Vythonaut: I'm already on my third character (thanks for the tip, i chose to be a carpenter this time - i suppose it will help with all the barricading etc) and this time i play more cautiously, making good use of curtains, door locks, lights when looting houses while evading most of the Zs. Also, as luck would have it, i found a pharmacy with a nice stock of medicine as well as a logging facility with tons of wood to help me with the fortifications; the only thing left is to find a good way to carry all that wood as effortlessly as i can (i already have a mini-van, i'll check out later if i can load stuff into it). Cheers!
I burnt a bunch of chr just finding the chr + trait set i liked...
Many of the neg traits really don't make the game any harder i've found.
Carpenter is a solid choice, currently playing as a lumberjack, love me the axe.
Still getting used to the vehicles myself, so used to hoofing it..
Thinking about it, i don't remember ever trying the challenges, stuck to survival mode/sandbox.
Will have to give them a try......
Sounds like this run is going well, wish you luck with it.