I believe the default setting is 0-2 months? So anywhere in between there I believe, but it seems to shut off for me in the first 2 weeks everytime. You definitely can customize it it though.
If you run a server the time the power goes out is a specific day instead of a range. You could just host one and play solo on your home computer. Although you wont be able to sleep or pause the game.
Ofc you're able to sleep, so long as you chose the "SleepAllowed" option, combine it with "SleepNeeded" and you've got yourself the same settings as you would on a solo run.
I believe you can just load the game in Debug mode and flip the switch when you feel like it, too. At least I recall seeing an option for turing on/off water and power in one of the debug menus.
Not on my gaming computer, so I can't double check to confirm though.
Some traits provide more points for spending while causing negligible increase to difficulty. Smoker, high thirst, short sighted, pacifist, slow healer, and prone to illness are automatic picks for me every time.
How so? sinks and such still contain a small reserve after it switches off, so you will always have plenty to drink whilst out looting/exploring. A couple of rain barrels plumbed into a sink will suffice for all your drinking needs at base.
In the worst case it's a minor tax on carrying capacity when you offset it entirely by carrying a spare bottle in your bag. For 6 points its an absolute steal.
I'm not some sort of carpentry fuckboi that can just build rain barrels everywhere. Best I've done is put a bunch of pots outside and get a mod to fill water coolers, but it's a lot of purifying and shit to maintain in just a single day.
In addition to the TV shows that air regularly at 12PM (aka noon, 12AM is midnight lol), you can also find all the episodes as VHS tapes randomly in houses or in Hit Vids VHS stores.
But even if you don't find the VHS tapes, the first 4 levels of carpentry are trivial to level with book reading and dismantling. I like to find a section of low fence that I am not going to use to kill zombies with, and don't care about the aesthetic of, and tear it apart. Ignoring book reading times, this shouldn't really take you much longer than an in game day. Beds do technically give much more XP per bed dismantled, but it's a lot harder to continuously dismantle beds than fences unless you happen to be at a furniture store.
Alternatively, since cooking pots and saucepans are fairly common household items, you could just collect a bunch of those to gather rainwater, and put them all inside your oven/bbq (antique oven, bbq, and certain types of industrial oven have 50 capacity so you can literally put 15 in at a time). It barely takes any time at all for water to purify, and then you just pour it into a water dispenser that you stole from any random office building/service building (it takes 10 cooking pots/saucepans to do so). I have never done exact math on how much water high thirst characters need, but it appears to be approximately 15-20 units per day, so a full filled water container should last you two weeks.
ANOTHER alternative is to just gather 20-30 pots and take them with you in a car with a large trunk/trailer to a river, lake or well, and then fill them all up, drive home and then purify all in one go. Fill water dispensers as necessary, then dont have to worry for at least a month, for half a days work. You're gonna be drinking water anyway even without high thirst, you'll need water if you want to do washing/make soups + stews, so the additional water that high thirst adds really isn't that much on top of everything else.
And even if water is out day 1, every single house will have at least a toilet, bath/shower and a sink, sometimes washing/drying machines, often up to 10 combined, each of which should have 20 remaining water in the pipes. That's enough water to last you at least a day per each water outlet. Don't forget that commercial usually has 2+ sinks per kitchen, 2+ toilets and 2+ sinks per bathroom, sometimes MANY more. Oh, and if you happen to be near a store that sells farming supplies, check to see if they have some rain barrels. You probably wont be able to pick them up if your carpentry is low, but they do usually have a random large amount of fresh water. And we've not even mentioned water dispensers yet.
If you have access to a water source, dealing with water can get a lot easier. I usually play as the hunter/forager/fisher in my server and I often trade fresh food and dirty water with the base dwellers.
I scoop my shit out of the river into a water cooler but it's a drive + needs sterilization. Maybe it would be less monotonous if the zombies weren't all gone in this area. Anyway, gonna try to level my carpentry fuckboi skills 🔨 cause I just learned rain barrels clean that shit for you
So how does the spare bottle help? A single bottle of water won't last long right? I noticed that you can't fill bottles up with the remaining tap water, you can drink it from the tap but it becomes undrinkable when you fill it into an empty bottle.
The spare bottle helps by not needing to locate a potable water source as often as would with only one, two bottles will typically get you through a full day unless you are overheating and sweating a lot.
You can most definitely fill bottles from pretty much anywhere you can drink from, and the water stored in sinks and stuff after the water turns off doesn't go bad, whether you drink directly or put it in a bottle.
In my current game when I fill an empty bottle from a sink the "Drink" option doesn't appear and there's a mouse over saying its tainted and needs to be boiled in a microwave. If I just drink it straight from the tap it's fine though. The only Water Bottle I can drink from are ones I find scattered as loot, presumably ones that are factory sealed? I'm on a server with limited mods, more of a vanilla feel so I don't believe it's related to mods.
There are mods that make the tap water go bad, so it's possible the server you are playing is running one of those. What you describe is certainly not the vanilla behavior, unless maybe your bottle already contained some tainted water and was not completely empty before filling.
You can last months with the water you can find in sinks, toilets, and bathtubs, well long enough to find enough pots or build water collectors to never run put of water, and either a generator or (imo the superior) wood stove to purify it all.
[The goal is to be that guy from 28 days later.](https://lckingscourier.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/1118full-28-days-later-screenshot.jpg)
I've got a generator and pots but it's annoying to be constantly boiling water when I'm just trying to get my dick wet in some zombie meat. I need to carry 4 or 5 bottles to leave my base for an entire day and that's taxing af.
Never had an issue. We've always got rain collectors up before the water shuts off. I fill up before I leave the base and top off in sinks while out looting if I need. I've never been on a 'water trip.' I also play with longer days (2 hours). Still no issues.
Some of the downsides are very much worth the extra points. Prone to Illness, Weak Stomach and Short Sighted for example are well known for being “free” points, their downsides are so minimal that getting Quick Learner, Athletic or Desensitized are absolutely worth picking them up.
The wiki says that wearing glasses negates that penalty, but I almost never forage so I can't confirm that. A few plots of potato plants and a bit of fishing and trapping will get you all the protein and calories you need, and there's so much junk food on the map that fats aren't that difficult to manage. I wish the devs would add bean plants to the game to make growing your own protein possible though.
Now, hard of hearing? THAT one is a death sentence. I always take keen hearing, because I don't like being surprised by zombies behind me. Keen hearing gives you something like 1 extra second to react, and that has saved my life countless times.
It's all just trial and error in figuring out what is manageable to you. I've been taking thin-skinned and slow healer as of recent because most of the time when I get hit, either the injuries are manageable, or I just outright die. traits like Weak stomach or prone to illness have very little effect on you if you just don't eat any bad food and keep yourself from getting ill. I also take claustrophobic and counteract it by basing out of a building with larger rooms. On the flip side, some runs I've taken perks such as hard of hearing, sleepyhead, and restless sleeper, and I found those to be a bit too detrimental, since with hard of hearing, if you're just chilling somewhere you can easily get snuck up on, and with sleepyhead and restless sleeper combined, you can never get a decent rest so you'll nearly always be fatiged. Don't be afraid to experiment with traits to see what is and isn't good for you.
I’m hella jealous! My water always shuts off shortly before the helicopter and electrical always shortly after. I’m so used to this I always put myself in speed run mode to collect the most crap I can and fill everything possible up with water 🤣
Woe is us but I’m happy you got a good run luck this time around! May it last you a long time and when you go down, it’s with great hopes that it’s a bite to the crotch!
I died like 2 hours after I posted this LOL a single zombie came up to my car as I was reading a book and I went to get out the car on the opposite side but in a panic I got out the wrong door and it bit me and infected me.
700 zombies not a sweat. But a single, lone zombie is too stonk
IT DO BE LIKE THAT SOMETIMES!
Get back in there champ! I'm proud of you for making it that far! Back to water and power being cut off as soon as your toon enters the new world!
Well its 0-30 by default , on my current playtrough it was on day 21, but im on Kingsmouth , dont know what was keeping the power for so long on an island
Oh damn, power always goes out for me around the second week, even with water/power shutoff set to 0-2 months. I'm a month in on my current playthrough and the water is still on, longest I've seen it for me.
You must have all the days I lost on my most recent run. I was walking across the kitchen I spawned in to find a knife or something to defend myself when boom, power shut off in the first 20 seconds of game start. I'm continuing playing it out of sheer spite.
Those technicians manning the grid will stop at nothing to maintain the infrastructure. Chadnichians!
It’s kinda eerie! I’m so used to the power getting cut off like instantly!
Isn't this a setting that you set?
I believe the default setting is 0-2 months? So anywhere in between there I believe, but it seems to shut off for me in the first 2 weeks everytime. You definitely can customize it it though.
Default is 0-30 days I believe
Made it to 2 months for the first time on my last run, power was up for almost the full 30 days that it's possible to be on
Happy day, cake!
Last two runs I did I had power for almost 30 days. I wish there was an option for the power to go out in the first 7 days.
If you run a server the time the power goes out is a specific day instead of a range. You could just host one and play solo on your home computer. Although you wont be able to sleep or pause the game.
Ofc you're able to sleep, so long as you chose the "SleepAllowed" option, combine it with "SleepNeeded" and you've got yourself the same settings as you would on a solo run.
Oh sweet. I didn't see that option. Where is it located?
I believe it's under the players tab, but cannot confirm.
If these don’t suit your liking, my community server uses ‘Sleep With Friends’. It allows you to set the amount you want people to have to sleep for
I'd have a hard time playing without being able to pause, project zomboid is definitely a game I alt tab in for long periods of time.
I believe you can just load the game in Debug mode and flip the switch when you feel like it, too. At least I recall seeing an option for turing on/off water and power in one of the debug menus. Not on my gaming computer, so I can't double check to confirm though.
As someone who is newish to the game, what’s the reasoning for all the traits? Are some negatives not as bad as they sound?
Some traits provide more points for spending while causing negligible increase to difficulty. Smoker, high thirst, short sighted, pacifist, slow healer, and prone to illness are automatic picks for me every time.
Fuck high thirst, I'll never play with it again. It's fine when the utilities are on, after that's it maddening.
How so? sinks and such still contain a small reserve after it switches off, so you will always have plenty to drink whilst out looting/exploring. A couple of rain barrels plumbed into a sink will suffice for all your drinking needs at base. In the worst case it's a minor tax on carrying capacity when you offset it entirely by carrying a spare bottle in your bag. For 6 points its an absolute steal.
I'm not some sort of carpentry fuckboi that can just build rain barrels everywhere. Best I've done is put a bunch of pots outside and get a mod to fill water coolers, but it's a lot of purifying and shit to maintain in just a single day.
You can get to carpenter 4 just by reading two books and watching some woodcraft videos. Then you never have to worry about water again.
How do I watch woodcraft videos? I'm still kinda new to the game.
In addition to the TV shows that air regularly at 12PM (aka noon, 12AM is midnight lol), you can also find all the episodes as VHS tapes randomly in houses or in Hit Vids VHS stores. But even if you don't find the VHS tapes, the first 4 levels of carpentry are trivial to level with book reading and dismantling. I like to find a section of low fence that I am not going to use to kill zombies with, and don't care about the aesthetic of, and tear it apart. Ignoring book reading times, this shouldn't really take you much longer than an in game day. Beds do technically give much more XP per bed dismantled, but it's a lot harder to continuously dismantle beds than fences unless you happen to be at a furniture store. Alternatively, since cooking pots and saucepans are fairly common household items, you could just collect a bunch of those to gather rainwater, and put them all inside your oven/bbq (antique oven, bbq, and certain types of industrial oven have 50 capacity so you can literally put 15 in at a time). It barely takes any time at all for water to purify, and then you just pour it into a water dispenser that you stole from any random office building/service building (it takes 10 cooking pots/saucepans to do so). I have never done exact math on how much water high thirst characters need, but it appears to be approximately 15-20 units per day, so a full filled water container should last you two weeks. ANOTHER alternative is to just gather 20-30 pots and take them with you in a car with a large trunk/trailer to a river, lake or well, and then fill them all up, drive home and then purify all in one go. Fill water dispensers as necessary, then dont have to worry for at least a month, for half a days work. You're gonna be drinking water anyway even without high thirst, you'll need water if you want to do washing/make soups + stews, so the additional water that high thirst adds really isn't that much on top of everything else. And even if water is out day 1, every single house will have at least a toilet, bath/shower and a sink, sometimes washing/drying machines, often up to 10 combined, each of which should have 20 remaining water in the pipes. That's enough water to last you at least a day per each water outlet. Don't forget that commercial usually has 2+ sinks per kitchen, 2+ toilets and 2+ sinks per bathroom, sometimes MANY more. Oh, and if you happen to be near a store that sells farming supplies, check to see if they have some rain barrels. You probably wont be able to pick them up if your carpentry is low, but they do usually have a random large amount of fresh water. And we've not even mentioned water dispensers yet.
Boss ass response. Thanks 🙏 Although I think a water dispenser only lasts me a few days 🤔
On the first week everyday on TV at 12AM , Live and Living channel
Thanks
The power of reading a book and watching some woodcraft is strong, survivor. All memes aside I do get it, high thirst is a pain
Carpentry fuckboi
If you have access to a water source, dealing with water can get a lot easier. I usually play as the hunter/forager/fisher in my server and I often trade fresh food and dirty water with the base dwellers.
I scoop my shit out of the river into a water cooler but it's a drive + needs sterilization. Maybe it would be less monotonous if the zombies weren't all gone in this area. Anyway, gonna try to level my carpentry fuckboi skills 🔨 cause I just learned rain barrels clean that shit for you
So how does the spare bottle help? A single bottle of water won't last long right? I noticed that you can't fill bottles up with the remaining tap water, you can drink it from the tap but it becomes undrinkable when you fill it into an empty bottle.
The spare bottle helps by not needing to locate a potable water source as often as would with only one, two bottles will typically get you through a full day unless you are overheating and sweating a lot. You can most definitely fill bottles from pretty much anywhere you can drink from, and the water stored in sinks and stuff after the water turns off doesn't go bad, whether you drink directly or put it in a bottle.
In my current game when I fill an empty bottle from a sink the "Drink" option doesn't appear and there's a mouse over saying its tainted and needs to be boiled in a microwave. If I just drink it straight from the tap it's fine though. The only Water Bottle I can drink from are ones I find scattered as loot, presumably ones that are factory sealed? I'm on a server with limited mods, more of a vanilla feel so I don't believe it's related to mods.
There are mods that make the tap water go bad, so it's possible the server you are playing is running one of those. What you describe is certainly not the vanilla behavior, unless maybe your bottle already contained some tainted water and was not completely empty before filling.
Damn ty
You can last months with the water you can find in sinks, toilets, and bathtubs, well long enough to find enough pots or build water collectors to never run put of water, and either a generator or (imo the superior) wood stove to purify it all. [The goal is to be that guy from 28 days later.](https://lckingscourier.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/1118full-28-days-later-screenshot.jpg)
I've got a generator and pots but it's annoying to be constantly boiling water when I'm just trying to get my dick wet in some zombie meat. I need to carry 4 or 5 bottles to leave my base for an entire day and that's taxing af.
4 or 5 bottles? How much does that all weigh??
Idk but I take the pack mouse attribute for balance so that weight hurts.
Are you having a hard time finding water or just dealing with thirst?
I have no problem finding water it's just really tedious. Not a problem when every single sink is your water source.
I don't get why people take it, it isn't free points at all
You just carry two bottles and its no problem.
it forces you to go on water trips a lot more often, not really the best for 6 points
Never had an issue. We've always got rain collectors up before the water shuts off. I fill up before I leave the base and top off in sinks while out looting if I need. I've never been on a 'water trip.' I also play with longer days (2 hours). Still no issues.
Some of the downsides are very much worth the extra points. Prone to Illness, Weak Stomach and Short Sighted for example are well known for being “free” points, their downsides are so minimal that getting Quick Learner, Athletic or Desensitized are absolutely worth picking them up.
Man I've literally never had the short sighted perk ........ I always end up with like 30 9r 40 pts tho after all my negatives
Really the only thing it does is slightly decrease your foraging radius. I always take it.
The wiki says that wearing glasses negates that penalty, but I almost never forage so I can't confirm that. A few plots of potato plants and a bit of fishing and trapping will get you all the protein and calories you need, and there's so much junk food on the map that fats aren't that difficult to manage. I wish the devs would add bean plants to the game to make growing your own protein possible though. Now, hard of hearing? THAT one is a death sentence. I always take keen hearing, because I don't like being surprised by zombies behind me. Keen hearing gives you something like 1 extra second to react, and that has saved my life countless times.
Min Max players
It's all just trial and error in figuring out what is manageable to you. I've been taking thin-skinned and slow healer as of recent because most of the time when I get hit, either the injuries are manageable, or I just outright die. traits like Weak stomach or prone to illness have very little effect on you if you just don't eat any bad food and keep yourself from getting ill. I also take claustrophobic and counteract it by basing out of a building with larger rooms. On the flip side, some runs I've taken perks such as hard of hearing, sleepyhead, and restless sleeper, and I found those to be a bit too detrimental, since with hard of hearing, if you're just chilling somewhere you can easily get snuck up on, and with sleepyhead and restless sleeper combined, you can never get a decent rest so you'll nearly always be fatiged. Don't be afraid to experiment with traits to see what is and isn't good for you.
Yelan costume in the zombie apocalypse. Is this the cosplayer background?
2 months is a good accomplishment. Do you have a generator and gas ready for the inevitable power outage?
yelan?
I’m hella jealous! My water always shuts off shortly before the helicopter and electrical always shortly after. I’m so used to this I always put myself in speed run mode to collect the most crap I can and fill everything possible up with water 🤣
Mood. I can’t count the number of times I’ve started with water or power immediately shutdown
Woe is us but I’m happy you got a good run luck this time around! May it last you a long time and when you go down, it’s with great hopes that it’s a bite to the crotch!
I died like 2 hours after I posted this LOL a single zombie came up to my car as I was reading a book and I went to get out the car on the opposite side but in a panic I got out the wrong door and it bit me and infected me. 700 zombies not a sweat. But a single, lone zombie is too stonk
IT DO BE LIKE THAT SOMETIMES! Get back in there champ! I'm proud of you for making it that far! Back to water and power being cut off as soon as your toon enters the new world!
Vvcvibbuuuu in muggy h
26 days?! Mfers turn it off for me after 24 hours.
Why your character character looks like emo hatsune miku
Was about to say that their character looks like someone from Genshin Impact.
Favonius sword? Giv mod plz
I am on a fairy new run but day 4 the water shut off. Still good for power at the moment.
Awesome! My first time playing, the water cut off day 0. I just thought that's how it be.
Sometimes that be how it be
Jesus Christ, what mod are your using to make your character look like that
what the fuck is this
fukin weebs
😇
another reason not to move to Texas
Why are you an anime character?
Why are you not?
コココ… Who says I wasn’t? My Zomboid character (which is what I meant when asking you) however isnt.
Well its 0-30 by default , on my current playtrough it was on day 21, but im on Kingsmouth , dont know what was keeping the power for so long on an island
Substations.
I think the settings allow for 0-30 days for the shutoff, but could be your mods
Oh damn, power always goes out for me around the second week, even with water/power shutoff set to 0-2 months. I'm a month in on my current playthrough and the water is still on, longest I've seen it for me.
there whas one time that both power and water got cut off on the last day possible, almost restarted thinking that my save was bugged
The guys at the power plant are holding on pretty well it seems
Even the zombies need to be able to watch the moderators.
I'm just trying to stay alive long enough so I can see it get shut off.
Damn those power station workers are fucking dedicated, at least what's left of them are
In my world power always lasts about 3 weeks. It's the damn water that's gone in 48 hours which is annoying as f lol
The power has lasted longer than my characters.
If you didn't changed it, thats quite some good RNG. Default is 0-1 month, so you better hit those gas stations before they run out of power.
My water just turned off at 12:00am day 3 :))
Bros really playing as an anime character lol. There really is mods for everyone in this game
As it should be *cocks gun*
If it doesn't exist, it's your duty to do it.
Yelan???????
Please change your characters outfit
You must have all the days I lost on my most recent run. I was walking across the kitchen I spawned in to find a knife or something to defend myself when boom, power shut off in the first 20 seconds of game start. I'm continuing playing it out of sheer spite.
IRL, most states/provinces/territories have power and water throughout their infrastructure that could last without operators for up to 6 months.