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Prepare yourself for the long run, gather all these 50 or so items and you'll be ok. Then you get bit once and goodbye long run.

A little fact many PZ-players seem to not know about: If you have a composter... Place a single worm in it... Every time a rotten food item decays, one or two new worms appear in the composter... Worm Farm!! I have survived for almost a year by now, and with this method I got more than 800 worms... Sadly , there is not lake around, but these worms can be used as bait in the bird traps.

Important note to the generators, always keep their condition above 50% Once its under that value there is a chance for it to catch fire and burn your base down

I remember the first time I was ready for the long term. I had planted seeds, barricaded a whole farmstead, started putting up an outer wall around the property, I had a relatively safe forest for wood and foraging, a good truck with gas and mechanic tools, plenty of food, a well. *And then I ate mushrooms* Got nauseous and never recovered, I died puking in my bedroom even though I hadn't seen a Zombie in days

The Project Zomboid life cycle (provided you don’t die): Days 0-4: almost die 15 times setting up your base. Get a car and nail up your base with planks. Find food etc. Days 5-10: loot the surrounding town and clear zombies in the area. Looting mostly non food items like books. Probably build a double gate in front of your base so you’re walled in. Week 1-3: find generator magazine, collect office water bubblers, get an ice freezer. Finish clearing out the surrounding town and go on some road trips and nearly die for hard to find items. Start farming and trapping. Month 1-2: wake up and check your traps, harvest your crops and plant new ones, read comic books and watch VHS to keep from getting depressed. Fill your ice cooler with enough rabbits and potatoes for 2 winters. Haven’t more than 10 zombies at a time in your town in the last month or been in any real danger. Learn metalworking for no reason. Month 2+: Have the sudden realization that you’re now just playing the sims. Start a new save and never look back. All jokes aside I love this game

TIP: Before foraging or fishing when in the wild, walk around and shout by pressing Q, this will attract any nearby zombies so you can dispatch them before they sneak up on you trying to get some food.

I always plan so extensively for the long haul and end up dying in a stupid way like a car crash or an infected scratch

It’s super cool that refrigerated food and working television appears in a zombie game. Most zombie games start well into the catastrophe or focus way more on the mid or late game so these things are irrelevant or don’t appear at all

Important note: the storage room in the back of the post office in Riverside has TONS of skill books.

I recommend starting fishing skill with a spear before you use a rod (you'll mostly lose your bait before catching) you only need a spear to fish (no bait) if you can build some walls around a fishing spot you can just fast forward time and easily catch fish, try hit level 2 before using a rod, its also better to catch fish at dawn and dusk while at low skill.

A tip for generators, check the condition of your generator regularly because it will degrade when working, I once died because my generator exploded and set my house on fire lmao

Another great long term solution for cooking is the pot belly wood stove. There are few across the map and it allows you to have a fire inside without the risk of fire spreading, etc. You need a few levels in carpentry to pick it up. Can't remember exactly how many. Since wood and ripped sheets are endless, you will always have the resources to start a fire. One of my favorite techniques is to saw full logs on the same square in front of the wood stove. Excess weight will drop out of your inventory as you saw logs. I'd also make a good amount of sturdy sticks for fire starting and when I need less fuel than a full log. I've loaded up that square in front of the wood stove with hundreds and hundreds of weight units from planks and sturdy sticks. Then a supply of ripped sheets on the ground next to it or in a container along with a notched plank, etc for starting the fire. Also some houses and clubhouses (rifle club, etc) have "wall fireplaces" which act just the same. One time me and a buddy made the golf course our base and it has one of those wall fireplaces in the study. The golf course is amazing for a multiplayer base. Tons of room, you can really isolate the entrance to the second level to only one set of stairs with a sledge, and an almost fully enclosed backyard around the pool for a growing area, etc.

About the rain collector barrels. If you place them above your sink, and offset it by one tile, you get the option to connect it to your plumbing when right clicking your sink (It might require a wrench, but I don't remember). This also purifies the water for you, so you don't need to boil it. (Only did this in B40, so I am unsure if it applies to B41)

Quick tip: If you can Hotwire a car and the power is still on. Get a bunch of vehicles take it to the gas station and fill it up. You could then park the car (make sure you turn the car off) and use it later to siphon gas out of. At least until you could power on the gas station with a generator.

Regarding vehicle maintenance - if you uninstall and reinstall wheels, it increases their ground friction value, which in turn makes the car easier to steer and better at towing. So having a jack and a lug wrench is really good.

Just so you know, screwdriver and Bobby pin to lockpick are from the lockpicking mod. I would be careful about that information because newbies are gonna think they can lockpick stuff in vanilla, and you cannot. There's no way to get past vanilla locks as far as I'm aware, apart from breaking down the door or using a sledge, or finally by disassembling the door.

11:52 I prefer to save all propane tanks for metalworking and use a wood stove for cooking. 100% renewable but harder to acquire as there are only several locations on the map where you can find them.

Water-coolers no longer weight 5, FYI... they now weight 30. Moving them is much, much more difficult and it is recommended that you bring a vehicle if you need to travel a long distance with them. Everything else about them is still true, though, and they are worth getting. (And before anyone asks: no, emptying them does not reduce their weight for some reason).

Actually survived up to thinking about a nice long term base, then i accidentally press q and now i have a new character.

Awesome tips and information! Never realized how much early game prep can set you up to be far more successful later down the road.

You can also connect the rain collector to a sink, shower etc. Then all the water collected can be used trough the sink. It also strangely cleans the water. So you can drink rain water straight out of the sink :) Only need a pipe wrench and the rain collector right above the sink (on the roof)

As a new player I’m finding your videos very helpful. Direct and free of gimmicks, straight to delivering information. Thanks.

I really have to disagree about propane barbecues. Charcoal ones are better, because they can be fueled with twigs and rags - both easily renewable resources (unlike propane). Also by adding just the right amount of fuel you can cook much safer, not risking your food to be burned or starting a fire. And the propane barbecues are invaluable source of propane tanks that can be used to refuel your propane torches.

Canned food is really good food, as long as you use the canned stuff as cooking ingredients for stews and soups, stirfries, rice and pasta foods etc and not eat them straight out the can. Also one single can of soup can be poured in a cooking pot, cooked in a fire source, and give you -40 hunger whire also reducing unhappiness.

2:45 also very easy to pour bleach onto the ground and use the containers to stockpile water whilst it is still on. even after it's off if you're exploring a new neighborhood you can dump out bleach and scavenge a lot of water so long as the sink/toilet/tub has water in it still

This game is insane, there are so many meticulously small details with items and things that happen to you, that you have to keep in mind, it's absolutely incredible, I love that!

As a nomadic player my best friend is a saucepan. Full it holds 24 units of water and only weighs 2. I don't even carry bottles because with the pan I can boil the water as well.

For me, I build up a stockpile of guns, seeds, ammo, food etc, in a city or suburb, and spend some time searching for a good place that’s more rural to then transfer my stuff to. A well makes it great. Build walls, expand buildings if I need to, plant seeds and basically make a farming compound

Pro tip: while power is still on use the washer and dryer to clean your clothes. I usually come back from a run and drop all my filled bags in my base then clean my clothes while I’m sorting.

Someone forgot to mention doing an automated water filter. In case you are reading this and don't know. You can link a water storage to a sink a floor below it (offset by a tile). It can be hard to get to work but once you understand how to do it, it's the best way to get fresh water.

You don't even need rain collectors. Just collect cooking pots (the ones that hold 3 units of water) and leave them outside. 5 or 6 of them and you're set.

Higher cooking gets you more nutrition, but it also helps with food moodles, like u can turn stale fruit and veggies into fresh salads, or turn stale meats into happy meals

Fun fact the composter holds 50kg Zomboid are 20kg. :)

Had no idea it was so in depth. I might be underestimating the winter. I mean I figured it'd be tough, and mostly spent in doors. But now I'm nervous.

You can repair generators with scrap metal? Interesting, I'll have to give it a try. I've always used scrap electronics myself.

Thank you for this Duck! Some really great tips and tricks to get set up in the long game... maybe one day I'll get there :D

Prep to avoide the harrowing experiences in Raven Creek

One thing to add, since you covered freezers. Containers. This doesn't seem big or important early on, but eventually you realise you don't actually have crates and shelves to KEEP your essential stuff. And when looking for containers, you not only needs ones that contain the most weight possible, but also those that can be ease-to-eyeball and tell apart on first glance (so as tempting they might be, stocking a room full of identical crates as storage is in reality a horrible idea). Beige Wall Shop Shelves and Zippie Wall Shelves are some of the most underrated containers in the game, since unlike most of them, they are lightweight by themselves AND store 50 units, while you can cram a container on the ground below them (other wall shelves vary between 10 to 30 units) and unlike wall-hanging cupboards, they don't cover large section of the wall, so the room is easier to "read"

Hey hey dont forget you can also hook up rain catchers to sinks to automatically purify the water when drank and collected from the sink

If you don't have a water collector, place a water crate or barrel inside so it can't be contaminated by rain and then pour all your clean water into it. They can hold more than water dispensers anyway.

There's a house with a well outside up the street from that fire station you're farming on. Raven Creek has all types of sick, pre-made bases. The 2 story beach villa with 2 story access only is nice also.

Many canned items can be used in cooking, giving a lot more hunger and thirst saturation than just eating from the can. Also help to decrease boredom and unhappiness. Messed around with it during a 2 days blizzard; you get bored.

You can plumb sinks into rain catcher, which magically make the water safe to drink. Much better solution then boiling the water like you suggest

Find a proper well for farming? hah!, i usually use the river i settled near when playing at riverside, combine with some wood remains on a manual stove and you're kinda set for cooking,boiling and preparations, nice video! always keeping players informed and more prepared for long term survivals on PZ

You, my friend, are my go-to for good advice.

New channel on the rise with great, well edited content! I wish you all the best.

Great guide, still haven't made it to week 2, the hordes get to be so massive no matter what I do and I have yet to have a car and a gasoline tank at the same time so that I can molotov hordes.

There are also small blue containers of water scattered throughout camps usually npc camps as theirs source found in bases whom didnt survive even if they had a perfectly defendable bases.

I'd love to see a guide for continuing in the same world after a character death. For some reason, your new character spawns in after a great amount of time has already passed (in some cases months) and yet has built no skills. There's no TV to watch like the first 9 days so you're already at a major disadvantage. I wish the devs would account for this on character generation. I could see them taking away some skill levels but then allowing you to redistribute the remainder to the new character to account for time that has already passed in the world. It would be challenging, but not grueling. Unless there is a better way that I'm not seeing. Currently, when starting a new character in the same world, I will just binge read and exercise to try and make up for lost time. I don't really feel like we should be made to go through all that again.

Fun fact with the rain collector barrels: Imagine a sink as the center of a 3x3 square. If you place rain collector barrels anywhere in that imaginary 3x3 square, with a regular wrench and a monkey wrench, you can right click your sink, and "plumb ___ sink" What this does is allow you to use your sinks like they're working sinks, the best part though is the tainted rain water in the barrel is automatically cleaned as it goes through the pipes. It's super handy!

Didnt even know you get sick from blood and bodies, i was chilling in a house for a while covered in blood with bodies everywhere wondering why i was sick lmao

One thing to note regarding the rain collector: if you set up plumbing to have the water from it drain to a sink that's a floor below it, the water will be automatically filtered. Free working sinks from a rooftop water supply!

I never knew about the blood giving you infections that will help me for sure.

Pick locks with a bobby pin? I've been playing for 120 hours and haven't come across a single bobby pin

One that thing I didn't realize I would want / need so much of now that it is the dead of winter: salt. You need salt to make a lot of baked goods, like breads and pie batters. I've been trying to figure it out but I think burgers are the perfect food in that game. Lean meat like rabbit, cabbage as lettuce, condiments don't go bad (outside of mayonnaise), and you can put any random number of things into it that you have lying around, like mushrooms or something. Stuff I have in my freezers. But you need salt to make a lot of bread things. I was a FOOL, an absolute RUBE, and used my salt in stir-frys and roasts.

fun fact about game animals rabbits in particular when you butcher them you lose some protein so if you want to eat rabbit just for protein gain then consider cooking and eating it whole

12:10 here's a helpful tip. digging a grave to bury bodies only holds 5 corpses so what you could do is build a campfire and stack corpses on top of it to incinerate them this allows you to do large amounts of body removal with little to no effort and is much safer then stacking them up and tossing a Molotov on them

Recognizing the moments from stream is the best XD keep up the good content duck

Just bought this game 2 days ago and already addicted. Hope there is a MOD for wildlife animals in the near future. thanks for all the videos, learning a lot as a beginner

Me: this video about the long game looks interesting and helpful. Also me: longest run is 5 days. 👍🏻😂

this is my go to channel because I just started.

you dont need to purify water ever if you connect your rain colectors to a sink, just get a sink place it below the rain colector and right click on the sink to connect it (you need a pipe wrench)

side not on essential tools, add a screwdriver incredibly useful for getting electrics up quick with dismantling watches but also to take door steel doors.

For easy purified water, make stair to a roof, place a rain collector above a sink or bathtub, and use a pipe wrench to connect the pipes, the water will be purified and be transported to lower floors

Preparing in the long term is important, but if you are an extremely new player. Just play the game and get used to surviving and attempt to solve the problems yourself first. It's more fun this way, and will keep you invested into the game.

South of the louisville Military checkpoint, there is a food market/house combo like building boarded up. This place is filled with prepping gear and is already fortified. Its also attached to two gas pumps just outside of it. To the left of it, on the same property is also a ABC store (so alcohols like beer, wine, etc)

Looting veggies early on will allow you to have a food supply before the power runs out, also helps with levelling up your cooking early to offset the 'Underweight' negative trait. Making stew or soup with Rotten food negates the "Rotten" debuffs. And it also helps push you to gather the needed equipment for long term survival, minimizing the need to hunt for seeds till later.

i heard that if you place a sink, build a roof over it, and place a rainbarrel above it +/- 1 tile - you can connect the rainbarrel to the sink and have purified water!

8:15, watch your back... hm, I better make a dock instead so I can fish facing inland.

2:36 you can put rain collectors exactly above your sink,bathtub or toilet and then go down and plumb the pipes with a wrench and youre good to go with drinking water without boiling iy

On the Fishing skill if you find Tree Branches and Chipped Stones while Foraging, with some Ripped sheets you can make a Spear. You can then use the Spear to do Spear Fishing. Once the Spear is in your inventory it becomes an option on the Fishing Dialog. I regularly demo this on my live streams.

You can place a rain collector above a sink, and it will drain down into the sink and automatically filter the water for you

The most important skill is..mechanics. Just move around the map and u can find as much food and water as you need. For my first 400hrs in PZ i build a base with fence, farming, etc. Then i live in buildings just crashing the stairs (elevator mod is a cheat!). For now i can live in whenever i want to, no need for base. Siren zombies away, put some trash containers on streets and live in wich town u like.

Good stuff Duck, Appreciate the content.

everyone talking about the us washing off the eggs, they also pasteurized them

Top Tip: When looting pause the game to save time, find a position where you can browse everything in vicinity, pause and choose what to loot, unpause an voila.

If you place your water collectors within one space above a sink, the sink will automatically filter the water for you. You can place them by building a platform on the outside and then having 3 a long the wall.

I'm with a character with a slow reader, he's a fast learner, my first days are basically reading as much as possible of the book of the next life and living program, watch the show and in the few hours that are left try to sleep, prepare things like a generator, food stock, and tidy the base, I feel like I'm on a speed run

For water it's much better to build your water collectors on the roof and a sink underneath, then plumb the sink with a pipe wrench. This purifies the water so you don't have to cook it and also makes filling containers more convenient. I always put my sink in my kitchen.

Generators have a chance to explode and burn down anything nearby when

Well chosen background music. That piece is such a mood.

lots and lots of good stuff in there! def is going to give me a better chance of surviving the midgame

Trapping tip! If your base is a farmhouse and you regularly head into town, place the traps en route to the city. Stash your bait in the glovebox and stop by your traps to gather the caught game.

6 days in and the water's out. Just chillin' by a lake however.

I want to point out that you can read a skill book and watch the Life and Living channel and get the buffs from both at the same time. I sit in front of the TV, then start reading when a skill show comes on.

8:00 You can fish with a spear, it's basicly why it's the best way to get food.

I generally don't bother watering the crops, but watering cans fill automatically when left on the ground

watching this video is aspirational for me, i havent managed to survive for more than 2 weeks lol

If we're talking long-term, it pays to have at least two vehicles. One for latge scale hauking, and one for guerrilla scouting or targeted looting.and horde manipuoation. Using a vehicle to lure zombies away from your base will keep your structures standing. Additionally, if you decife to upgrade one of your cars by trading up, go back for the extra one and park it in front of your ground floor entrances. It will keep zombies out indefinitely.

thats fantastic that the power and water shut off. never played this game before. going to give it a try.

This guide sounds like it could be used to survive zombie apocalypse in real life!

My longest survived on a single character is three days for now but hey now i know what to do when i eventually beat it. Just need to remember to not try shotguns right next to my base, especially if the walls aren't finished.

Funny enough, my biggest discovery from this video is knowing you can put generator in trunk from your equiped inventory. I never check on equiped slots, having trouble finding it from my inventory and genuinely thought it's a way the dev balance us from getting multiple generators. Silly me.

An empty bowl is used to make a 'berry' fruit salad, which can be made on the spot without a heat source. Just beware poisonous ones. Also, you can get to lvl 5 carpentry in the first week from just watching TV if you start with one point in carpentry and fast learner. No books were used when I did this, and my character didn't touch a hammer or saw either.

Awesome videos man, I’m gonna buy this game and definitely swing by the streams

Sinks plumbed *indoors* to water barrels above them (diagonally -- ideally in a diamond pattern, with the sink below them in the middle) in build 41(xx) still purify water. The Indie Stone on TIS forum posts re: this have stated zero plans to remove this functionality. If you're not able to get a room you've built with a sink to register as "indoors" (e.g., you're not seeing a temperature change when standing in it, or the option to "Plumb Sink" while you've got a wrench in inventory) using a Sledgehammer's "Destroy" option, insure there aren't any 'invisible' posts in the corners of the room. Destroying these will usually get the game to realize it's "indoors." Keep up the great brain-food/content, MrAtomicDuck! Cheers.

Good feeling to watch this video and realize I've done all this and more in my 6 month run.

You can get carpentry to lvl 6.5 in the first 7 days just by watching tv, but you need the skill books and fast learner trait. You will need to know where the skill book repos are in relation to your favorite spawn, but there's usually two collections in each spawn town.

Very helpful vid! Keep up the great work :)