What are your ideal sandbox settings?

[Æɴɪsᴏ]

Trying to get a few ideas for a new run!

[BanDHMO]

I really like randomizing zombie toughness, so you can never tell how hard or easy any one of them will be to beat.

Another thing I always do is increase abundance of some loot categories, especially guns and ammo. I don't use them much, but it still kills realism for me otherwise. US has more guns than people, and the game would have you believe you're not going to find one after checking 20 houses? Ammo is sold by the box and many, let's say 'enthusiasts', out there hoard thousands of rounds, but you'd need to loot the whole town to find that much in the game.

[Semi Green]

i play with the england setting so guns and ammo are rare.

[Æɴɪsᴏ]

Originally posted by Semi Green:

i play with the england setting so guns and ammo are rare.

based.

[Æɴɪsᴏ]

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

I really like randomizing zombie toughness, so you can never tell how hard or easy any one of them will be to beat.

Another thing I always do is increase abundance of some loot categories, especially guns and ammo. I don't use them much, but it still kills realism for me otherwise. US has more guns than people, and the game would have you believe you're not going to find one after checking 20 houses? Ammo is sold by the box and many, let's say 'enthusiasts', out there hoard thousands of rounds, but you'd need to loot the whole town to find that much in the game.

I honestly think that random zombie toughness can be really interesting! Do you usually play around with random sprinters in your regular runs as well?

[SuperStranger]

Normal zombies
Insane population
Group gathering ZERO (They will create hordes in a natural way)
Nutrition OFF

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by Luna ☾:

I honestly think that random zombie toughness can be really interesting! Do you usually play around with random sprinters in your regular runs as well?

Too risky for my tastes and for my current skill level. I like very long games with one character and a chance of sprinters means RNG can put you in a position you can't get out of no matter how careful you are.

Toughness RNG won't kill you, since you can always outrun them, but it does make for "hah, I can take these two... wait... oh ♥♥♥♥, oh ♥♥♥♥, run" situations.

[BanDHMO]

The other thing I've tried, but put aside before getting to winter is Temperature "Very Cold". Surviving in KY is one thing, surviving in Alaska will be another.

[Rubio DarkYeti]

I also try and cause Winter much sooner than normal. I find battling the cold and zombies to be a very interesting gameplay experience.

[martindirt]

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

The other thing I've tried, but put aside before getting to winter is Temperature "Very Cold". Surviving in KY is one thing, surviving in Alaska will be another.

If you like the winter atmosphere, you should try this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2686791433
Without the extremities of the "Cryogenic winter" mod.

[red66]

I play what i call - Alaska Hard

it is impossibly hard.
First I give myself a chance with walkers
But all loot is insanely rare. fuel is insanely rare. fuel consumption is double. cars are in terrible state.
it is October start, rain and freezing, and i don't pick the 'ignore weather' trait.
I do have a lot of map mods on and outdoors-man type mods on also ie hunting etc.

i do setup the map to start of 0.5 zombies, reaching the peak at day 7. peak is 4.0 which is double the amount of z's

I start in one of the cities. with the aim to get to the other city. ie Raven creek to Louisville.
My rule are that i can not visit towns i have setup bases in recent playthroughs also with the rule of i can not stay in under one roof for more than 7 days only to recover from a sprain etc. (so no base building)

You can drive it, but fuel is hard to come by, you will eventually run out of fuel and have to walk and camp it out. with the weather and double amount of z's you will find it a challange.

[CrY Senpai]

Whatever you guys choose, let me know! I'm looking people to play Project Zomboid with
^-^

[pzhda'tan]

Mixed initial infection settings with six months later. Start with very low pop and gradually zombie count goes sky high. Gives me the chill when cities I haven't visited are crawling with the dead, and with environmental attacks and fast erosion, all the cities are overrun.

[razab]

My settings are as in vanilla apocalypse with the following exceptions:

- 2 hours a day
- no helicopter
- intial condition of cars and amount of gas set to normal
- locked cars frequency changed to sometimes, also increased chance for car alarms (don't remember my exact setting here)
- zombies can trigger house alarms
- farming speed to very slow
- infection time set to 0-12 hours
- reanimation time set to 0-12 hours (or at least not to "immediate", don't remember the exact time...)

[Rubio DarkYeti]

My ideal settings are geared towards making zombies and hunger, thirst, temperature, and sanity all an equal challenge.

Nature set to Very Cold and Very Rainy
All loot types set to Extremely Rare, except for canned and regular food, which are both set to Insanely Rare
All Meta events set to Sometimes
Zombies set to Shamblers, low population, and weaker in both health and damage
Player injury severity set to Low
and finally, Corpse Health Effect set to high

This makes it so that you have to struggle in all aspects of the game, rather than zombies killing you 90% of the time. I've found that the other systems of the game are much more enjoyable when they aren't just an afterthought, because your main issue is the zombies; these settings force you to learn and adapt to not just zombies, but hunger, temperature, thirst, and your own sanity.

[Øc]

Try sprinters for funzies