The post-apocolyptic genre has been a popular one for gamers for a long time. Sheltered is an entry in the genre for those who enjoy resource and family management, similar to games like Fallout: Shelter or Sixty Seconds.
In Sheltered, it's your job to maintain a shelter, a family of four, and their pet, as well as any survivors who find their way to your home. It can be difficult to get started in Sheltered if you aren't familiar with it. Picking the right traits and preparing for raids and expeditions is no small task.
10 Use Recruited Survivors for Expeditions
Keeping your main family alive should be the main priority for your game. When you find fellow suriviors, the best thing to do is use them constantly for expeditions. That way, they use less resources and are slightly more expendable than your family.
Keeping your family at home will mean you'll always have someone to defend your shelter if a raid comes to attack you, whereas you'd only be left with the children if you sent the parents out instead. There's no need to waste important resources on them, either, as they can be useful even after death.
9 Pick the Best Traits for Your Family
The best way to start your family is picking the best traits for the long run. For the parents, pick the Courageous and Violent traits. For one child, give them Hands-On. For the other, make them Resourceful and another trait or Courageous and Bully. You can pick any pet, that choice doesn't matter, but the cat is good for hunting extra food.
With the Courageous trait, you get two hits guaranteed in melee fights and can't be assigned the negative trait Cowardice. The Violent trait gives you more strength. The children will be able to craft faster with Hands-On and also can't be assigned Cowardice.
8 Know Where to Find Resources and Buildings
Resources in Sheltered are found mainly on expeditions. Each area in the game contains different resources, so if you're hunting for something specific, make sure to go to the right one. Your expedition party will go to buildings they spot either in the distance or on their path, and can explore them at no extra water cost. These buildings can house extremely important things for your survival.
- Clustered buildings: contain Hardware Stores, Pharmacies, Scrapyards, Airports, Florists, Barracks, Prisons, Office Complexes, Banks, Supermarkets and Fire Stations
- Forest buildings: Reservoirs, Shacks, Lumber Yards and Clearings
- Mountain buildings: Caves, Shacks, Mines and Mountain Passes
7 Get a Cat and a Fridge
This tip may seem a bit out there, but it can be a game changer if you're low on food. Cats are extremely useful in the game because they can catch mice that have infested your shelter. If you have a fridge too, the cat will automatically store the rodents it catches inside, keeping them fresh enough to use as an emergency food source if you need it.
It also wouldn't hurt to set up a few traps if you can spare the resources to help your cat out. Many players swear by this method of getting food early on in the game.
6 Use the Tutorial
This may seem obvious, but it may surprise you how often people can forget basic tips for the game. Many players get overconfident in their abilities to begin a game and skip or at least breeze through the tutorial for the game. Do not do this. The tutorial contains helpful information about many in-game mechanics, so don't ignore the advice it gives you. Granted, many of the tips in the tutorial are pretty basic, but even the most advanced and strategic advice won't help you if you don't remember the tutorial.
5 Prepare for Raids Early
Raids in Sheltered can turn into a real problem really quickly if you aren't prepared for them. Raiders will begin attacking your base after day 50, so it's important to be fully prepared before they come. To prepare, make sure you train your survivors with the punching bag. Good Pipe Bombs are a necessity for protecting your base as well.
Make sure you have first aid, weapons, and bulletproof vests ready. Avoid using Paint Can traps, as they're less effective than Ceiling Spikes, Shotgun traps, or Rifle Sentries. Make sure to set up and arm your traps before the raiders enter your base.
4 Keep a Close Eye on Your Stats
Like many games that require resource management, stat management is also vital to your success. There are several stats that are important to keep a close eye on, as any one of them going unmanaged for too long could mean your survivor's untimely death.
- Thirst: Reduced by drinking water or coffee, increases over time. If bar fills up, causes Dehydration.
- Hunger: Reduced by eating meat, desperate meat, or rations. Increases a lot when going on expeditions. When bar fills up, causes Malnutrition.
- Tiredness: Reduced by sleeping and drinking coffee. Increases gradually, quickly when doing jobs. If bar is full, you can't use the radio, punching bag, read books, or play with toys.
- Toilet: Reduced completely by using the toilet or pooping on the floor. If the bar fills up, the survivor will relieve themselves wherever they are and their Dirtiness meter will fill up.
- Dirtiness: Reduced alowly by showering. Increases quickly when on expeditions or constructing a room. Fills instantly when Toilet bar also fills. If you eat while the bar is full, you will get Food Poisoning.
- Stress: Increases slowly when one essential bar is red and another is at about 50 percent (Hunger, Thirst, Toilet). Increases slowly when you have a pet, painting, or sculpture. Reduced completely with Relaxants or Homemade Anti-Depressants. When bar is red, increases Trauma.
- Trauma: Increases when Stress bar is red or when killing someone. Reduces over time when Stress is no longer red, completely when taking Relaxants or Homemade Anti-Depressants. Once the bar is full, one of your traits will turn into its negative counterpart. If it fills again, the survivor will leave the shelter.
3 Turn Negative Traits into Positive Game-Changers
At the beginning of each game, each one of your family members will be assigned a negative trait along with the positive ones you've already curated for them. They can go from midly annoying to outright awful, but there are ways to negate and even reverse the game-changing aspects of each of these traits.
- Big Eater: Rations relieve less hunger. To fix this, keep them hungry for two or three days.
- Cowardice: First two "attack-to-kill" hits will miss and hides during raids. To fix this, win in a fight with the killing blow.
- Light Sleeper: Tiredness stat decreases slower when sleeping. To fix this, keep them tired for two or three days.
- Lazy: Moves slower. To fix this, go on long expeditions.
- Hands-Off: Craft and fix things slower. To fix this, just keep fixing objects.
- Pessimistic: Gains stress faster. To fix this, go on expeditions that will return with loot.
- Wasteful: Lower chance of recovering items when deconstructing. To fix this, keep deconstructing things.
- Unhygenic: Dirtiness increases faster. To fix this, keep them dirty, then eat to get Food Poisoning.
2 Kill NPCs Early On
If you're not someone who gets emotionally attached to video game characters, killing NPCs and other survivors early on can be a boost to your experience and overall success. One way to do this is letting survivors into your shelter specifically for expeditions. If they die while inside, you can harvest their body as an emergency food source.
Most stats don't go down as quickly, if at all, when they're out on expeditions, so as long as you send them out as soon as they get back, you can get several trips out of each NPC. There is a chance that they can die and lose their loot while they're outside your shelter, so keep an eye on their stats to make sure they make it back first.
1 Always Have Someone On the Radio
The radio is an essential resource for finding fellow survivors. One way to find fellow survivors or traders to always keep your radio broadcasting. People will hear your signal and find you, bringing valuable items to sell or trade.
You can sell materials and objects you don't need anymore to the traders who come your way, who will exchange them for food or fuel. Upgrading and operating the radio should be a high priority for at least one idle character at all times.