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Now, you must make it to a safer location, especially if you're in a highly dense area. Better hope you have high fitness for this. Lose the zombies in the woods and clear out a house in the outskirts of town.
It also helps to learn how to lose hordes. Combat is optinal and you can clear areas by luring them away. The helicopter event is consequently also non threatening once you know what you're doing. You don't need a car asap.
There's a few good places to establish a well-protected base in Rosewood: the lumber yard, and several houses, with high walls that almost completely the areas, which zombies cannot break, and have small entrances.
Watch some youtube videos about it, and it should help you out.
And that's your second mistake.
I guess you're wondering what's the first one ? Probably your spawn location. Are you playing in Rosewood by any chance ? It sounds like Rosewood to me. Then that's bad. Start in Muldraugh and, to give you an easier time, base yourself in the Gas station on the far west part of town. It's an excellent spot to learn how to cope with a new difficulty level.
Every car is in pretty bad condition and out of fuel ? That's normal. Especially in Rosewood. They are much more common in Muldraugh. I've learned that the hard way.
Finding good loot and weapons ? That's on you unfortunately. There's good loot and weapons in almost every city. Something is wrong with the way you're looting for sure. It shouldn't be hard to get your hands on a Frying pan or a Rolling Pin. Then, make your way up a Steel Pipe, Hammer or Kitchen Knife. These are very very common weapons.
"Getting established" is one of the hardest part of PZ to learn. You're tackling something difficult mate.
- The easy way --> You select any house that has a second floor with no broken doors / windows then hurry to put curtains on all windows and doors. Once you've done that, you've got your first safehouse. It's that easy to start. You can now relax in there and stockpile some useful gear that you simply can't carry around with you.
- The hard part --> You need to loot enough gear and supplies to make it to your preferred safehouse location. Depending on your spawn location and destination, this might be very difficult and takes a few days.
- The nuts crushing part --> Now that you've made it, you need to do everything else. Unfortunately for you, no one left the house fully stocked and barricaded. It's time to get cracking and gather everything you need to make it a suitable home. Oh wait, water and electricity just turned off, you're F*.
Dealing with Zs and hordes ? Yeah.... no shortcuts there. You can watch a few very very useful youtube video that will give you important clues as to how the game mechanics works which should make learning how to deal with those easier but it won't remove the time and effort you'll have to put in. Videos like :
Zombie Pathfinding: How To Lose Zombies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SPu-Ki3vPI
Zombie Migration Explained | Project Zomboid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hglrA6FrxOw&list=WL&index=12
Youtubers make it sounds so easy ! Yes, they do. Most of them know everything they need to do and everywhere they need to go from the get-go. So they spawn, secure 2 weapons, a water bottle if they're lucky and a bag of chips then proceed to cross half the map beelining to one of the many warehouses. There, they're guaranteed to find a Crowbar (advanced weapon) and some very useful gear. From there, they're mostly set. It's time to train their skills and become the doom guy. You might not have realized yet but on Survivor and Apocalypse, the first month or so is the hardest part of the game by far. Surviving a year in is easy in comparison. Surviving a very long time is mostly an exercise in tediousness. You need to play a certain way always, always, always, always and always making sure you never ever diverge from that playstyle because it's the safest way to play which maximize your chances of not getting infected while you're powerleveling your skills to create as large a gap as you can between you and the Zs to have that safety net. It's not really the way most casual wants to play nor are they capable of doing so for the most part. They'll never have the dedication as it require considerable skill which need to be learnt through blood and sweat. Which is why sandbox mode exist where you can tailor your experience to your skill level / taste.
Anyway, if you've made it this far in my post, I'll reward you with a step by step way to survive longer that should be easier for you.
1- Spawn in Muldraugh and hope you spawn in the gated community. It's a great place to spawn. If you're in the trailer park, you'll have to fight a bit more day 1 and might die. If this happen, doesn't matter, restart a new game and try again until you get the jist of it.
2- Create a survival package. One garbage bag filled with a little bit of food, one water bottle, as many weapons as you can meaning if you find 2 Roller Pin and 1 Frying pan you're carrying them all. Grab everything else that is immediately useful or very hard to find. You need to be very selective as to avoid carrying too much.
3- Fight your way to the aforementionned Gas station. Clear the station and the surrounding area. It's a huge parking lot with road on all sides. If you need to fight or flee you can always drop your garbage bag and come back later for it which is why you're putting all the not essential stuff in it. Also, never forget, you can outrun all Zs unless you add runners in your game while walking. That is the way to go. In the first month, you should sneak and walk. Almost never run. You start running once you're on your way to doom guy level where you don't care if you grab 20 Zs.
4- Curtains on all windows ASAP.
5- Time to go out scavenging to build your new base.
6- It's difficult... it requires a lot of map knowledge and knowing exactly how much time you will need to do your excursions but your goal for the first 2 weeks after day 1-3 that you used to make it to your ideal base location is to watch all the TV programs at 6 am, 12:00 and 18 pm. In between, you go loot and scavenge to build up your supplies of food, water and useful items. Also, you need to always be looking for a vehicle, a gas can and gas. A gas can and gas is the easy part. The vehicle is somewhat harder. Getting the key is the hard part because RNG so if you're not lucky you might have to bite the bullet. Worst case scenario, in those first 2 weeks, you can manage to get 1 skill level in electric and 2 in mechanic to hotwire something.
7- Helicopter day, you should have everything you need. Hop into your vehicle and drive around slowly. I'd suggest going on a highway trip out of town. Best way to go about it. Much less Zs and less risky to destroy your vehicle.
From there on.... it's just survival. If you've accomplished all that, you're well set to go on. Next step is usually planning for farming + either fishing or trapping. Carpentry llevel 4 (you should already have from the TV programs) will allow you to craft the first water collector which fixes your water issue. Finding a generator is a bonus which will unlock the gas station pump for you once electricity turn off. You'll be well set from there.
Obviously, there's so much more you should know but you'll have to read the forum, watch youtube video and check guides to keep improving.
PS :
I almost forgot, most people use the Project Zomboid Map Project :
https://map.projectzomboid.com/?#8233x11608x383
The thing is, if you don't know the map and exactly where to go to get the things you want you are at a severe disadvantage in a game which is already uncompromising and unforgiving to hell and back. Which mean the other way around is dying over and over and over and over again for maybe 5 to 20 characters or hours depending on your skill to learn the map first and then be knowledgeable enough to make your first serious attempt at surviving.
Which is why I suggest you do like everyone else that doesn't want to trudge slowly through that first learning experience full of muck and gore and use the online map to speed things up a little.
Woods don't "break Zs line of sight" the way you would expect it to work. The player get blinded by woods but Z's ignore that effect and can track you for a very long time through woods. I'm not saying it doesn't work, it does, it's just harder to learn how to use it.
God please no, it's a terrible place. The "slightly lower" Z count doesn't compensate at all for how rare cars are in Rosewood. You could do the entire town and simply not having the luck of finding both a car and it's key. Such a thing is much much rarer in Muldraught for maybe 10% more Zs as long as you avoid the upper part of town (the highway) where they're most concentrated.
Also, Muldraugh have several storehouses which are an automatic bingo as soon as you hit one you're geared up better than looting half of Rosewood. The only redeeming quality to Rosewood are it's bigger police stations for firearms and it's nice fire departement building for a huge base which, again, require experience to use well. Otherwise, it's nothing but an oversized house that will curse you with the boredom moodle.
True, pushing Z to the ground and stomping them works wonder but it is more difficult to use as a new player than pulling out a Frying Pan.
It doesn't merely help, it's the first skill that you learn that suddenly make you able to survive 2 weeks without dying. It's a huge part of the game that opens up the entire map.
Absolutely right but sneaking around is much harder, especially at level 0 stealth where you have a noise penalty of 120% which drop to 80% once you have at least skill level 1. The game is very punishing on stealth for characters that haven't taken stealth related traits during character creation. It is easier for a new player to just learn how to deal with 1-3 Zs and fight'em. As long as you don't grab too many at once, it's doable and relatively safe.
True yet.... it is, undeniably, the easiest way to deal with the vanilla helicopter event. The event is sadistic and the helicopter will know where you are no matter what. It wallhack you. So jumping into a car and driving around is a sure-way to survive. Other methods.... incur more risks. Again, from a new player perspective, securing a car within 2 weeks is the best way to go.
I roll a d4 for a random start and start in West Side with a random career fitness instructor. I start in the inn, loot it and find the giga mart is nearby. I'm careful not to aggro too many zombies. Baseball bat and car key found in a horizon. I shove-stomp zombies as I only have one bat which is saved for small groups of zombies. Mark the vehicles with keys on map. Find a gas can, siphon fuel from other vehicles for the car I want to use. Clear the giga mart, eat mayo and loot a schoolbag and seeds, grabbing food like chips and cereal. I place loot in my car, check car radios and find the emergency broadcast frequency.
The plan is to leave West Side as it's tough for a new character. First I need to top the car up. My estimate for fuel is off and car runs out of fuel approaching a gas station. I avoid zombies and head towards the gas station with a can. I fought a little trying to kill a zombie with a hiking bag but failed and ran. I walk most of the time to conserve energy, but run a lot in one go sometimes to shake zombies, being a fitness instructor is helpful here. There's poor condition car at the gas station to fuel up and gas cans to fill. I've grabbed a roadside tent earlier and set it in the gas station for the night. Zombie sounds, woke up with a small group of zombies on me, I was already in crouch/sneak(c) and crouch-ran out of the station, no injuries. Managed to get away in car 2, drove back to my first car which has many zombies nearby.
You need to know how to herd zombies when there's too many to fight, shout a lot, gather them and lead them away and then try to shake them. The thing to know is that aggro'd zombies have super sight range and will track you at great range so you have to try to break line of sight. I manage to herd zombies away from my cars, I kill a few remaining zombies and fuel up the first car. The plan is to reach Ekron but I drove to muldraugh as it was late. Shook off zombies as I exit my car, shook off zombies, cleared a home to stay for the night. I drove till I reached a roadblock with two police cars. I decided to stop and kill the few police zombies, grabbed some loot and gas from the police cars. The place seemed clear of zombies and I slept in a police car.
Reached Ekron gas station, gathered zombies and shook them off, cleared the gas station home to stay and collected fuel in cans and stored gas in a van at the station. Ekron is a very easy place with fairly few zombies and a few good places to loot.
If I were to mock you I'd say "cool story bro" but putting that aside it is, indeed, a cool story. The only problem I have with it is that you're doing what most well acclimated and experienced players do. They give good advice for experienced players, not so much for new players. Most of what you said won't be useful to the OP. It'll give him an idea of what to aim for in a month worth of training but other than that....
I mean, it's so obvious. You get your hands on a Baseball Bat quickly, you rush to get a guaranteed school bag from the school then you proceed to find a car and get it working. You're already thinking 12 steps ahead you knew you'd be driving to Ekron ASAP...... none of that will help the OP.
On top of it, while being a super cool story and a very nice day 0 nomadic playstyle which I'd love to try to emulate it's way too dangerous and difficult for a new player to hope for. OP's having issues surviving past day 3. I don't see him going on a roadtrip when he state in his opening post that he has yet to success to secure his very first car through multiple playthroughs.
There are answers to OP's issues in my playthrough description. OP complains about the lack of gas in cars, I talk about using a can to siphon fuel and grabbing fuel from the gas station. OP complains about the lack of decent weapons, I mention shoving and stomping zombies. OP complains about being chased down by zombies, I talk about herding. OP doesn't know what to do, I describe my thoughts and actions in a playthrough as an example.
I don't recommend going around aimlessly just to look for a car. Even if you get a car you still need a place to store the car, all the loots, as well as decent weapons to fight your way through the horde as they get attracted to the noise your car makes. The car shouldn't be a priority UNLESS you know where you are going.
When you want to lose them, walk to less populated areas, and use line of sight to lose them. Imagine zombies going forward indefinitely from the last point they say you. So just run crouched at that point (never standing up) changing your direction once they lose you.
You can also enter and exit houses, but make sure when you enter that it is safe and that you will have available other exit.
For weapons, always look for tool cabinets or sheds, not only kitchens. You can also forage in the woods and get branches and chipped stones for spears/axes.
At the start, never engage more than 2 zombies at the same time. Push one until ot falls, stand on its chest (it won't get up) and make the second fall too. Then kill the first ome stomping it, making sure that in the animation your foot connects with the zombie's head. Manage your moodlest, never fight sleepy our tired until you get the hang of the game.
For getting gas for cars, you need to siphon from other cars witha gas gan as it was said. Just bear in mind that gas usually appear in tool sheds or in cars trunks, and use the V key while the can is in your inventory and you are beside the car, if the option to get gas appears, it has gas, if not, move on.
Also, try to live in a house with good storage in the outskirts, so you do not deal with large hordes near your hpuse, and keep your surroundings safe.
Good luck.
Killed 63 zombie in my courtyard.
50 more next door.
By the time I move into the clinic I have kill over 121 zombies.
Only then I begin to care about the car, because it can help me to achieve another major goal - to secure the fresh food supply in the town, whether in the Gigamarts or Green's, by placing all of it into freezers as soon as possible. That objective, however, is actually not mandatory, as you usually can find enough food just for yourself in the houses.
The most important "skill" I believe to be necessary to survive early game is to know how to move slowly and patiently to avoid excess attention. Having no Sneaking skill makes you a sitting duck and associated perks do not really help much until you get some levels. You need to judge the situation and move around the area where zeds are less dense and only allow single zombies to get attracted to you, while the rest should just give you Sneaking exp. Once you get even a 1 Sneaking, you'd get a very noticeable boon to your ability to avoid zombies, and it snowballs from that.
Weapons like other items have dedicated spawning locations - garages, warehouses, shelf rooms in the houses. Some are very particular like Pipe Wrenches in the bathroom. If you prioritize these places and check every single one of them in every house, then you're bound to find a hammer, wrench or a pipe or two. If you only find knives and frying pans then you're only pay attention to the kinchens or never make it to the two-story houses with reliable set of tool spawn locations.
Also pay heed to houses that are boarded - those are survivor's houses and can store an ample supply of weapons, while zeds themselves may carry a good backpack item.