Exposure: the timer on every scavenging trip

Open the locations list Every site with its Exposure limit, the moves that budget allows, what is findable inside and how much of it comes back. This opens on Abandoned Hospital, the site the worked examples measure against.

Exposure is the timer on a scavenging trip, and it does not run on the clock. The game states the rule plainly: "Moving around and searching will increase Exposure, especially when running." And when it fills: "When Exposure reaches the maximum, you'll be discovered by zombies and attacked."

That makes a trip a budget rather than a stay. Every site charges the same 10 Exposure to move from one spot to the next and the same 2 to stand still, so what separates one site from another is only how much budget it gives you to spend. The question is never how long you can stay. It is how many places you can walk to before the budget is gone.

This page covers the four things the system decides: the budget each site gives, what a move takes out of it, what raises the ceiling, and how soon a site you have emptied is worth walking back to. Which site to pick on a given day, and everything the game checks before it lets you through the door, is where to scavenge.

The five numbers the system runs on

The limit and the alarm point are the site’s own; the two rates are not. A move costs 5 ticks of standing still at every site in the game, so a budget is a step count wherever you take it, and what a site gives you is how many steps.

What each site gives you

Nobody plays a run with no Scavenging at all. All 3 playable characters start the skill at level 1 or 2: Wage Slave at 1, and Warehouse Manager a level above. So the budget a trip actually opens with is the site’s limit plus the level 1 bonus of 100, and the columns below are that figure rather than the bare limit.

Hardware Store is the tight one. It opens on 85 moves against 210 at Abandoned School and Abandoned Hospital, so a walk across the floor costs 2.5 times as much of the trip there as it does at the largest sites. It also warns you earlier, at 70% of its limit rather than 80%: the alarm arrives 52 moves into a trip of 85, against 160 of 210 at Abandoned Hospital.

2 of the 6 carry a flashlight requirement and cannot be searched without one: Deserted Supermarket and Abandoned Hospital. That is a packing decision made before you leave.

What raises the ceiling, and what lowers the bill

Two things in the whole game move the arithmetic, and they move different halves of it. The Scavenging ladder raises the budget. One talent cuts what every action takes out of it.

The ladder raises the budget

The bonus goes up at levels 1, 3, 5 and nowhere else, and it is flat: +400 Exposure from where a run starts, which is +40 moves at every one of the 6 sites. What is not flat is what those moves are worth. At Hardware Store they are 47% more trip than you had; at Abandoned Hospital, 19%. The ladder is worth 2.5 times as much at the smallest site as at the largest, which is the same ratio as the budgets themselves and the reason a flat bonus is a small-site upgrade.

The same table carries something the skill’s own wording never mentions: a Stamina reduction on 4 of the 5 levels, 10% from level 2 and 20% from level 4, while the English text for those ranks talks only about carrying capacity and obstacles. It is a real exported figure with nothing exported to say which action it comes off. The skills list has what each level costs to reach; from Scavenging 1 to 5 is 4,900 experience.

The talent cuts the bill

Exactly one talent acts on Exposure, and it is drawn during a run rather than bought between them.

A discount on the gain and a bigger ceiling are not the same shape of thing, and which one wins depends entirely on the site. The ladder adds a fixed +40 moves everywhere. A 30% cut adds a share of what you already had, so it is worth more where there was more.

Well-Worn beats the entire remaining ladder at 5 of the 6 sites, and loses only at Hardware Store, where the budget is too small for a percentage to be worth much. The two stack: at Abandoned Hospital the ladder and the talent together are 357 moves against 210 on the day you start. Which talents to buy has the whole tree by entry cost.

The third way to spend less is to move less, and it is the only one available on the trip you are already on. A move is 5 ticks of standing still, so a trip that walks the whole floor and searches half of it comes home with less than a trip that searches everything within reach of where it started.

What the budget is buying

The other half of the system is what is on the shelves when you get there. A site’s budget and a site’s contents are separate tables, and putting one over the other is the only figure that says whether a move at a place is worth taking.

Two things fall out of that table. The first is that the 4 sites holding anything are budgeted close together: between 1.06 and 1.27 moves for every findable item in them, whether the site is Hardware Store at 750 Exposure or Deserted Supermarket at 1800. The second is that the last column is not close at all. Deserted Supermarket returns 5.0 times the Satiety per move that Hardware Store does. The budget is the same kind of budget everywhere; what a move buys is not.

2 of the 6 carry a budget for nothing. Gas Station at 1200 and Office at 1600 Exposure are proper budgets, 130 and 170 moves, and the item tables place nothing in either. They open from the Endless start rather than from a run, and endless mode covers what that means. A trip there spends a full budget on an empty building.

One caveat on the Satiety column. It is one serving of each food the tables place at the site, added up, so it ranks sites and never promises a haul: nothing there says how many of each item is actually placed, and a trip comes home capped by the bag long before it is capped by the shelves.

How soon the budget is worth spending again

A spent site refills on more than one clock, and the clocks disagree.

All 6 share one 7-day site clock. Under it, 4 of them scatter loose loot on the floor and put it back on a clock of their own, and only 2 carry a container clock at all. Hardware Store is the outlier: its floor comes back every 1 day, filling 2 to 3 of its 4 spots, which is 50% to 75% of the floor.

That is what makes a return trip a budget question rather than a loot question. A next-day walk back to Hardware Store spends the same 85 moves and the same 1 hour of travel to collect 2 to 3 loose items, because everything else in the building is on the 7-day clock. What a location restocks has the judgement on when that is worth doing; what belongs here is that the cost of finding out is a full budget either way.

Worked examples

One trip at Hardware Store

The site limit is 750 and Scavenging 1 adds 100, so the trip opens with 850 Exposure. A move is 10, which is 85 moves. Standing still is 2, so the same budget is 425 ticks if you never take a step, and every step costs 5 of them.

The warning fires at 70% of the site’s own limit, at 525 Exposure, which is 52 moves into the trip. Against those 85 moves the site holds 67 findable items, so the budget covers the building only if the route never doubles back.

What the whole ladder is worth against one talent

From Scavenging 1 to 5 costs 4,900 experience and adds 400 Exposure, which is +40 moves at every site. Well-Worn costs 15 points, takes 30% off what every action gains, and adds +36 moves at Hardware Store and +90 at Abandoned Hospital.

The crossover is a budget of about 934 Exposure: below it the flat bonus is worth more, above it the percentage is. Hardware Store is the only site under that line. Nothing stops you having both, and at Abandoned Hospital the pair is 357 moves against the 210 a run opens with, which is 1.7 times the trip.

Where a move is worth the most

At Scavenging 1, Deserted Supermarket gives 190 moves over 1302 Satiety of findable food, which is 6.85 Satiety a move. Hardware Store gives 85 moves over 117, which is 1.38. The same step is worth 5.0 times as much at one as at the other, and both cost the same 1 hour to reach.

That ratio is what the ladder and the talent are really buying. +40 moves at Deserted Supermarket reach 274 more Satiety of shelf; the same +40 at Hardware Store reach 55.

What to do

1. Check the site before you pack. Deserted Supermarket and Abandoned Hospital need a light, and Gas Station and Office have nothing placed in them at all.
2. Search everything in reach before you move. A move is 5 ticks of standing still, and it is the only cost you control on the trip you are on.
3. Take Well-Worn whenever a run offers it. It is worth more moves than the whole rest of the Scavenging ladder at 5 of the 6 sites.
4. Take Scavenging to 5 if you scavenge at all. It is the only thing that raises the ceiling, and from Scavenging 1 it adds 400 Exposure for 4,900 experience.
5. Treat the warning as the end of the trip. At Hardware Store it fires 52 moves into 85.
6. Compare Satiety per move, not Exposure limits, when you pick a destination. The locations list carries the budget, the moves and the contents for every site.

Quick reference

• Exposure fills, you are found. Nothing you can carry restores it: of the 2 effects that mention Exposure, none is applied by an item.
• A move costs 5 ticks of standing still, at every one of the 6 sites.
• Smallest budget: Hardware Store, 850 at Scavenging 1, which is 85 moves.
• Largest: Abandoned School and Abandoned Hospital, 2100, which is 210 moves.
• The ladder adds 400 from where a run starts, in two steps at Scavenging 3 and 5, for 4,900 experience.
• Well-Worn cuts the gain by 30% for 15 points and beats the ladder at 5 of the 6 sites.
• Need a light: Deserted Supermarket, Abandoned Hospital.
• Richest move: Deserted Supermarket at 6.85 Satiety a move, against 1.38 at Hardware Store.
• Every site restocks on a 7-day clock, except the floor at Hardware Store, which comes back every 1 day.
• The warning is not the end. At Hardware Store it fires 52 moves into 85, and at Abandoned Hospital 160 into 210.