Decided to stop whining and see what the hype about this first person/third person 3D Zomboid stuff was about….proceeded to play my longest session in months, it really is crazy how great it looks and plays (after I messed with my graphics settings)

I noticed when driving my various cars around that my Dart, a small, light, standard car I use for stealth missions, seems to absolutely guzzle gas compared to my big, heavy, lumbering SUVs, my step van, and my ambulance. At first I thought this was just because it had a smaller gas tank than those heavy-duty vehicles, but then I started tracking actual gas usage and no, it legitimately did use a lot more gas than the heavier vehicles. So I went on a vision quest through the game's codebase and now I know why.

The fuel consumption formula in the game has a lot of things you'd expect - it cares about how fast you're traveling, what gear you're in, what RPM the engine is at, the engine's quality, and of course the vehicle's mass. Most of this works out how you'd expect - although there are two notable exceptions to that. Speed is one; the higher the top speed, the more fuel efficient the car is - you can basically think of fuel consumption as the proportion of how close you are to the car's top speed. So if your top speed is higher, you get the same multiplier but more distance traveled. It's not unreasonable, just a little weird.

But what's more than weird is the way the game handles mass. Heavier cars do have worse fuel efficiency... but so do lighter cars. There's a sweet spot - a chassis mass of 1000 has the minimum multiplier for fuel cost. A car that weighs 900 and a car that weighs 1100 both have the same penalty. And this is where the Masterson Horizon and Chevalier Dart get absolutely wrecked - their chassis mass is only 650, so they eat a 2.2x fuel consumption multiplier because of their weight.

Add in the fact that the Dart specifically has a low scripted top speed of 70 km/h and that engine quality has a sizable effect and the Dart has one of the lowest engine quality values of any car in the game and the average Dart consumes about 3.5x as much fuel per distance traveled as the most fuel efficient car in the game. The Horizon fares a little better at 2.5x because of its higher top speed and higher average engine quality, but it's still not a car I would describe as fuel efficient.

What is the most fuel efficient car? Surprisingly, it's the Mercia Lang 4000. Usually lambasted because of its high script weight of 950 compared to other sports cars, that script weight actually helps it here as it almost touches that 1000 script mass sweet spot, it has a high average engine quality, and it has a very high top speed - and all of this puts it at the most fuel efficient car in the game. I still wouldn't recommend it, it's only a two-seater, but it is interesting.

But waiting in the wings at only 1% behind the Mercia is... the Franklin All-Terrain. As if we all needed more reasons to love this car, on top of everything else it is good at it is also extremely fuel efficient. It lands exactly on the 1000 mass sweet spot, also has a high average engine quality, and has a surprisingly high top speed.

Other popular cars, compared to the Mercia Lang 4000 / Franklin All-Terrain:
Chevalier D6 - 1.5x
Dash Rancher - 1.5x
Most standard and sports cars - 1.75x
Dash Bulldriver - 2x
Step Van - 2x
Franklin Valuline - 2x
Ambulance - 2.2x

(Note that all figures here are calculated at the car's rated top speed; actual comparisons at various speeds can vary a lot by where the various cars end up in terms of RPM but the general rankings should be steady over time for most usecases.)

But what about actual mass, you might ask? Wouldn't the lighter cars do better once accounting for the components and cargo the vehicle has to carry?

Well, for fuel efficiency purposes, actual mass is irrelevant - the code only refers to the chassis's mass for fuel consumption. But for actual acceleration and handling, the vehicle's total mass does in fact matter - and that brings me to the second point of this post:

There are a lot of vehicle parts you can remove from cars that do nothing or almost nothing - and by removing them, you actually make the car drive better! So what parts can be removed?

• Tires, suspension, brakes, battery, driver's seat - 100% necessary, you can't properly drive the car without them.
• Passenger seats - you could remove them, but then you lose the storage. Not worth it.
• Hood - you could remove it, but then you lose your engine protection. Keep it.
• Doors and windows - only actually useful to the player sitting in the associated seat. If you have a driver's side door and window installed, zombies will hit the door/window instead of you when attacking. But if you're playing single player, you could easily remove all passenger doors and windows and lose actually nothing.
• Windshield - you might think it protects you from zombies or crashes, but it doesn't. The windshield protects you from rain. And that's it. So if you don't want to get rained on while driving, install the windshield, otherwise, skip it. Edit: Turns out, no, it doesn't even do that. You would think it should, and there is some code that would imply it does protect from rain, but that code never actually gets checked. Windshields do nothing.
• Trunk lid - does practically nothing. There is code in the codebase that would indicate that having a missing or damaged trunk lid would cause items to fall out of the trunk while driving - but that code is currently nonfunctional and does nothing (as of B42.21.0). And the trunk lid doesn't protect the trunk at all, that's another myth. It feels like it should (and I wrote a small mod that lets it do that), but at the moment it does not.
• Rear windshield - also does practically nothing and is an easy skip if you're lightweighting your car.
• Radio - For a regular car, skipping a radio saves 1.5 encumbrance. Not much. But if you've got an emergency vehicle, that radio you have installed is a 15 encumbrance monster. If you never use it... maybe take it out?

You can shave a surprisingly large amount of weight off a car once you lean into this. An ambulance with no rear door, no rear windshield, no HAM radio and no passenger door shaves 56 encumbrance off its final weight and you lose basically nothing, at least in single player. I should mention that in MP if you want to lock a car then that's when it becomes valuable to fully seal the car up - doors and windows everywhere are required to be able to properly lock a car and keep people out.

Speaking of keys, as of B42.21.0, hotwiring a car is perfectly safe. There's a common myth that hotwiring a car will damage its engine in some way and I can safely say having gone through the code that no, hotwiring does not reduce the engine's quality or condition, even when you fail. A car having high engine quality does make it harder to hotwire, so it'll take more attempts, but it's safe to do.

There is a root to the myth, like the trunk lid myth, where there is code that would suggest that failed hotwire attempts harm the car - it just never develops into an actual impact. Failing a hotwiring attempt sets the flag 'hotwiredBroken' on the vehicle. This flag remains even if you later succeed at hotwiring the car. The thing is, though... nothing else in the codebase ever checks this flag. It appears to be an orphaned bit of code, either something Indie Stone planned to develop further, or a remnant from a previous design which has been abandoned. The important thing is, it doesn't do anything at the moment.

Saw this on another post, and it sounds like a lot of perks & good traits for their character build. However, as we all know “this is how you die” so what do you think would be the cause of this characters downfall in a PZ run?

Also, mods, if this is NOT allowed, or violating any rules, I am very sorry, I looked em over and this seemed ok!

No hate. I use mods too.

Found this real nice military vehicle on my CDDA run but no keys in sight and the door is locked. Checked the garage it was parked in front of and I’ve looted every zombie I’ve killed and still no keys.

Would have to break the window if I wanted to Hotwire it (even if I had the means to do so) and wanna know if it’s worth breaking the window to look inside and the keys are a lost cause or if I should hold off.

So call me a stick in the mud, butI'm going to be that guy and say I don't really get the hype over first person zomboid beyond just the novelty that its possible? If that's the kind of game you want to play there has to be at least 5 games like that currently on Steam that are exactly this POV. Hell, I think I own two of them. But there's a reason i keep coming back to PZ. It was fun/unique to me because it wasn't like the others and the top down isometric view made it feel like the sims/old school fallout but with zombies. Now it's just another first person surivor sim and in my humble opinion that cheapens it in a weird way.

Not only that, I've been watching the workshop and it feels like 3/5 of the top trending most recent mods are all for the first person POV mod, which bothers me at least a little bit because i'm never going to play like that but also want the benefits of new mods that get uploaded...

Now before everyone starts to pile on, I've been accused before of being resistant to change and I'm wholly aware that this is probably just the latest example of me getting older and more set in my ways, i just never thought it would come through as disdain for mod for a video game.

And I get the argument that no one is forcing me to play this way so why not just let it be? I may very well end up doing that, but what else is the community/reddit for if not to express a possibly out-of-touch opinion on the game that I love in search of solidarity? :P

**TLDR** i liked the old view/playstyle more and I dont want this first person POV mod to take over and become the new norm for PZ

I don't know if anyone at The Indie Stone will ever read this, but I really hope they do.

With so many mods coming out: 3D overhauls, first-person experiences, realistic shaders, and all kinds of 3D innovations for PZ- I've found myself wanting to say something that has been on my mind for a bit. I usually never write posts, especially not this long, but here we go.

I genuinely hope Project Zomboid never loses the visual identity that makes it what it is.

And I don't mean that as criticism to the modding community. Not one bit. Quite the opposite. I love the creativity, dedication, and imagination that people pour into this game. The fact that players can transform it so dramatically is a testament to how special Project Zomboid is in the first place. If those mods make people happy, I'm genuinely happy for them.

But for me personally, I wouldn't change a single thing about how this game looks ♡

There is something about Project Zomboid's original art style that I find difficult to put into words. This top down isometric perspective, is something so unique to the game's identity, and it looks so beautiful to me.

Somehow, that point of view (the angled isometric top down), even though not as realistic as all the 3D mods, makes it feel more real to me. I can feel the loneliness of the world. I honestly love how cohesive the items and the world look too. Like the overall design. The muted colors. The way that rain looks when it falls down. The trees. The fact you can't always see around corners.

There is a strange kind of peace in the way Project Zomboid looks as the developers intended.

The visuals are such a huge part of the feeling the game gives.

There's this stillness. It makes the world feel melancholic. I find it comforting in a weird way, and also beautiful.

Now, this post is a message to the developers, not the modding community: I want Project Zomboid to keep looking like Project Zomboid ♡

That look is part of what makes it feel like home to me.

And I really hope that, amid all the incredible technological possibilities and the growing creativity of the modding scene, The Indie Stone knows that there are players who don't dream of changing the game's appearance. There are players who look at the game exactly as it is and think that its visual identity is already something extraordinary.

I know that the developers have their own vision for the game, and I'm not trying to tell them what they should or shouldn't do. I just wanted to express how much I appreciate the artistic direction they've given it, and how much that direction means to me.

So, if anyone from The Indie Stone happens to read this:

Thank you.

Thank you for creating a game that doesn't just entertain me, but gives me a place I genuinely enjoy being in. Thank you for an art style that feels timeless to me, for the atmosphere you've created, and for making something that I can return to again and again without ever feeling the need to change its visual identity..

And no matter how many incredible visual overhauls come along, I'll always come back to the original look.

Because to me, Project Zomboid is already beautiful. And I hope it always stays true to the art style that made it so.

Does anyone else feel this way about the visuals? I'd love to hear what it is about the game's atmosphere or art style that makes it special to you, too.

Written with love ♡

if anyone wants commission work i would love to draw some more pz art

https://commissions.gg/sweett4108 <3

Been surviving in a 0.04 loot world with Romero's zombies, and for the first time since carving was added, I can make infinite bats, it's time to take back the world, one swing at a time

I have two fridge freezers and chest freezer full of eggs. And I find this in the garden. I swear this pile of ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT eggs was not here yesterday. Hutch was full too so that's 218 eggs overnight from 17 chicken.

FML

Been making a custom game mode and needed to find all of the Porta Potties & Outhouses.

There is 189.

Location List https://notebook.zohopublic.com/public/notes/xfalb1ed5c71f82dc408eb2b4c4fbaeed6746

- Got Bit? Don't lose the arm. Cut the bite out.

-Serves As A Medium Between Vanilla And The Popular Mod "The Only Cure". Sometimes, I Wanna Keep That Arm Ya Know?

-Right click a bitten body part in the Health panel and choose Scalp. Dig the bite out with a small blade or a can opener (lol) and you might just live... with a nasty deep wound to show for it.

-Works with small blades and can openers: kitchen, hunting and fillet knives, scalpels, razors, shivs, cleavers, can openers.

-Machetes, katanas, axes and spears are too big for the job.

-By Default Scalping Has A 30% Chance To Fail. If It Fails It Leaves You With A Deep Wound And Your Zombie Virus. :) (Can Change Fail Chance In Sandbox Settings)

-Custom "Scalp" Animations For Each Body Part

Made By - twts.

I decided to do a little project and get my character to blink, I thought it was kinda cool and wanted to share!

I am not releasing it, it’s a janky project that only works with this face and skin tone, and the texture isn’t mine to use.

All credit goes to “Tombs Player Body - Goth Skin”
I made an overlay texture with the Blink and made it appear every 5 seconds! Basically it acts like a temporary cosmetic that only exists long enough for a blink, again janky but I absolutely LOVE it!

Title says it. How long do you think you'd survive, seriously?

As for me, I don't think it's impossible that I'd survive. I don't think it's likely, but I think I have a handful of useful skills that could, in perfect conditions, help me survive.

Biggest useful skills of mine is being a huge scaredy-cat terrified of everything, and running track. If I see a zombie, and I'm not 100'000'000% confident I can take em, I'm outta there. And I have pretty low self confidence so, chances are I'm just leaving. And if they're fast, I can run too. I may be very physically weak and probably couldn't fight any more than 1 zombie at a time, but I can flee.

They might be able to run for longer than I can, in that case it's a matter of losing them before that happens. I'd be so scared of zombies IRL though, it would probably take me an entire day just to scout a single house and make sure it's safe before I go inside, and also an entire week before that just to mentally prepare for it...

If the virus is airborne, I like collecting gas masks, and I own some P3 filters, which can filter microorganisms. I don't think it'd save me 100%, but owning that kinda stuff beforehand would probably be useful. I'm also a huge germophobe and would take every possible opportunity to clean myself and my things as best I can given my options. Even if it weren't airborne, I'd probably still wear one of my gas masks all the time, just to avoid getting blood in my eyes or mouth if I ever did have to fight. My dad is in the military as well, so, we do have some military things around my house, helmets, chest rig, backpacks. That stuff only really matters if I'm physically capable of staying alive long enough to use it though... BUT, i wont have to find it out in the wasteland, I'd already have it. I also own lots of nature books, including books about edible and medicinal plants in my area. I don't know it by heart and I'm by no means a pro herbalist, but I at least have the means to learn if I have to.

One problem would be my medication... i dont depend on it to survive, but i'd really like to have it. all my meds are shelf stable and dont degrade, so it's just a matter of finding it when i run out. much easier said than done, but not impossible, theoretically. A much bigger problem would be my glasses. I can see without them, but not well. I don't think I'd be able to survive very long without them, unless I've fully escaped any zombie populated areas already and don't necessarily need to see well to survive. Either way I'd have to protect them at all costs. Maybe wearing PPE eye protection over my glasses as like, a shield of sorts, idk.

The most important thing is where I am when it starts though... If it started while i'm on the train or on campus or downtown, i probably wont make it through the first day. But if I'm at home, I think there may be a chance. It also depends where the zombies are when it starts. If they're flooding my neighbourhood then I'm fucked but if they're downtown and I'm seeing it on the news, I'd have better odds. Whether I even make it past day 1 is just a matter of not being in the wrong place at the wrong time primarily, I guess.

Whether or not I can find a community to survive with also very important. I doubt I'd last too too long all by myself. I can teach myself to do everything in the world, but I'm just one girl built like a twig, I've only got two hands and two uselessly thin arms. I'd need help to keep going sooner or later.

A huge amount of luck involved for the things I do have going for me to even matter, but if I did get lucky, I think i would at least have some kind of chance.

How about y'all? Pros and cons of your irl build?

Edit: Another pro but also a con for me is having intense thanatophobia. It would make me much more cowardly, but also, having such an intense fear of dying would be a very strong driver to survive by any means necessary, which may work to counteract feeling like there's no reason to go on and just logging out myself or giving up.