7 Days To Die: Best Base Locations

Highlights

• Base building crucial for storage & defense in Blood Moon hordes in 7 Days To Die game.
• Pillbox Base helps manage heat mechanic while ensuring safe crafting stations.
• Ruined Factory offers mid-game solution for Blood Moon hordes with minimal effort.

7 Days To Die is an excellent open-world zombie survival game. It incorporates missions, crafting, exploration, and base building into a single, well-thought-out whole. Depending on the settings, it can become very challenging in the late game and is great fun to play co-op with friends.

Base building in 7 Days To Die takes on two purposes. Firstly, as in most games, a base can be a place for players to store loot and materials, craft items, or just hang out. However, the game also has a tower defense style mode baked into the game, in the form of the Blood Moon. Every 7 days at midnight, 3 waves of zombies will attack the player, and will not stop until either the player or all of the zombies are dead. This means a base needs to be defensible as well.

Blood Moon hordes get progressively harder, based on two factors. Firstly, the player’s overall level. Secondly, the overall gamestage variable. The higher these two factors, the harder the Blood Moon hordes become. A low-level horde might be just a couple of dozen basic zombies. A high-level horde can be dozens of high-level zombies, including irradiated and feral zombies. Players will generally migrate through several different bases as they move to higher-level biomes, and progress toward tackling the end-game Blood Moon hordes.

7 PvP Hidden Base

What Can’t Be Found Can’t Be Stolen

The first entry is something of an odd one, as it doesn’t cover a single location. Players that decide to try a PvP survival server need a hidden base location to store loot, craft items and ammo, and have a general space where they can be safe if they need to go AFK, for example.

There are a few simple rules to follow here. The base location needs to be away from any cities or towns and have low player traffic. It needs to be invisible at a glance, only being spotted if a player is close to it. Look at the screenshot above. Here, a hole has been dug down through a boulder, and an underground base can then be dug out beneath it. Unless a player stands on top of the boulder, they will not know a hidden base is there.

Other security measures include only visiting the base at night, with all light sources such as a helmet lamp or flashlight turned off. If driving a vehicle, store it some distance away from the hidden base, so the vehicle sound doesn’t lead an enemy player to the base. Other good hidden base locations are dug into the side of a cliff, or beneath the waterline of a river or lake.

6 Gas Storage Silo

Zero Effort First Blood Moon Base

When starting a new 7 Days To Die game, either solo or by joining a server, the first 7 days will go very quickly, and the first Blood Moon will be upon the player before they know it. It is very unlikely that a new player will have much more than some basic armor and a wooden club to tackle their first Blood Moon horde with.

A great way to get through this tricky first Blood Moon is to locate the gas storage silo as shown in the screenshot. It is a ready-made, low-level Blood Moon base. All the player has to do is stand at the top of the ladder, and smash each zombie in the Blood Moon horde as they climb the ladder. Note though, that this base location will only work for the first Blood Moon a new player has to go through. It cannot handle larger hordes than this.

5 Trailer Park Roof

Good For Low-Level Players

Assuming a new player has survived their first Blood Moon using a location such as the aforementioned gas storage silo, it’s time for a slightly more advanced base. At low-level, gameplay is all about gaining experience, farming loot, and unlocking crafting recipes. This means a base location is needed that is secure but can also manage a couple of Blood Moon hordes while the player is getting established.

The Trailer Park POI is a pretty good choice here. The corner trailer shown in the screenshot is constructed from steel. This means a player can build some basic crafting stations and storage boxes inside, and know that it is unlikely a zombie can smash their way in and destroy everything.

Looking at the screenshot, it can be seen that cobblestone blocks have been used to create a basic stairway up to the roof. This is intended to be used as a very simple way to deal with low-level Blood Moon hordes. The player stands on the roof of the trailer and uses a melee weapon to smash the deadly zombies as they reach the top of the stairway. If things get a little too hectic, switch to a ranged weapon and clear the zombies off the stairway to gain some breathing space.

4 Pillbox Base

Taking The Heat Off

By now, the player is fairly well-established, and it is time to do something about the heat mechanic. The more player activity that takes place in an area, and also the more fire sources (such as running crafting stations and cooking fires), adds to the heat of an area. The higher the heat level, the more zombies will be attracted, and the higher the chance of a Screamer spawning. Therefore, until the player is ready to build an end-game base, a secure location to leave crafting stations running is needed.

This is where the Pillbox Base comes in. It is a simple structure that the player can build, with enough room inside to contain all the required crafting stations and a fair number of storage boxes. The idea is that the player only visits this base to drop off loot or to keep crafting stations running. The heat level for the area can become as high as possible, but unless the player is there, no zombies will spawn.

3 Factory Ruins

Simple Mid-Game Blood Moon Base

The problem with moving crafting and storage to a simple base such as the one covered in the previous section, is that the player then has no way of dealing with a Blood Moon horde. However, they are at a stage where they know they will soon need to build a custom base to handle end-game hordes and don’t want to waste time building a stop-gap Blood Moon base.

Finding a ruined factory is a good mid-game solution to Blood Moon hordes. Looking at the screenshot above, it can be seen that, with very little effort, a player can create a multi-level stairway up to the top floor, and block off other access routes. The addition of a few tactically placed auto turrets can turn the entire gauntlet into a zombie shredding machine. Such a structure won’t tackle late-game hordes, but it will work until the player is ready to build a custom horde base.

2 Bunker Bases

For Total Protection Regardless Of Heat

There are buildings dotted around the map that have hidden bunkers beneath them. In general, new players should avoid building a base in such a bunker, simply because there is only one route in and out, and it is possible to get trapped inside. But for an experienced player, or small groups playing co-op, finding a bunker and using it as a main crafting and storage location from the get-go can be an excellent choice.

That said, the heat mechanic is going to become a problem, and this kind of base is going to attract zombies, especially at night; however, there is a trick that can be used here. If a player digs down to the bedrock below the bunker and then hollows out a room, the space will be outside the zombie detection range and entirely safe. However, this is a large undertaking and will take some effort. Beginners should not try such a base on their first playthrough, but it can be a fun choice for experienced players.

1 Endgame Custom-Built Bases

Bring It On Zombies!

Everything up until now has been in preparation for this type of base. The player will be fully leveled, have unlocked all crafting recipes, and now face late-game stage Blood Moon hordes. They will also want to unify bases so that crafting and storage are in the same place as the Blood Moon base. This means going with a fully custom build.

Late-game hordes are deadly. Players will face dozens of high-level zombies in each of the three Blood Moon horde stages. Building a base that can repel such a horde is not simple. Some players have spent hundreds of hours trying different base designs and perfecting them.

The single most important takeaway is that the base needs to be built in a clear area, allowing approaching hordes to be targeted by auto-firing weapons at some range. If the player wants to build such a base inside a city so that they still have easy access to traders and missions, this may mean demolishing the surrounding buildings. Space is needed for digging trenches, placing traps, and setting up firing lanes.