Dry stone fence?

[Henricus]

Playing for a bit and looking at other people's claims, I don't see anyone using the dry stone fence as walls. Is there a reason for this? I don't want to collect stone and build them if its a waste of time and energy.

[MagicManICT]

They provide no real protection. They're merely decorative, you could say.

A palisade is considered the minimum for protection. If you have the required materials for it, you should upgrade to a brick wall, but that might take a bit of time to get the required metal and dig up enough clay to build it all.

[vatas]

Roundpole Fence (0 soak, 20 hp) and Dry Stone Fence (0 soak, 50hp) offer practically the same protection. 0 soak means that naked fresh spawn character can bash them both. HP doesn't really make difference since even fresh spawn without axe deals 3 damage per hit.

[sakiji]

Stone fence with locked doors requires vandalism skill to either break through or lockpick the lock, so it generally provides enough protection during early stages if it looks like breaking into your base wouldn't be worth the crime.

But it's pretty much a dice roll, hoping on the mercy of your surroundings, as you can buy these skills within one day if you dedicate a character to it.
It's also ill advised because you need some sort of ambition or goal to strive towards while playing.
Aiming for a brickwall will give you a long list of tasks and goals you can tackle step by step.

[linkfanpc]

or lockpick the lock,

You can never lockpick gates, only houses and containers.

[sakiji]

or lockpick the lock,

You can never lockpick gates, only houses and containers.

True, thought I had done it before, but probably mistakenly remembered and just opened a locked house.
My bad.

[MagicManICT]

If you're going to go with a fence as newbie protection, just stick to a roundpole fence as it's much cheaper and easier to build than trying to get stone without mining. You don't even need a gate as it takes a second to knock a hole in it and a single stick to fix that hole (or is it three... forget off the top of my head), so no need to worry about people simply opening the gate. It forces an act of vandalism rather than simply trespassing. Comparatively, a gate takes more sticks (like those are hard to get...) and a lock. If they break a locked fence gate, then you have to make a new lock, too, which increases the chance for mistakes.