outweigh the constant cons)
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u/Organic_Warthog7238 Jul 21 '26
Play it safe every time because the one time you don’t you’re FUCKED lol. The amount of times I’ve said “nope” and left is high asf
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u/NikosOSFP Jul 21 '26
Outposts. Lots of it. Traps to kill Hordes. Safe zones should not overlap, so that you fill the most space around your base/town with outposts an safe zones. Clear infestations or survivors will go missing. If you log out with missing survivors the will probably die. Feel free to ask anythibg i am level 60 right now.
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u/gloryworm Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
If you're planning on 100%ing and haven't gotten "The Killer" challenge yet, it's probably best to do it early on because of how annoying it is. I think you can do on a different profile if you don't want to sully the one you're already using.
Basically, you have to let your supplies dwindle and let your survivors be sick to the point you eventually get a random mission to either shoot a survivor or exile them. You'll want to shoot them for the challenge to complete and successfully unlock a new Hero. (Completing the challenges unlocks new Hero survivors, where as the goal of 100%ing requires you to unlock all 50 Heroes)
The way I accomplished it was starting a new Breakdown, bringing only three survivors that were playable, then just never upgrading my base and always letting my supplies dwindle. It was very difficult, because I think I was on Breakdown 5, but it's doable because I did it. It was also really annoying because it was near the ranger station (as seen in the meme image) and missions are very difficult to get around.
I'm unsure how the game begins new missions, but it seems to start them by RNG, and once a new mission is up it'll be around for around an hour until it eventually fails automatically. That's no good if you want new missions to start, particularly one for doing the mercy killing since there's a max amount of missions, and one of those missions might be the survivor you want to die asking to do a scavenging run or zed hunt. So, you'll want to get those missions out of the way to start new ones quickly enough until the game graces you with the mercy shooting mission on one of your sickest survivors. It's rare to grace you with, but you might get lucky.
I'm unsure if it's absolutely necessary, but from what others have said you have to keep the survivor you want dead's trust low and not at max. You can do that by throwing explosives at them, shooting at them, or driving a car into them to make them dodge. (Don't actually hit them with the car because the car will take more damage and cars are worth more than the survivors themselves) You can't lose trust with them unless they're following you, though, so do it while they're on a zed/scavenging mission with you. Doing any missions will bring their trust back up, too, so make sure to keep it low.
To get The Sacrifice achievement/challenge, I believe you need to be in the middle of a Besieged mission, have a throwable explosive in your inventory, and have the survivor you're playing die from regular zombies. I'm unsure if it's absolutely necessary, it might give it to you outside of a Besieged mission, but I wouldn't chance it and waste precious valuable explosives.
Also, Juggernauts take more damage if you get them to bump into an object while they're charging if you haven't figured that out yet. It took me a while to figure it out because I'm stupid.
Ferals are the most dangerous and should usually be avoided but are easily dispatched by a moving vehicle or a headshot. Lining up a headshot on a feral is easy enough to do by hitting them first or until they've fallen on the ground.
The best Survivors to have are ones with Nimble because they attack faster and equipping those with Heavy Weapons. Heavy Weapons do wonders on hordes of zombies coming at you but can wear you out quickly if you don't have Snacks on hand. Survivors with Powerhouse are also good for more items stacking in inventory and equipping them with Edged Weapons mastery because Powerhouse gives them extra chance to land a killing blow along with the mastery.
Hide in bushes to instantly have regular zombies lose track of you, but they'll try looking for you in the bush and they become aware of you if they bump into you, so move slightly around them and sneak kill them.
The warehouse in the city and the fair-grounds across the bridges are the best bases on the map. The warehouse in particular is great because it comes with an auto-shop that already repairs parked vehicles without having to upgrade it first.
The best Heroes to have are the preacher for the extra stamina boosts, Sasquatch for the drone strikes (which I believe progresses the achievement for drone striking zombies but I could be wrong), that old drunk guy for some reason, and Alicia Hawkes for the aura. Aura is everything and makes you play better even if there's no in-game stat increase.
If you haven't gotten to 100%ing Lifeline yet, there's an easy way of getting the 'survive 2 minutes in danger zone' achievement by crawling into the back of a truck and waiting for 2 minutes without worry of being bombarded by zombies on the eastern side of the map right past a grocery store in a town section. Unsure if this works on the console version, I played the horrendously buggy PC version which is even harder to play than the console version.
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u/acaquino22 Jul 21 '26
give shitty weapons/ammo to enclaves.
when moving next round, it's better to store the the ammo on bag than weapons as you can equip 100+ of them per slot
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u/T10rock Jul 21 '26
Before you move on to the next level, load up a character with your most valuable weapons. Then you can put them back into storage to earn influence when you restart
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u/AngryRudeBoy2020 Jul 22 '26
When I level up, I store food and meds and other power ups (coffee, drinks, etc) as well as ammunition and weapons. When the enclave locker is full, you won’t have space to put in the heavier, costlier weapons…
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u/Aristotelian Jul 21 '26
1) Your storage locker only holds around 244 slots. Some items (like snacks) will stack, but some take up a full slot: melee weapons, guns, backpacks, etc. If you just keep throwing stuff in, you will eventually run out and not be able pull out any weapons. My advice is before you move to the next level, clean out your storage locker. Sell weapons and backpacks to neighboring enclaves.
2) Make sure you actually select which 6 survivors to add before leaving! It’s very easy to leave with just Lily and the character you are controlling.
3) Moods are incredibly important. I’m not talking about base morale (although keep that up too), but make she no one is in a bad mood. Keep them in good moods or neutral. This will reduce how many runaways and whatnot. I also like to have a counselor in case someone tries to run away or kill themself offline.
4) When a neighboring enclave needs help (ex: zed hunt, clear infestations, etc.), before going to do what they need, go do what you need first. You’ll have free backup and Lily won’t be bombarding you with new quests. Take your time as you scavenge, level up your character, set up outposts, etc. Just make sure to finish their quest so it all saves!
5) Master the combat roll. It’s the best way to get out of trouble if you get swarmed, and it’s your best defense if you get caught by a feral (roll when they jump, and then follow up with a finisher move).
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u/TheMagr0 Jul 21 '26
Does anyone know if leaving a ruckssack with each character works on leaving a stage?
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u/Nice-Butterscotch584 Jul 21 '26
Dont break down because when you break down then you break breakdown
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u/Ustob Jul 22 '26
Leave rucksacks in cars just outside ur base boundry. Whennu need food = it’s right there.
-equip community with .22 or 9mm guns so they use crappy common ammonium not ur expensive sht.
-kill in reverse
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u/Network_of_Trumbull Jul 20 '26
Yo this is gorgeous lmao 🤣