Deuce

The way I understand the loot respawn system, it does not replace or remove items the player has interacted with. I'm not sure on the specifics, but I did test this by looting a bookcase fully and placing a vest in the now empty container and leaving. The loot respawned and the vest remained in the container. I am unsure if normal items that the player hasn't interacted with will remain in a loot container during a respawn cycle or not. If normal items remain during a respawn cycle then the respawn mechanics work to just 'fill up' containers to a threshold and wouldn't actually replace anything on a respawn cycle which might be a difficult problem to deal with. Player-created and player-moved containers do not spawn loot currently (as far as I know). I am unsure if there are any mods or server options that can change this.

I guess this is a bit of a necro, but you could probably kinda accomplish this by botting an admin on the server. I don't have any experience running a zomboid server myself so I might get the specifics wrong a bit (if it is even really possible this way). You could have a bot admin connected and 'listening' on an open server during the 'sign up' period. Players would connect to the server and create their characters and the admin bot would automatically add them to the whitelist. After the sign up period is over the bot would change the settings to only allow whitelisted players. If the bot detected a disconnect or a death it would automatically ban the player in question. You would then just need to clear the banlist after the game ends.

Ok so first off I'm not sure if anyone has suggested this idea or a similar idea before. If any such posts exist please point me in that direction so that I may link them here. I kind of find it hard to believe that no one else has thought of this idea in the past but I could not find anything on the subject. So we all know how loot respawn works in sandbox games, you set the loot respawn interval and the loot rarity of specific types of loot. Here is a refresher image if anyone has forgotten what all of the default options are. We also are all probably familiar with the way utility shutoff works in sandbox games, you set the option to adjust the amount of time the utilities stay active. Here is another refresher image if anyone needs to familiarize themselves again. Now for the suggestion, what if we mixed those two mechanics? You would set your 'Starting Loot Rarity' as normal and you would set your 'Loot Respawn' interval as you currently do, except there would be a couple of new options. I propose that we add a 'Loot Rarity Interval' option to change the loot rarity of the world after a certain amount of time has passed (similar to how the utility shutoff works). For example, you would set it to '0-30 Days' and after that amount of time has passed the loot would tick from 'Normal' down to 'Rare'. Obviously you would need to have loot respawn enabled to refresh the world and make this work (so you would have the new rarity interval options greyed-out if loot respawn was disabled). I would also suggest that a checkbox option be added to allow loot respawn drop to 'None' as a final tick after the 'Extremely Rare' loot tick. Here is a picture of what something like this would look like in the sandbox options (mini-suggestion, stick all of these options on a separate tab labelled 'Loot'). Basically options like these would allow you to simulate active looting over time. What do you guys think?

Yes please. Good suggestion is good.

The best use of a suggestion like this that I can think of is replacement rope for log bundling. Sheet Rope and Ripped Sheets are far too common in my opinion for plastic bottle cordage to be very useful for that application (or at least too time-consuming to be valuable in an emergency situation). You would essentially be cutting up plastic bottles with a knife and braiding them, so it wouldn't be a very fast process. I like the idea though. While we're at it I think it would be neat if you were able to braid Twine into legitimate Rope. It would also be nice if you could also use Wire as a replacement for rope in all applications. It would also be nice if Rope could double as Sheet Rope for exiting windows.

I did some more testing and discovered that the Organized trait is even better for log transportation than I previously thought. With the Organized trait, you are able to fit eight logs (two bundles) in even a Normal Hiking Bag. Without the Organized trait you are unable to fit eight logs in even the Big Hiking Bag. You can also equip two NHBs with eight logs apiece if you have at least 15 base carry weight. You can also manage to equip 3 Big Hiking Bags fully loaded with a total of 24 logs if you can manage to get your carry weight to 15. Obviously you are unable to equip weapons doing this and can't really afford to carry too much spare gear with you, but this is still incredibly useful for transporting large amounts of lumber around. Here is the character build I came up with to test Organized out, it is also pretty viable for a Survival build if you wish to get into Carpentry: Log Moving Carpenter Build Profession - Carpenter Bad Traits High Thirst +6 Prone to Illness +4 Hemophobic +3 Weak Stomach +3 Good Traits Outdoorsman -2 Lucky -4 Organized -6 Stout -6 Base Carry Weight: 15

... is actually pretty useful for hauling logs. As it turns out you can transport eight logs in a Big Hiking Bag with room to spare if you bundle them with rope before packing them. Total carry weight for a single equipped BHB loaded with eight bundled logs is just under five pounds/kilos/weight units as well. This means that with the Organized trait, sixteen ropes and two BHBs you can transport sixteen logs at once with no other traits taken, no profession taken and no skills invested in. -Edit- You can also manage to equip 3 Big Hiking Bags fully loaded with a total of 24 logs if you can manage to get your carry weight to 15. Obviously you are unable to equip weapons doing this and can't really afford to carry too much spare gear with you, but this is still incredibly useful for transporting large amounts of lumber around. I didn't think to test this earlier as I never bother equipping 3 bags myself. Handy dandy picture: Just thought I would share this useful bit of information.