Gabes' Basic Book of Survival is a steam guide book for Old and New Players alike, what you may find in this guide book will be strategies and in-depth descriptions, if any, of gameplay mechanics.

Disclaimer: Gabes' Basic Book of Survival is currently under heavy re-work from previous "version" of this steam guide originally posted from 2016.

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What will be written about includes only information applicable to the latest Build 4x for Project Zomboid.

Any written short descriptions in italics act as side notes or "asides".

A tl:dr's will be provided below of every chapter of this guide book, except for the traits and occupations chapter.

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Spiffo-Computer.png by MalonyJenkins[pzwiki.net]

Building a good character in Project is not impossible, but I would not say it is easier in Build 42 either. This new major update to the game has introduced new traits and reshuffled or nerfed pre-existing traits. I'm not gonna tell you what occupation you should pick, cause it depends on what kind of character you want to play.

However, there are some occupations you might want to consider going for as a first-timer.

And here is a quick overview of the new occupations in Build 42.

Keep in mind that most occupations take give you a set of negative points, so choose wisely.

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Traits are what is essentially, your characters' abilities or personality. Each trait costs point and the type of traits are shown in two windows, and essentially self explanatory, but if it wasn't obvious.

Green Traits are good, Red Traits are bad! - I'll provide a little preview of what they look like.

















There used to be a huge meta of what traits you can take to make the most busted character in the game, but so many of the traits have been nerfed and lowered in tiers. Theoretically, you can still do it, its just a matter of if you can afford the trait points.

Gabes' Recommended Trait Table, from top to bottom, negative and positive. Note that not all of these are meant to be taken together, but can be! - This is not ordered by point costs.

You have selected a spawn point, great!

What do I do now?... says that inner monologue in your head.

Good thing, you have a little angel called Gabe out to guide you in Project Zomboid.

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First thing you want to do, loot your house, yes, loot your house of all its useful stuff. I would even suggest making your house into a safe house, so as long as it is secure. You can secure your safe houses quickly and fast by using sheets or curtains, you can get sheets from bathrooms and bedroom closets, window curtains will also become sheets when removed from windows.

I also recommend having multiple safe houses, especially if you are doing a nomad play through.

You wanna look for a potential weapon, medical items and food! I would also go as far as telling you to grab some miscellaneous items, you may not think you would need misc. things such as: Duct Tapes, Lighters, Books, Tissues. Cause the truth is, pretty much every item in the game is important and has some use for the player to be beneficial in their play through.

You can also rip sheets into bandages!

When exploring the zomboid-filled streets of Muldraugh, the little town of Irvington or the big metropolis that is Louisville, always keep your wits up and do not run. You want to minimize running and think about walking more and being sneaky around Zomboids.

Patience is key in Project Zomboid, and I guarantee you, it will be a lot more of an enjoyable experience than dying repeatedly because you aggroe'd ten or fifteen zombies.

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tl:dr
• Loot your house and maybe make your house into a safe house.
• Sheets can be looted from bathrooms and bedroom closets.
• Sheets can also be ripped into sheet ropes or bandages!
• Have multiple safe houses.
• Stop running and start walking more. Walkers and Sneakers are the real winners in this game.
• Patience is key.

Combat has been revamped in Build 42 with new mechanics, and oh boy... A lot of people have been getting killed by it, old players, new players, people are dying left and right, combat is not so player-friendly. But once you get used to it, and understand the new mechanics in Build 42.

Your chances of survival in Project Zomboid has increased by at least a day or two, provided you are also following the "Don't Run, Walk!" rule. By default in B42, toughness in Zomboid is now random or dependent on your in-game settings, if you are using default toughness it will have an effect on how much you have to swing to kill a Zomboid.

Why am I putting an emphasis on weapon swinging? Continue reading, I'll get to that.

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Combat is now also linked to Weapon Skill! You heard it here folks, gone are the days where you only had to think about stamina and panic. These are still factors of course, but now weapon skills has an important role to your characters performance in combat.

Weapon skills essentially make up how good your character can effectively a weapon pertaining to a certain class of weapon type such as, short blunts, long blunts, and axes. A good way to level up these overtime is obviously through combat. Weapon skill basically represents a person's muscle memory and weapon handling. But this is not the only new mechanic in the game... Did I mention you will now get regular muscle strain?

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Muscle Strain will cause your characters to have pain, what happens is that due to pain your character will have debuffed attack strength or knockback. Effectively ruining your combat effectiveness. This active debuff will however decrease overtime after a period of rest, which would be either couple of hours in-game or days depending on how great the muscle strain is on your character.

What will increase Muscle Strain? Muscle strain can now be increased by the constant swinging of your weapon and ultimately the time to kill a zombie depending on toughness settings, additionally, being in constant combat will affect your stamina and muscle pain to greater levels.

There are currently several levels of muscle strain if I recall correctly, the higher it is, the more debuffs your character has in combat. Did I forget to tell you also that, muscle strain also causes minor pain!

I currently do not have a photo example of the levels of muscle strains in game, but here is an in-game example of what muscle strain looks like in the health menu!

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Combat has been made considerably slower, what you can now take from this is that you want to do fight with a more methodical approach against Zomboids, try not to take groups of zombies at-least more than four, and use weapons that will not exert your character out fast in a couple of swings. Trust me, I tried, got cocky, and died because of this in one of my playthroughs. Taking on groups of more than four, I would recommend it only to seasoned survivors.

Two handed weapons seem to do more damage knockback, but exert your character more!

If you do not follow this advice, you are bound to become tasty Zomboid feed pretty fast.

Take care of yourself, give yourself a break between combat with Zomboids and exercise, maybe even do some gardening and pet your animals.

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tl:dr
• Combat is now slow and dangerous, if you're not taking the new mechanics into account.
• Combat is now linked to character fitness and strength.
• Adopt a methodical approach to combat, more should I? And less LEEROY JENKINS.
• Avoid fighting large groups.
• Avoid constant combat.
• Muscle Strain is now more serious and swinging your weapon will increase muscle strain.
• Muscle Strain will cause pain to your character.

This is directly taken from each chapter of the guide book.

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• Loot your house and maybe make your house into a safe house.
• Sheets can be looted from bathrooms and bedroom closets.
• Sheets can also be ripped into sheet ropes or bandages!
• Have multiple safe houses.
• Stop running and start walking more. Walkers and Sneakers are the real winners in this game.
• Patience is key.
• Combat is now slow and dangerous, if you're not taking the new mechanics into account.
• Combat is now linked to character fitness and strength.
• Adopt a methodical approach to combat, more should I? And less LEEROY JENKINS.
• Avoid constant combat.
• Muscle Strain is now more serious and swinging your weapon will increase muscle strain.
• Muscle Strain will cause pain to your character.

This is the end of the guide book.

I would like to thank you for taking your time to read it, if you have some criticisms or like what I have written here. Please provide your feedback or review! Additionally, I hope this guide has helped giving you some ideas how to play the game or understanding of the new mechanics.

Happy Zomboiding everyone!

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If you'd like to contribute advice comment down below or even just contact me and I'll be sure to put it in. You contact me otherwise at on Discord, @gabesdr.

Need a modlist for B42? I gotcha
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3386956442

My other new guide covering gunplay,
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3388063082