Cities and Encounters

Cities and Encounters

A Radio Transmitter maps Lost Cities progress. Infested buildings lock their containers during encounters, and clearing buildings raises the city's danger level.

Map the city

Place a transmitter in or near a Lost Cities zone and leave it in place while it calibrates and surveys connected chunks. Once it connects, open the Survivor Network and expand < CITY.

Progress belongs to the city zone, so all mapped radios in that city share the same clear count. A radio outside a mapped zone still opens the network, but cannot accept a city-operation contract.

Clear a building

When an encounter activates, the building's containers stay locked until the site is clear.

• Regular sites have a persistent infected-kill target. By default, the full population appears as you approach.
• Boss sites can summon a Rotwire Brute after the regular target is reached. A warning appears before it arrives.
• A building counts only when the encounter reaches CLEARED. Safe sites and repeat visits do not add progress.

The Rotwire Brute

The Brute has high health, long target range, heavy melee damage, and can break blocks. It throws rocks when you are out of melee range. Break line of sight during the windup and move away from the impact point.

Keep an escape route open. Killing the marked Brute clears its encounter even if regular infected remain.

City danger

Every five unique clears raise the default danger by one level, up to level 12. Each level adds 10% of base maximum health to tagged infected. The bonus also applies in the surrounding influence area and stays on infected that leave the city after receiving it.

Unique clears	Danger	Infected health
0–4	0	+0%
5–9	1	+10%
10–14	2	+20%
15–19	3	+30%

The City Status panel shows the clear count, danger level, health bonus, and clears needed for the next level.

Outdoor infected

City streets have a higher chance of scattered zombies. Wilderness wanderers are less common, but both populations become more likely at night. Underground vanilla zombie spawning is unchanged. Skeletons and creepers are pushed into deeper caves.

Next: move through the city quietly or turn recovered evidence into supplies.