Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven, Part 3 Walkthrough, chapter 9

Welcome to the second of my Part 3 walkthrough and guide, which will cover the second half of chapter 9 based on the currently available open beta. This article will provide the most optimal path while also discussing the impact of key choices in these chapters. Some choices do not have as great an impact but are presented in the game for character building, role-playing, romantic, or action opportunities. While these choices are all important, there are no right or wrong options. Their impact is much more specific to the character you are playing.

I will also describe different paths based on your play style. When I write this game, I try to offer successful opportunities for combat oriented, social oriented, and intelligence based characters.

I will use the same character as I used in the first walk-through, which you can read here. In that walk-through I covered the first half of chapter 9. The second half is so extensive, I decided to break up the walk-through and will start with it in this guide.

Chapter 9 – Research Center

This mission begins when Madison discovers the DBA Research Center while she’s scanning for Internet access on her laptop. During a brief conversation, the two of you realize a building with Internet access may have power. At this stage, Reilly asks to join the two of you when he hears the facility may have medical equipment and antibiotics. You will get to decide on your gear and weapons for the trip and also who will drive to the research facility. This is purely a role-playing choice as there’s no risk in driving. You do find out that Madison cannot drive, and you can also talk to both of them during the short trip.

Arriving at the research center, you see two glass greenhouses as well as the central building. The two greenhouses are nicknamed Pinky and Brain after the cartoon characters. There is also a truck in the parking lot. I will cover each of the places to search in order of importance, from lowest to highest.

The Truck

This all provides back story on the research center and clues to the fact that experiments on Zeta infected patients were likely going on at this facility.

Greenhouse Pinky

When you come to the greenhouse you find the entrance barricaded and must figure out the best way to get inside. If you have a high strength, you should choose the option – Push the barricade back by myself while the others cover me. If your stamina is higher, choose – Have Reilly and Madison push the barricade back, while I hold the door. If your athletics is higher than strength and stamina, choose – Climb over the table, while the others hold the door.

Once inside you will find an area growing with vegetation in separate areas. You will also soon find a shooter inside the greenhouse. He is Doctor Alan David, and he’s not friendly. In fact you may find out his back story if you choose to speak with him instead of taking an aggressive path. You will only have three choices before Reilly takes it on himself to rush the shooter and disable him. Since Alan has been harmed by other bandits in the area, he is very paranoid about anyone else coming to the greenhouse. It will take a high social skill to convince him to drop his weapon and talk to you. The best option is to tell him to – “Drop your weapon, or I’ll set this place on fire. This only requires Leadership >= 60 or Intimidation >= 55. If you are playing a teenager, it will only take a Persuasion >= 45 with the choice – “Don’t shoot. We’re just kids. Where their threat to you.” You can also choose to disable or kill the man. This will allow you to search the greenhouse but he will not provide information that you may find interesting. It doesn’t matter whether he lives or dies for the success of the mission.

Besides the shooter, there is also the danger of a trap he placed in the greenhouse. It requires Search >= 75 to find. If you do not find and disarm the trap, Reilly will trigger it. He will become poisoned by gas which will affect him later in the chapter (this part not been written yet).

Once you have dealt with the shooter and the trap, you can scavenge the area for a variety of items. If you choose to talk to Alan, you should definitely ask him about the main research building. He will be able to warn you about the security measures active in the facility. This is mostly for shadowing for the events later in the chapter.

Greenhouse Brain

Whereas Greenhouse Pinky dealt with vegetation, this greenhouse deals with animal samples. When you first go to the entrance, glass shatters outwards, and to zombies try to push their way through a broken part of the glass wall. If you have a decent attack skill, you can easily choose to kill the two zombies while Reilly fends them off. If you have a low attack skill but Athletics >= 60, choose the option – Toss my infected into Reilly’s.

Once the two infected or killed, you can move on with searching the greenhouse. Some options have different effects. For example if you examine the tables with animal samples, your knowledge of the Zeta virus will increase. This is important for scientist characters. Examining the glass cabinet will give bandages, ointments, and antibiotics. If you examine the zombies, you will find a key card that will help you gain entrance into the research facility.

Agricultural Research Center (ARC)

The first step is gaining access to the center. You should have the keycard from Greenhouse Brain. Just after you gain entrance, you are attacked by two zombies. Killing them can be difficult if you choose to do it solo. If you have Athletics >= 45, you can choose to – Brace the door and have the others shoot the infected.

Once inside you will have a few choices for proceeding. If you open the elevator, you will gain some relationship score with Reilly. Otherwise you should scope out the left side offices and cubicles. This will allow you to go into the side offices. You’ll also see several zombies eating a corpse and one of the offices. They don’t notice you at the moment. They are easy to kill if you can convince Reilly and Madison to distract the two zombies while you kill them. If you have a high Stealth skill, you can also sneak in and kill them. Finally if you have a Crafting >= 45 (75 if you have the night blindness or vision impaired challenge), you can jury rig something to impede the zombies.

Once you have dealt with the infected, you can move on to several offices. You must checked all of the offices to proceed through the research center. You can also examine the gray skinned zombies and take samples of them if you are a scientist character. Finally you can scavenge the three offices.

Next you head downstairs. This is a one-way trip as you will find out that the door is locked once you go through it. Searching through the area mainly provides backstory. However if you are doing the hacker storyline, you should restore power to the room which gives you opportunities to contact Deter and Julianne

Inevitably, knockout gas is pumped into the room, and you and your companions are put to sleep. This is unavoidable and progresses to the next part of the story. You wake up in a chamber which resembles a small apartment. You soon meet Murphy who has knocked you out and placed you in this locked room. You will have chances to talk to him and learn why he has taken you prisoner, and you can also meet Laurel, another captive in the room next to you. However there are two paths to escaping the room.

First you will need to search the closet — Open the door on the left. This requires a high Search skill of 70 or greater. Here you will find a section of weak wood. After finding this weak spot, choose – Climb through the false area in the back of the closet.  You will crawl through the ductwork behind the weak spot and escape to the hallway. Even if you don’t want to escape the chamber this way, you will find a set of spare tools if your Scavenging skill >= 60. This will be important in the second possible way to escape the red chamber.

The other path allows you to question or even kill Murphy. This path takes a wild to complete and requires a specific set of choices to complete. First you need to – Call out for Reilly and Madison. This will allow you to hear scraping on the wall and indicate another captive is present in the adjoining room. Next choose — Communicate with the person in the room on the right. Now you will be able to talk to Laurel, another survivor who has been taken captive by Murphy. You will want to talk to Laurel and ask her — “Have you tried to escape?” She will tell you how she tried to overflow the toilet to force him inside the room and he pumped knockout gas so he could come inside to fix it. This gives you the plan that you will enact in the next few steps.

Next you will need to — Inspect the camera and intercom. This will open up another choice — Use the tools you found to destroy the camera and speaker. This will use the tools from the closet to break the camera Murphy uses to spy into your room. If you don’t have the tools, you can break the camera with Athletics or Crafting greater or equal to 60. At a later moment, Murphy will notice and tell you to lie on the bed so he can come inside and fix the broken camera. He will use knockout gas to put you to sleep before he enters the room. Here is when you want to choose — Remembering Laurel's escape attempt, I wrap wet cloth around my face to protect myself from the knockout gas.

Now that you are protected from the gas, you can choose to knock out Murphy, restrain him, or kill him. If you restrain him, you can ask him quite a few questions about himself, the facility, your companions, and Laurel.

Once you escape the red chamber, you will reunite with Reilly and Madison. You will also free Laurel, the other captive. The rest of the chapter is free of any threats and simply provides opportunities to scavenge and talk to your companions. You should definitely — Eat and drink with Laurel and Reilly. This will lower your fatigue and stress. If you are doing the hacker storyline you can even set up a SurvNet Server. When you are ready to leave you should examine the elevator. You will be given a chance to take items from the research facility before you leave.

The next choice is whether or not to let Reilly tell Laurel the location of the Junkyard. If you do tell her the location, she will visit in Part 4. You will also be given an option to decide on Murphy’s fate. Reilly will want to kill him for imprisoning him and the rest of you. You can choose to intervene, either requiring and Athletics check or a social skills check. With Murphy lives, you will meet him again in Part 4.

When you return to the Junkyard, you will meet Billie, Fred, and Sean, your neighbors from way back in Part 1. You will get to decide if they are invited to join your group; however, they will become members of the group no matter the results of a vote. This section will increase or reduce Allegiance and Morale depending on the choices you make. You will want to base the decision on whether or not your group is democratic/community-based, a raid group, or military/survivalist. This group stance goes all the way back to Part 2 when you first decided to have a leader.

The next part of the story involves an attack on the Junkyard by a group of zombies. Due to Eli’s dementia, he misunderstands the threat posed by the infected and opens the gate as they attack. This allows them to pour inside the Junkyard killing him. If Driver and Church are members of the group, they will also die in the fight. Originally Gina was also a planned death, but I am rewriting this to allow the MC to save her. As of the time of this guide, the security measures in the Junkyard do not have any impact on the battle, but I am going to change that. I also want to provide opportunities for other characters to live or die based on the choice of the MC.

This concludes this guide for chapter 9 of Part 3.