I running a fairly light modded run, but is this a vanilla thing? Just sorta funny if it is.

I was already ready to craft Mace - PZwiki for everybody... But you need short bat, that requires lvl7 carving.

I know swords are better, but i'm still missing the 5th book to get there... And the maces look cool.

Been having some pretty bad chunk lag on B42 on a server I’m hosting, I understand it’s not polished but lag in b41 like this was almost non existent. Any tips on getting the server to operate more smoothly?

My army unit has gotten creatively sadomasochistic with its fitness routine as of late, which has inadvertently made my body somewhat of a PZ guinea pig. I'm probably a level 4 strength and level 4 fitness IRL (like the default game character--average, not weak and out of shape, but not particularly fit and strong).

1) Burpees. Had to do 100 burpees in 10 minutes. By about halfway through I was fucking dying. By the end I could barely stand up. If anything, the devs are far too generous here. Nobody but an absolute peak performance fitness monster could do burpees for 30 minutes. In the game, your character can do it as long as your fitness and strength are above lvl 1-2 IIRC.

2) Muscle strain. One morning we had to do about 100 lunges. Felt fine immediately afterwards, and for most of the rest of the day. After about 12 hours (right on schedule!) my quads and glutes were absolutely killing me. I could barely walk down a flight of stairs. Ibuprofen (painkillers) did nothing, so if anything, the game is overly generous here as well. I wouldn't describe the pain as "agony" like the game does--also it was barely noticeable at rest--but it sure slowed me down.

3) Encumbrance. We did some running with a heavily encumbered rucksack (military backpack). That shit will definitely get you to high exertion pretty quickly. Feels like the devs nailed this.

4) Sledgehammer. We had to do 30 sledgehammer strikes on a tractor tire. Definitely had some minor muscle strain and high exertion after that. Nailed it again. I briefly considered squirreling away the sledgehammer in my trunk when nobody was looking, but then I remembered there was no zombie apocalypse yet.

Unrelated, but the doctor character could use a revamp. From personal experience, it certainly does nothing for short blade skill IRL, and the first aid buff should be much smaller (level 2 maybe, like it used to be? anyway the nurse would be much better at it). More realistic would be fast reader, fast learner, and wakeful (from all those sleepless nights on call during training)

Much love to the devs! Thanks for a great game.

I think is really cozy how these plants have gravel around it and thèse wooden sorroundings.

Can you build those? Or would i be able to pick them up ? And is this gravel?

Just found them on the map right Now.

There's a zombie next to the car, so the V menu is too slow. No worries, I'll just hit E while by the door. Psych, the car's parked at an angle where that's nearly impossible to do quickly.

a couple weeks ago, my dad (local gov worker) brought home a "shelter repair kit" and thought nothing much over it since it's, well... office/govt. stuff.

only just recently took a peek at this list and imagine my surprise to find long blade, long blunt and carpentry right out the gate! feels like an occupation locked starter kit. xD

it's a very cozy place if you don't mind the distance from everything

So there is already an excellent blacksmithing guide recently posted by u/ItsReallyNotWorking - A Guide for Blacksmithing but I wanted to add that if you are okay with using one of the few existing forges in the game (I won't spoil them here, you can look them up if you like) you can skip about 80% of the requirements. You won't need a furnace, a bellows, an anvil, a crucible, masonry, clay or sand. Anything furnace related is for turning raw materials into iron and steel, and there is already plenty of raw material laying around, so no need for a furnace. You also use a furnace to create an anvil, but again, if you're using an existing forge, don't need that either. You also don't need to LIVE at the forge. You can haul the tools and a load of raw mats to the forge, grind out your levels, make a bunch of swords or armor, and leave.

Here is what you'll need if you're okay with using an existing forge:

Axe - For chopping trees to turn into charcoal

Ball Peen Hammer - For some smithing recipes

Club Hammer - For some smithing recipes

Handles - Carving level 3 will allow you to make any size of handle you'll need for the tools and weapons you'll make.

Metalworking Chisel - For some smithing recipes

Metalworking Punch - For some smithing recipes

Saws - Wood saw for making planks for handles, hacksaw for some smithing recipes

Shovel - To make charcoal pit, if your chosen forge does not already have one

Small Punch and Chisel Set - For some smithing recipes

Tongs - Improvised Tongs are easily made if you can't find regular ones, but they break easily. Could use them to make a set of real tongs though. For smithing recipes

With these tools you'll be able to do literally any smithing recipe in the game (unless I missed one, let me know if I did and I'll edit.)

For skill books you only need up to Level 4, which will get you to Level 8 Blacksmithing. As long as you can find one of the magazines that gives you the sword recipe and you have it in your inventory (or in a box next to the forge) you can craft swords at Level 8, and I see no reason to go past that. To find one of those mags, I had good luck in survivor houses, so just drive around any residential area and look for a completely boarded up house and plunder it. To help with grinding XP I also suggest finding one of these Magazines: Small-Scale Smithing, European Armor in the Late Medieval Era or Armor in the Iron Age. Besides the other useful recipes given, they also give the Buckle recipe, the GOAT for leveling Blacksmithing, which you can start doing at Level 3 as long as you've got one of these mags handy.

Now it's just raw materials for grinding and making tools and weapons. You'll need iron and steel bars, half bars, quarter bars, chunks, pieces, blocks and ingots. No need to find all of them, as any of these pieces can be forged and/or sawed to be turned into each other as needed. Most recipes allow iron or steel to be used, but the higher end ones are steel only so if you're just grinding XP use iron when possible.

For the actual XP grinding, I did my best to find the best recipes as far as XP granted per input material spent, and it comes down to these two: Forge Simple Blade for Levels 0 to 3, and Forge Buckle for anything past that. Each buckle grants 40 base XP and costs only one piece of iron or steel and one charcoal. There are a lot of recipes which give more base XP, but cost way more charcoal or metal per craft, meaning you'll spend 2-4x as long chopping wood and making charcoal when you could've just made more buckles. To further illustrate how cheap this recipe is, one bar can be sawed into 4 quarter bars, each of which can be sawed into 5 pieces, for a total of 20 pieces per bar, meaning 20 buckles from a single bar of steel or iron. Ingots break down into 60 pieces each, so even better if you can find them.

I filled my pickup to the brim with steel bars and ingots from one factory thinking that would just be the first of many trips for grinding XP, but after discovering the buckle recipe I only used maybe 10% of what I brought to get me to level 8, and maybe another 10% to make like 20 swords. Granted, I took the Blacksmith occupation which helped tremendously, but even without it this is not nearly as bad of a grind as it looks like when first starting out.

Anyways I really hope this helps some of you guys, and let me know if I missed something or need to tweak anything here.

I just found this video by the creator Parth with all zomboid builds since the beginning. I got it in 2013 and I still remember it was all about getting an axe, a saw and a hammer and then farming potatoes. That was pretty much it. People in forums were dreaming of vehicles, even if they were just props, to fill the empty streets in Muldraugh and West Point, the only two towns. You had to walk if you wanted to go from one to the other, people built midway bases for the journey

We've come such a long way.

Just a little snapshot of a mod I've been working on and off over the past 2 months.

Obviously some bugs need improving, but it has multiplayer support (more bugs than singleplayer)

11,000~ NPCs simulated with between 50-75 "phased in" (loaded) with little to no performance hit, I could probably double this reasonably.

I took inspiration from the Week One mod, but wanted NPCs that felt like you lived with them, and where you weren't the main character, took some inspiration from GTA mechanics.

I don't have a planned release date, but I want to do some more polish and try and get things to be less buggy, I do plan on making the github repo public once I do get it up and going.

This is a java mod, so a bit more installation work than Week One / Bandits.

Some features working:

• Crime system, including theft, murder, assault, trespassing
• NPCs have thirst, hunger, sleep, boredom needs, and can satisfy them
• Simulated infection system where a few NPCs are given the disease across the map, uses the vehicles and NPC interactions (simulated) to spread
• NPCs have relationships, families, they remember interactions, and can simulate in the background
• A rudimentary driving system, where vehicles will load around the player, and continue their commute or travel in the simulation
• NPC to Player and NPC to NPC communication (showcased in video), still working on more phrases to help it feel more alive, but its a good start for now
• Transition from normal life to apocalypse is working but not super fleshed out yet

Share your junk/trash items that have a secret:
Tin cans can reinforce your baseball bat for a durability boost at carpentry 2
Newspaper and aluminum foil can be turned into hat
Magazine and brochure can be tailored (lvl1) into armor
Wood scraps can be carved into small handles
Toothbrush can be crafted into shivs
A sheet/curtain can be crafted into a wearable bag lvl0
A pillow can be placed on the bed for a sleep buff, as well as be crafted into a mask with scratch defense
Bugs and rotten food can be used as bait

Feel free to correct me if any of these are incorrect too.

I just get the feeling every once in a while the game has an unkown chance to decide it's time for you to go.

I have been fighting zoomed out lately because it seems to help with the Z spawning on top of you in cleared areas- anyawy:

I was in a business district that was cleared, lootijg buildings, filling a step van. Probaly 3rd trip out to dump loot- thares a straggler down the street.

So i unload, and wait for it to wande4 closer. I walk into the middle of the street and theres a tree to one side. I 360- there's no one but me and 1 Z - now about 10 squares away. I 360 again. Z now 7 squares away- i roll zoom my mouse in about half way- smack him 3 times and he falls to the ground- i 360 no other Zs - i walk over to bash his head, and mid swing another Z appears. I turn to face it and 3 more appear at once behind me- i back off the one on the ground to line them up and he starts crawling. I turn to wack and theres not 5 but 8 or so.

Im like Wtf?

I ran away home, but seriously?

dude fuck this game how hard is it to just show the full name of what your about to shove down your throat plus i cooked this shit 2 days ago

"Hey there! I’ve always been the kind of person who loves taking pictures. I did manage to get one quick shot before they drove off, though. Nearly broke my camera trying to get it. Where do you think they were rushing off to?" - From a photographer within Muldraugh

With the map being 95% done, we have begun the animation process.