Overview
This is a basic guide for No More Room In Hell, chock full of all the tips and tricks needed to survive in the zombie apocalypse.
Introduction
Hello readers!
My name here on Steam is ReplayLive and I’ve been playing No More Room in Hell for quite a while. I’ve had a pretty good time and I’ve had plenty of good rounds of this game, but there’s one thing that spoils a round in this game very quickly: Bad and Inexperienced players. I’ve had many a game ruined because a single player or worse entire teams had no idea what they were doing, and I’m looking to fix that.
If you’re one of those players, that’s okay, that’s why you’re reading this guide and why I wrote it. When you’re playing this game keep all of these tips in mind, they’ll help you survive much longer in both objective in survival maps.
Controls
Before you even play the game, it’s a good idea to be completely familiar with the controls. While it’s generally the same as Half-Life 2, the game it was modded from, there are some differences and inventory mechanics that warrant this section. Before we get into the details here’s the basic control scheme:
In addition to the regular controls, there’s also controls for managing your inventory. No More Room In Hell uses a weight-based inventory management system. When hitting the 1 key to view your inventory you’ll see something like this:
Selection in the inventory is done using the mouse. Put your mouse over an item in the wheel to select it and either left-click it or let go of the 1 key with the item highlighted to switch to it or use it. The following items when left-clicked will be used:
- First Aid Kit – Will restore some health and cure bleeding
- Phalanx Pills – Will reverse the zombie infection for a limited time
- Bandages – Cures bleeding
In addition to selecting and using items, items can be dropped by right-clicking them on the interface. This can be done for all items with the exception of ammo, which must be done in the ammo menu. It is similar to the general inventory menu, except it is opened using the 2 key. The ammo menu looks like this:
Ammo can be dropped by left clicking. All ammo of a type can be dumped by selecting the ammo and exiting the menu by letting go of the 2 key.
Basic Mechanics
No More Room In Hell does have some basic mechanics to the game, some varying by game mode and certain conditions in the game. Here are the basics:
In this game whenever you are bitten by a zombie you have a chance to be infected. When infected you will slowly lose your vision and without treatment you will eventually die from the disease. The main way to tell that you’re infected is by the appearance of what seems to be veins on the edges of the screen. It generally looks like this, but more or less apparent based on how advanced the infection is:
There are two ways to deal with the infection once it happens. The first is to take Phalanx pills, which stave off the infection for five minutes. Once this time runs out you will once again be infected and require more of the pills to reverse it. The only other way to cure the infection is to die, either by the zombies, the infection, or other players. Be careful if you’re curing it this way, as your corpse may get back up as an undead runner, possibly endangering other players.
Communication in this game works somewhat differently than in other Source-based games in order to enhance the sense of realism. When using voice communication (either by microphone or the voice commands issued by hitting 3) your teammates will only hear you within a certain radius. The only exception to this is if you have the walkie-talkie item, which will allow other players that are also carrying one to hear you speak regardless of distance. The only other way to overcome this distance limit is to use the text chat.
In addition to this, players will neither be able to hear your voice communications nor see your text communications if you are dead. Only other dead or spectating players will be able to hear you. The only exception to this is if you are on an alltalk server, in which case your voice communications will not be subject to this limitation.
Non-Objective maps share a set of mechanics unique to that map type. Each defense map has anywhere from one to three zones that must be defended to win the round. Each zone starts at 100% strength and declines whenever too many zombies enter a zone.
As the strength of a zone declines there is a means of repairing them. There’s a type of object called a FEMA bag that can be used to repair a zone. These bags can be found in crates like these:
Outside of the crate the FEMA bag looks like this:
When these bags are taken back into a zone they can repair its strength by up to 25%. Though be careful, zones cannot be repaired past 100%, wasting percentage points if the zone is above 75%. There are a limited number of FEMA bags on each map, so they must be spent carefully.
In addition to FEMA bags defense maps have a unique means of player healing, the FEMA crate. A FEMA crate can heal up to 200 points of health distributed amongst any number of players. A FEMA crate looks like this:
When collected, a FEMA crate must be taken to a specific point in a zone where it can be set up and used:
Note that each crate spot can only be used once, and when the crate in that spot is used up the next crate must be set up in a usable crate spot.
In addition to FEMA crates and bags zones can be defended through the creation of barricades and the use of traps. In order to create barricades you must have a barricade hammer and wooden planks. Once you have both you can select the hammer and right-click to switch it to barricade mode. When you’re in it, it’ll look something like this:
Simply left-click at a valid, unobstructed barricade point to nail down one of the wooden planks. Barricades when used wisely can be an effective tool in aiding your teammates and defending your zones.
In addition to barricades each map can have traps to aid against the horde. They can each be triggered in different ways and some can even be reset and used again. Some examples of traps look like this when activated:
Combat
No More Room In Hell is, like many zombie games, predominantly combat-oriented. While it may seem fun to grab the first gun or melee weapon you see and try to take on the horde by yourself with whatever you’ve got. This is usually a bad idea. But follow these tips and you’ll be able to aid your team in taking out the horde!
Melee weapons are by far your greatest asset in this game and should be your bread and butter in terms of fighting the horde. Fighting zombies is often a matter of skill, timing your hits, juding your distance from each zombie, and knowing when to shove zombies back. Here’s a few specific tips for this:
- Be ready to hit the V key at all times: Hitting “V” shoves zombies away, if your melee hit doesn’t kill the zombie in front of you hit this quickly to keep from getting bitten. It’s a simple way to protect yourself.
- Know the reach of your weapon: Different weapons can hit zombies from further away than others. The more reach a weapon has the further away you can hit with it, helping you to avoid getting bit. Weapons like the kitchen knife and hatchet have short reach, weapons like the bat and sledgehammer have moderate reach. And weapons like the fire axe, machette, and crowbar have long reach.
- Know how to use power swings: By holding the left mouse button you can ready your melee weapon to do a power swing. As the name suggests, it does more damage than a regular swing. For many weapons this can be the difference between a one-hit kill and having to swing again. The only weapon that shouldn’t be used for power hits is the sledgehammer, because of it’s heavy stamina drain.
- Know how stamina works: Stamina is a hidden mechanic that controls how far you can run and how often you can swing your melee weapon, any good melee player must know how this works. I’ll explain this in greater detail in a bit.
- Always watch your back: Be aware of your surroundings at all times. You never know when a zombie might be creeping up behind you. Getting taken by surprise can get you infected easily, or worse killed.
- Know what works best for you: There are many different weapons with different degrees of usefulness. The key is finding out which weapon you work best with.
As mentioned before, Stamina is a hidden mechanic in the game that determines how far you can run and when and how you can swing your melee weapons. Each melee weapon takes a different amount of stamina to use with heavier weapons taking more. Power swings take more stamina then regular swings, so it’s best not to use power swings if a regular one will do. The way to tell if your stamina is low by sound cue, where you’ll be able to hear your heartbeat and your breathing will be labored. If your stamina is low you will be unable to sprint and you might not be able to power swing or swing you weapon.
Guns are a powerful means of fighting the horde and a quick way to take them out in large numbers, however given the way the game is designed there are drawbacks to using them: Ammo is limited and you have to get headshots to use them to their full potential. However there are a few ways to make sure that any guns and ammo are used to their full potential:
- DO aim before you shoot.
- DO get the strongest gun you can for your ammo type, weight capacity permitting.
- DO use the bow whenever possible. It’s light, does good damage, and most importantly its ammo can be reused (to an extent).
- DON’T Pick up ammo types you don’t need, unless you’re gathing them for your team to use. If you don’t know what ammo you need, hold R and the type you need will be next to the ammo count.
- DON’T Pick up guns you don’t need, unless also gathering them for teammates.
- And most importantly…
- DON’T WASTE AMMO ON WALKERS. Use melee weapons on them. Only shoot runners or zombie children.
It’s not a well-known ability, but any weapon can be thrown for damage by holding down then releasing the G key. If there is no other range option because of a lack of guns, ammo, or carry weight than smaller melee weapons can be a good emergency ranged option. Kitchen knives, barricade hammers, and wrenches are generally good options for this strategy as they’ll seldom be missed by other players.
Part of fighting effectively is managing your inventory effectively. The more carry weight you have the slower you sprint and at max weight you can’t sprint at all, making it much easier to be overwhelmed and wasting precious stamina. Sometimes ditching ammo or some items like grenades can be useful in preventing this
Defense Map Tips
Defense (Non-Objective) Maps can be difficult and require a good team to ensure survival against the horde. You’ll often find yourself relying on your teammates as much as they rely on you. Here’s a few tips to give you and your teams the best chance of survival possible:
Supplies on the map start fairly scattered in different places. To ensure the best chance of survival you and your team will need to gather all these supplies in one spot as quickly as possible. It’s easiest to do this task within the first two waves of a given map. When gathering It’s best to follow these steps:
- 1. Find Keys and/or a Welder first – The best guns and melee weapons, medical supplies, FEMA crates, and additional supplies are often hidden behind locked doors. You should prioritize getting access to these supplies.2. Gather all the medical supplies – This is arguably the most important part of the stockpile, it’ll keep you alive in otherwise lethal situations. Get all the FEMA crates, get any medical supplies you can carry and take them to the stockpile.2. Gather all the ammo you can find – Once the FEMA crates are taken care of you should take care of ammo, as it’s the easiest to gather and carry. Keep the one ammo type you need and put the rest in the stockpile.3. Gather all the weapons you can – Take any of the guns and melee weapons, prioritizing the better ones, and take them back to the stockpile. You might be able to upgrade what you have and the rest can be there for whenever they’re needed.
Barricades can buy precious time and keep the zones clear when they’d otherwise be swarmed. They can also make it easier for anyone defending a zone to do their job. While it is a generally underappreciated task it is incredibly important to a successful team. Just follow these simple rules:
- Barricade early, and often – The first two waves are by far the easiest to build up a good set of barricades. Anyone not gathering supplies should be either keeping zombies from getting inside, or they should be barricading. If possible barricades should also be repaired whenever they’re damaged, usually by the people defending the zones themselves.
- Consider player movement – It’s a good idea to barricade, but you have to be careful not to limit player movement options. If a room isn’t traveled through feel free to completely close it off, but if it’s a major avenue of travel it may be a good idea not to barricade it, or only partially barricade it so players can still crouch through.
- Repair carefully – If you see a damaged barricade, don’t go to repair it until all the zombies attacking it are dead. They can still hit you even though they’re actually trying to hit the barricade.
- Communicate – If you need help keeping zombies off an entrance to repair a barricade, try getting help from your team. A good, well-coordinated team can buy plenty of time to fix up those boards.
Each map only has a finite supply of resources and supplies. Here’s five tips to make everything last:
- Conserve ammo, take only what you need – You should only need one gun in a round. Unless you’re stockpiling take only ammo of the type you need. There’s no reason to horde 9mm ammo when you’re carrying a shotgun.
- Conserve medical supplies, die tactically – It may seem counterintuitive, but dying in some situations can actually help. Respawns can be earned and respawns happen between waves, allowing the conservation of medical supplies. If you’re infected you can save pills if you earn a respawn in time. The same goes for if you’re fatally wounded. It can be more cost-effective to simply earn a respawn then die instead of consuming a first-aid kit or consuming a large portion of a FEMA crate.
- Mind where you die – This might be a little hard to control, but if possible you should die close to a zone. It’ll make it easier to recover whatever you drop on death.
- Save traps for later – It may seem nice to see the walkers burn, but the traps only have limited uses, or sometimes only one use. Save the traps for later waves where you’re more prone to being overrun.
- DON’T WASTE AMMO ON WALKERS – I cannot say this enough.
Objective Map Tips
Objective maps, while seemingly simple, can easily wipe out less experienced players and teams. Though following a few simple rules can help to carry you through the map and to extraction.
Every objective, barring extraction, is highlighted with a red outline. If you need to find what your objective is just keep an eye out for anything outlined in red. This outline is visible even if the object is behind a wall, often giving you an idea of where you need to go.
On some maps you’ll have to break through a door covered in wooden boards, though it might not always be apparent. If you see one of these doors try breaking the boards. If they break, chances are you’ll have to go through said door to reach your objective.
If you don’t have to fight a zombie, then don’t. There’s no need to kill every single zombie on a map, and more often than not it’s impossible anyways. Fighting just increases the chance of getting infected or wasting precious health. Getting infected early on can be a death sentence. So only kill what you need to in order to get by.
Runners and zombie children spawn with the rest of the shambler horde and can catch you off-guard if you’re not aware. Don’t let this happen.
This is similar to what I said in the combat section of the guide, but a little different. Save your bullets for the runners as usual, but you should also save your guns for the escape. 30 seconds isn’t much time for an escape, and often you’ll need the guns to clear the way in a hurry.
Before you radio for extraction, be sure you know where to go and have your escape plan figured out. It’s all too easy to lose an otherwise secure win if you can clear out your path or figure out how to get there in time.
Conclusion, Other Notes
That’s all for this guide, and with any luck it’ll give you the knowledge you need to carry yourself and your teams in this game. Now go out there and survive the apocalypse!
Also, if you enjoyed this guide or it helped you out, please feel free to give it a thumbs up or a favorite, every little bit helps.
All content in this guide was created by ReplayLive ({Sv9}Trollphysicist). No More Room In Hell belongs to the original mod maker.
Do not copy this guide without my permission. If you see this anywhere other than on the Steam Community please contact me on Steam (username ReplayLive) as soon as possible.
If you see any mistakes, want to see any tips included, or have any other comments, please be sure to leave them in the appropriate spots.
1.0.2 – Minor change to the combat section, added a tip to show how to check what ammo type you might need.
1.0.1 – Minor change to the controls section. Added a part to cover in-game communication on the Basic Mechanics section. (Thanks KFO!)
1.0.0 – Guide Released