Why quiet beats a kill count
The game's own line is to stay quiet while zombies fill the hallways. Daniel says the same thing on Night 0: keep the noise down and they stay put. Ruth's hallway line is specific: do not use the stairs, because the west stairwell is full of them. Fighting is sometimes required. It is not the plan that keeps the flat intact.
Noise numbers from the rules notes
These are the listed loudness values, not a guess at distance. Higher is easier to find.
| Action | Listed noise |
|---|---|
| Crouching | 6 |
| Walking | 14 |
| Radio, low | 22 |
| Falling | 24 |
| Knocking | 30 |
| Sprinting | 32 |
| Melee hit | 35 |
| Dragging furniture | 38 |
| Dropping metal | 45 |
| Hammering | 55 |
| Breaking glass or shouting | 70 |
| Radio, loud | 90 |
| Generator | 110 |
Scout reduces walking and crouching noise by 40% (footstep noise listed at x0.6) and opens ordinary doors and containers more quietly. Sprinting, falls, fighting and loud equipment still draw them. Infinite Stamina removes the sprint limit and does not make sprinting quiet. Hunger, thirst or injury can still stop the run.
A radio heard through headphones is safer than a loud speaker. Turn it off between broadcasts. The Custom Music Radio pass says the infected hear any battery radio, and louder music draws more of them. Story broadcasts interrupt custom music.
The door, in layers
Use this order when something is in the hall: peephole (R), chain (T), lock (F). The chain lets the door open a crack. It does not let a person through.
Furniture can be pushed. A recorded run drags a table toward the door. Not every piece blocks, and the clips do not rank a sofa against a chair. A chair can jam the handle. The couch can be pushed to a marked spot. Dragging is loud (38), so do it before they are already on the door.
When the door is damaged, the materials named on camera are a board or plank plus a box of screws, with a hammer in the same repair. Arthur's method, written into the later rules, is a board across the frame screwed into the studs: +45 integrity instead of +30. One catalog line says a screw box has 2 uses. That figure appears in one item list, so treat it as a card stat, not a promise that every box in every flat has two repairs left.
| Door state | Integrity | 1 infected | 2 infected | 3 infected |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lock | 50 | 31s | 16s | 10s |
| Door | 100 | 1m 3s | 31s | 21s |
| Reinforced | 150 | 1m 34s | 47s | 31s |
The notes say each infected deals 1.6 integrity a second, up to 3 at once. A Caretaker repair is listed as 40% faster, and that door then takes 15% less damage, once per door. Repairs still need the normal materials, and they are noisy.
Zombies do break doors. In co-op footage the door fails and the group falls back. A barricade is a delay, not a permanent seal. The Day 3 building note says 3 infected come for the door between 11:00 and 15:30. Brace before that window if your objective list is still on the early-day track.
An infected hit is listed at 16 damage, and a heavy hit at 28, with more on Hard. Difficulty multipliers in the same table: Easy drain x0.8, infected HP x0.8, hits x0.75; Normal x1; Hard drain x1.2, infected HP x1.25, hits x1.25.
Weapons, if you have to swing
Card damage and reach, for the weapons that have both:
| Weapon | Damage | Reach | Swing | Stamina |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseball Bat | 26 | 8 | 0.75 s | 18 |
| Crowbar | 25 | 6 | 0.75 s | 18 |
| Deadweight (pass) | 25 on the item card | 8 | 1 s | 18 |
| Hammer | 23 | 5 | 0.6 s | 15 |
| Frying Pan | 22 | 6 | 0.55 s | 14 |
| Kitchen Knife | 18 | 4.5 | 0.4 s | 9 |
| Rolling Pin | 16 | 5.5 | 0.5 s | 10 |
| Adjustable Wrench | 16 | 4.5 | 0.5 s | 10 |
| Spoon (pass) | 12 | 3.6 | 0.38 s | 6 |
The Baseball Bat is the highest single-hit damage and the longest reach on that list. The Kitchen Knife is the highest damage per second if you accept the swing times (18 every 0.4 s). Every melee swing is noise 35, against 6 for a crouch, so the faster knife is also the noisier way to spend a fight. The Deadweight shop text says it hits like the free bat, with the same reach, stamina and damage range, while the item card lists 25 damage and a slower 1 second swing. Keep both sentences. Do not average them into 25.5.
Crowbar and kitchen knife are also listed as prying tools. The hammer is what the Day 12 objective asks you to take to the east fire door. The wrench is a tool first: machine-room hatch, and the north tank riser on floor 27.
There is no firearm, minigun, revive-coin or floor-boss track in this building. Pages that tell you to upgrade a pistol while climbing from floor 1 are a different game.
A door routine you can repeat
- Peephole before the lock comes off.
- Chain on if you only need to look or talk.
- Brace with furniture while the hall is still empty.
- Repair with a board and screws after something has already hit, using Arthur's stud method if you have the screws.
- Walk away from the west stairwell when Ruth has warned you off it.
- Put the weapon away when the hall is clear. A swing is louder than a step.