7 Essential Project Zomboid Tips to Survive Longer (if you can't survive a month, watch this) 

I love that for a "beginner tips"-style video you are playing with SPRINTERS ENABLED.

I find the mix of Adrenaline Junkey and Cowardly to be pretty OP with combat. The more scared my guy gets, the more accurate he become. I found that it’s easier to down and kill zombies this way.

I find quickly opening and closing a door the best way to check a room for threats. Running through the door works fine if there's only one zombie in the room, but if there's several in a small room, well, this is how you died.

You know this man knows a thing or two about survival when he’s playing with SPRINTERS!

Oh another thing: Barricading your doors and windows from the inside makes it less evident (at least, if not completely) for zombies that there's a survivor inside

Take your time, most deaths are down to rushing or fast forwarding time at really bad points. Sneak running really burns stamina, use it sparingly so you're not exhausted when you need to fight. When sneaking, especially when going into buildings, be aware that your character will be more sluggish, especially when turning. You can collect the rest of the loot later/tomorrow. Don't tow with a weak vehicle, the speed and lack of acceleration can get you killed. Pay attention to the battery in your car, it won't start with less than 10% juice. When in a car you can use your melee weapon out of an open window. This can help you make an escape. Find the frequency for the automated emergency broadcast system as soon as you can. It might be in the presets on the radio in houses or your new car. This station states the weather for tomorrow (with wind speeds being oddly precise for some reason) and also additional info such as when the helicopter is due and when the power is about to go out. It'll come up with messages such "Knox power grid failing" (I can't remember the order but you have a few days from the first message) so you can prepare your generators. You can favorite items in your inventory so they stay on you such as cigarettes, bandages or asprin. keyrings and belts can sometimes be dragged out by mistake so it's a good idea to make those favorite items so you don't end up losing your keyring in the freezer.

Big tip too early game, if you still have power: Avoid picking up canned food entirely. You can eat out of fridges and cook meat on stoves. Then, once the power is out, you have a rough idea of paths to take that will have canned food in cupboards, since you've been there before. Canned food is heavy. Best use that weight for other important items early game, like rifles and ammo (;

Actually, glasses does fix short sighted and is not just speculation as said on the video. I've tested it on debug mode multiple times and the moment you put glasses (only the two you can pick at the character creation works), the search radius go back to the same value as without the trait.

You can just press the Space Bar while aiming your weapon to contextually Shove or Stomp. This includes "knocking" on doors to avoid degrading your weapon. I'm not 100% sure about this, but I also think shoving the door is more quiet than hitting it with a weapon.

If you shove a door you can get zombies on the other side to start knocking. if you use a weapon instead of shoving you may lose a bit of durability on it

“You won’t get hurt often.” Yeah…about that…

good advice on running past doors. hidden zombies in buildings are the most common way I get bit even with 4,000+ hours of play

Love this game. I found the ultimate way to kill the horde. All you need is to find a house whose lower corner is directed towards the inside of the house. Build 4 stairs against the walls of the corner so as to close square □ 4x4. Then you make a base on the second floor with a balcony, through the balcony you need to get to the stairs and remove the floor near them. The main thing is not to fall into this hole yourself. Then you just attract zombies with a loud sound from the balcony and they obediently go into this trap. It is better to kill them with a long weapon like a spear through the inner corner where two stairs touch each other. The entire horde can fit in a 4x4 square. Just make sure there are no windows on that corner wall. Enjoy

Mouse cursor awareness! Definitely my biggest cause of deaths when I first started playing.

Burglar is 100% worth it because of the +2 to nimble, lightfooted, and sneaking, plus XP boosts. nimble lets you walk faster while in the combat stance, and is incredibly hard to level up organically. that alone makes it worth it to me. also short sighted will have literally no effect on your playthrough unless you're REALLY keen on foraging

Good tips especially the focus on weapon skills. The best advice I heard was focusing on improving combat skills (yours not the characters) by just engaging with any zombies you see. Once you know how to fight, then focus on survival. Worked well for me.

I really like the Burglar occupation mostly because of Nimble + Gymnast. Getting to 5+ Nimble drastically increases your survival chance while fighting. Making it almost impossible to get grabbed while walking backwards. Zombies will do the grab animation but miss, and you can swing right after hitting them or the next zombie in line. The ability to Hotwire is just a bonus, as well as the increased Stealth/Lightfooted experience.

While it might be true that zombies are more likely to destroy player made structures, they will not attack them unless they pinpoint a nearby, player/zombie made sound, and the structure happens to conflict with their pathfinding for getting to said sound. Meta events such as gunshot noises and the likes aren't an issue as they aren't localized to a tile (that is my interpretation of it based on experience alone. If someone has a more accurate explanation, please correct me). That said, zombies will normally break barricades without the player being present only if there's an out of sight actor(another zombie, radio, television, alarm, etc.) behind the barricade making a sound. I noticed a few rare exceptions, but they are quite few and far between, and, for the sake of brevity, I won't list them here. In my opinion, player barricades are far more reliable and durable than many would suggest. If you are new, I encourage you to try including building a fortress around your favourite part of town as one of your long term projects and get a feel for it. As for that helicopter event, make sure you are between four walls on the 15th day, with no view on the outside world in the SLIGHTEST until it finally shows up. To say the helicopter has 20/20 vision is an understatement, so DON'T EVEN think about getting near a source of natural light when it's flying around. If you don't make a sound. zombies won't try to break your barricades, and if the helicopter never spotted you, you won't open your door the next day to a crowd gathered around your shelter.

Greed, it's always greed. Pro tip. Don't be greedy.

On apocalypse keep in mind water and power can turn off immediately . The range is 0 to 30 days. I've spawned in with no working utilities before

Short Sighted: Yes glasses mitigate the effect (not sunglasses. Glasses or reading glasses only). Mostly it just bumps up your foraging radius to a more normal level (even after the % decrease for having facewear).

I almost always take Veteran as my occupation just because desensitized is such an amazing perk for the entire game

For me, it always boils down to "dont be stupid" lol I get distracted easily, so whenever I think something along the lines of, "Ill just go in real quick and loot any important items" knowing there are zombies on my tail, I need to stop myself. Because there have been far too many times where there ends up being lots of nice loot, which ends up taking more time than intended to loot. Then, when Im finally ready to leave, theres a dozen zombies on the door that is also the only way out lol Dont be stupid like me: Either break line of sight and lose the zombies so you can loot in peace, or come back later when youre better prepared for a fight.

Short sighted is chained to the guns. It’s opposite, Eagle Eye, helps with aiming at a distance. So if you know you won’t take up guns, Short sighted is the way to go

Well done! With 900 hours into the game, I still find things to learn from You!

To also add onto this, to more effectively kill a zombie attempt to stand over the head rather than swinging at it as thats how attacks work in game, something tons of people newbs and even moreso normal players usually dont know or even find out. I've also found that taking underweight with a mix of jobs and traits that increase fitness and strength to near max is a really good way to start off especially if you died pretty late in, it means you dont have to spend ages working on those specific skills and can focus on everything else with 8 strength and 10 fitness your basically unkillable early on but can still die if getting comfortable. Not only that but it helps you take more items from building, hold more, and generally is all round the best, especially since early game all you need to do is really find a stick of butter or 2 and your set ontop of coming across a house with say a stew or soup or something. Mix that with some other negative traits and add low thirst and light eater and you are pretty set for the later game. Usually I go for claustrophobic and on the meme chance Agorophobic so as to be in a constant state of panic, usually taking adrenaline junky is a must with such but if you also find a mansion in say Louisville then you dont have to worry about claustrophobic as much and these traits disappear after a month or so, so you dont have to worry about panicking for ages and adrenaline junky can help for those extra big hordes or getting away from said hordes. Though personally I dont take adrenaline junky I only take it if I do Agoraphobic otherwise I focus on other skills and traits. Electricity and mechanics are generally a must for getting burglar...I shouldn't need to say why, its also easy to get these with junk cars and other such, the tools not so much but even still its a worthy investment. Normally I play with others and I am usually the builder but training up in melee and maintenence is generally easy if you beat down a door, but gotta do so early while there still are doors unless you want to make a doorway line and doors specifically to act as training dummies for you late game.

Here's a tip that I recently learned myself which has really improved my early game: your best weapon is your foot! Using the spacebar, you can shove and knock zombies over, then stomp on their heads/chests to kill them. This lets you kill zombies without using precious weapon durability, helping you stay in the fight longer in the early game. Before learning this technique, I was constantly breaking my first weapon and running out of options before I had the chance to build up a stockpile. Now with the power of a good pair of boots, my weapons last a lot longer. Military boots do the most damage, and have best bite/scratch defense as well. Keep an eye out for them.

I like professions that give +Maintenance leveling. Getting high maintenance lets you use spears on dozens of zombies before they break.

Also the mod "Project Russia" is a whole new map 3times bigger than the normal map

I started using the CDDA zombie mod and my survival time went from months to days

Sleepy moodlet is kind of hard to deal with if it pops up when you are already engaged with a bunch of zombies. You can get a temporary boost out of that sleepiness by downing a lot of vitamins. One pill is not going to do it for you, but chewing the entire bottle one by one might then give you a couple hours of extra sleepy-free time to get rid of those few zombies on your tail. Chewing some dry coffee will also give a massive energy boost... But coffee might be hard to come by.

Nice video! I wouldn't take Slow reader, since yeah you can speed up the time to not lose your real-life time, but your character will indeed lose quite some time reading, i.e you'll need to wake it earlier and make it spend more time at home reading (instead doing other useful stuff), just to get worthy XP multipliers before watching TV (and the XP obtained from Life and Living's shows is not to be underrated AT ALL, it really pays off in mid to late game). Also, while I do take Smoker as a trait (but I use Smoker mod that really makes it easy to find both cigarettes and lighters/matches), in vanilla is harder to get them, and the stress itself can be quite a nuisance if you struggle to get cigarettes early on. Slow healer is cool, it doesn't make you any wrong and it kinda help you grind First Aid skill. Also yes, using glasses cancels the Short Sighted negative effects. If you have the "Detailed trait descriptions" mod, you can check it in the trait description.

Good tips. Never feel safe in this game or it will bite your ass ^^. I was searching for stuff in a storage building. There was no Zombie to see when I scouted the area but one was attracted from somewhere when I started working with the sledgehammer. I underestimated the noise this makes and was focused on being attacked from the front by zombies, that might be in the building, but one sneaked around the corner on the outside and attacked my blindside. Only a scratch but that was enough. I also knew, that generators can break but I didn´t know, the can blow up until it happend while I was sleeping. It was a big axplosion and when I woke up the house was on fire The whole house burned down with tons of weapons, ammo, water and food.. well and myself (at least I could not return as an undead this way :-D ). This game can be so frustrating when you loose your well educated and geared char but also pretty addictive because you always think : damn, I can do better and I gonna proove it to myself.

don't worry about food till you have a solid base up, every house has a load of cans, so only eat perishable food early on cause you probably wont ever eat that stuff

8:23 even if you have a weapon ready, you can use spacebar to "push" the door. It still generates enough noise to get the attention of of potential zombies inside but is a bit quieter and does not damage the door. And if it turns out there was a dozen of zombies on the other side you might really appreciate this extra moment you have by not helping them break the door down.

Hoarding food is a rookie mistake that i used to make. Realistically one full piece of meat will feed you for the whole day already, don't need to hold on to a lot of fresh food, they would turn rotten in a few days outside of the fridge/freezer anyway. Cereal is a very good food to carry, very lightweight and has high calories to keep you full longer.

"Moving from a long blunt to a short blunt will cause more whiffs" Damn right lmao

this has been one of the best guides i've found, 5 hours into the game! thank you so much!

Great video! Im pissed i hadnt seen this channel before, gr8 work mate!

This was actually really helpful! Thank you so much Drunk!

They should really add shields, it'd be cool to have the ability to create shields with carpentry and or metalwork

Great vid and great tips! I feel like it should be emphasized that slow reader is best taken only in singleplayer as it really slows down gameplay in multiplayer. Well played!

Thanks for the genuinely helpful video, looking forward to your next live stream !

Just tested it. Short sighted with glasses/reading glasses will negate short sighted by 90%. You still get a slight decrease since glasses are considered Headwear but I've still been able to get a 15 search radius at foraging level 10 in the mornings as long as weather effects are not present, but your not getting a 15 search radius with weather effects even on park ranger with outdoorsman. Literally free two points since glasses are on like one in five zombies. The color doesn't seem to matter just choose either glasses or reading glasses. Reflective/aviators/sunglasses don't do anything Also it might be exploit territory but if you barricade from the inside of the house, the zombies treat it as a wall and refuse to path to it, and 3 planks/a metal sheet block vision so they shouldn't follow yoy in unless they see you/hear you

I am complete noob but I found it really helpful to start the game by creating my own game with vanilla settings. Slow zombies, fixed number of zombies without regeneration etc. After the soft start I can fix the settings to match my desires. I have enjoyed greatly setting up my base and clearing the the surrounding city compleately off zombies :) Later I will try different playing style with harder settings, once I have gotten used to the controls and selection menus.

PZ is infinitely better in the early game when you're robbing zombies of shoes and desperately trying to open windows in an attempt to get a single can of chili.

I just subscribed, amazing video drunky, cheers 🍻

The best way to improve is to combat and die many many times. I was really bad at the beginning and always died after killing 4-5 Zs. Now I kill 300+ Zs, but it took me ages 😂

I still die in like a month but thats because i intentionallly make speed walking zombies OP, i think as well a huge part of players dying fast is knowing FIGHT OR FLIGHT. aka their weapons, endurance, fatigue vs the amount of zombies and their ability to activate their survival instincts. EDIT: also knowing when to run away from a good amount of zombies because there are always more around the edges coming.

Maintenance man ftw for me, keen hearing is a must and the extra durability xp really makes me happy. I also consider watching live TV to be a trap, those xp hits are wasted when you don't have the skill books read. There are VHS tapes for all the TV shows, plus 2 home VHS tapes each for electrical, first aid, metalworking, mechanics and tailoring.

Newish to the game. Thought I was on cloud 9. 2 weeks in, flying through my skills, on a friendly online server. Secure base in a house in the woods on the outskirts of Rosewood. Stacked with foods and entetainment materials and weapons and tools. Got my first car. Winter's coming soon, and I think I want to drive out to a cabin shack to find an antique oven. The plan was sound, except that DEEP fog set in before I even left town. Did I think "you know, this is REALLY bad visbility I should probably wait until the conditions are clear."? Of course I goddamn didn't. I thought "I'm a very good driver, just take your time, swerve around zombies and you'll get out to the bramble." Until I almost slammed into a car pileup on the highway outside of town. I didn't, but I couldn't reverse out of it until the horde was on me. I thought to get out of my car to fight them off but I couldn't see almost a thing. And that's how I lost my first character (that made it more than like a day). I will NEVER willingly drive in the deep fog again. I will turn my ass around next time. ;)

to clarify the short sighted trait: 1: yes it dose fix the trait ie it removes the negative to serch radius it gives you 2: short sighted dosnt affect actual sight distance it only affects search

My tip would be pack the canned food up and drop it in the middle of the street in a pile in single player if your not gonna take it with you and mark it on your map that way if you end up dire need you just hit the pile easier to see the threats instead of going inside a house that may have infected inside when you come back thats got me a couple times left some supplies behind in a house marked the house and went back when i needed it and got bit

Survived 2 weeks now on my second ever character - hopefully I don’t pull a stupid move and die now that I’m doing so well

Very Good video, I am starting the game and it helped me and my friends a lot. thank you very much

Thanks for the tips. I'm struggling. I'm doing the smaller cities but all of a sudden zombies will be crawling down my throat. I don't last a day in most cases

Great video! Oh and watch out, trees kill too.

Brilliant video, much thanks.

Survived past a week for my first time today, I started luring a zombie inside a house to get it away from other zombies to kill it and inside the house were like 4 zombies just waiting for me to open the door. I see them but it’s to late im already inside the house so I run up stairs and there’s more zombies. I literally just sat back in my chair and just watched my boy get eaten alive and zombified right before my eyes. One of the best gaming experience ever ngl!

I heard that covering your windows with planks from the inside mitigates the zombie curiosity

7:54 whats funny about this is each time i die its because im like "i probably shouldnt fight this" or "i shouldnt do this" but i do anyways LOL

Dont think zombies are attracted to your structures. Almost never have zeds attacked my base even during the chopper. As long as they don’t see you it won’t matter.

Number 8, in MP always use The Lamp as a human meat shield! 😜 Great video Drunk! 👍

Good tips for the early game. Personally I don’t go for Weapons Buff Classes like you suggest. But to each his own. Unemployed Class with Strong, Athletic, Thick Skinned and Keen Hearing is very forgiving for beginners trying to survive their first Summer. We are on the same page with Negative traits.

I always like to play as myself and take Traits that match up to who I am as a person. Makes me more invested in my character whenever I play.

Ah beat me to it! Great content 👌

I made it 2 weeks my very first play through. Put a very I’ll placed faith in me. But I still love dying, this game has such a high level of replay ability

Just survived 4 days and 16 hours. Much much longer than my previous runs where I could barely manage 24hrs. Didn't get too lucky with loot. Ended up holed up in a house, covered in infected wounds, zombies busting through every window. I slowly died of infection :(

Another great video drunkonlife!

i used to play on survivor only before the 3D patch in west point and at this point im s hardened that i play with normal pop, zombie runners 6 month later only in louisville and its crazy how much you have to keep your eyes open but my fear is that if play like this for a long time the normal survival with slow zombies will get boring

A tip that helped me plenty is to not take extra food with you that first week. Instead, put all the food in the freezer of a house, and come back to it later when you've secured your location and killed all the zombies or found a car to haul everything without wasting time!

Over 3,000 hours! Holy crap! You're a BEAST!

Have to strongly disagree with taking keen hearing & gymnast unless you're new to the game. I actually take hard of hearing & short sighted because as long as you're always checking your surroundings it's easy to spot zombies seeking up on you most of the time (unless you're playing with sprinters). This gives you loads of points to spend to ensure you get those top end positive perks like strong & fit. Also with regard to life & living, the initial shows stack with the VHS tape. You'll still get xp from the tape even if you saw the show. So it will still give you a huge head start if you can find beginner books, watch the life & living shows (particularly carpentry) and then power level the skills with a collection of tapes later on.

For dealong with endurance; simply sitring on the ground, or resting on furniture will replenish. However, i have found out that both effe ts stack with each other. Therefore, one should sit down, and rest through the right+click menu when recovering stamina.

I like rosewood because of how close the police and fire department are, so you get good weapons and armor to start, and because there is a farm a bit up the road that for some reason has 0 zombies at normal spawn rates. Occasionally the home owner will spawn in with a key, but other than that and occasionally a zed in the house next door, it's pretty mellow. There is also a warehouse next door that has more fresh produce than you'll probably be able to eat or store before it goes bad. You can grind carpentry for free on all the trees nearby, and foraging too. S tier beginner spot imo. It was better before they alternated the item spawn tables, because it used to be an equipment warehouse with tools and propane tanks and the works.

Nice vídeo dude!!!

Axeman Strongman build, one shot most zeds right out the get-go with an axe. Best traits

I learned you can still see outside of barricaded windows as long as you only put 2 planks on the inside and outside.

My issue tends to be trying to return to town later after setting up a safe house. I've already got the necessities for surviving indefinitely, but I want to continue progressing. I tend to die driving back into town because the car just attracts too large of a horde. There seem to be way too many on the way back to really have much success in just walking as well, and I don't know of many guide videos that address this sort of specific thing. It always seems to be about full-on beginners or those already thriving late game.

I have over 100 hours (i think maybe even 150) and i think i’ve only survived a week a couple of times. So thanks

Much appreciated.

When ever I open a door without a clear view from the outside I always press E really quickly twice. But still have to be careful if they are hiding around the corner.

you can also start as a cop in rosewood, and loot the police station armory and the prison for a lot of firearms and ammo...

Drunk is not called The PROs PRO for nothing! GREAT advice!

You might have forgotten the rules of not getting bored.

You can usually take on 3 zeds easily if you manage your swings in conjunction with standing in guys you knocked down. The more you can keep zeds on the ground, the easier you can manage. Simply standing on a zed keeps him from moving, provided he's not a crawler. You can use windows and small fences to your advantage because every time a zed comes through/over one, he's on the ground and temporarily vulnerable. Pace yourself when fighting, because swings that don't connect still cost stamina. You can stomp on guys on the ground without costing wear and tear on your weapons. Slowly chewing up a group by going through 2 or 3 at a time will keep you alive. The moment you see too many to take on, make a comfortable getaway. Use trees, bushes, fences, windows, doors, and cars to weave obstacles between you and your chasers, often without needing to run. Keep a water bottle on you. Keep a backup small melee weapon on you. Try not to carry firearms unless you are taking on NPCs. Even carrying a fanny pack with your medical gear will alleviate weight and space from your main bag(s), so you can patch up in a pinch. PZ has gotten so wonderfully in depth with its content that I'm still learning stuff after all these years.

My issue is that I get overconfident once you put a crowbar or nail bat in my hands. A slow and insidious death that is.

I always like starting as mechanic, all I need is electrical lvl 1 and I can hotwire cars. Plus get bonus for working on cars and short blunt. Personal preference plays a large role of course, I just always feel bad when I have to abandon a nice car I built up lol. Hence why I choose mechanic

Injured is a good negative trait but relies heavily on Luck. You might get 3 scratches or 3 burns

ultimate advice, watch all tv related programs, go to gated communities, and build barricades and fences, then play however you like after that.

Never been good at combat, so I started collecting vehicles. Get a couple of disposal cars and just run the zombies down. Long as you avoid head-on collisions (protect your engine at all costs) then the car will last until you pop a tire, then find another and repeat (or carry the mats for a tire change in your trunk). Especially if you can get a cop car, then just turn on the siren and do donuts. By the time the zeds stop coming then you know the population is small enough that you won't be fighting more than two at a time.

The increased vision arc can be good for beginners. But I really don't think it is worth the points once you know how to react once a zombie appears behind you. Nimble is great to spec in for extra xp, but I would also urge people to try and pick a class or perk that gives you maintenance bonus so your weapons will start lasting longer way faster

@1:01 Aquiring these skillbooks early on is a necessity, just like weapons and tools. @4:59 Frozen food isn't always better than canned food. That is obvious.

Drunkonlife> Your voice reminds me of Casey Kasem. I feel a bit like I'm listening to the billboard top 100 from the 80s, heh

i fortify nearby homes of my base home so zombies go to them first and give me time to find them on my normal routines.

You "The Pro's Pro". Carry on.

The Winter Mod that winter never ends is nice for hardcore

Great content

7:49 No doubt the game WILL punish you by making a bad decision. The longer you survive the more you also tend to make these bad decisions as you become more greedy and lose patience. With 750ish hours I recently lost a 3 1/2 month character due to loss of patience and carelessly sprinting into buildings I have yet to clear out (certain Raven Creek buildings are incredibly packed with zombies).

11:21 had me fuuuucking rollllinngg dude hahahha