Project Zomboid

Project Zomboid

The lack of explanation in this game is infuriating.
Ok, I'll get this out the way now.

I AM A NOOB.

I'm new to the game, I LIKE the game, It's a challenge, decisions to be made, weighing up the pro's and cons, running the line between too risky, and just risky enough.

But for the LOVE of sanity, can I PLEASE at least have a medical rundown of the last 24 hours after I die so I know what it was that bloody killed me.

Yes, I just died. after 3 days. The water had JUST got turned off.

I had NEVER gotten a scratch, or any other injury, I was EXTREMELY careful about that, Had sterilised bandages on HAND if anything did happen (BTW, that took me 3 actual days to figure out how to make those...seems obvious now, wasn't then)

The only moodlets I had was...

Rather tired (Was trying to hold out till about 10pm to get a decent sleep)
Depressed (Was watching T'V every 6 hours)
Bored (Was dealing with)

Went to bed, then suddenly...

Feeling queesy
Fever
Health dropped like a stone and I died...

like...WHAT

What actually killed me, what did I do wrong.

only thing I could possibly think of was food poisoning, (I ate two bits of burnt food) But that aint never killed anyone before.

So what killed me?
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Showing 1-8 of 8 comments
NeonAtari Apr 24, 2022 @ 8:42am 
food poisoning for sure i ate some berries and died like that once all u can do is laugh
Shady Allie Apr 24, 2022 @ 9:10am 
Originally posted by The Civillian:

....(I ate two bits of burnt food)...

So what killed me?

Likely it was the burnt food.
Calico-Jack Apr 24, 2022 @ 9:17am 
Originally posted by The Civillian:
Ok, I'll get this out the way now.


Rather tired (Was trying to hold out till about 10pm to get a decent sleep)
Depressed (Was watching T'V every 6 hours)
Bored (Was dealing with)

Went to bed, then suddenly...

Feeling queesy
Fever
Health dropped like a stone and I died...

like...WHAT

What actually killed me, what did I do wrong.

only thing I could possibly think of was food poisoning, (I ate two bits of burnt food) But that aint never killed anyone before.

So what killed me?

Queasy shows up in various symptoms, my guess would be you weren't feeling tired because of fatigue but that your character was actually ill as you also had Fever and were depressed.

What killed you was not holing up somewhere when you started feeling sick.

Where things can become confusing is when other symptoms gradually appear, but the order they show up is important.

High temperature shows up by itself when caused by simply being exposed to too much heat and will progress through:

Unpleasantly Hot -> Overheated > Sunstruck -> Hyperthermic

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Moodles#Hyperthermia
And can be cured very quickly by removing clothing layers and or wetting your clothes.

In your case it was a symptom of Sick which progresses like this:

Queasy -> Nauseous -> Sick -> Fever

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Moodles#Sick

and will start showing the High Temperature icon from Sick onwards. Fever being the last stage has a high chance of being fatal fatal.

Hanging around corpse flies can make you queasy as can frequently eating burned food.

The game will give you more information if you level First Aid, At low levels your character won't be able to read the symptoms that you can see in the diagnosis UI - hence why you died with no idea how or what caused your death - the game told you what your character knew based on their First Aid knowledge.

How you treat the symptoms depends on what illness you have - food poisoning from eating raw, rotten or burnt food is cured by foraging for Lemon Grass, eating lightly and keeping your hydration up.

What you had is best treated with having a safe place with a good quality bed and sleeping as much as possible (Sleeping Tablets help if you can find them) or resting. A good choice for a bolt hole is in a building with bedrooms on an upper floor with multiple doors between you and the outside.

Fatiguing your character will worsen things so make sure to rest and sleep as much as possible - if you can't sleep sitting on the floor near a good bed and "Rest"ing will help.
Both food poisoning and corpse fly based sickness will ravage your health and take a while to recover from, make sure to pay attention to "Fatigue" or "Tiredness" icons and expect to be able to do less for a few days.

Zombification has similar symptoms to what you had except it starts with a persistent High Temperature that you can't lower then progresses:

Rapid Temperature rise -> 1 - 4 hours: Anxiety -> 5 - 12 hours: Queasy, + slight health loss -> 13 - 24 hours Nauseous, Pain, Fear, increasing health loss -> 25 - 48 hours: Sick, Pain, Panic, Severe Injury, severe health loss -> 49 - 71 hours Fever, more rapid Terminal damage -> 72 hours Death, Zombified
Last edited by Calico-Jack; Apr 24, 2022 @ 9:56am
njs Apr 24, 2022 @ 9:20am 
If you took weak stomach and/or prone to illness, burnt food can kill you fast. Never worth eating it.
Greb Apr 24, 2022 @ 9:52am 
If you're using the Weak Stomach trait because someone told you it was basically free points (which it more or less is) then you can stomach eating a few pieces of rotten or uncooked food, but not more than two pieces of burnt food. It's extremely lethal for some reason.

You have a stat that goes from 0.000 to 1.000 in regards to poisoning, when you consume bad foods you'll slowly start increasing that stat, if it goes beyond a certain threshold (lets say 0.500) then you'll begin taking health damage, which ramps up in severity as your poisoning level increases. Your poisoning level decreases naturally over time and can also be removed in chunks with lemongrass, if you have any.

Even with a Weak Stomach, a single piece of uncooked, rotten and burned food (ordered by how much poisoning they'll give you) won't kill you, but it will lower your health a bit while your body fights off the poisoning - if you eat multiple bad food items, especially burnt food, the poisoning build up will be double and ramp up so quickly your body won't even be able to fight it off, and you'll require lemongrass to survive. Since you don't immediately begin taking health damage between 0.000 and say 0.499 (these numbers are just estimates) you won't notice you're in danger other than a "harmless" moodle, so you go sleep and then die before you even realise what's happening since it goes by so fast.

Also applies to tainted water - if it's in a container (rain water barrel, bucket, bottle etc) then it's extremely lethal, but if you're drinking from a river or pond it's survivable if you're healthy, but again it should only be relied on as a last resort over simply filling a container and then purifying it by boiling it etc.

Basically, don't eat any more than one piece of "dangerous" food at any one time. You will suffer, and probably die.

tl;dr - Well Done Steaks claim another victim :evilhero:
Last edited by Greb; Apr 24, 2022 @ 9:55am
The Civillian Apr 24, 2022 @ 1:00pm 
Originally posted by njs:
If you took weak stomach and/or prone to illness, burnt food can kill you fast. Never worth eating it.


I did take this trait. SO I guess it's a lesson learnt.

Never realised food poisoning could kill you that fast. also never heard of someone DYING due to eaten slightly burnt food. Everyone stop eating toast XD

Thanks to the other comments who went into depth.

Yes it was two burnt sausages (That shouldnt have burnt as I turned the oven off, but oh well)

Onto the next life
njs Apr 24, 2022 @ 1:07pm 
Originally posted by The Civillian:
Originally posted by njs:
If you took weak stomach and/or prone to illness, burnt food can kill you fast. Never worth eating it.


I did take this trait. SO I guess it's a lesson learnt.

Never realised food poisoning could kill you that fast. also never heard of someone DYING due to eaten slightly burnt food. Everyone stop eating toast XD

Thanks to the other comments who went into depth.

Yes it was two burnt sausages (That shouldnt have burnt as I turned the oven off, but oh well)

Onto the next life
Yeah the rate at which food poisoning kills you is quite unrealistic. Diseases and illness in general needs a rework IMO.

Food still cooks after the oven is turned off because it's still hot btw, so make sure to turn your oven off earlier.
Last edited by njs; Apr 24, 2022 @ 1:07pm
JAspie Apr 24, 2022 @ 1:23pm 
Too much carbon in your system can definately make sick regardless of having an iron gut, and having a weak stomach adds to the lethality.

Imagine having thin tissue and you add something that really stirs up your stomach acid and makes it go ballistic and explosive, ruptures your stomach, and killing you within minutes due to the comcentrated acids spreading to all vital parts of your body.
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Date Posted: Apr 24, 2022 @ 8:27am
Posts: 8