One of the biggest misconceptions of player that I have seen out there is that the game starts when you open your roster, select deploy and hit that "Travel" button. And I just wanted to say that it is at the very least, is not true. The management gameplay is as important as the real time action part of the game. This guide will describe in depth, how these two mechanics work together.

The camp or management game mode should not be treated as a penalty bench that your character is sitting on, after a scavenging run. On a contrary, the camp is one of the most important tools available to players. It is an extension of the character (and character(s) in the near future as we plan to implement three additional character slots) and it allows players to access additional important features that are critical to survival in The Withering. Having said that, let me begin with some of the basics.

The players are taking control over their camp of survivors, and have to manage their people by providing certain type of resources that survivors need, like food and medicine. There are several ways to gather resources for the camp, one way is to scout the surrounding area for locations that might hold potential loot, then scavenge these locations by sending a team of survivors from the "Locations" menu, or taking control of your custom character and scavenging a location in the real time action game mode.

If the mission was successful, there is a chance that resources will be found on location and brought back to camp. The type of resources that can be found is depending on the location, the amount of resources depend on the location grade. Higher grade locations are harder to scavenge, but hold more resources.

To keep your population morale high, food and medicine resources should be at least the same number as survivors in the camp. If there are three survivors in the camp, then food and medicine should be at least three of each. Food will be consumed by the end of a game day, but medicine is only consumed in case of an illness outbreak.

Players can construct additional buildings in their camps, to gain access to new features like Radio Communication and Diplomacy, Production Interface, additional Storage or Living space. Fortifications can also be constructed to help players protect their camp from the outside world.

Most of those improvements will require resources / materials to complete. I will discuss in details camp improvements, resources and materials further in this guide.

There are several types of resources available to players, each resource has a purpose and can be used in either day to day camp maintenance, production, construction or camp upgrades.

Population resource
This is the most rare and important resource that players can find, survivors will be joining the camp if there is enough living space available. These survivors then become available to assign daily tasks to. The more available population the camp has, the more daily actions are available to players. But keep in mind, that survivors require other resources to maintain.



Food resource
Food can be found through scavenging, random events, farming or even traded with other survivor camps. This resource can also be broken down into materials and used in production recipes. This resource will be consumed by survivors by the end of the game day.




Wood resource
Wood can be scavenged from most discovered locations, it is the most common resource and is mostly used in construction, production or upgrades.




Metal resource
Metal is commonly used in construction, upgrades and production recipes. It can be scavenged from most discovered locations.




Fabrics resource
Fabrics are relatively rare resource type that can be scavenged from discovered locations. It can be broken down into materials and is commonly used in production recipes and upgrades.




Fuel resource
Fuel is used to power the generators for workshop and radio tower buildings in the camp. It can also be broken down into materials and used for production recipes. It is fairly common and can be scavenged from discovered locations.




Minerals resource
Minerals can be broken down into different materials that are commonly used in production of different ammo types. It is fairly common resource that can be scavenged from discovered locations.




Medicine resource
Medicine is a rare type of resource and it is used for maintaining a healthy state of survivors in the camp. It can be broken down into materials are used in production recipes. Scavenged from some locations.



Resources are displayed on top right of camp interface and have a maximum storage capacity. The maximum storage capacity for resources can be increased through constructing and upgrading a storage building in the camp, each level of the storage building will provide additional maximum resource capacity.



The numbers on that panel are displayed in the following format:

Current resource amount / Maximum resource amount

The population numbers are displayed in the following format:

Current population / Available population / Maximum population

Available population is also referred to as idle population and will be automatically assigned to construction and upgrade tasks.


There are several ways players can improve their camp and gain special bonuses or additional features that are unavailable from the start. These improvements will require resources and / or materials, as well as population to be either assigned or idle, depending on the nature of the improvement. Once an improvement is completed, the camp gains permanent bonus.

Construction
Players can construct buildings in the camp, each building serves a specific purpose. Some buildings generate resources, others provide different type of bonuses. The building description will appear on the construction panel once the building is selected. Once construction is started, all idle survivors will contribute to it's completion, by generating labour.

Fortifications
Players can build up their camps fortifications, increasing overall camp defenses. This bonus will be applied during the attack on the camp. Unlike construction missions, fortification tasks will require survivors to be assigned to them. Each assigned survivor will contribute labour towards the task.

Upgrades
There are several types of upgrades available to players from the Camp Upgrades panel. These upgrades are either directed at a specific building or task in the camp or provide general bonuses. Just like construction, upgrades are being processed by idle survivors.

Players can send survivors to perform several types of tasks. Some of those tasks can only be performed once a day or have a certain cool down timer before you can use them again. The tasks interface displays a name and description of the tasks once it has been selected. Camp bonuses and task difficulty penalties are calculated depending on several factors like camp morale, constructed buildings, task base difficulty and time of day (current phase). The success rate of the task is calculated as follows:

The sum of camp bonuses is subtracted from the sum of task difficulty modifiers. The number returned is then subtracted from a 100% chance of success.

For example:

Task difficulty is 85% with a 5% time of day effect penalty, total task difficulty is 90%. And camp morale is 50%. The success rate of this task will be calculated as follows:



The success rate of this task will be 60%.

Once this task has been initiated with the success rate of 60%, a random number is rolled between 1 and 100. If the result is higher than 40 (100% chance - 60% chance of success) then the task is completed successfully.

The lowest task success rate is always 5% with the highest is always 95%.

All currently active missions can be viewed under the "Missions" interface. Mission details will be displayed once the mission is selected from the list. You can abort any mission and gain back the assigned population and equipment. However, when a construction or an upgrade mission is aborted the resources spent on that mission, are lost.

There is a limit to how many missions can be active at once, to increase the active missions allowed, you must construct or level up the radio tower building from construction menu.


Production task requires population to be assigned. Production task interface allows you to select a Tier level of production and a category. Once the production item has been selected, a detailed information will be displayed. Each type of production requires different resources and materials, that can be used for Upgrades and camp Fortifications as well. The production task labour is calculated depending on the population assigned to it, with a bonus generated by the workshop building.

Production is one of the most important aspects of surviving in the world of "The Withering", it allows you to produce tools, equipment and gear for your survivors. As well as assemble medical resources to maintain a healthy population and more..


This panel displays all of the events currently happening. It allows you to keep track of some of the mission results as well as critical events such as bandit raids and infected hordes spotted around the camp. It is important to monitor the events, as some of them might have critical impact on your camp.


This is where players can manage their custom characters, train their stats and equip or store items. The information in the roster is displayed next to the characters portrait, it will show the current character state, stats and experience gained, that can be used to train character primary stats.

The "Deploy" button will bring up the deployment interface where players can choose to travel to either one of the locations that were discovered, or sites that are available. Once the character is deployed, camp status will be saved and players will be taking control of their custom characters in a third person survival simulation. Upon returning to camp, character state will be changed to resting, for 5 phases (Turns). If a character dies during the mission, it's status will be changed to wounded and remain so for 16 phases (Turns).

The current time of day in the camp will be reflected in the real time action gameplay, so plan your scavenging runs accordingly.


This should cover the basics of the management gameplay mode, I might be adding more information later down the road.

In this section of the guide, we will be discussing some of the basic principles of the real time action game mode, some of the mechanics and the enemies players will encounter during the gameplay.

There are two types of the environment players will visit while playing this game mode, Locations and Sites. Locations are small dedicated maps that will put players on a specific location that was discovered during the management phase. Sites on the other hand are large maps with various loot available, generated by random loot generators. Any type of resources can be found on a Site, however certain types have higher chances of spawning in specific parts of the map, like construction sites and abandoned service vehicles. Players will also be able to find survivors on Sites, by searching top levels of apartment buildings and other building interiors.

There are many places on a Site that can hold Materials and / or Resources. For example, searching a construction site on Woodsfield Central will most likely result in finding a few materials and resources. The industrial locations in Woodsfield, such as storages for example have higher chances of spawning resources than the residential part of the city. However, the residential part will have more chances to find a survivor or gear.

Every now and then, players might find a random cache spawn. These caches will contain different types of loot. Some might have weapons, others resources or humanitarian type of loot. These caches randomly spawn around the city, and will have colored flares seen from a distance to highlight the cache location.
Screenshot by TheDude47.


Players will find materials while scavenging Sites, these materials will be stored in players inventory and are stackable into one slot up to 20 units. Once the player returns to camp, these materials will be converted into different types and stored in the camp storage. Bringing in materials from the scavenging missions, will help with production and camp upgrades.


The inventory of a player character is where players can equip and manage items that are being picked up during the real time action gameplay. To access the player inventory press "Tab" in default keyboard layout. The size of the inventory is declared by the backpack player has equipped. Different backpacks have different amount of space, allowing players to carry more items in and out of a scavenging mission.

To move an item from one slot to another, simply drag and drop that item to a desired slot. To access item options or details, right click the desired item. Different item types have different options available. Players can always drop or destroy an item from the options menu, with a restriction to an outfit they are currently wearing. To change an outfit, drag a new outfit to the equipped slot.

Some items can be stacked together, stacked items take a single inventory slot. Different items have different maximum stack possible. Weapons and Resources cannot be stacked.

That should cover the basics of the Management and Real Time Action gameplay. This guide will be extended as new features are being implemented into the gameplay.

Thank you.