Survivalist: Invisible Strain – Combat Mechanics Guide

Guide to Combat Mechanics

All credit goes to Red riding hood the third!

Mechanics

Hand to hand

• Lvl 1: Allows to aim at body parts.
• Crippled enemies easily tumble if their legs are targeted.
• Tumbled enemies will be stunlocked if attacked repeatedly.

Ranged

• Lvl 0: Easy to miss targets, will attract attention.
• Lvl 1: Able to aim at legs.
• Lvl 2: Able to aim at heads.
• Snipers lose against bows due to firing speed and similiar range.

Sneaking

• Lvl 0: Able to do sneak attacks.
• Lvl 0: Able to sprint while sneaking.
• Lvl 5: Able to sprint while sneaking without getting detected.
• Unarmed sneak attacks lead into choking holds, huge exhaustion.
• Armed sneak attacks with the hunting knifes lead into stabs, possible to perform on fitness Lvl 0.

Armour and Helmets

• Blocks bullets, arrows and sharp weapons.
• Useless against blunt weapons, molotovs, pipebombs and zombie bites.
• Can break over time.
• Dealing with one Zombie.

Fighting

• Zombies cannot deal normal damage, they solely rely on grabbing and biting.
• Zombies will leap occasionally, if they miss they will tumble and be on the ground for 1-3 seconds.
• Zombie can easily be crippled if you aim at their legs, even with the hunting knife. (Needs Lvl1)
• Zombies can be stunlocked when they’re on the ground. Making them easy to handle one on one.
• It is possible to deal with white strain zombies at fitness Lvl 0 and hand to hand Lvl 1.

Assassinate

• Zombies can be dispatched quickly with a hunting knife while sneaking up behind them.
• At sneaking Lvl 0 sprinting while sneaking will alert them.
• At sneaking Lvl 5 sprinting while sneaking will not alert them.
• Approaching zombies from behind with wind direction aimed forward will alert them per smell.
• Approaching zombies from behind with wind direction aimed backwards will not alert them.

Fitness

• Lvl 0 fitness will easily exhaust you in combat.
• You can recover during combat if it’s only one zombie, side step and be patient.
• Assassinating without a weapon will exhaust you too much, causing it to fail early.
• Dealing with multiple zombies.

Fighting

• Determine their colour and cripple the weakest ones first. Green -> Blue -> Red -> White
• Do not kite groups of zombies into open areas, it will easily alert other zombies and exhaust you.
• Rely on forests to make them lose sight of you and change directions.
• Take advantage of settlements on the map and make them deal with the zombies.
• Crippled hordes can be dispatched one by one, stun one by targeting their legs and repeat.
• You can lure zombies to your directions by sight or smell, forests are the best place for 1 vs 1.
• Hide inside cars or buildings in emergencies. Sneak and leave from a different direction.

Ranged

Firearms

• Lvl 0: Useless, will attract attention.
• Lvl 1: Allows to aim at legs.
• Lvl 2: Allows to aim at heads.
• Useless against armour and helmets.

Archery

• Lvl 0: Useless, wont hit anything.
• Very effective against snipers by stunlocking them.
• Effective for bleeding out humans.

Molotovs

• Can take out humans in one hit before they start burning.
• Can take out green zombies in one hit before they start burning.
• White zombies have too much health, making molotovs near useless unless used in bulk.
• Can take out wooden barricades.
• Ignores armour.

Pipebomb

• Can one shot white zombies.
• Can demolish iron fences.