The Knox infection in Project Zomboid

Knox spreads through zombie wounds. When a zombie hurts you, the game picks a wound type and then rolls once, right then, for infection. Each new wound gets its own roll. On the default Blood and Saliva transmission setting the odds are:

These odds are fixed; there is no slider for them, only the transmission mode. Body location does not change the roll. Being surrounded or grabbed from behind makes bites more likely, which is why most deaths start with a crowd. See combat for how to avoid that.

Clothing with bite and scratch protection can stop a wound from happening at all, but once a wound reaches skin the roll is made and clothing no longer matters. See best clothing. A wound from glass, a fall or another player cannot give you Knox.

The game never tells you that you are infected. The countdown runs in the background and shows only through the Sick moodle. On the default Infection Mortality of 2 to 3 Days, death comes 48 to 72 in-game hours after the infecting wound. Resilient stretches that by 1.25 times (60 to 90 hours) and Prone to Illness shortens it by 0.75 times (36 to 54 hours).

One source adds that health is untouched for roughly the first third of the timer, after which your maximum health keeps dropping until death. With the default Reanimate Time of 0 to 60 seconds, the body gets up almost at once. Dying from anything else while infected still means you reanimate. These timings only hold when Knox is the sole cause of sickness, because food poisoning and corpse piles feed the same moodle.

A red "Infected" label on a wound in the Health panel is an ordinary dirty-wound infection, not Knox.

• There is no cure. In vanilla, nothing reverses Knox on default settings. No item, herb or recipe does it.
• Amputation does not exist. You cannot cut off a bitten arm in the base game. That needs a mod; see mods.
• Antibiotics do not help. Their tooltip says plainly that they cannot prevent zombification. They only treat ordinary wound infection.
• Cleaning the wound does not help. Disinfectant, alcohol and sterile bandages stop the wound going bad, not the virus. You should still do it; see first aid.
• Rest and food do not slow it. Eating well, vitamins, painkillers and sleep have no effect on the timer. Sleeping just passes the time faster.
• Masks do not help after the fact. A gas mask or hazmat suit only matters if it stopped the wound landing.

Older guides mention the Hypochondriac trait, which faked infection symptoms. One Build 42 source says it is no longer in the trait list. See traits.

Opinion Treat a bite as two or three days of borrowed time and spend them well.

1. Bandage and disinfect anyway. If the wound was a scratch or laceration, you may not be infected at all, and an infected wound can kill you sooner on its own.
2. Note the time. Write down when the wound happened. If you are still not Queasy after a full day with no other causes, a scratch or laceration probably did not infect you.
3. Set up the next character. Move your best gear, books and food to a safe spot that a new survivor can reach. Leave notes on the map.
4. Die away from base. Walk somewhere you will not reanimate inside your own walls, or lock yourself in a room you can clear later. See death and respawning.

Some players take a bitten character on one last supply run or clear a dangerous building, since there is little left to lose.

The infection lives under Zombie Lore in the sandbox settings. All Build 42 presets use the same defaults.

• Saliva Only: only bites infect; scratches and lacerations are safe.
• Everyone's Infected: every death ends in reanimation, whatever the cause.
• None: nothing infects. There is no separate switch to turn off reanimation alone.
• Never mortality: you get sick and then recover, unless everyone is infected.

For gentler choices, see recommended settings.

Infection works the same way on a server, and infected players reanimate like any other body. The server's sandbox file sets Transmission, Mortality and Reanimate; check them before you join. See hosting a server.

Opinion Tell your group as soon as you are bitten. Agree on where you will go to die and who will deal with the body, and hand over keys and gear before Fever sets in. A friend turning inside the safehouse at night is how many co-op runs end. Other players' weapons cannot infect you, but a teammate who has turned can. More on group play in multiplayer, and on zombie behavior in zombies.