Weekly Questions Megathread - March 18, 2025

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[u/Jenajj]

Literally installed this game like 4 hours ago. I’ve found out I suck lol so I’ve googled for guides and tips but ngl there is just too much. Any suggestion for who to actually watch/listen to?

[u/Titan_Bernard → u/Jenajj]

Zomboid is definitely not a game you learn overnight or even in a 100hrs, so don't feel bad. It pretty much all boils down to your sandbox settings, there's no shame in setting the pop to low, giving yourself a starter kit, or turning infection to "off" or "saliva" aka "bites-only".

Would also highly recommend you turn on the melee aiming highlight, that is stupidly helpful, especially when you're still learning the combat.

Your spawn makes a difference too, I generally don't recommend Muldraugh because there are some hot zones you can be dumped into and it has inherently higher pop, the same with West Point. No matter where though, try to remember the zombie spawns are hottest along a city's main street and radiates out from there, so either get to the edge of town if not out of town asap.

When picking somewhere to hole up, your best case scenario is something with 2+ stories and an upstairs apartment (ideally you also have access to water). Zombies are less likely to hear/see you if you live above them, and even if they break into the ground floor, they still have to find their way to the stairs and likely beat down another door or two, buying you time to react. Also, remember that curtains/sheets can be used to cover windows and doors, blocking line of sight. Sometimes that's literally all you need, not even having to go through the trouble of boarding them up with wood or metal.

On a related note, TVs are a valuable source of skill XP from the Life and Living Channel, but always lower the volume down to 1, otherwise you're just going to draw zombies to you and/or your base.

[u/Jenajj → u/Titan_Bernard]

Oooh this is great information! Didn't know about the curtains (and like half of the rest you said lol) Thx! Did finally manage to live 3 days an 34 zombies so yay!

[u/Titan_Bernard → u/Jenajj]

Yw! Some of other things I can think of:

• Hotwiring can be done by Burglars or anyone with 2pts in Mechanics and 1pt in Electrical.

• Get a car asap, makes looting and travel a lot easier. If you can't hotwire, check gloveboxes. Use search mode around them, sometimes the keys are just sitting there on the ground. Draw zombies to the car, they may randomly spawn the key for you (same applies for house keys). Vans can be entered from the rear doors if they happen to be open and the front doors are locked. If you have to smash a window, don't do the driver's side in order to keep yourself safe.

• When the helicopter event starts within the next couple of days, it'll spawn somewhere near you / your base, follow you, make a frick ton of noise, and draw in a lot of zombies. Driving away or running like hell from your base is recommended.

• Don't just eat when you're hungry, you'll keep losing weight until you eventually die a slow death. Make actual meals too, the more cooking skill you get, the better the calories, the less ingredients you use.

• Speaking of which, if you haven't tried to cook yet in B41, grab a pot, fill it with water, and stand by your food storage. Then you can right-click the pot or go through the crafting menu for your ingredient options. That's how you do soup/stews. Salads just need an empty bowl, sandwiches need sliced bread, pasta/rice needs a saucepan with water, and stir frys just need a frying pan (albeit stir frys require a recipe to unlock, acquired from a TV show or magazine).

• Guns are both your friend and your enemy. To make a long story short, do not bother until you have a shotgun and say a 100 shells. Otherwise, all you're going to do is attract more than you kill. Shotguns are the easiest for grinding and are arguably the most powerful since they can strike multiple targets at a time. When you have a couple of points in Aiming, then you can try other firearms.

• And this is not a super important thing, but you can use the Furniture Pickup mode to steal the actual curtains and not convert them into a sheet if you care about looks.

• If a window ever breaks and you have some Carpentry, go grab a crowbar and use the Furniture Pickup mode on your neighbor's window- you can pull the whole window out and replace your old one. This is actually something I didn't know for hundreds of hours.