World Beyond
Contents
In-game Room Descriptions
The nights are freezing cold in the desert... A thick dust cloud engulfs everything and you can hear mournful groaning all around you. Occasionally you make out an indistinct figure moving in the shadows. let's hope that it's just your imagination...
The desert stretches for as far as the eye can see... How many lives were lost in its vastness ? Who is to say that you won't be next ?
Shifting Sands, Thirst and Dehydration
The World Beyond is pretty much desert, desert, and more desert. As it is, you'd expect to become 
Thirsty while exploring. Save your 
Water Ration for towards the end of the day after you've walked around the desert, because sleeping Thirsty without having 
Refreshed yourself at some point in that day means you'll wake up 
Dehydrated!
Every 11 zones through which you travel downgrades your level of hydration, from normal to Thirsty and from Thirsty to Dehydrated! Travelling another 11 zones while Dehydrated! will result in death.
The "zones travelled" counter is reset to 0 overnight, and also when you drink a Water Ration. Because of this, people may restrict their exploration to a round-trip of 10 zones or less; this way, they do not increase their thirst through travel. Longer expeditions will plan their order of food, drug, and water consumption to account for this, as well.
Map
The map is your friend. While it doesn't display the people on each square if you are out of town, it does still show rough estimates of zombie numbers in zones explored by your fellow townspeople (by color), special locations (a solid small square within the square), as well as markers laid and expeditions planned by your townspeople. Also, it shows you how to get home.
Exploring and Scavenging
Taking to an adjacent zone in the World Beyond costs 1 
. When you're out of , you will be unable to move; however, you can still Search (and autoscavenge) and perform other -free actions -- such as consuming food or water to replenish your ... or posting on the forums to ask a neighbor to bring you the food or water you forgot to pack!
At every sector, even depleted ones, you can Search the area for materials (an -free action). Doing this will put you into autoscavenge mode, where you will be able to search for an item every two hours. Even in a non-depleted zone, some searches will turn up nothing. You can only search a given sector once a day. Consequently, you can only be on autoscavenge mode while you are in the sector and haven't moved. Logging out will not interrupt autoscavenging; every two hours when you would normally get another search, a pending search will accrue, and all pending searches will be resolved when you next log in.
- Losing control of the area to zombies also immediately disrupts autoscavenge - which means you can't search the zone again for the rest of the day.
If your search is unsuccessful:
- After exhaustive searching, the only thing you have discovered is the emptiness of wasted time...
- A line will also appear is the zone's log that (Player) found nothing during their last search...
If your search is successful:
- After extensive scavenging, you manage to find the
something... on the ground...
If the zone is depleted after you find something (regardless of its state before):
- This zone is depleted, all that remains to be found here are poor-quality resources...
If your rucksack is already full, or you've found a Heavy item while already carrying something Heavy:
- You cannot carry this object for the time being, so you have left it lying on the ground.
Trapped
If there are more zombies than human Control Points (CP) (each Resident generates two CP; the heroic Guardian generates four) you cannot move. You cannot scavenge or autoscavenge the area.
- e.g. There are 3 zombies in your sector, and you are the only human there. You generate 2 CP, the zombies generate 1 each. 3 zombie CP > 2 human CP, and you are trapped.
When trapped, you have two additional options:
- You can Attack the zombies with your bare hands -- this costs 1 and has a very small chance of successfully killing a zombie.
- You can Flee from the zombies -- you automatically become
Wounded and can then move to an adjacent zone as normal.
- You cannot flee from zombies if you are already Wounded.
- You cannot flee from zombies if you are already
As both of those choices are costly, and potentially fatal, it is much better to use weapons to reduce the number of zombies present, or post on the Town Forums about your situation and then patiently wait for more citizens to come and increase the human CP in the zone (and possibly bringing more weapons from town.)
If you are in the World Beyond when the zombie horde descends upon the town at 23:00 game time (and not camping ), you will automatically die.
If two players are in a zone that is under control, and one leaves, the zone will stay under control for 30 minutes even if there are more zombies than human CP. The remaining player will see a red notice with a 30 minute countdown(*).
- The 30 minute countdown (and your zone control) will disappear if all humans leave the zone, and the zone will effectively become reset. To retain control for the 30 minute timer, at least one human must remain in the zone.
Special Locations
Certain locations will allow a second free action aside from searching the area; you will be allowed to search a special structure or building. However, like areas get depleted, buildings will get emptied out. Unlike depleted areas, which still give the chance of a low-quality material being found, emptied structures yield nothing. Camping overnight in a special zone will reward you with a Blueprint if you are the first to camp there, uncommon blueprints are received close to town and rare blueprints further away.
Some structures will be hidden by undergrowth or debris and require clearing before they can be explored. This can be done using or 
Ness-Quick Weedkiller; the latter is naturally preferable. The amount of clearing required is indicated by the number of 
, and can vary from roughly 5 to 20.
