Project Zomboid Survival Guide (Build 42)

A character needs about 9 hours a night on a regular schedule — about 6 with the Wakeful trait and 12 with Sleepyhead. You can't sleep for less than 3 hours and wake after 16 at most. A bad bed or the floor slows recovery and causes discomfort, which raises stress overnight; a pillow improves any bed. Sleeping tablets help you fall asleep, caffeine pills shorten the need.

Loud noise nearby wakes you — an alarm clock is the way to keep a schedule — but a zombie that gets in quietly won't until it hurts you, so barricade first.

On a multiplayer server, sleep is off by default: SleepAllowed (“Players are allowed to sleep when their survivor becomes tired, but they do not NEED to sleep”) and SleepNeeded are both false — see the server settings.

Barricade	Takes	Skill needed	XP
Metal Bar	3 uses of Welding Torch 3× Iron Bar or Steel Rod or Steel Bar 3 uses of Welding Rods	Welding 3	Welding +30
Metal Sheet	1 use of Welding Torch 1× Steel Sheet 1 use of Welding Rods	Welding 3	Welding +30
Planks	a hammer 1× Plank 1× Nails	none	Carpentry +10

Right-click a door or window with the materials and choose Barricade. Each side takes up to four planks, each destroyed separately; up to two still let you see through, three or four block the view. Metal sheet blocks the view, metal bars do not. Barricades only slow zombies down — but the noise of them being hit is a useful alarm. Planks come off with a claw hammer, crowbar, tire iron or fire axe (the nails are lost); metal needs a torch.

Barricading with planks trains Carpentry, with metal Welding.

Bodies don't attract zombies — the danger is corpse sickness. It starts when more than five lie piled together and flies are buzzing; stay at least 10 squares away outdoors, outside the building they are in, or on another floor. Burn them with 100 ml of gasoline or on a campfire — a gas can in the secondary hand and a lighter in the primary — or bury them in a grave.

Zombie bodies vanish on their own after 216 in-game hours (9 days) in every preset (“Time Before Corpse Removal”; 0 also stops maggots). How hard rotting bodies hit health and mood, “Decaying Corpse Health Impact”: Apocalypse: Normal · Extinction: High · Outbreak: Normal · Rising: Normal · Six Months Later: Normal.

How corpse sickness shows up — the Sick and Noxious Smell moodles.

To siphon, stand at a car's gas tank with an empty container that holds liquid — Gas Can for example — and choose “Siphon Gasoline”; the game fills it from the tank. Gas pumps work only with power: once the grid is off, put a running generator in range — the sandbox option “Generator Working in Exterior” lets generators power things outdoors, and it is on in every preset (generators).

Pumps that start empty, “Initial Gas Pump Empty Chance”: Apocalypse: 20% · Extinction: 25% · Outbreak: 20% · Rising: 10%. Cars with fuel in the tank, “Chance Has Gas”: Apocalypse: Normal · Extinction: Low · Outbreak: Normal · Rising: Normal · Six Months Later: Low. “Infinite Gas Pumps” is off in every preset.

Any door can be locked or unlocked from inside; from outside you need its key. House keys turn up in drawers, dressers and counters, but far more often on the bodies of zombies that were in or near the building. Hovering a key in your inventory highlights the doors it opens. Key Ring holds them together.

Keys can be copied: a Blank Key, small files and the key itself make a duplicate — but the recipe has to be learned, from Magazine: The Cheapskate's John Spiral - Escaping Captivity or by starting as a Burglar, who knows it from day one.

Locked cars, “Locked Vehicle Frequency”: Apocalypse: Sometimes · Extinction: Very Often · Outbreak: Rare · Rising: Rare · Six Months Later: Never.