Maxing out Zombies

[chaleur]

TL;DR: What's your process?

This game is really fun, but I have never finished it. I've come back to it a few times but I always get to the point of trying to max out my zombies, and I find it incredibly confusing. I can max out each organ and put them in, but because it's not just an additive process I find it super easy to lose track of what I already did.

So anyone got a really good process? How do you avoid losing track?

[EVIL Shenanigans]

Sorta depends ... do you have the late-game perk Cultist? ... have you unlocked the Anatomy perks (which prevent 'Surgeon Mistakes')? ... do you have the BSS DLC and completed it's storyline?

Regarding the former two, I wouldn't really attempt maxing out corpses or zombies without these. It can be done, it can just get complicated, and here we are trying to simplify it. With that said, I'd recommend just splitting the process into steps:
First, collect at least 1x 3W of each Important Part (IPs) and store them in a separate container.
Second, prep a corpse via embalming (Lye, Glue, Silver, Gold). It's easier to build 4 embalming tables in a series, to not lose your place / miss an injection.
Third, autopsy, removing the Blood and Fat, then swapping any necessary IPs. I might even suggest building two autopsy tables; one for incoming corpses, one for outgoing zombies.

If you have BSS, it's arguably more streamlined (if also a bit more involved) ... after embalming, just strip the corpse and fill it back up with the upgraded body parts.

[Dosbilliam, Boring but Practical]

Thankfully Steam has a Guide section: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2837430236&searchtext=26

[chaleur]

I am aware of that guide, but I have never been able to successfully execute it despite multiple attempts. I think because I don't understand the fundamentals.

For example -- if I have a corpse with five white skulls, and I do a gold injection which does:

Gold Injection : -2R, +2W.

(1) What would you expect the result to be? Seven white skulls?
(2) If I then insert an organ with 2 red skulls, would the corpse have two red skulls and seven white skulls or would the -2R still be applied?
(3) If the corpse then has two red skulls and seven white skulls and i do a second gold injection, would the red skulls go away, or did I ruin that possibility by doing the injection with no red skulls?
(4) If I then remove all the organs and start from scratch, does it still have a memory somehow that it had a gold injection that I can't tell in any way?

That's why I'm asking for process, because it seems like the system is lossy (you lose the information about whether you did the gold injection or not) and I can't debug it when I do something wrong.

EVIL Shenanigans I will try your system, it could be helpful.

[EVIL Shenanigans]

1) Specifically regarding injections that remove skulls, the corpse needs to have available (at least temporarily) any skulls an injection would remove. So, regarding a silver injection, the corpse would need to have at least 1 red skull, or at least 2 red skulls in regards to a gold injection. But, assuming your corpse was 2r/5w, yes - after a gold injection, it would then be 0r/7w.
2) Yes, a 0r/7w corpse would likely become a 2r/7w if you added a 2r body part. However, you may encounter a corpse which exhibits a hidden negative-value 'credit'. For example, if the corpse was originally 0r/3w, and you then removed the blood and fat, the corpse would effectively be -2r/5w ... but you wouldn't see that -2r. So, if you were to *then* add a 2r body part, you wouldn't notice a difference, as that credit would be utilized; 0r/5w.
3) The game prevents you from performing more than one injection of the same type on a single corpse. But, hypothetically, a 2r/7w would indeed become a 0r/9w corpse after a gold injection.
4) Embalming impacts the corpse 'item' itself ... so, if you have a corpse that has had only a gold injection performed on it, and you removed all the parts, you'd still see the 2w, but you're correct in that you wouldn't see the -2r ... but, that 'credit' is still there, similar to my example above.

Good questions...

[LyaranTirel]

I think it depends if you have the soul DLC or not. With the sould DLC you can max out each part and them, after having one of each organ max out, always remembering to have at least one of the organs with black skulls for the embalsement, you empty a corpse and fill it back in with the +3 white skull organs and 1 with +3 white skulls and +2 black skulls. Them you embalse it to get the +5 last white skulls. that's how you get the 26 white skulls zombie.

Other than that, I think it's impossible to get a full +3 white skull +0 black skull organ naturally, but you can always keep the +2 white/+0 black on shelves and to the same process to a less eficient one