Project Zomboid – How to Survive Tips for Noobs

Survival Tips for Beginners

Combat Tips

Avoid Fighting at fences

Zombies in PZ called shamblers can’t hurt you when you’re moving. This is your main advantage against them. But there’s a problem when they climb over fences. After they climb, they can grab you from farther away than usual. This special grab is hard to avoid because it’s difficult to tell how close is too close. Unlike normal zombie attacks, this grab will always kill you if it hits. It doesn’t matter if you’re walking or running – if they grab you after climbing a fence, you’re in big trouble. The grab stops you from moving, and then other zombies can attack you too.

Jog, Don’t Swing

You’re doing something or other; fighting, looting, inventory shuffling, focused on 1 direction and not watching your back, when suddenly a lone zombie comes up from behind and bites you. You almost certainly tried to do something about it in the meantime, and it probably involved trying to shove or attack the zombie, but you failed due to not turning quickly enough, swinging too early, or swinging too late. However, you could have just pressed shift combined with any movement key. You are quite nearly invincible while jogging in Zomboid, and one or more zombie taking you by surprise is quite helpless if you simply begin jogging before their attack animation is complete. Even jogging directly into zombies works fine, as the resulting ‘bump’ animation will stun them and interrupt the attack animation.

Don’t fight while moving directly upwards or downwards

Because the ground between you and the enemy is obscured by either your (when moving upwards) or the enemy’s (when moving downwards) hitbox, it’s difficult to judge distance, leading to often fatal mistimed swings. The disaster scenario is swinging just barely too early, hitting nothing while the zombie in front of you is as close as he could possibly have been without getting hit. If you don’t have lighting quick reflexes in this scenario, you’re likely to be hit by a single zombie, or stunlocked into death against a larger horde.

Basic Tips

Basic long term bases tips: Zeds thump on anything you build or move. They love window barricades. They attack them like they attack necks. If they cannot see you or hear you, they mostly just wander around. So…

  • Walls far away mean they can’t see you or hear you.
  • So they have no reason to come for your genny, windows, doors, or neck meat.
  • Wandering zeds may attack a gate or outer perimeter wall, but if you patrol every few days, or lure zeds away, literally months of game time can pass without seeing a single zombie.

More general tips:

  • Why are you running? Just walk it off, zombies are insanely slow and running only makes you tired.
  • Knives are not good early game weapons find hammers, cleaver, pipes or better tier weapons.
  • The only time you are safe is when there is nothing left to kill.
  • Armor is a good safety net, but don’t be too reliant on it.
  • Pick westpoint as it is the best point.
  • You will die, but try to understand why you died and learn from it.

Useful Info

Gun Guide

Here is a modern version of the gun guide accounting for all of the changes since that first one was published, as well as having fixed like a dozen major errors the first version made.

Click to enlarge…

Notes:

  • All stats are taken from the game files using a decompiled copy of the code as well as some debug testing to make sure it’s correct. CC = Crit Chance, STKX = Shots to kill from X tiles away.
  • Formulas available on request.
  • Note that when shooting a zombie that has its back facing you, you have a +30% crit chance, as well as a 30% damage buff.
  • Also, you lose 1% accuracy for every tile away you are from the target. Crit chance goes down by 7% per tile past 4 tiles away from the player.
  • You gain a small amount of crit chance when shooting a zombie that’s not directly facing you, but not backwards either. I’ve never seen it go above 7%.
  • Also, panic has no effect on accuracy, none at all, but it does convey a damage debuff.
  • The damage debuff is -0.19 at strong panic, and -0.25 at extreme panic. The debuff is removed at level 6 aiming.
Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 8024 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices. My first official job in the game industry started back in 2005, and I'm still doing what I love to do.

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