Don't understand inventory weight

[Paulo2400]

Sorry, new player. I have a school bag on my back and a garbage bag in my hand. I try to put as many inventory items into my school bag and garbage bag. But I still get overencumbered all the time. I don't understand the inventory weight system. Can someone explain please?

[Eightball]

Do you feel the difference IRL between running around with a full backpack or empty one? :P I don't know what needs explained, lol.


Ok, ok, jokes aside, the answer you are looking for is the stats on the bag. You need to read those.

[The early worm deserves the bird]

https://www.reddit.com/r/projectzomboid/comments/wqm9ya/how_do_bags_work/

[Nordil(Hun)]

Undress character and place clothes on ground, yes even the shoes.
Place down garbage bag on ground.
Place down school bag on ground.
Place down every item on character. Even weapons on back, or on belt slots.

1. Pick up 2 items you wish to store in the school bag.
2. Check how much your character is carrying now.
3. Place these 2 items in the school bag.
4. Check School bag's weight.
5. Pick up school bag. And place on your back.
6. Check how much your character is carrying now.
7. Substract of the weight the school bags weight from the weight your character is carrying. This is the reduced weight of those two items.
8. Now do the math. Reduced Items/(Item 1 normal weight+item 2 normal weight)= Certain percentage.
9. What do you know this certain percentage is visible on the school bag!

That is the figure out yourself how things works method.

[Beltneck]

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Bags

[★Rainmaker★]

Garbage bags are teeeerrible as handheld bags with loot because they only have an Encumbrance Reduction of what, 10% was it?

Find duffel bags or just another school bag and use them in your off-hand when looting some extra stuff. They reduce the encumbrance of whatever's inside by a lot more than a garbage bag.

[Coldsteel]

Bags reduce encumberance of items in them by certain % as shown in the stats (the tooltip doesn't say it's in % though). If reduced encumberance is still too much, you get overencumbered. With low strength and a large backpack it's easy to get overencumbered without even filling up the whole thing.

[Syx Hundred]

You mainly just get over-encumbered when carrying a garbage bag full of items, since garbage bags cant be equipped on your back, but I recommend using only garbage bags to carry stuff temporarily, (I.E when looting something specific like food or tools).

It weighs far less when carried in your secondary hand. "Equip Secondary". It weighs much more when inside your inventory un-equipped.
You'll notice when dropping it you are no longer encumbered.

If anything, carry another school bag in your hand instead.
Additionally, just carry a bag in your hand temporarily and use it solely to group items together/easier transport to not hold yourself down with weigh when you need to fight or preserve stamina, frequently drop it and use it as a checkpoint of your items until you get a car/find somewhere to put your items.

Then you can throw the extra bag somewhere like a car seat, trunk or cupboard/container.

Better bags have better weight reduction and capacities. Don't forget to look at the top right of that bag's container window and you can see it's carry limit, additionally, hovering over it with your mouse can tell you the bags total weight.

You can also rename bags - (Ex. Bag of snacks, Garbage bag of school supplies, anything)

Also, it's okay to be over-encumbered. Just be sure to manage your stamina frequently, sit and rest after carrying alot. Don't try to fight while carrying a bunch of items, or just drop the extra bag before you do.

[Blackkennedy]

bags just reduce the encumbrance you get. they don't magically make your character able to carry more. eventually the encumbrance will get to the limit and you will be over encumbered. there is a stat on the bags and backpacks, called encumbrance reduction. this is the % it will remove from items placed in your bag inventory. the greater the reduction the more you can carry as this percentage will reduce the strain on the character. and allow you to carry more. garbage bags with 23 slots of storage have like 10 percent reduction i think meanwhile tote bags with 15 slots of space has 50% reduction for example. so you would be able to carry more without penalty with two tote bags while two garbage bags would encumber you too much even though totes have less storage space.

[Armagenesis]

Originally posted by Beltneck:

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Bags

Not even linking the inventory page itself. Smh my head.

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Inventory

[Paulo2400]

Thanks guys! I guess I should have found the answer myself in the wiki, but I didn't exactly know what to look for. Your replies have helped a lot in understanding how weight works in PZ and how realistic PZ actually is.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Originally posted by Beltneck:

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Bags

Not even linking the inventory page itself. Smh my head.

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Inventory

Dont act like you're new, is classic Beltneck!:)

[8Squirrels]

For some players, finding a really good bag tends to be the primary goal of the first few weeks. Especially the military/large backpack which has excellent capacity and weight reduction. The ultimate goal being to LOOT LOOT LOOT! lmao

[Beltneck]

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Originally posted by Beltneck:

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Bags

Not even linking the inventory page itself. Smh my head.

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Inventory

OP needed to know about encumbrance reduction. Folks were giving half baked answers about how it works. The bags page explains it perfectly.

What exactly is the problem? shaking my smh.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by Beltneck:

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Not even linking the inventory page itself. Smh my head.

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Inventory

OP needed to know about encumbrance reduction. Folks were giving half baked answers about how it works. The bags page explains it perfectly.

What exactly is the problem? shaking my smh.

Ship's medium hull?

[Armagenesis]

Originally posted by Beltneck:

Originally posted by Armagenesis:

Not even linking the inventory page itself. Smh my head.

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Inventory

OP needed to know about encumbrance reduction. Folks were giving half baked answers about how it works. The bags page explains it perfectly.

What exactly is the problem? shaking my smh.

Because you need to explain what encumbrance is first? OP doesn't seem to understand the overall encumbrance system, which briefly explained in the inventory page.

Smh my smh.