Overview
Do you wanna survive the flesh-eating hordes without too much reading or thinky thinky? You’ve come to the right guide! These are all simple beginner tips that I’ve stol- *acquired* from other people or found out myself through several slow and painful deaths. Also, this guide operates under the assumption that you’ve played the tutorial. Enjoy!*DISCLAIMER* Some tips may or may not be applicable in the Build 41 IWBUMS Beta as it may change things from previous builds. Be forewarned.
Just the tip…(s)
Here are some general tips that you may or may not have known:
1. Making rope out of sheets is worth it. Find yourself a nice base with a second floor, have 2 sheet ropes on hand and a nail and you have a nice entrance and exit to your base that those damn meatbags can’t use.
2. Furniture can be used to block doors. Sometimes the game is iffy about this, and you can walk straight through some objects, and so can the dead. Typically bookshelves, certain armchairs, refrigerators, low tables etc. can be lifted (on the top left of the screen, there is a table, click it to be able to lift certain items) and put down (cycle the options with TAB) wherever you want. Bear in mind that a) if you can walk through it, so can they, so it is no good as a barricade and b) if you can’t seem to lift a fridge, make sure your inventory is really light, otherwise it will be too heavy to lift unless you have high strength.
3. Furniture can also be used to block staircases. Worried about the undead coming up and feasting on your tasty bits while you’re snoozing? Drop a TV in front of the stairs and sleep safe and sound. It won’t always block windows, however. If the object is a table for example, they can get through the window and go over the top of it. Therefore use a fridge or a bookshelf, anything the same height as you.
4. You can see out of a window, and be seen through a window with 2 barricades on it. 3 barricades means you can’t see out of it, as does 4. The more barricades, the longer it takes them to get through. However, add a sheet to the window and you got yourself some dull curtains that stop them seeing you. Especially important if you’re sleeping near a window.
5. Crafting a tent means you can sleep wherever you’d like. Handy if, like me, you thought some beds were 2 singles pushed together and tried to disassemble one, only to lose your only safe bed. And still only get a nail and unusable wood. >_>
6. Read, nerd! Magazines often provide you with crafting recipes, while skillbooks multiply your experience gain on your next action. So if you read a carpentry skillbook, the next time you hack a chair to bits like a lumberjack Jason Voorhes, you’ll get more XP for it.
7. Familiarise yourself with the game. The tutorial gives you a quick run down, and that’s great, but it doesn’t explain a whole lot. Take 10 minutes to run around the tutorial map and see what you can interact with. Just don’t go too far into it… You’ll see why.
8. Zombies, like in most games, books and movies, are attracted to light and sound. Turn off the lights, put up some curtains and sneak as much as possible to reduce your risk of being spotted. Also, if you hear gunshots or a helicopter, go the opposite direction. Loud noises = hungry zombies. Also…
9. Beware of home alarm systems. If you break into an alarmed house, you’re basically ringing a very loud, high pitched dinner bell. If you are so unfortunate, run. Hiding upstairs isn’t viable as the undead will rampage through the house, and they can’t starve to death either. You can. So run away.
10. Like climbing out a window, holding ‘E’ allows you to climb over waist high fences. Beware, zombies can follow you over them, so resist the urge to gloat until you’re safely out of biting distance.
11. Nails are used in quite a lot of recipes, be sure to grab them when you can.
12. If you see barricades in Solo mode that you didn’t put there, this implies previous survivors. The chance for weapons and food is fairly high, but if the house is boarded up, they more than likely never left…
13. Push it real good! Shoving zombies is a good way to get them on the ground, so you can stand on their skulls. Try shoving them, then moving into them and shoving again quickly to knock them over.
The beginning
You’ll start off in a building that has no zombies in it. That’s already a good start. However, mere doors and windows will not keep the undead away for long. So, first we need to:
(a). Find a suitable building. I like a building that has a maximum of 2 doors and as few windows as possible, as well as a second floor. The second floor means that you can use 2 sheet ropes (one rope per floor) and a nail on a window to make a sort of ladder that only you can use. No more worrying about locking the front door.
(b). Keep your grubby hands off the junk! You don’t need everything you can see in this game, you’ll just die tired and sweaty, trying to haul your hoarding ass away from a rambling wall of teeth. The essentials are:
1. Water. After a certain amount of time depending on your settings, the power and water supplies shut off, so refrigerators, freezers, house lights, televisions and taps will lose function. You can put cooking pots or bowls outside so they collect rainwater, or build a rain collector.
2. Food. Try and eat anything that says (fresh) beside it first, because that means it can spoil if not in a working refrigerator or freezer. Canned and sealed goods are preferable but don’t carry too much.
3. Bandages. A simple scratch can cause you to lose your life sauce all over the floor, so be sure to make bandages out of sheets or clothes. Infected wounds will need some disinfectant or alcohol to help. Bites have a very, VERY high chance of turning you into a walking bag of ugly, but there is a very small chance you’ll survive it.
4. Bags. There are several bags to be found and utilised for carrying. These bags reduce the amount of weight your character is carrying, and are therefore VERY useful. You can use plastic bags, trash bags, duffel bags, backpacks, hiking bags, sacks etc. to carry things and they can even be renamed. Hiking bags, duffel bags and school bags can be worn on the back, but other bags will have to be carried as primary or secondary items. If you use a 2 handed weapon, you won’t be able to carry a bag as a secondary so plan your loadout carefully.
5. Seeds. That’s right, you heard you me. When ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan, you’re gonna wanna get real close with your sister and start planting some crops, because with no power, food will start to spoil and you’ll need to grow your own supplies. It’s hard to do, so maybe find a guide that tells you all about it.
6. Weapons of mass destruction. Or a simple baseball bat will do. All weapons have pros and cons. A sneaky character may prefer a knife as they allow stealth kills in 1 hit, provided the enemy hasn’t turned and spotted you. Knives are quick and can 1 hit kill in open combat if timed well, but require you to get your squishy body right up next to our infected friends, and also need repaired quite often. Bats and axes have a long reach and good knockback, as well as being able to hit multiple enemies, but require both hands to use properly. You can use 1 hand, but it turns a possible 1 hit kill into 4 hits. Firearms are loud, require ammo, and can miss if your character doesn’t have any skill in aiming. And if you run out of ammo? You’ll end up in a zombie’s rotten digestive tract. Use only as a last resort or to attract zombies to your location (then run around them).
Sandbox mode
The sandbox mode is actually more helpful than some may realise. I, for one, was sick of zombies shambling past and headbutting my barricades into bits for no reason other than to piss me off. It made building defenses counter-intuitive, as they would go out of their way to slap my precious fences.
However, this can be turned off in sandbox mode, meaning that as long as you don’t make excessive noise and keep your windows covered, you’ll be left alone. Get spotted entering the house, moving around the house or sleeping however, and they’ll come a-knockin’.
The developers have stated that Sandbox Mode is not there to make the game easier. It can if you wish, but that’s not it’s purpose. Survival mode is based on their ideas surrounding zombie lore. However, if you disagree with their ideas, boot up Sandbox mode and enable or disable whatever you wish. You can essentially tailor your whole Project Zomboid experience to your liking.
Want an easy time in the zombie apocalypse? Turn them all into shamblers with low toughness and low strength.
Want to be fighting the dreaded undead who swarm in numbers and are hard to kill? Increase the population and increase the toughness.
Want to spend your life cowering in fear and running for your life? Make all zombies into sprinters, turn their hearing, sight and smell to max and throw yourself in a padded cell you sick, sick freak.
Sandbox mode has more options than you can shake a stick at (if you’re into that), so give it a go.
Build 41 Beta IWBUMS – How to access
With the addition of the Build 41 beta, I felt it important to add some more tips regarding changes that have been made if you have downloaded the Beta. If you’d like to and don’t know how, simply right click “Project Zomboid”, click “properties”, go to “Betas” then select IWBUMS from the dropdown list.
Also beware of using mods as the beta may not support your favourite mods. If you’re unfamiliar with modding, new game updates can cause mods to become obsolete if the mod author hasn’t updated it.
Check the next section on tips for new features in Build 41.
Build 41 IWBUMS – New features and tips
With the new Beta 41 release, certain things will have changed.
- New animations have been implemented. Characters can walk and eat, have new weapon attack animations, and even zombies have new animations such as leaning against walls and pressing against windows instead of just slapping them. Zombies now lose skin as you whip their *** and your clothes can now be torn.
- Clothes provide protection against scratches and bites. T-shirts and shorts offer no protection, while padded clothes and jackets offer more, and firefighter gear and the welding mask offer the most.
- You can now crouch and make yourself less visible with C. From writing this, the C key also accesses the character sheet, so be sure to re-map this (unless the devs realised and changed the controls, in which case ignore this heads up).
- Combat is now very, very dangerous. The undead are harder to kill and weapons no longer hit 10 zombies at once. It seems to be easier for zombies to bite you, and being grabbed from behind is likely to be an instant bite, so watch your back. Try luring zombies if you can, as one on one they are more manageable but still dangerous.
- Firearms have been changed in that zombies will be highlighted when aiming. If the zombie has a red outline, you probably won’t hit. When it turns green, however, it means the shot will connect. However, the noise will still bring every shambler and his mother coming over so be careful.
- Movement now has momentum. Jogging, and the newly added feature, sprinting, builds momentum, so if you have to do a 180 and run away, your character will have to stop and may travel further than you want to. Perfect for running into zombies!
- Spears have been implemented. Combining a knife (hunting knives, butter knives, bread knives etc.) and a plank or branch can make a spear which, given how the combat difficulty has been upped, is great for keeping the undead at bay.
- Thinking you can just sprint through that group of shamblers and emerge victorious on the other side? WRONG. Zombies can now grab at your character and slow them down, or trip them as they run past. 1 zombie might not get the chance, but 6 or 7? Do yourself a favour, go around.
- Sprinting through open windows and over fences can also cause your character to trip and fall, so make sure you know what’s on the other side before you nose dive head first onto the zombie buffet cart. Sprinting also generate noise and make you more exhausted, so use it sparingly.
- Stomping on a downed zombie’s head does far more damage than stomping on their legs, so go for the head. For an easy kill, lure a zombie through a window or over a waist-high fence as they will now trip through it instead of vaulting like a living person, then stomp their head in when they hit the ground.
- The player can now vault those big, brown garden fences that you can’t see past (just beware of what’s on the other side) and can also climb chainlink fences. Perfect for losing pursuers.
- Garage doors can now be opened, so go check that storage lock up and see if you can open those suckers up. This applies to lock ups and residential garages.
- By right clicking the ground, you can sit down on the spot. Good for fighting exhaustion or when you want to drink yourself to death after getting bitten on the groin and awaiting zombification. For immersion purposes.
- New survival options, go onto the sandbox and check them out because I’m too lazy to find them and type them out.
My final tip in this guide is to show Indie Stone and it’s developers some love. You can tell that they’re listening to the community and their love and nurturing of this game has made it what it is today.
That’s most of the new features, but for every single addition, check out Project Zomboid’s site for news at [link]
Vehicles
So, you’ve ascended from a frying pan wielding hobo to a guy with a full pack and sore legs. Maybe you’ll wanna start driving? Well you’re in luck.
Cars were invented in 1962 by John Car. They have 4 wheels and sometimes say, “Kachow!”
In order to start driving, only to drive into a tree and mangle yourself before the zombies can you’ll need 3 things (or 2, but I’ll cover that shortly):
1. Gas. You’ll be glad to hear that the gas prices in the zombie apocalypse have fallen, and are now a painful death at the hands of hungry deadheads. Gas cans can be found in car garages in residential areas, gas stations or storage lots. You can also find empty jerry cans and fill them up at a gas station provided the electrical grid is still working, or you have a working generator. Another method is siphoning gas from other cars but this can be risky if you don’t pay attention.
2. SECURE THE KEYS! Yes, you need a key to start a car. Start scouring the parking lots of Kentucky like a smelly magpie and you may find a car key, or search in houses. Check the glove box of the car if you can get in (you can break windows to get in if need be). Sometimes zombies will have car keys and will wander across the map so hold on to all the keys you find, no reason not to. However, if you start as a burglar or have level 2 mechanics and level 1 electrical, you can hotwire cars. To do this, get in and hold V to open the radial menu.
3. Working parts. So you have a gas can, and the key. Great, let’s hit the road, right? Well… Most cars in the game will be piles of crap. Engine is messed up, you’re missing a window and there’s a hole in the car for you to use your legs to move the car like The Flintstones. Right clicking on a car displays the drop menu, and you’ll see the “vehicle mechanics” prompt. Use that and we can inspect all the parts of the car, from the engine to the headlights. Green = part is working fine. Bad = Probably won’t work too well. If a part is in the red, it likely won’t perform it’s function too well. For example, if your trunk is heavily damaged, it won’t hold as much stuff. A janky fuel tank may leak gas. Broken headlights… You get the idea. Also, a dead car battery means you won’t be going anywhere fast. You can find car battery chargers, or just take a fully juiced battery from another car.
Then it happens. You find a car with all green parts. Zombie Jesus smiles upon you! Let’s talk about what car is right for you.
As I’m sure you can imagine, different vehicles have different properties. Sure, you can burn rubber in a sports car, but you’re not gonna have a lot of storage space and fast cars tend to be a bit louder than standards. There are a few different types of vehicle:
Standard, sport and heavy duty.
Standard cars are usually things like sedans and family cars. Nothing special, but a good middle ground between speed, storage space and engine loudness.
Sports cars are faster but louder than standards. They hold less weight in the trunk than most standards. Useful for making quick runs or escaping.
Heavy duty vehicles like vans and pick-up trucks have great storage capacity (some vans can hold up to 90KG) but are quite slow and louder than your neighbours when they bang at 11pm and you’re trying to sleep.
So you wanna be a mechanic…
Ploughing through zombies makes for great psychotic fun, but your car will suffer. The engine can get busted up, the headlights will break and the trunk can get all battered up. Some things don’t matter too much. Who needs a radio? But if you’ve got busted headlights and you wanna go for a night drive to get away from the zombie wife and kids, you better replace those suckers. As you can imagine, the mechanic skill (and sometimes the electrical skill) comes in handy. You’ll need a wrench (not the red pipe wrench, but the steel wrench). Simply open the vehicle mechanics as mentioned earlier, and if you right click a part, provided you have the skills, you can remove it. There’s a chance you’ll blow it and fail, but that comes with the territory. You can then carry said part to another car and fit it. Again, you might blow it, but with practice, you’ll be a regular day Mad Max.
So, what tools do we need other than your trusty wrench? A jack can be used when changing tires, along with a lug wrench. A screwdriver can be used to unscrew various parts and the tire pump… Pumps tires.
Magazines are also useful. If you don’t have the amateur mechanic trait, you’ll need them. Each car type (Sport, heavy duty and standard) has a magazine to read before you can mess with certain parts.
Some random tips for you to ogle:
It’s worth noting that a sport engine WILL NOT WORK in a heavy duty vehicle, so only use standard parts on standard vehicles, sport on sport vehicles, etc. I risked life and limb to put a sports engine in a pick-up truck and live my hillbilly dreams, but it didn’t work.
Vehicle parts can be found in residential garages as well, so have a look in your neighbour’s garage, maybe you’ll find a new windscreen, or that lawnmower you let him borrow 3 years ago.
Vehicles can be used to block areas off from zombies. Useful for keeping your base zed free, but I personally think it’s boring. Who doesn’t love waking up to find your wheat has been trampled by those damn zombie kids? Zombies can now crawl under cars. God save us all.
You can switch seats through the radial menu (V key). So if zeds pile up at the driver seat, don’t be an easy meal like me and get out of the driver seat.
Broken windows don’t sound like a big deal, but if you have no window by your seat, zombies can lean in and have a nibble of your ear pretty quickly.
You can store stuff in car trunks, and on the seats. Be careful with seats though, if you try and get in the car in the passenger side but your duffel bag called shotgun, you will have to go around. As with literally everything else in this game, that mistake can make you zombie chow.
I like to keep a spare vehicle somewhere near my base with a bug out bag in it and any spare tools I find. Useful for when the helicopter rolls in while you’re dropping your morning deuce.
Cars can be broken down with a propane flask for metal.