Project Zomboid FAQ

No. On default settings a bite always infects and the Knox infection always kills.

On default settings, at a random time in the first month. Check a tap; if nothing comes out, it has happened.

Riverside or Rosewood for a calmer start. Muldraugh has more loot and more zombies.

Rising, for a gentler start. Move to Apocalypse, the canon mode, once you can survive two weeks. Avoid Extinction until you are experienced.

Different. Build 42 adds crafting depth, animals and a much bigger map, and it is now the default version. Build 41 is still playable on the legacy41 branch.

On default settings, at a random time in the first month. Check a tap or a light switch; if nothing happens, it is over.

Early in a run, a helicopter flies over and draws zombies for miles behind it. When you hear it, get inside and stay quiet until it is gone.

No. Clear your street and your routes to stores. Fighting more than you need just risks bites and wears out weapons.

Yes, if you find keys and fuel. It carries far more loot and gets you out fast. Just remember engines are loud.

For a first run, Lumberjack or Carpenter: both cost little and make the early game easier. For long games, Carpenter or Mechanic. Custom Occupation gives the most points (8) to spend on traits.

Strong, Athletic, Fast Learner, Organized and Wakeful are the common picks. Thick-skinned is the best defensive trait because it lowers the chance a scratch breaks the skin.

Sunday Driver, Weak Stomach, Slow Reader, High Thirst and Smoker cost little in practice. Avoid Deaf, Illiterate, Thin-skinned and Prone to Illness on a first run.

Yes. Neither trait exists in Build 42.

Unemployed is now called Custom Occupation and gives 8 points, with no starting skills and 0.25x XP on untrained skills.

35, including the new Blacksmithing, Carving, Knapping, Glassmaking, Masonry, Pottery, Animal Care, Butchering and Tracking.

They multiply XP rather than give it: x3, x5, x8, x12 and x16 for volumes 1 to 5, while your level is in the volume’s range. Aiming, Reloading and Long Blade books are half that.

No. Volume 1 is for levels 1 and 2; once you pass level 2 it does nothing. You can start a volume one level early.

Once per character, and only up to level 3 by default.

The exercise menu, with food and rest. Strength also rises from carrying heavy loads and chopping trees; Fitness from running and melee.

For most players the JS-2000 shotgun early and the M1A rifle later. The Magnum is the best sidearm.

42.15 added six: the JS-14 Rifle, JS-3T Tactical Shotgun, L92 Carbine, L94 Rifle, MSR7T Tactical Rifle and Trapper Carbine.

No. 42.14 removed .223; the MSR700 now uses 5.56x45mm.

By using up a second gun of the same kind. Tape and glue do not work on firearms.

Not in vanilla Build 42. Suppressors come from mods.

The katana hits hardest but is rare and fragile. The crowbar and machete are the best weapons to rely on day to day.

On default settings, 7% for a scratch, 25% for a laceration and 100% for a bite.

Not on default settings. Only Transmission set to None or Infection Mortality set to Never lets you survive.

On the default setting, 2 to 3 in-game days.

Usually between day 6 and day 9, in daytime. The emergency broadcast warns the day before.

Extinction: tough, superhuman zombies with long memory, some sprinters and a respawning population.

Not on default cognition. On Extinction about 10% of zombies can.

Remove any glass or bullet with tweezers, disinfect, stitch it with a suture needle or needle and thread, then bandage.

39 to 61 days without a splint; with a splint 8 to 12 days at First Aid 0 and about a day at First Aid 10.

No. They only treat ordinary wound infections.

A sterilized bandage: strongest, and no infection chance while it stays clean.

Stay dry and warm, rest, eat well and eat common mallow.

A status icon on the right of the screen that shows a need, feeling or condition. Most have four levels of severity.

Uncomfortable, from bulky clothing and armour, and Noxious Smell, from corpse piles and toxic air.

The first level of Sick. It can be food poisoning, a cold or the Knox infection. If you were wounded by a zombie in the last day, assume Knox.

Read magazines or comics, eat good food, listen to music, and avoid the stressors. Antidepressants help slowly.

For protection: military jacket, padded jeans or leather pants, military boots and a neck guard. Forged metal armour is strongest but slow.

Wear a neck guard. Leather, metal and ice-hockey neck guards each give 100 bite and scratch protection; scarves do almost nothing.

With a needle, thread and fabric strips: denim or leather add more protection than cotton, scaling with Tailoring.

Yes. Heavy jackets, firefighter gear, hazmat suits and crafted armour reduce run and combat speed, and Build 42 adds discomfort.

Yes. A hole removes that item’s protection on that body part until patched.

The crafted large framepack holds the most (35). The military ALICE backpack has the best balance: 28 capacity with 85% weight reduction.

Army surplus stores and military storage.

Yes, it increases container capacity; Disorganized reduces it.

No, one back slot, but you can add a satchel, webbing, fanny packs and carry bags in your hands.

Enter Search Mode (End key by default) and walk slowly. Items appear inside the circle around you.

Black, blue, beauty and winter berries are always safe. Holly berries are always poisonous. Generic berries carry a small poison chance.

Five of the herb and a mortar and pestle, with the Herbalist trait or the Wilderness Survival magazine.

March to November, best in deep forest and after rain.

+1 Foraging, better herb finds, poison labels on food, and the poultice recipes.

55.

Radishes, ready in about 30 days.

Garlic, leeks, lettuce, kale, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, radishes, turnips and sugar beet among others.

Cold-hardy crops: barley, rye, winter wheat, flax, garlic, wild garlic, cabbage, kale and leeks.

Plant companions like garlic and marigold, keep weeds down, and treat with sprays made from milk, tobacco or rubbing alcohol.

Cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, deer, raccoons, rats and mice.

No. Deer are always wild.

A cow only gives milk after pregnancy. Milk it every day or let a calf nurse, or it dries up.

No. Animals cannot catch the Knox infection and zombies do not hunt them.

Lead it on a rope, or use a livestock trailer for longer trips.

Take a base such as a pot of water, a frying pan or bread, right-click it with ingredients to add them, then cook it on a stove, oven or campfire.

You can, but it often causes food poisoning. Cooking 7 or higher lets you add rotten ingredients to recipes at reduced value.

About five times longer than at room temperature. Frozen food does not decay.

A jar and lid, vegetables, 2 vinegar, 1 salt and some water, cooked for about an hour. Learned at Cooking 8 or from American Homesteading.

Underweight characters are weaker and get injured more easily; at 35 kg or less you start losing health.

On Apocalypse, at a random time in the first 30 days, with no warning.

On Apocalypse, between day 14 and day 30. The emergency broadcast warns you up to two days ahead.

20 tiles and 3 floors up and down on default settings.

A stone wall at high Masonry: it gains 400 hit points per level, up to 4,000.

Four per side, so eight in total, inside and outside.

No. It is tainted. Boil it or use purification tablets.

For storage, the Chevalier Step Van (160 trunk). For an all-rounder, the Chevalier D6 pickup. For speed, the Chevalier Cossette.

Not in vanilla. They come from mods.

A big Heavy-Duty tank holds 75 litres.

Most vehicles can; sports cars reportedly cannot.

Fallas Lake, Echo Creek and Louisville. Fallas Lake has three gun stores and a hunting store close together.

Louisville’s university and public libraries, then the Ekron school library.

The Rosewood fire station is the most recommended.

No. It is only mentioned in flavour text.

Brandenburg, Ekron, Irvington and Echo Creek.

Up to 254 since Build 42.20.3.

No. Clients, servers and saves must be on the same build.

If the server allows it: clear the building, stand inside, right-click and choose Claim Safehouse.

If the server uses the safety system, click the skull icon.

UDP 16261 by default.

Apocalypse, the canon lore mode.

They were Build 41-era presets. 42.15 replaced them with Apocalypse, Outbreak, Rising and Extinction; Six Months Later is still there.

Yes, in sandbox. It is off by default and building nearby stops a place refilling.

Use Rising, or sandbox with shamblers, a low population and later shut-offs.

It makes nature overgrow the world over time: grass, trees and decay on roads and buildings.

Subscribe on the Steam Workshop, enable the mod in the Mods menu, then make sure it is on in the mod list for your save.

Generally no. A mod must be updated for Build 42.

They can be risky because they change the game’s code directly. Only install from trusted authors, prefer open-source mods, and avoid files from outside the Workshop.

No. The Indie Stone does not officially support first-person or other Java mods.

Removing mods that add items or map changes can break a save. Back up first.

No. Carpentry, cooking and first aid carry most runs. The deep crafting tree is for self-sufficiency when the loot runs out.

Most advanced recipes need a workstation, a skill level, or a recipe you have not learned yet. The crafting window shows which is missing.

Carpentry. It builds your base, your storage, your barricades and your rain collectors.

Usually the month. In Build 42 each crop has a sow window; plant outside it and the crop is doomed. After that: water, weeds and too much fertilizer.

Whatever is in season when you find seeds. Cabbage has a long window, and potatoes and corn feed a lot of people per plot.

Not by default. There is a sandbox option for it, and it can cost performance.

Electrical 1 and Mechanics 2, or the Burglar occupation. Press V in the car, choose hotwire, then W to start.

Check the dashboard: a red engine light means a broken engine, a red battery means a dead one, and an empty gauge means no fuel.

Yes, once you have a base. The trunk carries more than any bag, and it is the fastest way out of trouble.

Up to 254 since hotfix 42.20.3. Hardware, not the game, is the real limit.

16261 and 16262, UDP, on your router or host firewall.

No. Everyone must be on the same build and branch. Run a separate legacy41 server for Build 41.

It went to the Stable branch as 42.20 on July 29, 2026, after a long Unstable test period. The current version is 42.21, released September 28, 2026.

Yes. In Steam, open Properties, Game Versions & Betas, and choose legacy41.

No. Build 41 saves are not compatible, and neither are 42.19 Unstable saves.

Yes. Servers run on Build 42 and can hold up to 254 players.

Yes. Aim for 16 GB of RAM, a dedicated GPU and an SSD for smooth play.

In July 1993. The default game starts on 9 July 1993 in Knox Country, Kentucky.

The game never says. A hazardous-waste truck crash, contaminated meat and a military origin are all suggested by in-game sources or fans, but none is confirmed.

The outbreak and quarantine of Knox Country, Kentucky in July 1993, told through the game’s TV and radio broadcasts.

It is the game’s opening line. There is no cure or ending; every game is the story of how your character died.

A raccoon mascot of the in-game Spiffo’s restaurant chain and of The Indie Stone itself.

A paid alpha in May 2011; Steam Early Access on 8 November 2013. It is still in Early Access.

29 July 2026, as version 42.20.0.

Build 42.21 Stable (28 September 2026), with 42.22 in pre-release from 27 October 2026.

No, not on Steam. Mods add them.

Yes, on the legacy41 branch in Steam’s Betas tab.

Yes, for players who want loot and can handle more zombies. Riverside and Rosewood are calmer.

Not in Build 42.21. There is an army surplus and police gun storage.

For experienced players. It has great loot and a lot of zombies.

In the police station basement.

It is widely considered the easiest of the four classic starts, along with Rosewood.

In town at about 6660,5254, with two more clinics nearby.

The fire station.

Yes, the Kentucky State Prison, just outside town, with many zombies.

No. It is late-game territory, not a start town.

The university library and the public library.

In Sandbox games since 42.17.

No. The nearest is in Louisville.

Yes, a Cold War bunker with its rooms four floors underground.

In Sandbox games since 42.17.

A trailer park with a central office, few zombies and little loot.

Three in town, close together, plus a hunting store and police gun storage.

Yes. The Build 41 town labelled Ekron is now Fallas Lake; Build 42’s Ekron is a new town further west.

A paddle steamer docked in Brandenburg. It is a landmark and cannot be sailed.

Yes.

Yes. It is surrounded by farms and fields.

The electronics store.

A race track packed with zombies.

In Sandbox games since 42.17.

Not by default since 42.16, but you can start there in Sandbox since 42.17.

No.

I opens and closes the inventory and loot panels. Tab is not inventory: it toggles build and place mode, and switches chat stream when chat is open.

Hold Left Alt to sprint (Cmd on macOS). Left Shift runs, which is slower and costs less endurance.

Press C to toggle sneaking. Combine it with walking for the quietest movement.

Space shoves a standing zombie and stomps one on the ground. It is the most useful key in the game.

Sit in the driver seat with the key or a hotwire, then press N. F toggles headlights, Space brakes, Z switches seat.

On the 42.22 Pre-Release branch, stand at a ladder already placed on the map and press E. Zombies cannot follow. Stable (42.21) has no climbable ladders yet.

End toggles Search Mode for foraging. Laptops without an End key should rebind it in Options.

Yes. Options, then Key Bindings (keyboard) or Controller. The in-game list is the final word for your build.