TOP 10 AWESOME Tips to Build a Base in Project Zomboid 

Stay organized! Grab the double stacked metal shelves in houses closets. No tools needed to pick up and place with 0 break chance. Each holds 50

Pro tip: even when in a temporary safehouse: ORGANIZE. I can't stress enough how quickly your loot WILL get out of hand unless you have a specific container for every type of stuff you find.

Always use what's already there to your advantage. You can save a ton of materials by fortifying an existing building rather than constructing your own from the ground up. When fortifying, use fences, walls, and terrain features which are not only already in place but in many cases are also indestructible, unlike your own crafted walls. The tall iron fences of a gated community can be even more useful as you can see through them so you know if they're safe to jump. Or you can simply use walls to connect multiple houses together to create a compound, giving yourself a very large open safe area at a minimal cost of construction materials.

Funnel water from your collector directly to your appliances: If you place a water contrainer one floor above a sink, shower, bath or toilet then you're able to connect the plumbing. So you can install a freshwater tank one floor above your kitchen sink & you'll be able to use freshwater from your sink again. You can just use tainted water for your bath, shower & toilet & only use them for washing instead. There exist exactly 6 metal drums, which hold 800 units of water & can create charcoal: Near the military entry checkpoint to Louisville, where the civilian tents are, you will find 6 open metal drums filled with wood. You can remove the wood & pick up those drums. Now you can either use them to collect & store water for you (1 barrel holds up to 800 units of water!) Or you can use them to produce charcoal. Charcoal is lighter than logs & lasts longer!

Put two generators side by side and keep them both filled and connected to your base. That way when you need to turn your generator off for refueling and maintenance, you won't lose light and power to appliances as you can simply switch from one to the other. It also doubles the effective fuel reservoir, reducing the number of times you need to run to a gas station to fill up.

- Building on water: Zombies can't swim so you can build a large base on water with only 1 entrance which is easy to protect. Fishing and infinite water supply included. A lot of wood/nails needed, though. - a low fence with some furniture behind, allows you to jump over it when you run against it. zombies can't get over and won't attack the fence.

Regarding rain barrels: these are NOT absolutely needed if you're building your own house, even if you're not around a lake or river. Every time you go looting, grab every cooking pot you can. Leave these out to be rained in and they'll fill up. Then you throw all of them into your campfire, woodstove, fireplace, grill, et cetera to boil all at once. If you're fancy you can bring a water dispenser to your home (or two) and fill these from your boiled cooking pots, otherwise empty the pots into water bottles (the bottles that used to have bourbon in them hold 12 units of water and are the lightest per unit once filled, but bleach bottles hold more total units at 40 for long-term storage rather than walking around). These tips can be COMBINED with using rain barrels, and should be if you're playing with low loot and can't get enough garbage bags or cooking pots to make either viable on their own. Even if you do nothing else, collecting water dispensers and bringing them back to your base can provide you with a lot of water in the short-term - they're super common and ridiculously light for the amount of water they hold (250 apiece).

For efficient kitchens, a u or c shape of cupboards (3x3 or 4x3 ) is the best shape to start with. Add the floating upper cabinets for looks (found in trailer homes) or the 2shelf metal wall bracket shelf (found in closet style minirooms in houses or crafted via metalworking) if looks are not so much of a thing. There is also a 2shelf wall shelf in some gas stations and mini marts that holds 50units if you don't like ether. This can give 100units of space for foods (130units if 'organised' trait is taken) per one tile area. Using the 2tile drinks fridge is (I have found, for me) most efficient for storing a good chunk of perishable foods near or next to your food prep area, along with the 2tile icebox. Both can be found at mini marts and gas stations. They are heavy though, so are something to grab once you have a big enough car boot/trunk to move them with. Reason being, the drinks fridge holds 50units per fridge and 20units per freezer compartment, and has two of each right next to each other. I separate fruit and veg this way from looted home fridges. The freezer compartments store fresh meats. You can always store excess in another fridge/freezer and move stuff between when batch cooking. I use the icebox freezers to store cooked foods (home made and looted) to last longer, and a mini-fridge for things like beer or snacks near the TV for learning time. For sewing, you can drop a school backpack and place a sewing kit on a table to make a sewing station. Fill the backpack with the cloth, denim and leather strips and if you are close enough, your character will automatically grab the strips from the bag to patch and sew with.

Water dispenser is another good way to obtain water if u cant build a raincollector yet,it provides 250 water and u can refill them too

Stick traps work great on rooftops and mousetraps work indoors, both provide a good and fairly easy source of protein. And I don't know if it effects it but both times I've gotten sick, I have been really hungry. Also some advise from somebody in late January: build lots of water collection because snow doesn't count and won't fill your catchment or water your crops. Nice video thanks 👍🏻

In regards to barricades, you can in fact place wooden boards on BOTH sides of a window/door at the same time, thus doubling the durability of that barricaded entry for a total of 8 boards.

Amazing video. I've played hundreds of hours and killed like 100k zombies. But I've never actually done base building. I'm gunna try now that you've made this video.

IMPORTANT: Plumbing a sink has now been changed and does not clean the water anymore. I apologize for misinformation. Check out this video for more Project Zomboid tips - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Gnc0p0MxFhc.html

lighters and matches are infinite since we can get them on zombies but anyway if you can't find any you can use kindle to start a fire You can put a campfire inside but need dirt or sand or gravel under it so your house doesn't burn down electricity is not the only way to preserve food, you can use jars too

My tip is: don't start building a main base until after the helicopter event. This will probably shift around the zombies quite a bit and possibly make your starting base unusable for a while depending on your population and respawn settings. What you need is an array of locations with decentralized resources and as many caches as you can afford between them. I set up dufflebags with the essentials all over town and instead of hoarding resources I just leave them where I might eventually use them. Medikit, Tent, Hand axe, Hammer, nails and food and water for a couple days.

Dont forget check condition of your generator too, if condition will be less then 50%, it can boom! You can repair it with e-scrap and gain electrical exp:)

My suggestion for ppl who are intob farming, check the bouble warehouses at the farm area, between rosewood and doe valley, andmake 3/4 composters and fill them up with the over 200 units of rotten crops u can find. Since spawns there are close to none, u can come back later to a true farming treasure

For cutting down trees, use fire axes if you can find them over hand axes. Fire axes have far higher durability over hand axes. Second to that is also increasing your axe skill using hand axes as weapons to make your proficiency better making felling trees easier.

Great vid! There are fuel barrels in vanilla now with a 400 unit capacity. they will last u months if u haul it the base and fill it.

Thanks for the video! I just started playing PZ for the first time and I didn't realize how immersive and deep the game is. This was super helpful and really gets me hyped up to continue progressing.

I have watched no lie thousands of guides over my decades of playing games, This is an excellent top tier guide. You arent going TOO detailed into things but enough into it for people ot get their foot in the door like a tip is suppose to be. you are on point and not too much extra fluff . keep it up.

One of the best tips that I can provide for newbies is to use the Fence-Box-Wall/Fence setup which will result to you having an impenetrable and indestructible wall in which the zombies cannot hop over. This is a good format for walls to surround your base with, helped me both in my Multiplayer and Single Player runs.

One day I hope to live long enough to build up a base. Good vid. Thanks.

Functionally the higher you are the harder it is for Zeds to track you and/or meta events around you. So yeah, penthouse apartment or living on the roof have significant advantages. Especially since seen chunks (parts of cell) don't respawn zeds. So if you look out from the roof at a 6th story apartment once a day you'll effectively get no respawns within a half-a-cell radius. I'd still wall off or barricade some exits because rarely 1-3 Zeds tend to wander in since some meta events have a large radius. Also agoraphobics can't sleep in player built structures without sleeping aids (alcohol or sleeping pills). If you can find one a hospital bed breaks in two pieces without any skill and provides very good sleep quality otherwise get one of those average sleep quality armchairs, since they only weigh 7,5 or a tent kit for 3. You can't really leave a generator unmanned because at low condition they can cause a fire. If you get a character with prone to illness you will get sick sometimes. That's something that you'll need to deal with.

Never know you can have a working rain collector barrel sink... I learn something new today, thank you.

One tip about growing crops, when one of your crops are sick, they will disperse the sickness to other adjacent plants, so i recommend growing them sepparatedly in about 2x2 or less, also, stash milk and cigarettes for the garden spray crafts: Mildew Cure and Pesticide

You do not need a lighter or matches to lit a fire for your campfire. You can make a Notched Wooden Plank with a wood plank + Chipped Stone/Screwdriver or any Knife. After that if you have a saw make a Sturdy Stick or just simply use a Tree Branch and you are set to go! Lastly if you don't want to use generators/fridge for your produce, a good tip is to plant your 1 produce per day. This way you will have fresh produce to harvest and eat every day.

1. 0:35 "nails are finite" this is actually false as you can forage for nails. I found it once myself. (in a few trees between rusty rifle and gas station) 2. You don't need access to anything other than a forest nearby. Thats because you get water from water barrels. resources from the forest and it's also safer in there as zombies group mostly in towns. 3. You should also mention that traps have check ticks every full hour for catching animals. 4. Also if you are next to water you can build stairs on water facing the one tile bridge you build and start building on 2nd level without the need to get the sledgehammer. Your video is quite good but doesn't cover few quite important aspects. I hope to see more content to extend my knowledge of the game. See you around and have fun!

This is not a base tip but it is helpful for new players. I don’t know if you have said this in a different video but stock up on books to overcome boredom in the beginning so when you are waiting for your crops you can read. You should also try to find the skill books to get an exp multiplier for your skills.

The abandoned town near riverside is a great way to find a couple wood stoves, or if you like a challenge you can find one of the houses with a fireplace to keep warm during winter. It’s definitely some fixer uppers but if you don’t mind that they are perfect since not many zeds spawn around the area

At your specific base next to the river you dont necessaryly need more than 1 raincollector. If it runs dry you can always use water from the river to fill it up.

Fishing and farming go very well together. Making compost will spawn worms in your composters that you can use as bait, and you can make godly stirfries with fish and veggies.

im a new player, ive started playing yesterday and watched tips and all on how to become better at the game, asked some player friends to guide me and im currently at day 5 i think. I only got to watch one carpentry show i think, found 2 generators, 2 gas canisters and a working car in good condition and almost full of gas. I made base in a cabin next to a road but close to no zombies, close to fields. I plan to go to the nearest gas station to fuel up and stock up on gas, and also baricade the base and probably try building one myself. Any tips and suggestions you could give me to make this run the one im going to thrive in?

Im on a run where the goal is to kill all zombies in every named location. I have cleared most of maldraugh. I moved from McCoy logging to directly south of Lousiville. Specifically the gazebo north of the mall. I have some siren vehicles parked around the lot to draw all the mall zeds to it. Once i clear the mall i can loot it and work my way into Louisville.

I'm building a massive, I mean, a MASSIVE base in Louisville Golf Club. The walls cover nearby buildings, like Giga Mart, Police Departament, 3 gas stations, a church, lots of houses, hospital, a mall, a bank and even Spiffo's. The Log Wall is done and now I'm building a large and 3 tiles wide catwalk above it, with 2 stories towers at the edges and 1 story towers above the gates. I'm eager to show if off to the world once I'm done with it.

I tend to roam around aimlessly and kill zombies, eat food, take anti depressants and sleep in the game which gets boring, starting a base sounds like a challenge that I suck at in pretty much every game. Thanks for this guide it'll help me organize what is needed. I literally just have a bed in the middle of the woods with a camp fire... yeah I die way too quickly from immolation and zombies who just love to whisper in your ear while you sleep😅

I have not finished the video but what I can say is you have taught me a lot of things that I will find useful when I connect my mouse that allows me to left click.

Playd this game a fair bit an I've learnt loads from this video on base building awesome I'm normally a nomad player but lately started to invest time in learning how to build a good base impressive I wasn't even aware you could do most of what you said it makes me wanna play it more

Here's my tip .... If you park a car just right up against a doorway without a door (where the vehicle door and doorway meet and there's no space to walk between your vehicle and the building) then no zombie can ever get into the building. You enter through the opposite door, change seats then exit into the building.

9:24 if you can't get a sledge hammer, you can pick up/disassemble the flooring around the top of the stairs to prevent z's from advancing. works best in premade homes with carpet.

If its multiple player, its depends on what role you play, like if your carpenter base building, then your most likely to stay at home, if your the person who will go put to get supplies, then burgerlar or fire fighter are your best pick.

do not waste magazines,newspapers and books if not needed. just go outside or watch a random tv show or vhs tape if you can,or go to a balcony.your character's boredom will go away if you stay outside enough. but if there's an helicopter event etc. or zombies are outside your base and you don't want to get spotted, just watch tv at 0 volume(but you have to look at the tv,if your character faces somewhere else nothing will happen since theres 0 volume and your character doesn't see tv)

I’d like to add on the plumbing: If it isn’t working, I believe you can only plumb sinks that you placed yourself AND are located in an enclosed area. No outside sinks. The rain collector barrel can’t be directly above the sink, but adjacent tiles to the tile directly above the sink are acceptable. Since you should already be planning on building near a river or lake, if it ever doesn’t rain for a long time or winter snow happens, you can always just manually carry water up to the rain collector barrel, so only one is ever needed.

when building defenses like walls and gates build them in layers radiating outward from your main stronghold. this way when the hordes show up they might only breach the first or second layer for defenses before you manage to whittle them down. its not a matter of IF they get in but a matter of WHEN.

Never built my own base, I've always fortified existing buildings. One question. Are these bases treated as indoors? Because whenever I modify existing building, parts I built are outdoors and temperature in them is same as outside. It is silly to the point that one part of the same room is warm and the other is cold.

1:51, that autoshop near the traintracks you show on the map is normally my base, I expand from there, adding an extra floor and towers to make it a full on compound

There’s a house if you go east out of riverside. Then follow it south a long ways, it’s off a dirt path. It’s a house, a shed with crates, and a shed. I plan on building a 2 story base there and cutting down and making a path south to the road on the other side of the woods. I think it’s pretty central for exploring in all directions. Far enough away to be safe, but still get zombie spawns on the road to keep things interesting. I still am very new to the game. But will increase difficulty when I get better. As I can’t even take on three zombies yet.

There is also a warehouse in westpoint that got atleast 3 old furnaces

You can light Campfires, charcoal barbecues, and ovens with a tree branch + plank. You just need a screwdriver or a knife/chipped stone to turn the plank into a notched plank, then having the plank + tree branch in your inventory you can choose those to start a fire

My tip is to consider building your base ON the gas station. They tend to be on the edge of town, and there is usually a small structure next to the pumps where you can live in, but you might want to expand off it as it will usually be pretty small. They usually have a large, flat area around the pumps where you can sit your cars and build more structures, or farm if you bring in dirt. And of course there is it's main upside, you live where the gas is, so you never have to take trips to refuel. The main downside is that you will have to build a large wall around the station to get security. It really is not a bad option but is pretty often slept on.

super tip if your base is in a area which has high walls and you want an entery point for cars dont rely on one double door make an airlock enter point for cars there is a ai that serches the map to find where dont have zeds and spawns it there is some items that stop the ai like walls work like barrier but double doors when opend can let the ai to enter your base and spawn zed but airlock can be life saving the longer you survive the more zeds ai spawns

first decent character ever. I've survived in a school for a month and 10 days, never leaved the spawn city cause no vehicle. I managed to get some broccoli seeds, and of course stocked water (6x160). Only mained carpentry because it was the first skillset that impressed me. Not the best character, but I'm trying my best not to slip and die. Also, food and water are abundant, for now

@5:17 "I'm sorry Jerry..." ROFL That was so good, and unexpected... 😁

Does the sink still filter water? I have one connected to a rainbarrel but it gives (tainted) to anything I fill from the sink

If you don't have matches or a lighter. You can still start a fire using a notched plank and a sturdy stick. You can make it with 2 planks, a saw and a screwdriver. You use the screwdriver to drill one plank and the saw to cut the other one into sturdy sticks. Then you can make a friction fire. A few of the sticks might break though befoe it works. Pretty handy if you forgot your matches out in the woods.

I am thinking of doing a new game and making the North farmhouse in Muldraugh. I am going to make a mini base at the small lake to the west of the base and will connect that with the farmhouse using second story flooring so it is easy to walk over to the lake whenever I want to fish.

One extra tidbit about water. Drinking rain water from an unplumbed barrel or before boing it=rip. However, drinking from lakes will not kill your character. Queasy yeah if not balanced correctly, but it’s a good fail safe before being able to build rain collected barrels and either collecting water to boil it or connect to sink to plumb it. I know a lot of PZ players like to play on insanely limited loot, electric & water shut off immediately and especially when playing some challengers like cabin in the woods or isolate and live in barren lands.

That's awesome tips video Koko.

How do you move heavy things like fridges? It says it’s too heavy for inventory so I can’t do anything

My favorite tip is to use your best equipment; absolutely never get “too good to use” in your mind, except in very sparing circumstances (these being melted ice cream and other high calorie foods in case of emergency, bug out bag, etc)

My tip is simple : You can build some things that are indestructible to zombies. Mainly, stairs. This means that you can perfectly secure the areas enclosed with tall walls by building a few flights of stairs blocking the way. You'll need to leave your cars outside, but you will be perfectly safe inside.

Could you do a video on how to add mods to a multiplayer server? Also love this video, I don’t know you needed a furnace for winter.

I have no idea for building a base in Zomboid. I just move from house to another house for living :D

West Point has a really big spacious house in the middle of a field plus with a path to take leading to your either left or right, on the right side of the continuing near ending path you will find a shed sometimes with a generator and a broken/broken down car outside it too, it close to homes behind your home for any food and near the town too, i dont know about water but if you mod you can always use the containers mods for liquids such ad gas and your daily doses of booze lol

very helpful tips! my friends and I really getting into this game so this vid helps a lot. thanks!

Metal workers: you can remove propane tanks from other propane grills. Actually you have to if you really plan on doing anything unless you have a giant stockpile of blow torches. I really like the Recycle mods for sprucing up metal working. It's a really old skill that hasn't been touched by the devs in a long time because they're overhauling the crafting right now.

You can use a hammer and saw to build wooden floor and disasemble it on any second floor to make a hole the Zeds can't walk through so you won't need a sledge for now

Even if its not the best, I recomend setting up base at the military surplus store in doe valley, ALOT of food, medical supplies, weaponry and a small town with not alot of zombies

Lighters are finite? Idk about u but I’ve collected more from zombies in a single save than I had from scavenging on all my saves combined

Drinking from the river doesn't kill you unless that was patched out recently, but drinking from containers such as the rain collector will kill you, the sickness moodle somehow ran out quicker if you just drank straight from the river 🤔

I'm a newbie! Wow this game is overwhelming of possibilities every item has its own purpose.

I just Got your Channel recommended! I see this video of yours got picked up by The algorithm - really great stuff dude. You got a new sub - keep it up ❤️

once you get a sledge, destroy all your 1st floor windows that you barricaded. zombies attack doors and windows and will destroy sheet ropes that drape down from the top window to the lower one. thats why you need multiple ropes. but if there's no window or door where the rope comes down, less likely for a zed to attack it. especially if the next floor up goes out 1 more tile so the rope comes down in the open area. when you place a generator at your base, put it up top. if zombies here it they'll come looking. this keep the sound down. you can even place it indoors, just build a full wall around it with a door. just always keep the condition up or it might explode and catch on fire.

The 4-tile Jump mod is/will be a game changer. Build some stairs, jump the gap over to your base and you're safe. IDK if they'll still try to follow you and just fall off the platform; both options has some good possibilities. If they wont fall off you could make a floating circuit, kite Z's up there, destroy the stairs and have a walking zombie gallery. If they will follow and fall, you could easily make Zombie traps! >XD Using generators in doors will kill you with the fumes; I was surprised when I couldn't gas myself with a car in a garage?!?

You're character reminds me of Joakim Broden from Sabaton and I love it

If you don't have a sledge, you can disassemble the floor next to the stairs. You can't break the ones at the top of the stairs, but you can break the ones next to that.

Great job, thank you.

Do you needcertain ski to install water filter? And is it 1 barrel for each sink? Whoa never know this is possible

These builds take a long time to build by the way. I am building a base that is way smaller than this one and it still took me about 12 days. Just keep in mind how long it takes to build.

I had so many questions as a noob. 1. What do you mean "connecting" generator at gas station and the other one at your base? How? 2. Let say i want this 4K TV , do i have to carry it ALL THE WAY to my base? Why i can't just put it car trunk? Logically it should fit. 3. Can we change car parts? Like the truck is great but can i install a quieter muffler? 4. Where i can get mod other Steam workshop? I have pirate version for now, forgot to buy it on winter sale. Might have more questions but i forgot lol.

Weapon dumps. Why carry those heavy weapons and ammo around your base? Store rifles/shotguns + ammo at your choke points. When the horde comes banging on the door/wall you can run there and safely mow them down. (Hopefully from the safety of above)

Metal working is far better for storage options but always collect BookShelves Double shelves and if your lucky Bags and boxes as a bag can be used as quick drop storage

Here´s a neat little trick to keep the area around your base clear: Build yourself a perimeter wall with a catwalk. Get a long-ranged rifle with an 8x Scope and a car with working sirens...I´ll let you figure out the rest. Have fun!

Perfect video, thanks man

Great vid, still holds up! Wanted to ask is that a mod for those blood splatter on those zombies at 7:07 and if so which? Would appreciate to know

Nice vid, would be nice to have the same kinda vid with base builds and maybe characters builds for beginners :)

Endgame survival felt daunting and impossible till now, listing off in what order I should do things helps a lot

Thank you

As of now zombies can't break or climb over tvs & microwaves, loot a bunch of those you can easily build an impenetrable wall of appliances

I know that this video is like 2-3 years old, but nails are hardly finite. I mean just with looting the many *many* locations which can spawn nails (which is basically every factory, hardware store, garage, shed and house with a broom closet) you can easily get like 100 boxes of nails in a place like muldraugh alone. That’s easily about 10000 nails. Keep in mind it takes like 1 or 2 per floor and about 6 per wall. I wouldn’t worry about nails being finite unless you play on extremely rare loot and never visit Louisville. (But also if I remember nails are a part of a foraging loot table, so with enough time and determination you can get as many boxes of nails from nature as you want)

When constructing my building, I ran into a problem with you that many walls become transparent, even though I am outside the building and the wall has no windows. The same thing happens periodically, if you are inside. Many walls behind the character himself and not in front (as they should be) become invisible. The same problem is in this video. Time 0:02 (the room on the 2nd floor is completely visible despite the wall). I even lost motivation to play it due to problems with rendering =(. Can this be solved somehow?

Hello mister ! Nice video, thank's for making it ! have a question, What's the best way to transport wood? haha

This game is unplayable without watching youtube videos.! Good guide content.

Think i'm gonna buy this game this weekend. Looks like it's very realistic and fun.

That glass trick is new, I'll be using that!

They should really add a skill for survivalist where you can light fires and stuff by rubbing sticks together but need both a high level and also high fitness or something like that.

I learned a handful of things from this video. Most important thing I've been missing is a mannequin wife.

do u have a tutorial on how u built the base from the video it looks really cool

Sledgehammer are not that hard to find imho. 9/10 times i get them by driving around until i spot a Car-event with some workers. there are often tools on the ground nearby and this tools are often sledgehammers. so dont chck every warehouse from them. check the roads instead.

Great upload, Thank you!