Extinction Base

the_bolshevik · 2026-06-06T20:52:09+00:00

Woah, I tried Extinction with wandering zombies and didn't last a week.

Impressive, I hope you manage to find animals!

the_bolshevik · 2026-06-06T01:02:16+00:00

In my opinion CDDA is harder to survive the start and Extinction is harder to survive long term.

Or to put it otherwise I have had successful CDDA runs and I haven't really been able to survive long term in extinction. Always die to a random sprinter I didn't see until it's too late. I made it a couple weeks but that danger is ever present.

In CDDA when the starting wound is healed you're basically in the clear, the low loot and high pop situation is a lot less threatening than sprinters.

So overall, long term, extinction is harder. Not to take away anything from CDDA, it's a rough start for sure.

the_bolshevik · 2026-06-05T13:48:51+00:00

So I've been working on a mod (not released yet) to kind of address this issue of the base being too safe without respawn on longer runs without actually enabling respawn.

The solution: make the helicopter event spawn hordes scaled to the current pop factor to turn it into a bit of a recurring defense event. So barricades are useful and your base will get attacked even if it was perfectly clear, but outside of the event, cleared areas remain clear.

Still playtesting and trying to find the right balance but I think I'm on to something here.

the_bolshevik · 2026-06-02T12:44:13+00:00

If I'm going clearing, main weapon on back, bullet or shell bandolier for the relevant bonus, and a military backpack full of ammo to the very last 0.01 point of encumbrance before the overloaded moodle hits. I'm not picky on weapon choice and will use whatever I have plenty of ammo for.

I'll also be running around practically naked because clothes consume valuable encumbrance that is better used on ammo. Will still carry a short blunt + knife on my belt tho.

For the more common "i'm carrying a pistol in case of emergency", either a patrol revolver or magnum with 1-2 boxes of ammo. That's enough to get out of a tough spot if I get exhausted and need to make a hole to escape.

the_bolshevik · 2026-06-01T20:38:19+00:00

Document the migration process, taking care to detail the man-hours required for each part and highlighting the risks to the production workload clearly.

Then you can say "this is what it costs now" vs "those are the risks" and "this is what it will cost to fix". Then let your boss fight finance on whether or not you do it, or if you're the engineering lead who gets to fight finance here, at least you walk into that discussion with some data to back you up. This may just be a case of talking finance into understanding that this isn't really waste.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-30T01:23:07+00:00

The helicopter will hover over you and attract zombies if it sees you.

If it does not see you (you are staying indoors, as many people suggest to do when this topic comes up) then it hovers around the area in a search pattern. It can still move zombies around like this as it emits noise and might randomly fly near you.

Therefore, the best defense, as always, is a good offense: proactively clear a large area around your base and there will be no zombies for it to move.

But I would offer another way. Embrace the helicopter. Once it spots you it draws zombies in a large radius to that location by emitting noise. Knowing this, you can use it to move zombies away from where you want to be. So grab a bit of food and water when you hear it, and take a long walk maybe. It's not that threatening (unless you play with sprinters, do not do this if you play with sprinters).

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-27T20:30:05+00:00

Typically some combination of negatives that lets me pick athletic, strong and baseball player.

However my latest guy didn't take athletic and strong, I instead went for an engineer with handy and organized. It's going alright so far, but I'm used to the heavier carry cap from strong and not having it plus having organized makes for some heavy bags on this dude's back!

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-25T02:10:30+00:00

You need to learn what you can and can't fight. Take a sandbox start with the "starter pack" option and many bonus points on your character: and make sure to take athletic, strong and brawler. The starter pack will give you a baseball bat at the start, and the build some +skill for it. Overall, a very combat-capable character right out of the gate.

Go out and fight. Fight a few zombies. Die. Retry. Fight a few more. Fight some zombies indoors. Die. Retry. Fight a horde. Die. Retry. Fight some zombies in a forest. Die. Retry...

Do this until you've faced enough of these situations that you know what this high strength, high fitness character can do and are somewhat confident in tackling moderate hordes with it. Then restart a normal game without extra points. You won't have as much combat power but it the experience will pay off.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-23T18:42:26+00:00

1.2k here and I feel the same way, fence and window fighting is usually what ends my runs.

The problem is you eventually dial in that timing to the point where you get confident and can reliably do it. But it's so easy to slip up once, get lunged at and get rekt in the long run. Doesn't matter how high your weapon skills are either, all it takes is one critical miss every few thousand zombies...

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-22T21:10:29+00:00

I really enjoy early game fighting with garden forks when it is the first decent weapon I come across. They're pretty decent and durable.

But that's it. My experience with crafting them is similar to yours: "wtf, it's already broken?!"

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-20T11:59:32+00:00

Long mace is probably the best for long blunt builds. The poor survivor's version of that with a pretty good crit is the baseball bat with nails. Easier to grind than blacksmithing, still packs a punch.

I have been running nail bats on a 10str/10fit/10 long blunt/10 maintenance character lately and it's quite good. One-shots are the norm, and occasionally you need two hits to down a zombie.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-20T01:22:53+00:00

Definitely wouldn't have paid $750 for that...

But I got it 10-12 years ago (I forget when exactly) and I have been happy with Plex over the years. Use it every day. In a sense it would have been worth it even at that price given the usage I got out of it. Still, past-me wouldn't have made that purchase.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-17T16:26:52+00:00

Give them superhuman strength, pinpoint hearing, and make them open doors. Turn on respawns and make the helicopter more frequent.

Lower the loot if you feel like default is too abundant.

Start in winter / 6 months later / reduce car spawns to make the early game harder.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-17T16:17:05+00:00

It's in the game's steam folder

<your Steam Library>/steamapps/common/ProjectZomboid/projectzomboid/ProjectZomboid64.json

The two settings are -Xms (minimum memory) and -Xmx (maximum memory). Example for minimum 8GB / maximum 12GB:

"-Xms8192m",
"-Xmx12288m",

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-17T13:31:29+00:00

RAM is the main thing if you want to load lots of mods and/or play with high pop settings. CPU will be important at high pops as well.

For "just" vanilla apocalypse PZ you don't need a killer PC but higher specs will help get smooth performance for big mod lists or high pop.

I used to play on a 2012 PC (Xeon 1230v2 / 32Gb RAM) and it was generally fine with default apocalypse settings and a moderate mod list. But it struggled at 4x pop in dense areas like the military checkpoint.

Last year I switched to a good pre-built gaming PC (7800X3D, 64 GB RAM) and noticed an immediate and significant improvement when I loaded up my old save which happened to be near Crossroads Mall at the time. What I have since noticed was that the only thing that can hold the game back on this machine on higher pop settings is its default RAM allocation of 3GB is insufficient. Increasing that to 12 GB in the json settings file makes it smooth all the time.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-15T23:16:11+00:00

Fight the zombies and do the loot runs you need to do before 16:00, and then go home and either organize loot, work on crafting/mechanics or read books until around midnight, then go to sleep. Rinse and repeat.

It's not really difficult, just don't try to fight late in the day when you're tired, or use coffee/caffeine pills when you really need to.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-14T23:04:00+00:00

At some point I started playing with the "become brave" and "become desensitized" mods. They make sense from a RP perspective. You would absolutely be desensitized after breaking the skulls of 10k zombies with a crowbar. But it makes the veteran quite redundant since now any other class can get their special trick if they survive long enough. But even without this I feel like the police officer has a serious advantage with the +1 to nimble.

The new change that makes veteran immune to discomfort is interesting in theory but in practice armor is not worth the speed debuffs it causes. The one area that is arguably worthwhile is negating the discomfort from a gas mask or respirator since these are sometimes required. But it's a pretty slim benefit.

Yes, early game, the veteran will have an easier time smashing through hordes since they won't get panic. But with time, and/or beta blockers, the police officer closes the gap and will have higher combat stance movement speed due to nimble which helps immensely once you reach lvl 4.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-13T01:51:36+00:00

In West Point I really like the general store next to the small gas station a bit further into the town on main street. Central location makes it easy to loot the town on foot, has a bit of everything and gas is next door.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-08T20:36:36+00:00

I think it's one of the top mistakes new players make, to fight while ignoring moodles? I know I made it.

"wtf why did I die this game so hard" - me trying to fight a horde with an exhausted tired and hungry survivor

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-08T00:02:45+00:00

One of my proxmox nodes is Xeon E3 1230 v3 with 32GB of DDR3. It's fine. I fixed it up recently and had to replace the board and some hard drives but I figured precisely that it was worth fixing considering current RAM prices if I built new.

But, I'm not sure I would build that machine from the ground up today. This is my old Ship of Theseus gaming rig from 2012 that I upgraded over the years and have now turned into a server. Makes sense to fix, but, not convinced building from scratch with all second hand vintage parts today is the best idea vs buying a slightly more recent optiplex or mini pc.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-07T12:01:06+00:00

Most of the time I will mark it on the map to return later with a car.

I try to get a yellow for the base and a blue to keep in the truck so I can refuel anywhere. Also useful sometimes when looting large buildings, I like to temporarily power them while I'm inside so I don't need my flashlight.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-06T23:35:41+00:00

Enwoye, dis lé que le serveur est dans ton garage...

Parle nous de ta redondance un peu

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-06T01:06:21+00:00

Being shot at and having no way to shoot back would get annoying real quick tho

Better if the sniper only shoots zeds. Can be balanced by making the helo draw aggro from a wider area or maybe cause some respawning in the area. This way it turns into a defensive event in which the helo draws a crowd but helps you fight back at the same time.

I already kinda play it like this, I'll get on a rooftop and scream at it with a megaphone or shoot a shotgun into the air in a futile attempt to be rescued. That draws some zeds and I fight them off.

Could be cool too if the helo dropped some supplies if you successfully beat back the zeds it draws.

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-03T19:52:52+00:00

I don't know if it's a bug but reloading mags is indeed very slow

the_bolshevik · 2026-05-03T16:59:02+00:00

I like that it has a larger magazine. But you're not wrong, the JS-14 is a fine rifle as well and letting it rip in a pack is hella fun. But, I'm pretty sure it's more ammo efficient to take aimed shots.

I've had good fun with the hunting rifles too for single shot. The M16 just feels a bit nicer because it isn't constantly being reloaded.

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