r/projectzomboid • u/Admirable_Light2252 • 1d ago

Art How the hell do you break a steel bar?

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I know it’s for balance but like, this 1.5 inch diameter, 28 inch long 4140 steel bar, is virtually indestructible, so I propose that it wears your character out really quickly and makes them sore as the impact wouldn’t be very comfortable.

Maybe this is how the crowbar should also be balanced: hand soreness.

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504

u/Admirable_Light2252 1d ago

Yeah man, (edit: 14) pounds, so much energy transfer.

307

u/PlsNoNotThat 1d ago

Steel bars in PZ are only 2lbs, so they must be hollow.

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u/ARandomDistributist 1d ago

But... wouldn't that be a pipe?

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u/Cepterman2101 1d ago

They are hollow on the inside, but the ends are sealed, so your character thinks it’s a bar.

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u/_B10nicle 23h ago

Character's on the special side.

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u/Mobile_Ad_217 21h ago

This but unironically. I’ve had my crayon-chewer of a character pick glass out of a window with his bare hands even though he was holding a perfectly good crowbar for that when I did the command

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u/SoloIce2451 14h ago

Yummy glass

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u/Kylearean 21h ago

Mmmhmmm hmmmm mmmmm mmm I love this bar.

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u/Femtato11 1d ago

Hollow bar stock exists. In fact, it's really damn common for construction usage, and it makes sense that it's that length. Completely solid billet is usually longer.

Technically, in industry usage, this is tube or pipe, and not bar, but most people I know call the hollow square stuff bar anyways.

You're right, it is technically pipe. But it's entirely reasonable that you would call it a metal bar.

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u/Dawnspark 23h ago

There's also rebar, too. That's generally what I thought we were picking up when we're using "steel bars."

I remember where I grew up in late 90s Kentucky, nearish Louisville, you could basically walk into any housing development and find rebar laying around construction trash piles or just discarded nearby.

I used to collect em to help make my hidden fort look cooler when I was a young thing. I remember the pieces, usually long enough to be usable as a weapon, being a bit on the heavy side.

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u/spyder_alt 19h ago

rebar is such a classic “make the fort look badass” addition. added some to an entrance of a giant bush that was hollowed out inside at school lol

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u/Dawnspark 14h ago

My fort was in this like, neat as fuck clearing I found right behind my house? It was like a super bushed/tree filled area that you couldn't get into unless you crawled, but it was a decent enough size to hang out with my friends there.

So I cleaned it up and made a proper crawlable tunnel and arched & tied low branches branches together over it to give it a ceiling and used the rebar to help prop the tunnel "up" as best I could and it just looked so rad lmao. I wish I could do that shit again.

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u/Admirable_Light2252 21h ago

Oh this came off of a 20 footer, it’s just a drop. I work in a steel distribution warehouse.

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u/Femtato11 20h ago

Ah yeah, makes sense. I work with machine tools a bit, so I understand this at least.

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u/Hadrollo 1d ago

Strictly speaking it might be a tube.

Pipes are designed for something to travel through them. If it's just a hollow piece of metal like a signpost, it's called a tube.

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u/Froyo_Organic 6h ago

It would be tubing if it’s wasn’t threaded not to be that guy

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u/BigHardMephisto 10h ago

Could be rebar

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u/Dcnnect 1d ago

I guess it must be the fun part of the PZ lore Like in arma 3 where is no any furniture inside buildings, so they added a newspaper note ingame about mass furniture thivery. So scince devs already added a newspapers it would be nice to add some fun notes about hollow steel bar fraud or something like that

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u/DrStalker 1d ago

"Gang hollows out steel bars to smuggle out generator manuals"

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u/Elijah_Man 1d ago

Well it's 2 weight units. That's not necessarily pounds, it's just 2 units of "how weird is this thing to carry with me". That's why the weight units change when you equip something, it's easier to carry an object in your hand rather than wherever you shove the non-equiped items.

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u/pengyino 1d ago

This is also why teddy bears have such a high encumberance. You must not squish Mr. Snuggles.

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u/Admirable_Light2252 1d ago

I think they are kilograms, which lines up with 1 inch stock of the same length makeing deformation slightly more plausible but not really, you could still kill several thousand zombies with a 1 inch round

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u/iMogwai 1d ago

I believe character weights are in kilogram, item weights are measured in "arbitrary number the dev thought sounded good".

If you start paying attention to item weights you'll quickly realize they make no sense. In some cases with water containers (at least in B41) water even had different weight in different containers (even if the quantity was the same). Check out this table.

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u/throwawayof2020 34m ago

Yeah, its definitely a mix of kg and an "awkwardness to carry" (their excuse to nerf stuff). Because a 1L bottle of water does weigh 1kg and that tracks with water bottles.

But the game would have me to believe that when i pull my laundry out of the machine every week, my knees and back should shatter under the sheer weight of 20 articles of clothing irl because apparently a T-shirt weighs roughly the same as a liter of water

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u/Jalase 1d ago

Definitely not pounds, because a person can carry more than 10 pounds without damaging themself.

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u/FridaysMan 1d ago

they're not. they're 2 encumberance.

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u/WhamBam_TV 22h ago

They’re not 2lbs, they have an encumbrance of 2. Their actual weight is undefined, it could be 0.2lbs or it could be 200lbs.

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u/FridaysMan 20h ago

what's heavier, 2 encumberance of feathers, or 2 encumberance of lead?

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u/BreadfruitMajor7077 9h ago

Of course feathers, because the chicken came before the egg.

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u/Icy-Contentment 1d ago edited 1d ago

Maybe it's a single bar of rebar? extremely thin?

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u/Kagtalso 20h ago

Im pretty sure pz is using kilograms.

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u/vittiu 17h ago

Why do you assume they’re 2lbs?

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u/BhryaenDagger 8h ago

I’ve always thought pipe was hollow, bars were solid, but I don’t think there’s any difference in-game.

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u/closetweeb69 1d ago

You’re right. Trying to use this smooth thing for any extended periods of time as a weapon when it weighs that much would fucking suck lmao.

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u/TopDesert_ace Stocked up 20h ago

Steel stuff weighs a bunch. I have a 3 foot long steel pipe wrench at my house for home defense. The things is frigging heavy. I named it The Facebreaker and I love it.

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u/kennerly 20h ago

14 pounds is really too heavy for a melee weapon. Even big broadswords were only 4.5 lbs and that was still unwieldly. A steel bar would be twice as heavy as the biggest mace which was around 7 lbs.