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I'm thinking maybe it was a miss on the zoning in the new farmhouse area?
 
Getting no forage option through that area. Also, no exterior zombies anywhere near the farms, only by the highways or west towards the awesome little lumber yard.
 
Also did a little wandering and the new road section from near pony roam-o to south of the house on the lake does not line up properly.
 
I am also so happy to see an actual big lake, in stead of little dinky ponds.
 

I'm thinking maybe it was a miss on the zoning in the new farmhouse area?
 
Getting no forage option through that area. Also, no exterior zombies anywhere near the farms, only by the highways or west towards the awesome little lumber yard.
 
Also did a little wandering and the new road section from near pony roam-o to south of the house on the lake does not line up properly.
 
I am also so happy to see an actual big lake, in stead of little dinky ponds.
 

Is this where you speak of??

 
BTW: No forage in this area. 
 
Also, love the touch, abandoned ghost town is quite nice, feels like home

Is this where you speak of??

 
BTW: No forage in this area. 
 
Also, love the touch, abandoned ghost town is quite nice, feels like home

I have come across a few new or tweaked areas that I'm not sure if they were previous tweaks or added with the new content, but these too are missing forage maps. 
 
-The area east of the train yard and east of that little community north of muldraugh has changed. Mostly the road system and railroad, but an abandoned set of factories is there as well now. All changed areas missing forage
 
-NW of muldraugh the weird border areas have been improved and the dead end road from west point now connects to the pony roam-o road. Again, missing forage in that area. 
 
Both of these areas seem like they may be missing spawn maps as well, not 100% sure though, only passed through each once and they aren't exactly populated areas.

I figured as much, but I'm talking about the direct areas added here. Perhaps I should wait until we can get a whole overview of the added area, but with my admin-speed running around and exploration there appears to be very little "back roads" that fit with the outskirts of these places.
 
This, of course, is compared to the spaces around and between West Point and Muldraugh - there's smaller farms and homesteads between the two towns and abandoned structures that totally fit with the rural vibe. With the addition as it stands it almost feels more lacking of that element, but again, I'll hold my tongue until I've totally seen everything because I've definitely not seen all of it.
 
I await for the map project to kick in because the added area is indeed huge, I just feel like it is too condensed and feels rather different from the rest of the map because of that.
 
My next base I want to build is either the fire station or the community center with the gym.

I've tried clearing the prison solo on survival a couple times now, failed both times with hundreds of dead zed. I for one am very happy with the zombie counts in there !!
 
There does seem to be a lot of mislabeled or possibly unlabeled containers, in 4 fresh trips the new diner on the road to the west has had nothing in its cabinets. Some of the other buildings could definitely stand to have spawn counts adjusted, in the western town the business' and police dept in particular were very low pop. can't wait for the exterior spawn maps and foraging to be addressed in the new areas.
 
Love the new map work though! I'm a huge fan of your work mash!

So I have seen much talk about metalworking and stone furnaces and this idea that a furnace made from stone would be "minecrafty". I completely fail to understand this position, could someone please explain how stone furnaces that humans have utilized for at least a few thousand years for heating and reshaping or forge welding metals is inspired by minecraft?? A quick google search for medieval forge will give thousands of images and diagrams of real working stone furnaces and forges. A stone furnace burning coal, with a bellows for increasing air, and a big enough fuel supply and you can heat steel well enough to hammer it however you like. Its also a great way to fuse metal, say for pre-fabricating wall pieces, or using small scrap to create a larger item. It just takes lots of heat, time, and hammering. This is called fuse welding and was used for many centuries. Not the most modern technique, but perfectly realistic in a post-apocalypse given enough time, manpower, and resources.
 
Also, a little clarification, I've seen folks say you can't smelt metal with a furnace. You're absolutely correct, you smelt with a smelter. Smelting is the process of refining an ore (what you dig out of the ground) into a base metal. Unless at some point TIS said they will be adding mining and i missed it, you will not be smelting ANYTHING. 
 
No, you cant completely metal steel and form steel bricks from it in a furnace, that takes modern foundry equipment, which you wont have unless you have a power plant. Why would you need to when you have a furnace/forge to work or shape the metal you scavenge however you like. 
 
Not only would a stone furnace or forge work, but I have seen DIY forges that worked great built from salvaged stainless steel sinks, furnace duct, and some random parts from the hardware store (published in popular mechanics actually). This would make a much less resource intensive alternative to the more versatile stone option. It would be great for a bullet forging station, or for repairs, not so much for fabrication (wall pieces, new tools from scrap).
 
Now to be clear, building a forge, keeping a fire fueled, getting it stoked to a high enough temperature and keeping it there, and actually heating and hammering and heating and hammering and heating and hammering... It takes a LOT of time, but so do so many other things in zomboid. Furnaces and forges a great idea and a great fit for the game, its just unfortunate that a lot of peoples idea of what a furnace is comes from their experience of minecraft, not any idea of how they actually work or are used, or how that could be implemented to improve the game.

I'm glad to hear that small items like bullets, arrow or bolt tips, and nails are a for sure thing, at this point nails, bullets, and screwdrivers/shivs are really what I would like to be able to produce at some point. There comes a point after surviving for a while (or playing mp with no loot respawn) that certain consumables become quite hard to scavenge, now this may change as the map expands and be a moot point, but i still see it being something i would love having a person in my group with the ability to cast some of these small consumables, or maybe a one who shant be mentioned with the ability to. 
 
 And i totally agree that I would never want to haul the amounts of stone or brick needed, and go through the time and effort of building a furnace in a zombie apocalypse, but this is specifically why i mention DIY salvaged options that totally fit the scene of post apocalypse (and even use a shop vac for forced air geras , i really only said bellows because i was looking at the bellows hanging next to my fireplace while typing). A lot of those problems mentioned, such as using lots of resources, making tons of noise, taking a lot of time, are the things that can be used to limit its capability and prevent it being overly gamey. And you would definitely be limited in what you could make, small consumables and I really feel like there are a number of items you could stand to be able to do a more effective repair on with a furnace. It just has to be resource and time intensive enough, and require such high skill, that its not something you are going to be doing unless you have absolutely no other choice. 
 
http://www.popularmechanics.co.za/home-how-to/diy-news-features/the-backyard-blacksmith/ - personally i feel that would fit right in with the generator jerry-rigged to the mini-fridges by the bbq grill in my base.
 
The welding being minecrafty was mentioned, this one bothers me actually. Obviously a propane torch is nowhere near hot enough to weld metals like iron or steel, it is great for soldering together copper and melting lead though. Also, nowhere near hot enough to create a flash that would require a welding mask, which you would be blind while wearing the mask for welding (that could make some great mp moments).
 
I'm ok with that part though, game already has propane, finding and hauling around oxyacetylene tanks would be a pain, the mask blinding you would be irritating and possibly hard to implement, lots of issues.
But how it works now I heat pieces of metal and they magically stick together with no material holding them... I need nails for carpentry, I need batteries for my flashlights, a dozen supplies for treating my wounds, I even have to turn off my stove so I don't burn my house down.. But i don't need any kind of welding rod or solder to weld metal walls together? It really does not fit with the other systems in the game and with the immersive and realistic environment you seem to be striving for.
Right now it really feels like there is no greater barriers to putting up metal walls over wooden ones, despite the advantages to them. Another consumable won't necessarily balance its requirements with those of wooden walls, but it will cut down some of the silliness of it. A propane torch, a mask, and a pile of random metal, heat it, and boom, I gots wall. 

No matter how hard you try to balance metalworking (or carpentry, or any other for that matter) you will have some people that level said skill in the easiest, but gamiest way possible. In no way am I saying that's somehow wrong, just pointing out that it is going to be a fact of life no matter how delicately the system is balanced. As far as metalworking goes I think I would be far more likely to mass produce nails than knives, which seem more genuinely useful than gamey. Although I do love my knives, and never seem to have enough.
 
Personally I think the lower levels of metalworking should be very simple objects (nails, tent pegs, what not), and repairs to some metal objects. The current repairs don't seem to repair very much and require me to collect that many more random things, I'd rather just collect more weapons. Being able to do a somewhat better repair, but nowhere near full, through metal working would be nice. It would be time consuming to do, and it would require its own resources (wood or coal for fuel). If repairs require just fuel or a small amount of scrap, and making new objects requires larger or heavier or more specific pieces of metal and more fuel and time, you will have people lean much more to repairing existing items to level than creating new, so you aren't left with people flooding the world with 100's of new knives.
 
At higher levels, and again with larger and more limited resources and more time producing more new items would be more reasonable, but you run into a slippery slope of what you can and can't make. Personally I would lean towards essential utilitarian items that are in limited supply without loot respawn; for weapons they should definitely be a more primitive, lower condition and damage version, maybe slightly increasing in condition as you get higher level, but still not matching a pre-apocalypse factory made version. I also don't think theres anything wrong with a skill being difficult to level, especially to master, as long as it isn't made to seem essential (like carpentry with water barrels). 
 
Is it 100% realistic to repair a screwdriver over whatever type of furnace with a piece of scrap metal, a hammer, and tongs? No, but is it in the same neighborhood as welding with a propane torch or sawing planks from logs by hand with a single saw, or using a sheet rope attached with a single nail 100's of times? I think so. The realism in the game is the big draw for me, but at the end of the day its a game and there are some concessions you make due to the fact that you cant program for the full spectrum of human creativity with trade skills like carpentry and metalworking. Project Zomboid is unbelievably fun, a real zombie apocalypse I have to imagine not-so-much, these little concessions are the difference (and the whole it not being real, but hey). 
 
 
@Zorak I thought the metal walls were a little weak as well. I feel like they should be costly in terms of resources and time to build, but the durability does seem low in comparison to the less costly wooden walls. On a related (but OT) note, would love to see log walls as multi stage, needing a shovel to dig, then place and tie logs, fill trench. Maybe require cement also. Yes, hauling logs is tedious, but the costs are really low for the strength of the wall.
 
@GOGOblin Love the little pot furnace, I imagine you would be able turn some other small metal object into a nail with that, with enough time.
 
 
 
 

No matter how hard you try to balance metalworking (or carpentry, or any other for that matter) you will have some people that level said skill in the easiest, but gamiest way possible. In no way am I saying that's somehow wrong, just pointing out that it is going to be a fact of life no matter how delicately the system is balanced. As far as metalworking goes I think I would be far more likely to mass produce nails than knives, which seem more genuinely useful than gamey. Although I do love my knives, and never seem to have enough.
 
Personally I think the lower levels of metalworking should be very simple objects (nails, tent pegs, what not), and repairs to some metal objects. The current repairs don't seem to repair very much and require me to collect that many more random things, I'd rather just collect more weapons. Being able to do a somewhat better repair, but nowhere near full, through metal working would be nice. It would be time consuming to do, and it would require its own resources (wood or coal for fuel). If repairs require just fuel or a small amount of scrap, and making new objects requires larger or heavier or more specific pieces of metal and more fuel and time, you will have people lean much more to repairing existing items to level than creating new, so you aren't left with people flooding the world with 100's of new knives.
 
At higher levels, and again with larger and more limited resources and more time producing more new items would be more reasonable, but you run into a slippery slope of what you can and can't make. Personally I would lean towards essential utilitarian items that are in limited supply without loot respawn; for weapons they should definitely be a more primitive, lower condition and damage version, maybe slightly increasing in condition as you get higher level, but still not matching a pre-apocalypse factory made version. I also don't think theres anything wrong with a skill being difficult to level, especially to master, as long as it isn't made to seem essential (like carpentry with water barrels). 
 
Is it 100% realistic to repair a screwdriver over whatever type of furnace with a piece of scrap metal, a hammer, and tongs? No, but is it in the same neighborhood as welding with a propane torch or sawing planks from logs by hand with a single saw, or using a sheet rope attached with a single nail 100's of times? I think so. The realism in the game is the big draw for me, but at the end of the day its a game and there are some concessions you make due to the fact that you cant program for the full spectrum of human creativity with trade skills like carpentry and metalworking. Project Zomboid is unbelievably fun, a real zombie apocalypse I have to imagine not-so-much, these little concessions are the difference (and the whole it not being real, but hey). 
 
 
@Zorak I thought the metal walls were a little weak as well. I feel like they should be costly in terms of resources and time to build, but the durability does seem low in comparison to the less costly wooden walls. On a related (but OT) note, would love to see log walls as multi stage, needing a shovel to dig, then place and tie logs, fill trench. Maybe require cement also. Yes, hauling logs is tedious, but the costs are really low for the strength of the wall.
 
@GOGOblin Love the little pot furnace, I imagine you would be able turn some other small metal object into a nail with that, with enough time.
 
 
 
 

So I have seen much talk about metalworking and stone furnaces and this idea that a furnace made from stone would be "minecrafty". I completely fail to understand this position, could someone please explain how stone furnaces that humans have utilized for at least a few thousand years for heating and reshaping or forge welding metals is inspired by minecraft?? A quick google search for medieval forge will give thousands of images and diagrams of real working stone furnaces and forges. A stone furnace burning coal, with a bellows for increasing air, and a big enough fuel supply and you can heat steel well enough to hammer it however you like. Its also a great way to fuse metal, say for pre-fabricating wall pieces, or using small scrap to create a larger item. It just takes lots of heat, time, and hammering. This is called fuse welding and was used for many centuries. Not the most modern technique, but perfectly realistic in a post-apocalypse given enough time, manpower, and resources.
 
Also, a little clarification, I've seen folks say you can't smelt metal with a furnace. You're absolutely correct, you smelt with a smelter. Smelting is the process of refining an ore (what you dig out of the ground) into a base metal. Unless at some point TIS said they will be adding mining and i missed it, you will not be smelting ANYTHING. 
 
No, you cant completely metal steel and form steel bricks from it in a furnace, that takes modern foundry equipment, which you wont have unless you have a power plant. Why would you need to when you have a furnace/forge to work or shape the metal you scavenge however you like. 
 
Not only would a stone furnace or forge work, but I have seen DIY forges that worked great built from salvaged stainless steel sinks, furnace duct, and some random parts from the hardware store (published in popular mechanics actually). This would make a much less resource intensive alternative to the more versatile stone option. It would be great for a bullet forging station, or for repairs, not so much for fabrication (wall pieces, new tools from scrap).
 
Now to be clear, building a forge, keeping a fire fueled, getting it stoked to a high enough temperature and keeping it there, and actually heating and hammering and heating and hammering and heating and hammering... It takes a LOT of time, but so do so many other things in zomboid. Furnaces and forges a great idea and a great fit for the game, its just unfortunate that a lot of peoples idea of what a furnace is comes from their experience of minecraft, not any idea of how they actually work or are used, or how that could be implemented to improve the game.

I agree that the pain effecting sleep threshold seems a little low, a single small scratch is keeping me from falling asleep until high levels of tiredness, I feel like it could be bumped up a moodle level for when it starts to effect sleep. Really enjoying the sleep changes besides that. 
 
Scratch that, hand't slept with pain since the 35.2 update, that works much better. 
 
I am curious if anyone has found a digital watch? I've spent quite sometime searching high and low and still haven't found one. Really want to know if its alarm is a bit quieter than the alarm clock. 
 
Nutrition seems to be working much better than before, weight gain/loss is much more manageable, and i can maintain weight (maybe a little slow on loss?).
 
I'm really curious if there is any intent to include nutritional deficiencies or diseases? Something like scurvy or protein deficiency. Weight feels like a stat that I'm managing, it isn't requiring me to balance my diet more than I would anyways. I feel like adding even a couple deficiencies would cause me to think much more about my food supply and what it consists of, and would cause me to search out sources of a given nutrient. I love that nutrition is working without me having to count calories, I would be unlikely to use it at that point, but a few deficiencies to watch out for I think would add a lot to the current system.

Haha I know they are bad , I only use them when I have 1 or 2 melee weapons left, then they are good to choop 1-2 trees to get planks for baricading.
My point is even if we get a chance to smelt spoons into shivs/knifes, metal parts to axe head etc it still can be ballanced.
In the same way that stone axe didnt replace normal axe, the metalworking weapons/tools dont have to replace them.
 
 
Now something new,
After a bit of testing I dont see much use for metal walls. Dismantling items to get metal parts takes so long, it gives you just a little bit (compared what you need for single wall section) and I did some axe testhing - they dont seems to be that strong.
Wooden walls are way faster to build and just slightly weaker.

It must not be removed, smithing is VERY USEFUL but RARELY USEFUL (because there is still a lot of cool stuff in crates and wardrobes).  
Full-sized smithing (a big furnace, charcoal pits) will be fine for "postapoc" societies. While small DIY furnaces are ok for some surviving enthusiast, who needs some proper arrow heads or details for a trap or I dunno what small things he wants.
 
The one thing for sure: you will never build a stone furnace to make a shitty tent peg. There must be a realy good reason to dive into industrial-tier smithing.

Aside from books or actually being professionally taught there was also Educational Television back in those days that i remember watching as a kid. It defiatly would not make you an expert but you could learn a fair amount especially in home improvement shows like Bob Vila or science and technology shows like Nova.  Heck even Mr Rogers would visit factories and stuff and show you how things were made. Oh also Bill Nye too for general science.
 

Aaaaand another (first here) experiment to prove.. I do not know what, maybe that I have some time to spend.
I've made a small furnace and tried to smith something - for the first time. Well, now I know, that it needs two for a tango.. Or some automatic airpump and a cyborg's metal limb to andle two details . Also smithing is loud, all Z's will be yours if you start cosplaying a dwarf in the centre of Muldraugh.
It was just an experiment, but having only knowledge and no experience it is possible to do something. At least you can make something like a tea spoon from a big nail, don't ask me what for.
 
1) The furnace - some ceramic vessel with a hole, a big can, an iron tube(goes from ceramic pot's bottom) and some cinder, also a couple of nails.

 
2) The pump - from an air matress or something. Space between the ceramic pot and the can is filled with cinder.

 
 
3) Had no coal, had to burn wood, thats why the pot is almost empty. The proper way to do it: tage big flower pot, fill it with coal, use a bucket instdead of a can.
.
 
 
4) The nail is orange-hot, pretty enough to shape it as you wish. If I had the full pot of coal I could warm the half of that nail to red. Bigger pot is needed for something like a knife.
 
 
 
5) Used a piece of iron as an anvil. The nail cools down pretty fast, but when it is orange or bright red it is soft and can be shaped even with a not-that-big hammer.

 
 
6) Made a kinda handle by smashing and twisting the end of the nail. Thats the last pic, the "working" part of the spoon is pretty ugly, will try to make a simple  can-opener out of it later. The flat details to the bottom-left: tried to weld them by simply heating and hammering - just "no", needs flux, needs higher temperature (maybe). 

 
So, conclusions:
Using a flower-pot technology is fine to make a simple furnace that gives enough heat to smith iron details..
You'll probably need another guy to pump air and hold something, also you'll need good pliers to handle the iron part.
If you want to make something simple you need only pliers and a hammer, otherwise - tools tools tools and a proper anvil.
**ck, now I want a big furnace and an anvil..
 
TLDR: take a flower pot, and a bucket of cinder, also a metal pipe and you are almost a blacksmith!

Completely agree with this, would love to see the two separated.
 
As of now I like to imagine the cracks in store walls are from all the zed pounding... on the doors..
 
I like the vegetation growth though, part of me would actually like to see natures growth expanded on, or maybe just a higher setting (anyone ever experienced a kudzu problem? I have watched it grow a foot a day, if anything is ever going to mutate into man eating vines, its kudzu).
 
I'm curious about thoughts on trees growing also, really just saplings to make open spaces somewhat less open over time, I feel like it has been addressed somewhere before though. I try to live as long as possible, never anything near long enough to see a full grown tree develop, but 3-5 ft saplings of many types of trees develop quickly (i pull new 4-6" maple shoots from my rose bushes every two weeks), and it could make for a really interesting complication as months go by and those open space become more obstructed.

500 days is the time it gets to full overgrowth, not when it begins. So you would be seeing changes around the 250 mark. At least that is how I think it works currently.
 
Well the thing is, though, that that is the player's idea on what is reasonable. Some people have zed respawning turned off and migration turned down so they can have a feasibly long life in their idea of the apocalypse (which is what the sandbox serves as).  I'm all for more server options, the 500 days set back does not cut it for me because it basically means the tall grass never regrows, and if I didn't want it at all I am stuck with dealing with it at some point.
 
Honestly if both of the settings were separated it could fix most of my qualms with it but I think there should be more control over the erosion rates (including that off button for both sides of the coin (nature's growth and urban decay))

What!? How can pancakes possibly be winning, waffles are such amazing delicious creations with prefect little pockets just for holding my nice warm syrup. 
 
 
 
 

Gasoline in a sealed airtight container, such as the underground tanks at a gas station, takes FAR longer than that to go bad, definitely longer than you would need to worry about in the time it would take to use it up.
 
I would love to be able to connect a gennie to the gas station fuel pumps, because with the current situation you need to make the decision to use a generator immediately and spend those first few weeks focused entirely on collecting every drop of gas you can if you want to have electricity for any period of time. 
 
One of my EE classes we built a small electrical generator capable of charging a cell phone (at about an 18mph wind, where we had peak efficiency) from the bendix drives from old car starters (from junkyards), fan blades from old box fans, and a few random parts from dead tvs and chargers. Not something I'm advocating being able to do in PZ, but all things readily available in the early 90s (besides the phone charger, but you wouldnt be using it for that purpose anyways). 

It does take place in the 90s, but solar panels were definitely a thing in the 90s. Granted they weren't on every other home or anything like that - but there were solar farms and distribution in the 90s, just not close to as much as there is now.
 
For the sake of gameplay > realism I think there is enough to go off of to say it wouldn't be too outlandish to include solar panels to some degree as a huge late-game project for players. There are also other alternatives to keeping the power on as well.

The issue of operating and maintaining an actual power plant would be the amount of hands needed to run it. We're talking at least a couple dozen people just to operate it (All of whom would need to have training to operate it) and that's just minimum.
 
You also have the issue of resources, most power plants (With the exception of hydroelectric dams, solar stations, and wind turbines) can only run for a limited amount of time before resource run out. Now, in regards to the more sustainable energy sources, you have to realize the game is set in the early 90's, and as such things such as solar were only beginning to grow in North America, and the wind turbine had only recently in the past few decades began to spring up in certain areas. 
 
That may sound cynical, but I agree that it would be amazing to do something that would provide a sustainable energy source. I'm the kind of person who when NPCs come around, will try to rebuild society with as many NPCs as possible. :#

I watched tons of videos on it to be sure it work in real life...
 
From real blacksmith, to "blacksmith hobby" to redneck smelting metal to do their own bullets.
 
Yeah, it's 100% possible, but again, I had to do research, and in the mind of the players who won't do research, smelting metal feel like it's too medieval/minecrafty...
When we announced it, or on twitter, we had a lot of players saying that "it's not realistic etc...." because in the mind of the player, it's not, and I don't want the player to make research to understand that it's 100% possible and ton of player do it every day

Not the stone furnace itself is "minecraft" but the whole metalworking may be too minecraft.
You actually do not need a stone furnace, some DIY furnaces are made of an old plant pot and a bucket with cinder. The bad part is that you will need a bunch of instruments and borax or chalk or something, also some manual airpump.. And it makes a lot of noise. So, even being extremely useful (not often, but from time to time) smithing is a BIG bag of problems, otherwise its minecraft.
 
BTW welding iron with propane blowtorch - this IS already kinda minecraft.