Moodles

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A moodle is an indicator of the current emotional and physical state of the player, similar to status effects in role-playing games. Moodles are displayed in the top right-hand corner of the screen, and hovering the cursor over an individual moodle provides further information.

List of moodles

Hungry

Main article: Hungry

This moodle represents the character's hunger state. A red background indicates that the player needs to eat food. A green background shows that the character is well-fed. Being fed boosts strength, carry capacity and healing rate, whereas being hungry has the opposite effect, in addition to slower body heat generation.

Currently, nutrition and hunger are entirely separate. Burning or gaining calories has no effect on this moodle. An emaciated character can still die when Full to Bursting; conversely, a starving character can die even if well overweight.

Thirsty

Main article: Thirsty

This character has gone a while without drinking water or other beverages. Dehydration leads to weakness, reduced carrying capacity, slightly increased heat generation, and eventual death. Thirst can be quenched primarily through bottles filled with clean water; many other consumables help influence thirst as well, usually by decreasing it. Sources of hydration must be clean and the water itself must be boiled, lest sickness can occur.

Panic

Main article: Panic

The character is panicking, usually due to the sight of nearby zombies. Panic narrows your vision cone, reduces weapon damage and critical chance, and reduces push knockdown chance and knockback.

This moodle can be removed and prevented temporarily by using beta blockers or alcohol, which greatly improve panic reduction speed. Sleep will boost the rate of panic loss, but there is a chance for a sleeping character to abruptly wake up with strong panic and stress due to a nightmare. Characters accrue panic faster if a zombie is detected behind them. Re-spotting zombies increases panic, even if the character only turns around momentarily. Despite the moodle's description, weapon accuracy is not reduced.

Over time, this moodle will become less common as the character becomes acclimated to the zombies. A character's panic recovery speed increases every day, as time ticks over to midnight, up to a maximum of 150 days survived.

Bored

Main article: Bored

The player is bored due to being idle for a long time, being inside for a long time, or eating poor quality/stale/rotten food. Boredom makes the player unhappy after some time. Reduced by being outside, being panicked, fighting zombies, watching TV, listening to the radio or CDs. Boredom does nothing on its own, but increases unhappiness at 50%.

Stressed

Main article: Stressed

The character is stressed due to potentially being infected, surrounded by zombies, covered in blood with the hemophobic trait, night terrors, or not smoking cigarettes for a while with the smoker trait. Stress can be treated by smoking cigarettes, reading literature, and putting some distance from the zombies. Stress reduces the damage of weapons (shaking hands...), and chronic stress will lead to unhappiness.

Unhappy

Main article: Unhappy

The player is sad due to prolonged boredom, stress, or consuming certain food items. Unhappiness makes all timed actions take longer: equipping weapons, transferring items, crafting, construction and so on. Unhappiness is reduced by reading certain literature, eating food that increases happiness like most sweets, Soups, Strawberries, drinking alcohol, or by taking anti-depressants.

Drunk

Main article: Drunk

Occurs when the player has drunk alcohol and has become intoxicated. Being drunk increases fatigue depending on the level of drunkness. It also makes the character generate less heat, and delays driving controls.

This moodle will disappear over time, with sleep and rest speeding up the process. Despite the moodle's description, the character's movement and vaulting/climbing abilities currently appear unaffected. Weapons can also be used at normal capacity, it does however, affect search mode.

Heavy load

Main article: Heavy load

The player is carrying too much. This results in slower movement, and reduced endurance recovery. The chances of tripping from stumbling into zombies, running, jumping over fences, and failing to climb tall walls increases with this moodle's severity. At 'very heavy load' and above, the character cannot recover endurance by standing idle, further movement will drain it, and they will take continuous, non-lethal damage. Sitting on the ground, in a vehicle, or resting on furniture will halt the damage.

Endurance

Main article: Endurance

The character is exerted from physical activities such as running, sprinting, vaulting fences or swinging their weapon. They will walk, run, sprint, and swing weapons slower, and have a higher chance of tripping. At very high exertion levels, sprinting and then running will be disabled.

Endurance recovers slowly when the character is idle and suffering no further negative effects. Recovery can be sped up by sitting on the ground or in a vehicle, resting on furniture, eating ginseng or having high fitness skills. Conversely, walking or sneaking sharply decreases, or even nullifies recovery.

Fatigue is linked to Endurance. On one hand, tiredness greatly slows down endurance recovery, up to the point of halting it; on the other hand, exertion causes accelerated drowsiness, potentially cutting the time until full fatigue by ~70%.

Tired

Main article: Tired

This moodle occurs when the player has stayed awake for an extended period of time, and is becoming tired.

Fatigue leads to reduced endurance regeneration, and can stop it altogether. The vision cone becomes smaller, weapon damage reduces, and body heat generation lowers. The rate at which a character becomes fatigued linearly scales with their remaining endurance. At zero endurance, fatigue increases roughly three times as fast. This moodle can be removed by sleeping.

Items like vitamins or a caffeinated drink can reduce tiredness, while sleeping tablets will increase it. The higher the moodle's intensity, the longer the character will sleep. Currently, players cannot pass out from lack of sleep.

Hyperthermia

Main article: Hyperthermia

This moodle is shown when the player is getting too hot due to excessive heat exposure from a heat source, clothing, weather, vehicle heater, or exercise/exertion.

Going in/outdoors (depending on which is colder) or removing clothing and wearing clothes with lower insulation will reduce the players temperature, and remove the moodle. Being hydrated is important to have good heat resistance.

This is also a sign of illness or zombie infection, as these lead to an increase in body temperature. It is highly improbable to reach maximum Hyperthermia in the current version of the game, as sweat helps dissipate and control heat.

Hypothermia

Main article: Hypothermia

This moodle occurs when the player is too cold due to a lack of warm clothes, staying wet, cold weather/wind chill or a vehicle's A/C.

To combat hypothermia, the character can wear warmer clothes, stay indoors, build a campfire or turn on the heater in a vehicle. Being hungry, tired and unfit reduces cold resistance.

This moodle affects the character's speed, and they will slowly lose health when hypothermic until at 1% health. Being cold also increases the chance of catching a cold.

Windchill

Main article: Windchill

The character is exposed to wind, and their apparent temperature may be colder than the actual air temperature. The colder the air is, the stronger the wind chill is.

The only way to remove this moodle is by going indoors.

Wet

Main article: Wet

The character and their clothing have become wet. This is typically due to rain, but it can also occur due to sweating and exertion. Prolonged exposure can increase the risk of catching a cold, though the Outdoorsman and Resilient traits reduce the chances of catching a cold in these cases.

This moodle can be removed by going indoors out of the rain for a while, standing by a heat source, or drying oneself with a dish towel or bath towel. The character can slow the rate of wetness by equipping an umbrella in their first or secondary slot, preventing the moodle from reaching past "Wet". Wet clothes have decreased insulation, which makes getting cold more likely.

Injured

Main article: Injured

The character is injured in some way and has lost health. This moodle is an indicator of the player's remaining health. Effects on the character mostly depend on the wound location and type; however, carrying capacity will still decrease no matter what. Health recovery speed is fastest between roughly 10% and 80% health.

Pain

Main article: Pain

The player is in pain, whether from a wound, exercise fatigue or other injuries. The level of pain is more or less consistent with the severity of the character's injuries.

Pain is temporarily removed via painkillers, and also disappears over time as the character status improves. Bandaged and splinted injuries also reduce pain.

Severe or extreme pain renders the character unable to sleep. High levels tiredness can allow them to sleep, even in severe or extreme pain. Sleeping in a poor-quality bed or a vehicle can lead to neck pain and slight damage for a short while upon awakening.

Bleeding

Main article: Bleeding

The player is losing blood from an open wound, either from a bite, scratch or other injury. The severity of the bleeding dictates how quickly the character loses health.

This moodle can be removed by bandaging the bleeding body parts.

Has a cold

Main article: Has a cold

The character has been exposed to cold weather, or stayed wet long enough to contract a cold. The character will occasionally cough and sneeze, attracting nearby zombies. The sound can be dampened with tissues.

Once contracted, a cold will continue to worsen until it reaches maximum strength, whereupon it remains for as long as the character stays cold, hungry, thirsty, wet, tired or outdoors.

To cure a cold faster, the character can either stay indoors, be well-fed, get plenty of rest and avoid wetness or cold temperatures; or can alternatively eat multiple Common Mallows. Each Common Mallow decreases the cold's strength moderately.

Sick

Main article: Sick

The player has contracted an illness, whether through consuming raw/bad food, being in the vicinity of many rotting corpses, or having been infected by a zombie. Cigarettes will cause some sickness if smoked unless the character is a Smoker. Drinking tainted water causes sickness to the point of lethal illness, but ingesting smaller amounts may still be safe.

A sick character's body heat generation increases even before the Queasy moodle appears; further progression of the sickness leads to higher temperatures.

Sickness from zombification can never be cured in apocalypse, survivor and builder modes, and will always lead to death. In custom sandbox, players can alter settings to make zombie infections non-lethal. Food poisoning, tainted water sickness, and illness caused by rotting corpses are reversible, so long as the character is well-fed, rested, or consumes Lemongrass.

In the case of corpse decay, it causes sickness when more than 20 dead bodies are piled up together and flies are seen and heard buzzing. To avoid corpse sickness, the character must be at least 13 tiles away from the source of sickness if outdoors, outside of an infested building (or vice versa), or on a different floor if the source is indoors.

Dead

Main article: Dead

The player has taken too much damage, lost all of their health and passed away.

This is the moodle that results from dying, provided that the player wasn't infected instead.

Zombie

Main article: Zombie (moodle)

The player has lost all their health and died, after being infected by a zombie. The now-uncontrollable player will rise from the ground and aimlessly wander the world.

Currently, if the infected character doesn't burn to ashes or otherwise leaves a corpse on the ground, they will rise as a zombie, regardless of means or time of death.

Removed, future, or unobtainable moodles

Restricted movement

Main article: Restricted movement

It indicates the character is unable to sprint due to being barefooted, having leg injuries, being overloaded, wearing heavy clothes, or suffering from moodles that impact speed.

Currently impossible to obtain due to disabled clothing multipliers.

Angry

Main article: Angry

In previous versions of Project Zomboid, the anger moodle pops up for both sides when NPC reject team requests made by a player or another NPC. Each level of the Anger moodle beyond irritated progressively blocks interaction attitudes, culminating in open hostility with the risk of combat at the most intense stage.

This moodle is disabled due to there being no NPCs in the current game build, although it is expected to return when they're re-introduced. Players can trigger it by enabling Debug Mode, and increasing the anger slider from the moodles menu; even so, anger has absolutely zero effect on character actions or abilities.

Hungover

Main article: Hungover

This moodle is used to indicate that the player has been staying too long outside, after or during intoxication. The only solution was to stay indoors.

It is absent from the current build.

See also

• Medical items
• Literature
• Food
• Food
• Health
• Nutrition