Best clothing and armor in Project Zomboid

Every piece of clothing has a bite value and a scratch value, and each one only counts on the body parts that item covers. A T-shirt does nothing for your forearms, and a helmet does nothing for your neck.

Values from several items on the same body part are added together (one source). The Protection tab of the health window lists the total for each part. Bullet defense is a separate third value that matters only against firearms.

A blocked attack can still tear a hole in fabric, and a holed part loses its protection until you repair it. On default settings a bite that reaches skin always infects, while scratches and lacerations infect only some of the time, so bite protection is worth more than scratch protection. One Build 42 guide names the head, neck, torso and forearms as the priority parts (one source).

Build 42 also added separate armor slots for the shoulders, forearms, elbows, thighs, knees, shins, groin and neck. These are worn over normal clothes.

Good armor is paid for in four ways.

• Heat. High insulation overheats you in warm weather. The firefighter jacket and pants are listed at 0.85 insulation each (one source).
• Speed. Items carry run speed and combat speed multipliers. A value of 0.9 means 10 percent slower. Ice hockey gloves are 0.9 combat speed and football shoulder pads about 0.95 in two sources.
• Weight. Worn items still count toward carry weight. The firefighter jacket and pants are listed at 4 each and a bullet vest at 5 (one source).
• Discomfort. New in Build 42. Hard and bulky items each add a discomfort value, the values stack, and the total feeds the Uncomfortable moodle.

One Build 42 guide gives per-item discomfort of about 0.05 to 0.10 for soft clothes, 0.10 to 0.20 for most hard armor, 0.25 to 0.30 for ballistic vests and metal plates, and about 0.35 for a full crash helmet (one source). The same guide says the Discomfort Factor sandbox setting defaults to 0.8 on Apocalypse and that the Desensitized trait cancels discomfort from worn items (one source).

Opinion The ranking below is our pick, weighing protection against speed and heat. Figures are bite / scratch percentages from Build 42 item lists. Check the tooltip in your own game.

The riot helmet and full crash helmet halve vision and cut hearing (one source), so many players keep a 70 / 80 open helmet for daily use. Goalie shin pads are listed at 0.75 run speed (one source). For where this gear spawns, see loot locations and the general clothing and armor list.

Opinion These three sets are suggestions for different stages of a run.

The early set comes from wardrobes and zombie corpses in the first week. The mid set adds sports pads and military surplus and keeps speed penalties small. The heavy set is for clearing dense areas. It is hot, slow and uncomfortable, so take it off afterward.

Build 42 lets you make armor from magazines, wood, bone, tires, scrap metal and forged metal. Most recipes need Tailoring plus a second skill, and most have to be learned first.

The skill list we used shows different levels in two places for several recipes, for example Blacksmithing 6 or 9 for metal body armor, so read the recipe in game.

Confirmed protection figures exist for some forged pieces. Articulated metal thigh and shin armor are 80 / 90 with 20 bullet defense, and articulated metal shoulder armor is 100 / 100 with 20 bullet. Full metal forearm armor and the metal neck guard are listed at 100 / 100 (one source), and metal fingerless gloves at 70 / 80 (one source). We could not confirm bite and scratch values for any of the body armor pieces, so compare them on the tooltip before you commit materials.

Tailoring does not change an item's base values. It repairs holes and adds padding to fabric clothes, one body part at a time with a needle, thread and one fabric strip per patch, at any Tailoring level.

Build 42 guides give the bonus as the fabric's maximum multiplied by your Tailoring level and divided by 10, rounded down, with a floor of 1 percent.

The bonus is fixed when you sew, so pad again after you gain levels. Needles and scissors wear out in Build 42, and ripping clothes no longer gives free thread. Helmets, many boots and ballistic vests have no fabric type and cannot be patched. Opinion Leather padding on jacket sleeves and jeans is the cheapest protection upgrade in the game.

Heat is the limit in summer and cold is the limit in winter, so one outfit does not suit the whole year.

• Summer. Opinion Drop the firefighter set. An army camo jacket gives 30 / 50 at 0.35 to 0.45 insulation (one source), and pads and plates add protection with little warmth.
• Winter. High-insulation armor turns into an advantage. Add a hat, scarf and gloves, and keep a waterproof layer, since wet clothes lose insulation. See winter survival.
• Spring and fall. Carry one spare layer and watch the temperature moodles. The weather page covers rain and wind.