Hello! A new player here, just looking for some advice...

[Chester Buttbeard]

Hello, I'm Chester Buttbeard. I bought Project: Zomboid one day, and I've gotten super addicted to it. Unfortunately... I don't really know how I should play. The longest I've survived for was 1 day and 11 hours, and that was just running around looting food and bandages. (Sad, I know..) I was just seeing if any experienced players or vets can give me some friendly advice and tips? Thanks! 

 

 

Sincerely, you local cannibal, 

 

Chester

[Aricane]

Welcome cannibal Chester

 

Falke has been busy writing tips for PZ here. It contains "spoilers" though I would call most of them obvious after a few hours of gameplay.

[thiosk]

Neat game eh? I got deep into it over the past few days. It's pretty hardcore.

Sounds like you are running around too willy nilly. Think military and remember the terrain is extremely hostile. A tight group of 5 zombies can be a death sentence if you are not prepared and experienced. A grouping like that is a big wall, and you should go the ther way instead.One scratch can kill, and one bite will kill. Zombies are dumb, but even one is extremely dangerous. The streets are full of dudes who walked right up to a zombie and punched it in the face. They're zombies now.

Remember the rules for real life survival. It's compressed a bit in zomboid, but:

Survival time without shelter: 3 hrs

Without water: 3 days

Food: 3 weeks (you need to eat more frequently than this though)

Step one: secure your starter house. Curtains and sheets, organize the pantry. Take a look around and raid the neighbors if you don't have enough curtains. Avoid zombie contact. Minimum useful weapon is a frying pan. A rolling pin can work for loose groupings, a butter knife is really only good for one zombie. Kitchen knives are dangerous but you can make due with it.

Step 2: loot one or two houses per day, then return home. Do not push it. Be systematic. If you clear zombies to the north today, look south tomorrow. Create an exclusion zone around your safe house. Learn to cook, find skill books and read in your spare time. Eat mostly perishable food. It will run out. Cans of soup, beans, and tuna are like gold. I keep items like that in spare "go" bags so if I ever need to vacate, I can grab them and go out the back.

Step 3: goals

You now have a safe house and enough food, and a fridge full of perishables. I know the layout of muldraugh now, so I can look at my supplies and decide on specific missions: need food; hit a grocery store. Need axe; find the nearest warehouse. A mission like that might take a week or more of scouting, systematic killing. There's no rush once your local neighborhood is safe and you have an axe and a saw- you could live for months on the canned food, stockpiled water, and cook by campfire if you have to.

[Eliijahh]

I guess the most helpful thing I learnt when playing the game was :

Don't fight if you don't have to.

 

Many zombie games have the "kill, burn, destroy" philosophy. In this game the less you fight the less you risk to die. A little scratch from a zombie and you have 25% of dying. A bite and you have 90%. So the most important thing is to stay away from zombies.

 

Remember :

 

Pressing the right mouse button makes you walk in a sort of stealth mode. In this way you have less possibilities to alert zombies.