Welcome to the Unturned Survival Guide! This guide will cover all the basics of survival in the zombie apocalypse. You will be able to find everything you need to know if you are new to the game. For the seasoned players joining us, hopefully, you learn something you didn’t know before. Let’s get started!
Unturned Survival Guide Table of Contents
Unturned Survival Stats Explained
Health
Health is your most important survival stat to manage in Unturned. If this is zero then you’re dead! There are several things that can cause your health to drop. First and foremost is taking damage from zombies, hostile animals, other players, or traps which can result in bleeding. Other reasons your health will drop include starvation, dehydration, infection, and suffocation. See the other stat sections in our Unturned Survival Guide for more information on these stat conditions. Some less common causes of health loss include freezing, burning, or getting hit by an explosion.
There are numerous ways in Unturned to heal and restore your health bar. The best way is to use medical equipment on yourself. You can increase the healing effect of these items by increasing your healing skill. An additional way to increase your health is by eating amber, russet, or vermillion berries. Eating any food made from red meat will give you health as well. Finally, if both your food and water are above 90% you will heal slowly. This rate can be increased by increasing your vitality skill.
Tip: You can craft dressings from cloth that you get from scrapping clothing, which is abundant at most locations.
Note: Safezones prevent your health from falling even if you are bleeding, starving, dehydrated, or infected.
Bleeding
If you are inflicted with the bleeding status, your health will continue to drop until you stop the bleeding. You will know you are bleeding by a red drop being displayed above the stat bar. You will die soon if you do not stop the bleeding and to do so you need to use a rag, bandage, dressing, suturekit, or medkit. Bleeding can also stop naturally after some time has passed. However, unless you are healing or have increased your strength skill you will die before this happens. The strength skill will make bleeding stop faster without the use of meds.
Food
Next in the Unturned Survival Guide, we will cover the food bar. Your food bar is orange and will automatically decrease as time goes by. You can decrease how fast it drops by increasing your survival skill. However, it will still continue to drop as time goes on, so you will need to constantly scavenge or farm food. For the best sources of food check out our Best Foods in Unturned article.
The best place to scavenge for food is, unsurprisingly, the grocery store. Some other locations that have plenty of food are gas stations, restaurants, and the kitchens of most houses. While these places can be a quick fix for your hunger problem, a more stable solution is farming.
Farming
To farm in Unturned, all you need are seeds and a place to plant them. Luckily, you can plant seeds on any grass area, but if you want to grow food in your base you will need to do some crafting. You will need to make planters out of planks and fertilizer and place the planter in your base. You can also combine 7 planters to craft a large plot to be placed in your base. Seeds can be found in abundance at farms or in botanist shops. They can also be crafted from the food items that they grow into. You can increase your harvest by increasing your agriculture skill. At max agriculture, you will receive two crops for every plant you harvest.
Tip: When a rainstorm ends, any crops without anything above them will automatically be harvestable. If it starts raining you can rush to plant some seeds for a source of food once the rain ends.
Starvation
When your food bar reaches zero, you will begin starving. Your health will slowly drop until you either die or eat some food. Therefore, the easiest way to fix this is to eat some food. If you have medical supplies you can keep healing yourself to buy time while you look for food, however, this will only buy so much time.
Tip: If you are in a pinch without food, you can stave off starvation by drinking glue. It won’t give you much food and you will hallucinate for a brief time, but it’s better than dying.
Water
Now the Unturned Survival Guide will discuss the water bar. This bar is blue and drops slightly faster than your hunger bar. It is also affected by the survival skill and will drain slower when this skill is increased. Some foods give water as well as food, but you will still need drinks from time to time. The easiest source of water for your base is crafting rain barrels and using a canteen. Note that rain barrels must not have anything above them in order to refill after it rains. They will not show as filled until the rain stops.
The best sources of water when leaving your base are canned and bottled drinks. They are the most efficient use of inventory space for the amount of water they provide. The best way to get a lot of bottled or canned soda is to bring a generator to vending machines in a large city. Every drink it dispenses will be at 100% and you can come back every 4 minutes for another.
Tip: Sandwiches and bottled drinks are great to pack when leaving your base. They are the most efficient use of inventory space and when combined will keep both your food and water bars full.
Dehydration
When your water bar reaches zero, you will begin dehydrating. Your health will slowly drop until you either die, drink something, or eat food that gives you water. Therefore, the easiest way to fix this is to consume something that gives you water. If you have medical supplies you can keep healing yourself to buy time while you look for water, however, this will only buy so much time.
Tip: If you are in a pinch without water, you can stave off dehydration by drinking glue. It won’t give you much water and you will hallucinate for a brief time, but it’s better than dying.
Immunity
In this section of the Unturned Survival Guide, we will explain the immunity stat. The immunity stat is the green bar and represents how infected you are. If this bar gets below 50% you will suffer from infection. There are several things that can cause your immunity to drop. You will lose immunity when you are hit by a zombie, consume food or drink that is below 47% quality, eat raw meat, drink dirty/salty water, use adrenaline/morphine, or enter a deadzone without a gas mask. Eating russet and amber berries will also cause you to lose immunity. You can reduce how much immunity you lose when these situations occur by increasing your immunity skill.
You can restore your immunity by using the following meds: vaccines, antibiotics, vitamins, cough syrup, and purification tablets will all increase your immunity. Increasing the healing skill will increase the amount of immunity gained by using these items. Eating mauve berries will also increase your immunity and these can be easily farmed.
Infection
Infection will occur if your immunity bar drops below 50%. Once below 50%, your condition will continue to get worse and your immunity drops slowly until it reaches zero. Therefore, it is important to keep your immunity above this threshold. Once your immunity is at zero percent, the infection icon will appear and you will begin to lose health.
Stamina
The stamina stat is the yellow bar and is used to represent how much energy you have. Actions such as sprinting, jumping, melee attacking or sprint pedaling a bicycle will cost stamina. If you do not have enough stamina to complete an action then it will not occur. Increasing the exercise skill will reduce how much stamina these actions use. Increasing the parkour skill will reduce the stamina cost of jumping specifically.
Your stamina will regenerate on its own after a brief time of not being in use. The length of this time break is reduced by increasing the cardio skill. The rate of regeneration is also increased by increasing the cardio skill. There are actions that can restore stamina, such as consuming certain foods or drinks or using adrenaline.
Tip: On long-distance sprints, it is more efficient to fully let your stamina regenerate once depleted before starting to sprint again. This is because of the short time you must wait for your stamina to start regenerating once you stop sprinting. Holding down the sprint key will result in more waiting for stamina to regenerate than actual sprinting.
Broken Legs
If your legs are broken you will not be able to sprint or jump. This will greatly reduce your mobility. Broken legs occur when you step on a snare or fall from a high height. You can fix this by using a splint, medkit, or morphine. Alternatively, a broken leg will heal over time and go away on its own. You can reduce the time it will take for them to heal by increasing your strength skill.
Oxygen
The final stat to cover in the Unturned Survival Guide is oxygen. This is the white bar and represents how long you can hold your breath. When you are under water or above a certain altitude, you will not have oxygen and the bar will begin to drop. Once it hits zero you will quickly lose health. You can reduce the rate at which you lose oxygen by increasing your diving skill.
Certain items reduce the rate at which you lose oxygen when there is none around you. This includes a fighter pilot helmet and a snorkel/diving tank combo. A powered oxygenator placed nearby will supply oxygen in a small sphere around it. This will allow you to breathe in an area without oxygen as long as it is powered on.
Unturned Skills: What You Need to Know
There are 22 skills in Unturned that boost various aspects of your character. These skills greatly increase your ability to survive. To increase them you will need to invest experience points into each skill. However, when you die you will not only lose experience from your total amount, you will also lose a point from each skill. The only skills that will not suffer this penalty are based on which skillset you set for your character. You can tell which skills a skillset will boost by the symbol under the name of each skill. Each point for the skills in your character’s skillset will cost half the experience that they would otherwise. We won’t go into detail about every skill and skillset in the Unturned Survival Guide but here are the most valuable ones.
Most Valuable Skills
| Sharpshooter- Reduces recoil and increases accuracy. | This is the single most important PVP skill. Fighting without this skill maxed puts you at a major disadvantage. |
| Exercise- Use less stamina and sprint faster | You need to have points in this skill to repair your weapons. Weapons below 47% quality will start doing less damage. This makes winning PVP battles much harder. |
| Toughness- Less flinching and pain effects | The reduced flinching can help you hold your aim when taking fire. This is important in PVP because if you both hit each other at the same time, the one who holds their aim better wins. |
| Survival- Use less food and water | The most important survival skill, unironically, is survival. This skill will extend the time between when you need food or water. |
| Healing- Increases the amount of health healing items give you | Another vital PVP skill because if you take a shot and need to heal, using only one dressing to get to full health puts you in a better position and allows you to get a gun back into your hands faster. |
| Crafting– Allows you to craft more advanced items | This is the most important base-building skill. You will need this maxed to make metal storage and base parts. |
| Agriculture– Increases crop yield and reduces the time it takes for crops you plant to grow | When this skill is maxed out, you get double crop yield. This is needed for efficient farming so that you never go hungry. |
| Engineer– Allows you to repair more advanced tools and weapons | You need to have points into this skill to repair your weapons. Weapons below 47% quality will start doing less damage. This makes winning PVP battles much harder. |
Unturned Fandom Wiki Skills Page
Most Valuable Skillsets
| Spec Ops- Sharpshooter, Dexterity | This is the primary skillset for PVP. Not losing sharpshooter points on death allows you to keep your aim sharp. Your group’s primary PVP players should use this skill. |
| Police Officer- Exercise, Toughness | Another good PVP skillset. Both skills are helpful to always have maxed out. Best for sniper or recon group members so they can always move quickly. |
| Worker- Crafting, Mechanic, Engineer | Someone in your group should have this skillset so you can always make metal storage containers and get your weapons repaired. |
| Farmer- Agriculture, Survival | If you have someone in your group who is willing to do the farming for the whole group then they should have this skillset. This is also the best beginner skillset because survival always being maxed will help you while you learn the basics. |
| Doctor- Healing, Immunity | Good for a PVP support role in your group. Heal yourself and teammates quicker and keep everyone with a gun in their hands. |
Important Items to Look For And What They Do
This section of the unturned survival guide will tell you which items are most important to successful survival. The table provided will tell you what the item does and where to look to find it. Some items are very common, while others might be hard to track down. Good luck!
Important Item Table
| Item | Why Item is Important | Where to Find |
| Blowtorch- Tool | Needed to craft advanced items and repair weapons or structures. | Mechanic Shops, Gas Stations, House Garages, Mechanic Zombies |
| Chainsaw- Tool | Fastest way to cut trees for an early wooden base before you have enough scrap metal for a metal base. Also an excellent melee weapon. | Farms, Farmer Zombies |
| Gas Cans- Holds fuel, crafting ingredient | You will need one to fuel cars and generators. Gas cans are also required to craft pump jacks and generators. | Mechanic Shops, Gas Stations, House Garages, Mechanic Zombies |
| Chemicals- Crafting ingredient | Needed to craft claim flags and pump jacks. | Mechanic Shops, Gas Stations, House Garages, Mechanic Zombies |
| Tape- Crafting ingredient | Needed to make rain barrels. | Post Office, Houses, Construction Areas, Civilian and Construction Zombies |
| Glue- Crafting ingredient | Needed to craft sticky grenades, which are used to make charges for raiding. | Post Office, Houses, Construction Areas, Civilian and Construction Zombies |
| Raw Explosives- Crafting ingredient | Needed to craft charges for raiding and horde beacons. | Military Locations, Military Zombies |
| Grenades- Crafting ingredient, Weapon | Needed to craft charges for raiding and good for clearing an enemy behind cover or in a building. | Military Locations, Military Zombies, Mega Zombies |
| Detonator- Tool, Crafting ingredient | Needed to detonate charges during a raid. Used to craft horde beacons. | Mega Zombies, Construction Areas, Construction Zombies, High Tier Military Item Spawns |
| High Caliber Sniper Rifles- Grizzly, Ekho, Timberwolf, Matamorez | Highest damage snipers in the game with superior range. Can damage structures, metal storage, and armored vehicles. | High Tier Military Item Spawns, Horde Beacons, Airdrops |
| Dragonfang- Hi-Caliber Light Machine Gun | Can damage structures, metal storage, and armored vehicles. Good for use during raids on storage containers. | High Tier Military Item Spawns, Horde Beacons, Airdrops |
| High Caliber Ammo | This ammo is needed for the snipers listed above and for the Dragonfang. | High Tier Military Item Spawns, Mega Zombies |
| Alice Packs- Backpack | Largest inventory space backpack in the game. | High Tier Military Item Spawns, Mega Zombies |
| Thief Clothes/Cargo Pants- Clothing | Largest inventory space clothing in the game. | Thief Clothes- Ranger Spawns, Bandit Zombies Cargo Pants- Civilian Clothing Spawns, Civilian Zombies |
| Military/Spec Ops Vests and Helmets- Armored Clothing | Reduces damage to the torso and head. Vital for PVP. | Military Spawns, Military Zombies, Mega Zombies |
| Rangefinders- Crafting ingredient, Attachment | Used to make sentries. Can be useful on sniper rifles. | High Tier Military Item Spawns |
| Maplestrikes, Nightraiders, Augewehrs- Rare Assault rifles | Best ARs in the game. | High Tier Military Item Spawns, Horde Beacons, Airdrops Note: Maplestrikes are a common military gun on PEI |
| Low Caliber Military and Ranger Ammo | Ammo for assault rifles. | Military Ammo- Military Locations, Military Zombies Ranger Ammo- Ranger Locations, Bandit Zombies |
| Gun Attachments | They improve various gun stats. Vital for effective PVP. | Military and Ranger Locations, Military and Bandit Zombies, Mega Zombies |
| Dressings- Medical Item | Best healing per inventory slot in the game. | Can be crafted from cloth. Scrap clothing to mass produce these. |
| Scrap Metal- Crafting Item | Used to craft metal storage and base parts. Used to repair tools and weapons. A crafting ingredient for many other recipes. | Metal rock nodes. Many items in the game can be scrapped to produce scrap metal. You should be scrapping everything you can to construct base parts and metal storage. |
How To Form Groups in Unturned
To form a group in Unturned press the M key to open the information menu. Then, click the groups tab and click “Create Group”. Go to the “Players” tab and next to the person you would like to invite to your group press “Invite”. That person must not already be in a group and if they are they need to leave their current group first (Done in the groups tab). That person then needs to go to the “Groups” tab and accept the invite to join your group.
Hotkey Important Items
This section of the Unturned Survival Guide will cover everything a new player should know about item hotkeys. In Unturned, you can hotkey items to your 0-9 number keys. This allows you to hit the key and quickly pull the item from your inventory into your hands. The 1 and 2 keys are reserved for your primary and secondary weapon slot. To hotkey an item, simply right-click on an item in your inventory then press the number you wish to bind it to. You can enable the show hotbar setting in the options menu to see an opaque view at the bottom of your screen of which items are currently a hotkey.
Items You Should Consider Making a Hotkey
Handy items that you should consider making a hotkey are dressings, umbrellas, gas cans, housing planners, carjacks, binoculars, and gas mask filters. Being able to easily pull out dressings during a fight ensures that you will lose less blood when bleeding, and can even mean the difference between bleeding out and surviving. Having an umbrella on a hotkey allows you to stop yourself from falling and even take it out and put it back quickly for a controlled descent. If you are entering a deadzone, you should have your extra filters on a hotkey to ensure that you can replace them quickly when needed. When raiding it can be helpful to hotkey your charges and detonator. That way you can quickly swap between them and your guns if a fight breaks out.
Helpful Article:
Article on the Best Vehicles in Unturned that you should read after finishing the Unturned Survival Guide.