Smoke Grenades are actually great, and it took me so much time to find that out! It's much better than even Scentblock, but back when I started playing, I used to throw them in between me and the zeds, and just assumed they reduce the vision range by a little. Safe to say, with enough smokes you can clear lots of PHs without much fuss.

Glad you enjoy it!

Apparently there are variants that don’t drain fuel, but I still haven’t had one in my playthroughs. Looking forward to it

Nah one of them gets kidnapped later and you have to save them, then they become allied. That’s one of the special enclaves that have certain missions and give you special benefits when you complete the mission set.

@@danielthompson8784 thx, I thought friendly status plus one mission equals Allied, but I guess not always.

@@5Incognito usually yes with most enclaves that’s how it works. But there’s a few special enclaves that have a whole mission set that you do for them and then they become allies and give you a bonus. There’s a mechanic enclave, these medical guys, and a couple of other ones I can’t think of right now. Once you’ve played a few runs you should start to recognize them when the special enclaves spawn in. Edit: you can also purposefully fail these special enclave missions and recruit the rest of them. For example the mechanics have one of their group go missing I believe at one point. If you fail to save that one then the other two will hit you up later and ask if they can both join your community. Whereas if you complete their mission set then they give you some kind of vehicle bonus. I forget what it is but I think you get a car and they can get you repair kits too or something like that. I haven’t finished their mission set in a hot minute so I don’t remember.

If you go crafting only, try also adding “no plague heart loot” & “no trading”. Makes it tough

@@geoffkannenberg6167 Thanks, I was thinking about doing it that way.. Last one I did I was only allowed to loot buildings where there are infestations, plague heart buildings after killing the heart, missions, traders and buildings when Enclaves move to new base. That one was tough, going without rucks n loot for long periods. I also could trade with Traders when they come to the map.. Trading with enclaves was only allowed after doing a mission for them.

It’s a new mechanic in the game where at X intervals you will get a new game condition (called “curveballs”). They can have positive or negative effects. In this play through, Brian has set the game to give all negative curveballs with the max settings (so as hard as you can make the game). The curveball adjustment settings are currently only in the beta version and will release to the general build sometime in the coming weeks. In the current build of the game, you can just choose to have curveballs on or off.