101 Beginner Tips and Tricks for Project Zomboid

project zomboid is easily one of the most difficult Survival Games available doesn't hold your hand at all and it has a steep learning curve that can take players hundreds of hours before surviving their first month I've compiled a list of 101 beginner tips and tricks to help making survive in the apocalypse just a little bit easier for you on your journey through projects online number one stop sprinting no seriously you cannot walk zombies at your normal Pace as long as you're not exerted or over and covered sprinting is one of the highest risks of death that you'll ever endure in Project zomboid as a beginner every time you see more than two zombies enter the frame your first instinct by default will be to hit the Jetson dip out trust me it's a hard habit to reprogram but once you break it you realize you can survive much longer by conserving stamina and just walking away number two drinking pond water won't kill you this sounds stupid but yeah drinking the quote-unquote tainted pond water will not kill your character you'll find yourself getting queasy but as long as you don't start chugging it every five seconds that'll go away and you'll be left less thirsty and with no side effects drinking rain water on the other hand will kill you which makes literally no sense at all but yeah drinking tainted rainwater will kill you the same way eating a poisonous mushroom or Berry will leave you staring at the screen that reads this is how you die at level 7 cooking you can use rotten food in your dishes without getting sick this is a very underrated game mechanic that allows you to ration food much more effectively as rotten food isn't a complete waste anymore short Blade weapons are best used for stealth combat as you can potentially One-Shot zombies they're the only melee weapon in the game with an animation check which will allow you to stealthily take out Zombies by stabbing them in the head it looks something like this short blunt and short Blade weapons use less stamina than Long Blade and long blown weapons this one makes sense if you think about it the weapons are smaller and you're only using one body part instead of two that being said I've had much better luck knocking zombies over with long blown weapons and short blend so do it that what you will Riverside has the smallest zombie spawns in the game making it a great starting location for new players the only downside of this is that you'll be starting in Riverside which is objectively disgusting and the least fun area to play in but hey at least you don't die in the first 15 minutes anymore right Rosewood has the second lowest zombie spawns in the game but has far more pois and is generally considered the best spawning option for beginners I'm biased on this because Rosewood is my favorite spawn location in the game has some fantastic pois like the prison a mechanic shop a grocery store two gas stations and a bookstore while also being spaced out enough that you won't feel overwhelmed the way you do when you click ball drop because it's the first option yeah I know you did that on your first playthrough because I did it too stop it make the right decision and spawn Rosewood you can highlight zombies with the green outline for melee and Firearms weapons by changing the aim outline option in your settings this will help you know which zombie you're currently targeting or if you're in range to hit them with a melee weapon just follow the path on screen now to change the setting turning on the pan camera while driving option and display settings will move the camera while driving obviously allowing you to better see what's in front of you when sneaking near covers of dispensing your character will automatically drop down to fully conceal themselves behind the fencing hiding themselves from zombies use knives to craft Spears in place of Chip Stones so instead of spending days foraging for Sticks and Stones you can skip half that by just grabbing some branches and a kitchen knife one thing to note with this is that the knife condition will reduce with each spear crafted so keep that in mind when bulk crafting Spears car keys can be found in the glove compartment or on the floor nearby it can also be found in the houses if the car is parked outside of one you can't find a car key in the glove box trying to in search mode so help you locate a key if there's one on the ground nearby placing a generator inside and turning it on will kill you always place your generators outside which leads me to my next tip while turned on generators will attract zombies in a radius regardless of what level they're placed on so there's no difference between placing it outside on the first floor versus the seventh you can build Platforms in the second story of buildings by placing a wood floor outside of a window this will allow you to build out more in the second floor of a base without having to build stairs to climb up to it this is super useful if you have a safe house in a city like Louisville where it's overcrowded and the only way to go is up can simply build out from each one of the higher levels and Bridge to the other buildings without ever having to touch the ground stop searching houses for specific books or magazines skill books and recipe mags can be found in the Enigma bookstores or the schools as they have Library sections each of these areas will contain several bookshelves full of various books and magazines that you can use to get a huge jump start on learning recipes or grinding out some skills much more efficient than finding one book per house police stations have weapon armories inside of them where you can gear up quickly at the start of your playthroughs the only issue is that they're locked behind two doors if you can't find a key on a zombie in the building you can simply break these Doors by smacking them with any item like a metal pipe for example until they break giving you access to all the weapons and ammo hidden inside March Ridge is the only city in the base game that does not feature a police station if you think that's crazy it's also the city with the least amount of pois intended to be a college town the majority of the city is just apartment or condo styled houses along with the community center dormitory complex and other small stores this is overall a great city of your car hunting but other than that there isn't a big reason to come here in a touching tribute to the American public school system you're able to find small firearms in school lockers let's take this at face value and keep it moving there are several cabins hidden throughout the Wilderness available for use one of which has a well located nearby meaning you can practically survive forever if you wanted to become a doomsday Survivor cabbages are the best crop for dealing with Hunger providing minus 25 hunger per cabbage but potatoes are the best crop for gaining weight as they contain more calories in the Northeast section of Louisville you can find a baseball bat Factory that contains a ton of bats ready for smashing zombie skulls with a great early looting area if you're rocking with long blunt weapons for your playthrough you typically get in grab a few bats and get out before you pull Too Many Zombies as long as you don't get too greedy and try to loot the entire building in one run which let's be honest we've all been there before the most efficient way to grind carpentry skills in the early levels is to disassemble crates or other objects like beds tables and chairs found in houses this will also provide you with planks to build with or convert to use as weaponized 2x4s you're struggling to find food outside of the major cities you can find hundreds of crates at the warehouses scattered throughout Knox County they'll typically be filled with bags of fruits or vegetables that you can use to sustain yourself early on worst case scenario you can disassemble the crates for carpentry XP the most popular location for this is McCoy logging which can be turned into a nice late game base location the crates at McCoy's won't have bags of fruit but they will be full of nails hammers saws seeds shotguns buckets and if you're lucky you might even find a sledgehammer just be careful around here as it's typically full of zombies that you'll need to clear out first there are only a handful of wells in Knox County but each provides unlimited clean drinking water most popular well location can be found near a farmhouse in the middle of the map which can serve as a popular base location for beginners the best way to level up aiming early on is to grab a shotgun and group up some zombies instead of trying to rely on pistols or rifles the spread from a shotgun allows you to hit up to three zombies whereas other weapons only allow you to hit one at a time if you're looking for an antique oven to help survive the winter months you can always find one at the shed to the south of the farm to the West POI when we'll always spawn in the shed on every playthrough so it's worth keeping on the radar for when winter comes around generators are a necessity come late game or even mid game for that matter they spawn in garages warehouses or self-storage locations that being said you're most likely to find one in the self-storage location as each storage unit counts as one potential spawning point for a generator just make sure you bring a sledgehammer to break down the doors unless you plan on spending days beating each one with a metal pipe sterilized ripped sheets or bandages by boiling water with the stove sterilized bandages are a game changer in project zomboid and a great way to build up a surplus of them without burning through your disinfectant or your bourbon is to just grab a pot of water and boil it from there you can select your bandages and begin sterilizing them you can use water bottles to siphon gasoline from Vehicles a big one for when the power goes out you need fuel for a generator to turn on the gas pumps at a gas station you can simply Loop the gas station for a water or soda bottle empty the liquid then siphon fuel from a nearby vehicle which you can use to power the generator one piece worth noting here is that glass bottles do not seem to work with this currently needs to either be a soda or water bottle for this to work empty sacks can be filled with dirt and dumped on the ground making it possible to create indoor gardens during the winter each empty sack can hold four squares of dirt but can be reused indefinitely water and project Zomboy never freezes meaning you can drink from Wells and rivers during the winter sucks for ice fishing but it's great for surviving in a video game placing bandages over a stitched wound will cause the injury to heal slower leaves stitched injuries unbannaged to heal the deep wound faster best case scenario for stitch wounds is to lay low for a few days and just let it heal building off the last tip you can use a threaded needle to stitch deep wound instead of a suture needle and suit your needle holder this is great in a pinch if you find yourself with glass stuck in your groin but haven't had the chance to hit up a medical center yet the fastest way to level up first aid is to stand on broken glass Barefoot and repeatedly remove the glass from your feet which does not sound so delightful you can also cue these events if you want to be lazy guns will typically do more harm than good in the early game try to avoid them until you're in a position where you can continue to fight until the area is cleared gunshots will attract zombies from all over pair that with low aiming at the start and you'll be dead before you know it the safest base location for beginners is The Farmhouse to the west of muldra it's isolated from large hordes has a TV for life and living and VHS tapes a ton of storage a weld and there's an antique oven in the shed behind it you can actually hide from the heli event by staying indoors and away from the windows moving into the Wilderness will also get you out of the thick of the event as zombies will not be able to track you as easily and you can just loop around to the other end leaving all the zombies stuck in the woods can sleep in cars I know what a crazy concept right just press V to open the vehicle menu and click the Z's icon to pass out if you find yourself in a car and ridiculously tired pull the driver's side up next to another car or building so they're hugging we'll stop zombies from being able to get to you you build a base on top of the swimming pool you can still hit zombies with spheres from the bottom and the left can fish and if you bring dirt you can have a bonfire without any issue Survivor houses tend to have more cars that are in better condition overall something to look out for next time you're on a looting run through the suburbs or if you find an annotated map anywhere planks can be used as Weapons if turned into two by fours they have decent durability for a starter weapon and can be grabbed from disassembling any furniture in houses early on or by sawing logs standing or walking on broken glass will damage your shoes so next time you bust through the window like the damn Kool-Aid man take a second to check your shoes because there's nothing worse than losing all condition and walking around with a limp because you didn't check yourself where you wrecked yourself pressing shift in the W key while driving will set cruise control for your car can increase or decrease the cruise control speed by pressing shift in the wrd Keys taking enough sleeping tablets will insta kill your character especially when adding alcohol play it safe and avoid one while using the other because there's nothing worse than ending your run because you wanted to impersonate Johnny Depp and Charlie Sheen for the night if you find yourself running around with a leather jacket in the middle of August you'll become incredibly sweaty very quickly that's not just in Project Zomboy use deodorant people but for the sake of project Zomboy if you find yourself incredibly sweaty drenched or just standing out in the middle of a thunderstorm use towels to dry yourself off they'll keep you dry and keep you from getting sick if you need to you can survive a three-story fall with good RNG and full health but a fourth story and above is an insta death if you have the speed demon perk roll down your window it lets you look farther down the road for obstacles when driving fast almost every door in the game can be broken by swinging a blunt weapon against it the only exception to this is the fencing around stores like the gun store in West Point which you'll need a sledgehammer to break through if you need to get through an area of zombies without burning down half a city find a collar and set off its Car Alarm this will pull zombies away from your location and towards the car which you can then use to get to wherever you're going the Outdoorsman trade is arguably the most underrated trait in the entire game basically negating any negative weather impacts and preventing you from getting sick due to exposure fishing is a fantastic way to gather food early on with no levels in the skill you're able to catch a fish with 10 000 plus calories capable of sustaining you for weeks off one fish alone car batteries recharge as long as the car is turned on don't start and stop the engine try and leave it running when you can in a public Lobby you can lock the doors of a hot wired car from inside and then leave the unlocked door leading into your base this will prevent people from stealing your vehicles if you're unable to park them inside the safe house in multiplayer servers safe houses can only be cleaned from actual buildings in order to create a base from scratch and name it as a safe house you'll need to use the admin tools to create a custom safe Zone which will act in the same manner to close the umbrella as a spear now that's really all I have I don't know what else information you need but yeah use umbrellas I guess friends make good bait and great snacks never hesitate to sacrifice your friends if it means living to fight another day the dart is the quietest car in the game zombies only Chase it within 15 blocks if it's full rev meaning your red line in that [ __ ] if you find yourself on a dirt path or off the road and struggle keeping a vehicle in first gear driving backwards is effectively a safer and faster method as the speed will be faster than your normal driving speed and if you hit anything it will damage your trunk and not the front of your car in your precious face stop shooting guns when you don't have the ammo to clear the entire area new players tend to vastly underestimate the sound that guns make when you shoot them which ends up pulling way more zombies than they were expecting if you find yourself making a safe house and end up creating your own door if you have the cows key to the house that you took the doorknob from you'll be able to lock and unlock the door that you've crafted while driving you're able to reload your guns the only problem with this is that you can't steer while reloading so keep that in mind when going mock Jesus down the highway with 100 round box mag zombie tracking can be exploited pretty easily when trying to lose a horn Run behind a building or out of sight of the initial horde Crouch and pause for about two seconds so we'll set the zombie pathing to your current location and Mark as the last known spot which they will Target after waiting one to two seconds you can stand up and walk away as the zombies are no longer tracking you directly but rather your last known location read your skill books while you're next to a tuned in radio or TV to get cooking or building XP at the same time as whatever the book is this is really useful when watching life and living in those early days as you're not going to have enough time just sit around reading all the volume one books if you have a safe house a sink a wrench and a water barrel you can place that water barrel on the tile directly above your sink and then Plumb the water into the sink with the wrench which will give you clean drinking water without having to boil it you can also take this further and stack multiple rain collectors next to each other to add an increasingly larger amount of water available to you and your faction grabbing The Lumberjack occupation while creating your character will give you the ax man trait an exclusive trait which allows you to swing axes and chop trees down faster it also gives you 100 XP boost for your ax skill veteran is the best occupation to take for a combat Focus build as it comes with a desensitized drape which negates all levels of panic making combat much much easier the burglar occupation comes with an exclusive trade as well allowing you to hotwire Vehicles without meeting the skill requirements basically giving you a chance at any car on day one all trades that give XP boost to your major skills can be stacked with the fast learner trait effectively allowing you to max out some skills within days of starting a run the best negative traits to grab for free points are slow reader High thirst very underway as long as you're not running a six months later playthrough and weak stomach thin skin can be completely negated by wearing some type of armored clothing such as a leather jacket the tray itself only impacts skin contact at zero protection meaning as soon as you throw a hoodie on you're safe as long as it's not completely destroyed if you're looking at must have beginner traits go with fast learner cat size dexterous Outdoorsman and Keen hearing the safest picks and provide the best passive boost for your character the clumsy trait also impacts your ability to climb over fences and objects as you'll trip and scratch yourself more often this is important to know as the trade itself at least at the time of this video just says that you make more noise when moving if you're struggling with vanilla project soundboy consider adding the following Quality of Life mods to your game better sorting which creates more categories for items to be identified as extra map symbols just adds more symbols to the map that you can place down as well as simple size slider which adds an option to increase the size of the symbol that you're placing on the map and finally fuel side indicator which will let you know which side to park your car on when getting gas at a gas station the weight system in Project zomboid is really stupid in the sense that you can only lose one kilogram per day but can gain up to three per day in the game so when you find yourself picking traits consider going very underweight not obese as it'll be much faster to gain 20 kgs than lose 15. the life and living Channel provides skill XP to various crafting skills and is available several times throughout the day most notably at 6am 12 pm 6 pm and 12 am character can become bored if they sit inside for too long this is being negated by simply stepping outside and touching grass antique ovens while difficult to find are great for the winter as they heat up the room that they're placed in meaning you can survive a night without worrying about dying from exposure if you have a wood planks nails and a hammer you can build the wooden floors out onto ponds rivers and other bodies of water but we actually exploited this mechanic on my project zomboid server a while back and built a bridge across the river into the unknown building wooden floors and then disassembling them will transform the ground underneath into dirt which can be used to dig furrows this works on water and Roads so don't be shy with how you use it if you're tired of constantly walking through hedges around your base you can remove them by placing wooden flooring on top of them sheet rope can be crafted from clothing and be used to make rope ladders preventing zombies from reaching you just be careful though zombies can destroy them potentially stranding you eight stories above ground because of this always keep extra sheet rope or regular rope nearby so you can re-add it when you're ready to get back on schools offer some of the best looting locations in the game not only are they equipped with large libraries for all your Skilling needs but you can also loot the building which will often provide warm clothing like letterman jackets lunch boxes with to sustain yourself and backpacks which will be a lifesaver in your playthrough if you're not ready to take on Military checkpoints for some high tiered loot you might get lucky and find an annotated map which will typically contain some form of firearm or powerful weapon hidden in the house just be sure to check the surroundings first you don't want to go nuts to butts and end up tripping a house alarm pulling every zombie in Kentucky over to you zombie bodies can kill you no really after piling up a mass grave to violate the Geneva Convention you'll notice flies appear near zombies you hang around for too long you'll start to get queasy you still can't take a [ __ ] hint you'll end up getting sick which will inevitably kill you for the love of God if you're new to project zomboid unbind shouting it's Q by default and I'm sure you've already been told to press Q to unlock Reddit Gold at least once in your time plane personally I can't tell you how many times I fat fingered the key in the middle of Louisville basically and sharing my own death take it from me I'm buying it until you're more comfortable taking on hordes it'll quite literally save your life I do hate the fact that everything is blurry and discolored when foraging well you can change that by hopping into the display settings and scrolling all the way to the bottom where you'll find the search mode overlay effect setting this to use no effect will turn off the blur and desaturation option allowing you to see your surroundings more clearly when forging if you're feeling overwhelmed while looting you can pause the game well as long as you're in single player wrestling F2 while looting nearby objects will still allow you to scroll through the containers no matter how many there are find what you're looking for unpause grab it and get on with your day tailoring is an incredibly underrated skill at level 10 using leather strips to add padding will provide a 20 boost to scratches and laceration protection and a 10 boost in bite protection compare this with some late game armor or run the scrap armor mod and you're practically Invincible as long as you don't get pulled down of course you don't know where you're going use the official project zomboid map it's got most pois marked on it and you can even add your own so you'll always know where to go in your next looting run personally I always keep this open on another monitor while I play so I always have everything mapped out when fortifying a location you can prevent zombies from breaking in by building a fence crate fence pattern this will prevent zombies from climbing over or hitting the fence due to the way the pathing is programmed it's a little cheesy to use but something that's worth recommending to new players who are struggling The Only Fault in this is that crawler zombies can break through the fencing so be on the lookout for that vitamins are essentially worthless to most players they provide minus two fatigue meaning you'd have to eat like 15 servings of them to be somewhat effective instead of just going to bed and continuing your objective the next day trust me it's not worth dying over if you find yourself in pain or in high states of panic drink some booze beer wine or bourbon will not only reduce unhappiness but it'll also reduce Panic pain and make you sleepy truly the pz Swiss army knife of taking out negative moodles metal pipes have some of the strongest durability in the game for weapons so if you ever find yourself in need take a propane torch and a welder's mask and disassemble either a bathtub a toilet or a metal gate and go nuts when using guns holding down R will open the reload menu allowing you to Rack around in the chamber reload a magazine swap out magazines or unjam your gun if you're using firearms in your gun jams you can unjam it by simply pressing X on your keyboard while holding the gun this will save you the time of opening your weapon menu and clicking on the option to unjamin yourself I have a free to play multiplayer server with over 1 000 members on it that you can join for any additional assistance with learning the game coincidentally you can also join my Discord in over 2500 people who are more than happy to help you with anything project zombie related and there you have it 101 beginner tips and tricks using your next playthrough I hope this helped in some way even if you only picked up one new trick to try out if you made it to the end thanks for watching I really appreciate it big thank you to my YouTube members as well who help me to keep making videos for you all I appreciate you all and as always thanks for stopping by [Music]

Channel: ThatGuyPredz

Views: 1,316,486

Keywords: Predz, Preds, That Guy Predz, PZ, Zomboid, Beginner Tips, Guide

Id: cBpZDXuDuOM

Length: 21min 31sec (1291 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 19 2022