What happens to mercenary units that die during an outbreak mission?

Question

I'm not very far into the game yet, but I've played a couple of missions where I accidentally killed my infantry team with my artillery team. Every time this occurs I have restarted because I wasn't sure if the killed units would be permanently gone after the mission.

Does anyone know what happens to units that are killed during a mission?

Answer

Your units won't die permanently if you shell them with artillery (or they are otherwise killed during a mission), and they will still gain XP for zombies they killed before their untimely demise.

However, they will miss out on potential XP they could gain had they survived to kill more zombies during the course of the mission.

Check more discussion of this question.

How do I kill every zombie in this map?

Question

Could you help me to exterminate those zombies? Right now I'm waiting they finish to enter in the map then I use the dynamite to blow everything. The problem is where I'm using mines and cannon (blu "dots"). The cannon is not that precise though and there's a long recharge phase.

Do you happen to know a more useful strategy?

Answer

You might be out of luck with this one. I would suggest placing the dynamites near each gas structure (where you have them is fine), as well as one more where the upper blue dot is. This should take care of the right side, although more than likely there will be a few stragglers.

The blue mines can try to control the 3 left entries of the zombies, on the road about 2 buildings from where they enter. If you're extremely lucky, you can catch the stragglers on both the left and right with the mortar (cannon?), but agent86 is right, this map might not be possible with your items.

Your setup looks pretty good to me too... so you might have to scrap this guy. Getting the stragglers without foot patrol or snipers is impossible for some setups.

Check more discussion of this question.

How many zeds does a mega zed count as?

Question

I've been playing a bit of Atom Zombie Smasher lately. I'm pretty sure that I'm losing, as the zeds have amassed enough points for mega zeds to start appearing (and I'm not exactly keeping up).

That aside, I was wondering how many kills are registered for a unit when it kills a mega zed, as I am pondering ways to get the "Destroy 50 Zed in one XXX explosion", where XXX is one of the available types of explosives.

If mega zeds register as several kills, they would provide a lucrative venue to getting said achievements.

Answer

I tested this in my copy just now, by adding a mod that caused them to spawn at the start of the game, and it doesn't seem like they count significantly more than regular zombies. I bombarded the mega zed with artillery until he died, and I got credit for 2 "regular zombie" kills.

I had a tough time with the game until I turned on a few of the options to make it easier. If you can pick your own squads, you can take barricades and the weaponry that you want to use for the achievements. You can still get the achievements even if the difficulty settings are turned down.

I found that it was possible with the barricades to funnel several zombie hordes into one "kill zone" which would make it easier to get them in one go. The mines are probably going to be the worst, as you can't control when they detonate.

Since your squads level up, you may want to wait a bit until you've got some larger infestations to deal with before you attempt these achievements. I heavily preferred the artillery, so I don't have most of the dynamite/mine achievements.

Check more discussion of this question.

How do I win the KringleJammer mini-game?

Question

I'm trying to get the KringleJammer achievement for the upcoming Steam winter achievement hunt, but I can't seem to do it. According to the achievement description, there are at least 7 waves, but I can't even get past wave 3. Sooner or later, a zombie reaches the civilians and sets off a massive chain reaction that I can't contain.

Are there any tips or strategies that might help?

Answer

I found a few tips here:

A good tip was to not do too well on the early waves, because every civilian left alive is another zombie you'll have to kill later when you will already have too many zombies to kill. Let most of the people die early; as long as a single one is left alive, you don't lose. An even better tip was that the game speed modifiers from the main game work in this mode. Use the space bar or plus and minus to reduce the speed as low as ten percent and it becomes a cakewalk. And if the achievement doesn't pop up, start a new campaign, go into the first area, and concede.

And a few more here:

Some tips on how to beat the waves: you have 40-50 seconds per wave and the only way to lose a wave is to let the time expire or lose all of your humans. A major outbreak could end it for you in the later stages if the zombies infect a giant pack of humans (which they almost certainly will).

The best way I've found to deal with an outbreaks is, in the earlier stages when you have plenty of time to spare, just let the zombies infect a manageable amount of humans; so you'll have less of them to worry about latter on. If you do this you shouldn't have much of a need for bombs and can neglect picking them up if there's something else you need to focus on.

Check more discussion of this question.

Should I worry about territorial contiguity when choosing what territories to not save every month?

Question

During every month, a number of territories get infected and I get to pick which one to rescue.

At times however it seems there's very little to base this choice on. For example, right now I can choose between seven territories, all with a population of 125, all with a difficulty of 1, all rewarding mercenaries.

Is contiguity something I want to worry about? For example, right now two newly infected territories are contiguous with areas I own. I'm worried that might be bad news for those areas.

Answer

Eventually Zed territories will appear at level 4. There are NO survivors to rescue here, instead you must destroy all Zed before a time limit runs out. If you do not take care of these zones, then nearby Zed territories will have their level grow at the end of each turn (1→2, 2→3, 3→4). Left unchecked, this can lead to many zones being level 4, with no survivors for you to rescue, and each level 4 zone able to make the surrounding zones even harder.

You do eventually unlock something to help deal with the level 4 zones called the Llama Bomb. Just don't try to go in and clean it out at your first chance, because you just aren't powerful enough to deal with it at the time (at least I wasn't).

Here is an image I found showing what the Llama Bomb looks like when you use it in game. The green zones are the territories that the Llama Bomb will affect.

Check more discussion of this question.

Struggling with Atom Zombie Smasher, any Suggestions

Question

Im loving Atom Zombie Smasher, but i dont seem to be very good at it!

in fact im really stuggling to even rescue the min amount of people, so i was wondering if the community had any tips and tricks they would like to share with all the other smashers out there?

Answer

Each campaign is going to vary for you based on the randomness of the game itself, but the following are a few suggestions to hopefully help you out.

In the early stages of the game try to kill all zombies before the sun goes down. This will conquer the territory and give you points at the end of each round for the rest of the game. Capturing territories early on is definitely the most important thing.

Early on upgrade the helicopters return time rather than the speed that it picks up civilians. Its already relatively fast (about .24 seconds initially) so you want to make sure your helicopter will drop off and get back as fast as possible to pick up more civilians. Do this for at least the first 3 levels of the helicopter.

If your finding the stages too difficult use the minus key to slow the game down. This can help in the beginning to give you some thinking time.

For a few of the different units of the game heres a few strategies I like to use.

Infantry Start them off covering one side of the zombie entrances, and fall back to your main landing area over time picking off zombies as you go. In my opinion this is the most important unit in the game. They are really good for cleaning up any stragglers. I like to throw a point or two in accuracy first and then work on their speed.

Snipers I try to position these units so they can cover one set of the zombie entrances. Then move their target location closer to the helipad as time goes on, you can get pretty good coverage if you place them in one of the corners of the map and target the opposite side.

Detonation Charges I put these a few blocks ahead of where the zombies are coming out (2-3), this maximizes amount of zombies that will be killed. I make sure they are all lined up with each other vertically, since you have to set them off all at once.

If your still finding the game too difficult don't be afraid to turn some of the mods on, like Triplets, or Chooser. Triplets allows you to have more than one of each type of mercenaries, and Chooser allows you to choose which mercenary are on each months lineup.

Check more discussion of this question.