Badgzerz

Slingshots are one of the most common toys you can find country kids playing with. Wrist rockets included. Bows would be common as well because of bow hunting. Its very easy to get arrows too. I can buy a bag of fletchings by the hundred from my tiny mom & pop hunting shop. I do want guns to be hilariously overpowered though when used properly with high character skill. I just think there needs to be more mechanics tied in with them that makes them harder to use in every way except aiming. This is how it would be irl. I came up with a nearly exhaustive list of very realistic and necessary considerations around the use of guns in a real life setting, they could easily be applied to a videogame. I thought of this all because the stuff on this list could be used to balance britas guns and near infinite ammo. Guns could be super overpowered but there would still be strong reasons not to use them which is how I think it should be. You would gradually and permanently go deaf shooting guns without hearing protection such as earplugs or earmuffs. Firing a gun indoors would realistically mean immediate deafness for in game days depending on the gun and some amount of permanent hearing loss. Fire a .308 indoors without earpro and you will hear the world ringing like your head is underwater for several days. This is the biggest thing working against guns in the real world and zomboid. Not accidentally shooting something or possibly yourself because you forgot to engage the safety before putting your gun away the last time you used it, or because you drew your pistol under great stress without any training. This happens a lot and is why gun safety and training is so important. Training to properly operate the weapon under stress without looking at it (Cycling the bolt when reloading/rechambering, not fumbling your ammunition and dropping it while reloading walking backwards away from a horde, remembering to engage the safety with a hotkey before you put it away. Having enough magazines, because it is very hard to speedwalk around paying attention to your surroundings while packing a magazine. Packing magazines while walking would get you killed in game. Guns ought to be much louder than they were. I dont know why house alarms or the heli event is louder. Even suppressed you can hear a 5.56 gunshot from hundreds of meters away even if you are not getting shot at. Brass Facts on youtube proved this. Also if the gun is pointed at you, its just as loud as it is if it were unsuppressed because that sound is still coming out of the muzzle with the bullet. Zombies would still be drawn from full distance in the direction you fired even if you have a suppressor, and they will also be drawn the sonic crack of the bullet. Being mindful of the direction you are shooting in. So many people in this game shoot at hordes towards their vehicle. It doesnt have any bad effects but people don't realize they are firing a gun towards their vehicle. Having good magazines, because any bit of damage to a magazine will cause malfunctions way more than having a dirty/worn gun will. The magazine is more important than the gun when it comes to reliability.

I've shot plenty of recurve and compound IRL. I'm no wizard but I can comfortably shoot a 55lb bow. I also throw rocks with slings. I think we need 3 types of bow with 3 levels of draw weight (9 bows) and several types of arrow. Recurves are infinitely renewable but the hardest to shoot. Light, medium, heavy draw Compound bows are the best all round bows. Light, medium, heavy draw Crossbows are the heaviest, most accurate, easiest to use, and the most powerful but take the longest to reload. Handmade, medium, heavy draw There are many types of arrow for different purposes, there are target arrows with minimal wounding ability but good for small game, arrows for fowling, arrows for fishing, and broadheads for medium game and larger. Slingshots would also be crucial to have for small game and even killing zombies. A wrist rocket with a metal object will pierce a skull. They would be a powerful distraction tool as well when it comes to breaking windows.

We need a lot more guns. All the guns listed were common in the US in this time period. Yes we need all the smaller calibers and 'redundant' ones too. Hunting various sized game, fowling, inexpensive aim training/target shooting. None are showboaty hollywood weapons that do not exist outside of films. 7.62x39 SKS, AKM (semi and automatic) 7.62x54R Mosin 7.62x33 M1 Carbine 7.62x51 AR10, M1A, M60, M240, M24 SWS 7.62x63 M1 Garand, M1903 Springfield 5.56 x 45 AR15, AR18, Blaser R93 .22LR Marlin Papoose, Ruger 22 pistol, generic .22 bolt action, generic .22 lever action 12GA Auto 5, Saiga 12 16GA Generic shotgun 20GA Generic shotgun .410 Generic shotgun/revolver 9x19 Saiga9, Tec9, Browning Hi Power, Ruger PC9, MP5 (SD variant as well) .45 ACP Thompson .44 Mag lever action .270 Winchester Winchester Model 70 .45-70, .30-30 Generic lever action We need more non-boom ranged weapons too, zombies are walking biohazards and people would not be using melee as their first resort to kill them. Slingshots would be incredibly common with wrist rockets being the best version. There would be many bows such as recurve, compound, and crossbows all with differing draw weights.

You got your rocked up '87 Lincoln Town Car with a plow, wheelguards, and a beefed up frame thats been reinforced with welded sections of steel and you slam into a wall. The car is no longer a crumple zone because its been rocked up to handle constant collisions with zombies, saplings, and barricades. You become the deformation based crumple zone if you experience a sudden deceleration with an immovable object.

I swing a shovel like a bat that has a longer handle than the zomboid shovel all the time. I've even sharpened the sides of it with an angle grinder to hack limbs, vines, and brush with it. When I'm in the woods I dont even carry an axe because a small army shovel works 75% as good as an axe when the sides are sharpened with a file or grinder. Shovels should be considered as axes because they are definitely not blunt weapons irl. It takes 5 minutes and a file or angle grinder to turn a shovel into a 75% effective axe, I've done this at work with my shovels and I use them to hack saplings, roots, vines, and brush. In the woods I dont generally carry an axe, I carry an army shovel with sharpened sides and use that for chopping. I'm not an exceptional person either. I'm only 145lbs.

I saw the recent thursdoid showing a drill press, bandsaw, and arc furnace and Im pretty happy about it. I think there ought to be more tools long term, tools that would be common in 1993. Non-placeable tools (Most of these would be stored in a crafting machine tile to unlock recipes and boost XP gain from crafting)): Rifling buttons (force this through a barrel blank to cut rifling grooves) Tap & Die set Cylinder hone set (can use with drill to hone a cylinder in an engine) Drill Index Annular Cutter set (these are just industrial hole saws made to drill very large holes in metal) Carbide bur set Die grinder Air compressor Angle grinder File Drill Metrology tools (Just a bulk set of measuring tools like dials, calipers & micrometers made into one item, the more of these stored in a tile, the more recipes, quality, speed, and XP gain from work) Electromagnetic Drill Press (Portable drill press) Machine parts & fixtures (General item stored in lathe and mill to unlock more recipes, also used as a crafting item to build/repair machines. This one item represents lead screws, spindles, rotary tables, indexing heads, vises, clamping sets, etc. These are stored in machines and used to repair them, unlock more recipes and boost XP gain from crafting) Machine-tool tiles: Lathe Column & Knee Mill ID/OD grinder (grinds crankshafts, camshafts, splines, bearings) Workbench (store items inside to unlock more recipes, eventually has vise and bench grinder, can also store measuring and cutting tools inside) Engine hoist (wheeled hydraulic lifts) Toaster oven (Hobbyists use these to temper steel to make it less brittle after hardening) These machines and tools could do every player conceivable crafting task related to metal working for the rest of the life of the game and modding community. Gun making, car part making, engine rebuilding, machine building (wood gas and steam engines to make power from burning wood, charcoal, or mined coal), creating reloading tools to make ammunition, repairing existing tools, making nuts & bolts, making high quality melee weapons superior to anything looted, maintaining mechanized farming equipment, etc. There could be coal mine locations, job shops, mass production CNC shops, machine shop barns on farms, automotive machine shops and boat repair shops as well, these would be gold mines for all these items, crafting materials, and player base locations. 1993 is in the age of CNC so there would be CNC machines although I think those are too much for zomboid but they could be great tiles to dismantle for XP and high end materials.

Yes I understand that part and expect the 30% bite, but disagree with it.

OP is right, it should be impossible to get bitten through prime condition armored clothing, especially if I spam shove to counter a zombie grab, or if I was moving before I was grabbed. There should be clothing that allows one to survive dragdowns and be unbitten long enough for zombies to lose interest and walk away, but all clothing should be heavily counterbalanced by its weight, encumberance, and risk of dying from heatstroke. It should be impossible to use anything but guns in some clothing. Armor should be inconvenient to wear for everyday use and downright fatal to wear if too heavy in the wrong situation. Perhaps heavy clothing also compounds equip time and item transfer time. These are sure ways to balance body condom armor. I do want to see some more clothing; Welding gloves Welding balaclava (Much more durable material than standard balaclavas, often leather or very heavy cotton) Nylon Poncho Disposable Poncho Leather gauntlets (Crafted) Leather apron Razorwire gloves (Worn by us military when working with razorwire) Leatherneck (Crafted, earned US marines this nickname as they wore leather collars in the age of sail and sword)

New items; Stainless canteen holds 20 water, can be used to boil water and make drinks/ small soups & stews in (3 ingredients only) White pine needles; these are an extremely common and effective herb for immune health and vitamin C, makes good tea. Stove canister; There are many types but for simplicity I will reduce them to 1. Various stoves that work like carrying a placeable grill around, opposed to a campfire kit. Ultralight stove; Burns canisters to cook one item at a time, works indoors. Requires no lighter. Based on MSR Pocket Rocket Mountaineer stove; Burns gas, propane, and canisters to cook one item at a time, works indoors. Requires no lighter. Based on MSR WhisperLite Multifuel stove; Burns gas, canisters, and propane to cook 1 item. Requires lighter. Based on Coleman 533. Military standard in game. Multifuel cookstation; Cooks 2 items at a time, large & bulky 533. Requires lighter. Military standard. Camp stove; Cooks 1 item, requires lighter, only burns propane. Wood stove; Burns only wood/combustibles no heavier than scrap wood, cooks 2 items. Can be crafted. Alcohol stove; Runs off gas, kerosene, or alcohol/disinfectant. Cooks the slowest. Can be crafted. They dont all have to be added, but if I could pick 2 they would be the wood and multifiel stove as one is common and the most fitting for zomboid, and so is the other while being a higher tier military issue analogue that burns propane, canisters, and gas. Modders can fill in the rest.

Wow thats a lot of words. Im not reading all that.

1. I never said instant kill. You injured urself and risk the infection because u fought with bad moodles, a weapon too heavy for u to handle, and broke ur bloodied weapon with it in your unprotected hands. You screwed up in 4 preventable ways and died from infection due to recklessness. When private lime can survive for over a week on a no arms run its entirely ur fault for dying in combat. 2. U will still catch random assorted nasty bacterial infections from being near literal tons of decaying hazmat from an amalgamation of fetid corpses. 3. Add as much choice to vanilla for the player as possible w/o needing mods. You are just being stuck up cuz I want the game harder when I also listed carrying 2 corpses at once and queueing a mass action that currently takes hundreds of clicks that u conveniently forgot about. The game isn't fun, its immersive and realistic. Thats why its so niche.

1. Sure. 2. I'd be more afraid of the zombie rebounding out of the hedge or not stumbling back far enough to fall to begin with. Id like to see a shoving/parrying combat skill that represents my character's understanding of physics when repelling grabs or shoving zombies over, with incorporated weapon specific shove attacks. 3. Sure. 4. I c my idea has caught on. 5. Yeah, directional stumbles would be cool. Maybe even a cursor based swing where I can swipe my mouse when swinging to select an attack to compound a stumble or go for an overhead smash. 6. Meh, some weapon choices ought to always remain bad. I would rather see a different weapon class system and more meta weapons. Nothing would or should rival a 24" axe, boar spear, scimitar, entrenching shovel (axe shovel military combo) or pickaxe. A combination wrench, pipe/bar, crowbar, or pipe wrench would never be good striking weapons compared to these. I've tried to use a 36" pipe wrench as a hammer and I will never do that again. The vibration that went through the handle into my hands gave me temporary arthritis. 7. Sure. Those zombies got a human context to em, it would take a lot out of anyone to get used to bludgeoning them initially.

Its not mandatory, stop full tilt sprinting everywhere. Sprinting through the wilderness while carrying weight is how you get yourself a broken leg and a search & rescue team and that is true no matter how fit you are. Put on a 30kg rucksack and go for a hike; zomboid is very generous. You are doing something wrong to be this clumsy.

Its not random, you had bad moodles, no clothing protection, and bloody clothes/weapons. You failed in 2 preventable ways. People send themselves to the hospital all the time for using a tool recklessly. Flailing your arms at walking biohazards with sharp objects is no different. Manage ur moodles, armor, keep your base clothing layers clean and u'll be fine. We aren't immune or special in any way in PZ. The game says this is how you died. Puking just means you are suddenly hungry there doesnt have to be an animation. Inhaling hazmat from dozens/hundreds of rotting diseased corpses is going to get you sick with so many things and this is the least bs way to still make zombie corpses lethal w/o being hopelessly fatal. Then disable it in settings. I listed carrying 2 corpses at once to double corpse management speed along with a queued mass action to save hundreds of clicks. There is no emphasis on the logistics of dealing with thousands of corpses beyond clearing a road, farm patch, and the interior space you live in. Dont feed the zombies is a great mod IMO that I forgot to bring up the function of.

*I word in blunt absolutes for brevity and clarity, but this is just my opinion as no mods can do what I request* Zombies and combat do not have enough depth, they become very stale and absolutely impossible without abusing game mechanics if playing with sprinters enabled. I want zombies to give me more problems that I cannot just abuse with fences/windows/fire. Being forced to deal with authentic problems in a sensible way makes the game fun to me, I play zomboid for its authenticity. Zombies need more ways to attack players and to just be all 'round nastier to deal with at all. If I stand on a zombie when its face up it should scratch and bite me below the knees If I stand on a zombie at all it should flail around and trip me eventually, only to then roll over and grab me if I am still on the ground not pressing the shove key to 'block' it. They should passively make attacks w/o animation locks from behind w/o an animation lock; to eliminate fence and window abuse. Sprinters need to have limited stamina or more tripping, they are absolutely impossible to play against without abusing fences, windows, or super low population settings. They need varied walking speed so some can walk faster than my character, this eliminates my ability to mindlessly walk away from zombies, there should be the necessity to pay some attention to what is happening behind me. Slightly faster zombies also means I cannot cheese their grab animation time to crouch walk away from them with broken legs. This is a thing I can do, they walk faster than me but still slow enough to not grab me by the time they play their grab animation. I've used it many times to accumulate hordes that I cannot lose by outwalking (for burning/luring), or to start a modded character with a broken legs negative trait. Shoving range ought to be extended with melee weapons equipped, if I was my Zomboid character I would use a spear to shove zombies back/over by the pelvis from a safe distance and leave them behind to trip over themselves. Melee weapon shoves with spears/long blade ought to turn zombies into crawlers. Crawlers ought to be a trip hazard to other zombies and myself. Using melee weapons should have a liability associated with them that is beyond combat error and getting bit. Self harm thru poor swings when bad moodles are present and when a weapon breaks. Infection and zombification risk/guarantee when I harm myself with a contaminated weapon. This risk cannot be eliminated, only minimized. Zombie corpses need more depth They should trip me. If walking backwards/strafing the risk is higher, if they are layered deep in a tile I cannot walk over them without tripping. If I sneak I can wade over them and not fall unless I have bad enough moodles or are strafing/walking backwards. They will trip other zombies I need a respirator for prolonged zombie combat. They will immediately harm me in some way such as vomiting and perpetual exhaustion because the air is so putrid. Corpse sickness will persist and sicken me with constant hunger, exhaustion and weight loss and it will kill me unless I treat it with more than just staying well fed. Antibiotics, medicinal plants, staying fed and hydrated, not accumulating sickness by being near corpses Characters can sensitize to corpse sickness, as in the symptoms of it will become more and more severe with consecutive instances of sickness. The more I am exposed to it, the more sensitive my character becomes to it, I love to take weak immune system traits. They will not ever fully decompose and disappear until I pick them up and drop the corpses to initiate the timer, even then passive decomposition takes more than a month. I want to be forced to dispose of the corpses with some deliberate effort. They can be carried as a primary and secondary now and queued up as a mass action so its a lot less effort and time to load and dump them for burning or deletion in a dumpster. I want to just dump them on the ground and they will naturally decay fully, burn them, delete them, it just has to be a conscious effort to remove them.

Never played dark souls, but I've used tools a fair bit and put in 45h/w doing blue collar stuff. Edge alignment is the same beast whether using a hammer, an axe or a sword. There is more needed for a sword than a hammer, but a hammer is still a directional weapon, its not just a round club. Hence the dexterity requirements for different weapons. As for 1 hand vs 2 hand, people who lack the dexterity and strength/endurace to swing a tool will resort to two hands just to manage the tool without hurting themselves. More than half my mates in my HS woodworking class could barely drive a nail with two hands and a 16oz hammer. On the contrary, some people are brutes and can swing typically two handed weapons well one handed. Not optimally but they can wield a flashlight or a handgun while killing zombies with a 24" handled axe. In my system, having high dexterity from using high dexterity and possibly high strength weapons like swords, axes, pickaxes etc would mean you can immediately pickup any lower dex/str weapon and perform at near maximum capacity with it. Going from a hammer to a sword means you still got some basics down and aren't at square one, with square one being a young girl who has no experience swinging tools with precision. If you go from an axe to a sword, you are 60-75% of the way there.

My idea is that there are one and two handed weapon categories further divided into dextrous, and clubbed weapons. Everything is dextrous except for weapons like clubs, bats, planks, pipes, wrenches, branches, prybars etc. (not hammers) Melee skills are all scrapped and replaced with Maintenance and Dexterity. Weapons have a required dexterity level in order to be effective with swords/spears/machetes/axes having the highest requirements, this is because you need to align the edge properly to strike more efficiently. Higher dexterity also means your weapons will degrade slower and you fatigue less from swinging. If you swing an axe crooked you will roll the edge and dull it faster. Maintenance is changed to allow you to re handle or resharpen weapons more effectively with more means. More interestingly I think meeting or exceeding dexterity requirements should allow some two handed weapons to be used one handed with enough strength, and if dexterity/strength requirements are not met you will use one handed weapons two handed. Becoming exerted will cause your character to swing a one handed weapon with two hands to maintain swing speed and power.

Melee weapons breaking can injure your character with a chance for the infection. Gloves almost entirely eliminate this chance but not completely. Repairing a weapon with a high enough maintenance skill will entirely prevent self harm from a melee weapon breaking. You may trip on zombies/zombie corpses and injure yourself, with the worst scenario being the infection resultant from tripping onto teeth. Clothing resistances are more effective against this indirect kind of attack. Walking on corpses is a trip hazard no matter the speed or movement, but will level lightfooted and nimble. Zombies can trip into you injuring you without any grab animations. Bites are extremely unlikely even if tripped into from the rear. Clothing resistances are more effective against this kind of indirect attack. Trips are very likely to knock you down. Falling down has a very high chance of arm injuries up to and including fractures, especially if carrying weight. You are going to suffer joint injuries from falls involving carried weight. Fractures are likely with encumberance and exertion.

I think they are a bit overdone with too much grunting and not enough subtle panting. Exhalation is proper breathing technique when doing physically exerting tasks like throwing a punch, swinging a weapon, or vaulting a fence. This can sound like a hissing noise made by boxers, it can be a more subtle grunt. When I'm going for a 5 minute mile I breathe with only my nose (I dont bring water and exhaling through mouth dehydrates me) in super clean and full breaths making sure not to breathe too fast (gotta hold that air in for half a second or so), I even forcefully exhale whenever my foot hits the ground on every 3rd or 4th step because it is easier that way. I think skills ought to also modify player noises, maybe breathing technique is audibly improved with higher endurance/sprinting. You can watch videos of people doing any sort of physical training and you will see and hear the quick exhaling of athletes instead of grunting. It goes for parkour, combat sports, endurance, weightlifting. (a lot more noise but mostly just forceful breathing) Grunting would be great for injuries, first aid, prying open windows, interacting with the build/place menu etc.

Im just throwing my ideas into the thread because all else I can do is just nod in agreement with you, which is boring.

Zombies can be configured to trip over eachother

You dress yourself up real nicely with those insults. You made a whole bunch of mistakes going into LV with 25% sprinters solo for some basic meds. You didn't bother to fortify a safehouse with a kill funnel that uses a few layers of fence? You didn't bring a buddy? No escape route(s)? Nobody's feelings are hurt here. Getting caught off guard by a zombie is a skill issue, you weren't playing at your best and had to die somehow, or are you just going to live forever going on high risk missions until you get bored and delete the save? The only zombie grabs that are truly fatal are getting grabbed from behind or getting swarmed, that's how it should be. We have a tremendous instinctive fear of getting grabbed by the neck from behind for a very good reason. Kids got clocked in school all the time for that 'prank' where they slip a hand down the back of somebody's neck when they weren't paying attention.

You have a skill issue as you've said you don't. You only play on a server and you restore your character every time you die to a zombie, because zombies can only hurt you by engaging you in an animation that involves them grabbing you. If you got grabbed by zombies that you out walk, you died to a lack of caution and planning on your part. The only problematic zombie animations are crawler lunges, I don't know why I cannot spin my character around to jog/run/walk out of that animation. Currently I exit that animation by careening backwards into a dead stop, only to spend half a second straightening my legs to leave the animation standing motionless. That anim is bogus. They do have to make it possible for zombies to lunge attack you across a passenger seat or fence/window though. Sleeping in cars up against a wall is cheese, and so is standing with my back up against a fence/open window to bash in zombie heads where they can't lunge me.

Im watching Pr1vateLime's Pyrogenic Summer challenge, and I've had thoughts on what I would do to secure water and food and zomboid is lacking in some very basic mechanics. Direct sunlight and clothing color heat mechanics. If its 130F outside I am going to either bleach my clothes, or improvise some out of a bedsheet. I would not want to be naked on a 130 degree day. I will cook faster than if I was wearing a bed sheet. Dug shelters Searching for water. I think houses in zomboid need water heaters. Even when water utilities are shut off and you can't get water out of your fauct, your water heater is still going to be full, because pressure is what forces water out of the heater into your faucets. Seemingly nobody knows this and would dehydrate to death with a full water heater that can be tapped with a hacksaw and a tube, or the bleeder valve at the bottom if it has one. Solar ignition & cooking. Magnifying glasses could be added to light cigarettes or fires. Parabolic dishes could be added to TV antennas that we can craft into parabolic mirrors with mylar/aluminum foil that we can cook with. We could craft crude ovens with mirrors and other stuff.

We are getting military themed items next patch, including a keyring P38 can opener which is sick, I politely request an ALICE rig, butt pack (attaches to rig), and a belt/rig attachable pouch that can fit a canteen mess kit like this plus an extra .3 weight for matches, water purification etc; This would be extremely handy for a nomad playstyle and it belongs in Zomboid so much. The canteen carries 1 Quart, which is 20 water in zomboid going off a 16oz plastic bottle carrying 10 water. The stainless steel cup can be used for cooking soups, teas, and stews and it carries 24oz. The pouch has extra space for water purification tablets, matches, a lighter, etc. If I could attach the pouch to my belt/rig I'd be so happy.