School beginners guide

This Guide has been archived 19/03/2024, Last updated for build 40.43

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You just got this game. You probably watched your favorite youtuber or streamer play it and thought "This game is neat! I must try it out!". You downloaded it and started playing. Being overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of Project Zomboid, you came to the wiki to check out the Survival Guide. After learning the basics, you play some more and manage to make it through a couple of days, then three, four...

And then, inevitably, comes the though "What next?". This is where this guide comes in. I will attempt to provide you with an easy to follow guide that will hopefully help you transition from lowly looter into the master of your own destiny. This guide is intended as a step by step guide, with detailed insight into some of the core mechanics of the game.

¡¡¡THIS GUIDE IS A WIP!!!

Part 1: A man with a plan...

These are the end times. You just woke up in your house with zombies all around you. This world only has one rule: survive at all costs.

But surviving can be tricky. You don't know how to fight. You don't know how to make food. You don't have a weapon. And the zombies are banging at your door!

You have a lot to figure out, but in precious few quiet hours you still have, it is imperative to formulate a plan.

This is my first tip to beginners: have a plan. Usually, you will want to have a rough idea of what you are going to do in the first few weeks of your new life as a survivor. Any good plan has:

A spawn location and rough idea of the surrounding area. I recommend using the Project Zomboid Map. I am all for immersion in this game, and many of you will not like the metaknowledge that an external map provides. But I like to think of it as knowledge your character should have. He lives in the are after all.
A base location. Your base should be a place where you can be as safe as possible. It should have walls, barricades, an exit and entry point, and supplies. There are a ton of good locations for bases depending on your playstyle, and right after I finish this guide I will try and make a base locations guide.
A rough list of supplies. You need a weapon, food, water, tools, medicines and supplies.
A route between your spawn location and your future base. It is essential, once you have basic supplies, to have a good plan on how to getting from point A to point B. You will need to evaluate your options. A forest can be safer, but provides no cover, beds, faucets, etc. If you plan to loot as you go, you will want to know which are the most isolated houses, etc.

For a beginner, this is more or less everything you need to plan for. In this guide, I will have made your plan for you. This way, you can focus more on playing and less on scouring the wiki for info. I will also, when possible, give detailed instructions as to how some common actions are performed.

A rough summary of the guide

For quick reference, here is a small summary of what we want to accomplish in this guide.

As we spawn, we want to get a weapon, food and water, a leather coat, some medical supplies and certain tools. Anything else we can leave to loot later. We will slowly try to make our way towards the school, which will be our base location. The school has a loot of features that make it very easy for beginners to set up a base in.

Once in the school, we will clear it out as much as we can. We will focus first on the walled courtyard, followed by the gym, the two classrooms adjacent to the yard and the top floor. Once (mostly) cleared, we can designate a small base of operations where we can store our supplies in.

Next step will be securing the base. This entails more zombie clearing using some cool techniques, securing any missing tools or supplies via small incursions into nearby houses, and, finally, beginning construction of our walls and barricades.

With our base secured and free of zombies, and with reliable entry and exit points, we can begin working towards becoming self sufficient. Now, from the safety of our centrally located base, we can do small incursions into zombie territory in the search of tools, seeds, canned food, etc. The objective now is setting up water collection, food growing and a comfortable and safe base.

Finally, I will give some other ideas for the future. You can set up a secondary base, raid a different city, or master your weapons. The world is finally yours to enjoy!

Riverside and the school

Choosing riverside as a beginner should be a no brainer. First and foremost, it is a very scarcely populated area, so there are fewer zombies than in other areas of the map. It also has all of the basics: houses, stores, a police station, a clinic, a nearby gas station... It also provides beginners with lots of options. You can go live by the river and not worry about water again. There are a couple of fenced estates for you to claim. There are a couple of good buildings for roof bases.

And there is the school. Why do I think the school is such a good option for beginners? There are several reasons:

Its location. The school is smack in the middle of Riverside. This can mean more zombies roaming around, which is true. We will however hopefully be able to fortify it completely. It also means it is easy to get to regardless of where you spawn (unless you spawn in the caravan park). Being in the middle of town also helps when doing supply runs, as you will never be far from your base.
Its loot. The school provides very good loot for beginners. It has a library which will probably contain almost every skill book you need, making leveling easier. It also has plenty of backpacks, which are a must for supply runs. Aditionally, it has two janitor closets which can contain tools and carpentry/metalworking supplies. It has a cafeteria with four freezers and plenty of sinks and stoves. It has an infirmary with even more medical supplies and a (sort of) bed.
Its size. This is good for two reasons. First of all, you will have plenty of space for anything that you need. Second, it makes it easy to clear. Its configuration, having lots of corridors, rooms and a second floor, makes it very easy to bait and isolate zombies for easy kills.
Its yard. The main reason why I initially chose the school. The easiest way of becoming self-sufficient is through farming, and this locations has one of the biggest walled grass areas of the game.
How easy it is to secure. The school has a couple of features that make it ideal for a fortified base. There are doors and windows that lead both to the yard and to the outside. With some smart placement of walls and furniture inside the school, it is possible to, without many supplies, secure both half of the lower floor and the whole top floor. You can then work incrementally to secure the whole area. As you have both the yard and some of the inside secured, you can, little by little, extend your barricade to cover the whole building or even the parking lot from the safety of your base and without needing to go on many supply runs.

...and a build!

I want to be clear on this section. Builds should be your own and reflect your own playstyle. Rather than sticking to what others do, I encourage you to explore the different traits. However, there are obviously some options that are very good for beginners.

Occupation

What I consider key for this strategy is choosing the right occupation. There is however some flexibility, so feel free to explore.

Carpenter: the obvious choice. We are going to be doing a lot of carpentry in this build to be able to create our base. With an incredible 3 points in carpentry, this means you only need one more point to be able to build level 2 walls, which means zombies will not be able to see through them and they will gain a hefty boost to durability. There some other perks, like getting some much needed points in strength, which will make us able to move furniture around to reinforce our barricades.

This is the best choice for beginners. However, if you are a bit more advanced, you can survive taking a bit longer to level up carpentry and bulding your base more slowly. You also get some free points in carpentry early on if you watch Life and Living TV at 12:00 PM for the first week, so other occupations can provide good bonuses for other skills that aren't as easy to level.

Farmer: with also 5 points to strength and 3 points in farming, Farmer is a very good occupation to get. Remember that we need to become self-sufficient as quickly as possible, so the earlier we can have healthy and working crops, the better. Farming is also only leveled when harvesting crops, so getting the first few levels can be a pain in the ass. Farming lets you know more about what your plant needs, which will make managing the farm much easier.
Metalworker/Engineer/Electrician: these three occupations give 5 Strength and provide initial bonuses to their related skills. These are good choices if you still want to go with the DIY angle but can reliably level up the Carpentry skill anyway. The school provides plenty of wooden furniture to dissasemble to level up your Carpentry, but finding electrical components can be a bit more tricky. The Metalworker is a good occupation but requires you to get some rarer tools, like a welding torch. The biggest benefit is that all the metal lockers can be transformed into metal walls, which are a much better alternative to wooden walls.ç
Repairman: an often overlooked occupation but a very good one for this strategy. It provides an initial point in Carpentry, but, more importantly, makes your repairs more effective. We want to keep supply runs to a minimum as this is a beginners guide, and we still do not master every mechanic. This is why being able to mantain our tools is essential. Without tools, we won't be able to build our base and stave off the undead horde.

As you can see, we focus mainly on crafting in this build. Our goal is to create our base and have a safe place from which to learn the different mechanics of the game at our own pace.

Traits

Traits offer bonuses, debuffs and certain gameplay changes. Each trait has positive or negative points depending on their impact in the game. We need to balance them so that the total is 0.

When building a character it is better to first focus into selecting your positive traits. The idea is to have as many bonuses as we can while compensating with low impact negative traits.

Essential positive traits:

Lucky: always a must for new players. This skill simply increases the amount of rare loot you get, which makes it so you need less supply runs.
Stout/Strong: whenever you build a character as a beginner, always try to get as much strength as you can. Strength increases carry weight, melee damage and makes it easier to shove zombies to the ground. It also increases your chance of opening locked windows. I think stout is more than enough, with our flat 5 Strength from our occupation we will get 7 Strength, which can be later increased via exercise. Strong is a good choice but in my opinion uses up too many points.
Cat's Eyes: night in Zomboid are dark, and lethal. Being able to see a bit better in the dark makes it so much easier to play the game.

Optional positive traits:

Organized: increases carry capacity. Good for absolute beginners, but inventory management tips will be provided at the end of the guide.
Outsdoorman: lowers chance of getting a cold by a lot. Mostly negates the effects of Prone to Illness (+4 points) while only being -2 points.
Handy: good when your occupation is not carpenter. I has a high point count because it increases building speed and construction HP.
Fast learner: faster XP gains. Generally good, maybe not worth the points.
Amateur mechanic: makes it so that you don't need auto magazines to repair cars. Good if you plan on using vehicles a lot.
Inconspicuous: very good combat trait. As we will focus less on combat, you can skip this one.

Essential negative traits:

Smoker: this one is always recommended as its basically free points. Not smoking gradually gives you stress, which doesn't really have that much of an impact unless left unchecked. The good think is getting cigarettes is very easy. You will probably spend more time tracking down matches or a lighter.
Slow Reader: you will always be reading from the safety of your house/base, so Slow Reader has no real downsides. You just speed up time and take as much as you need.
Prone to illness: this trait affects how fast and how often you catch a cold, as well as making zombification faster. We don't really care about zombification, as once you are bitten, you are done anyways. Colds make you sneeze which attracts zombies, but, as we will hopefully have a safe base once winter comes, it will be an easy thing to manage.
High thirst: very straightforward trait. You need more water. Water is very easy to come by before the water supply gets cut off, and by then we will hopefully have some water collection set up.

Optional negative traits

Hearty appetite: same philosophy as high thirst. Food will probably never be an issue with this strategy.
Thin-skinned: this skill makes it so it is easier to become injured. Injuries in this game are usually easy to avoid and manage. The main advantage is that you get +8 points for something that can be compensated by being smart and careful. Definitely a trait for more advanced players.
Restless Sleeper/Sleepyhead: sleep related negative traits are very easy to manage. The only reason I don't consider them essential is because constantly having to sleep is a pain in the ass.
Slow Healer: injuries are pretty easy to manage if you know what you are doing, so them taking longer to heal shouldn't be an issue.
Cowardly: as we plan to fight as little as possible, becoming panicked shouldn't be a problem. Good trait to have if you already know how to combat effectively and you need the extra points.

Main section 2

A Different section, something more important to the guide could go here.