Items to always carry

Here's a list of items you must always carry

Introduction

Ill keep this one short and simple, it is a list of essentials that you should carry always. i'll add my reasoning why for each item on this list, if that makes sense to you keep it.

Items

1. Water Bottles

usually 2x water bottles are enough(in inventory) but you can throw two extra in your backpack if you chose the thirsty trait.

2. Non-Perishable Food

It's not a problem if you carry perishables but the idea is so that it doesn't rot and make you sick. This is backup food, i'd suggest 2-3 cans bags of chips( a lot of folks commented, figured i should change it) . As for consumption, eat from the households you loot so that this one can be for backup purposes.

Note : No you're not going to die due to hunger, mostly when the hunger moodle appears it affects your ability to carry weight which can be annoying for that i mostly suggest carrying something like this but it's upto you if you don't.

3. Ripped Sheets/Bandages

It's much better if you have bandages around or a bunch of ripped sheet instead of ripping off your red heart boxers in case of emergency. 4x-5x should be good enough to carry around.

4. Coffee

This one could be the reason you survived a death. When your character becomes drowsy, the debuffs are significant. That's why most guides will recommend you not to stay longer if you get drowsy cause that's a ticket to new character. But sometimes you don't have option to backout and you'll often find yourself in this situation. The bottom line if you find coffee, take it. I'd advise to carry 2x units.

Note: Consuming coffee increases your character's rate of thirst, figured i'd mention this.

5. Hammer and Saw

This one's pretty standard stuff when it comes to carpentry and can also be used as a weapon.

Note: Club hammer can't be used to drive nails

6. Screwdriver

Again standard stuff for electrical and mechanics.

7. Weapons

I won't be specific about this so carry two units of your favourite weapon type, more if it breaks frequently.

8. Lighter

Always comes handy for lighting up smokes, molotovs and sometimes can be used as light source(but flashlights are much better).

9. Flash Light

You won't always have a light source, specially after electricity shuts down and you are looting around during night time. 2x batteries for replacement. Btw it goes much better with one handed weapons.

10. Can Opener

Imagine sitting on a pile of can food and no way to open it. It's something we often forget and makes us question our plans for rest of the day.

11. Lemongrass

Out of a billion ways to die, poison is the worst way to go. There's a bunch of ways such as eating rotten food, wild berries or just sleeping around a pile of ded zeds or just drinking rainwater. Now there's only one way to survive that i.e. lemongrass. Only way to obtain is through foraging so it's better if you find it as soon as you can so that at least you have it when you need it the most instead of foraging while you are about to die.

12. Secondary Backpack

Another storage bag for secondary to haul loot items from point A to point B, even garbage bag is better than nothing.

13. Scissor

Mostly used for ripping leather clothes from what i can recall, which can be used for patching clothes in later stages of game. But it's light enough to carry around when you find one.

Note: Scissors are mostly used at later stages when you start patching your clothing whenever you plan to do that with leather strips, i like to have em on me since it's not a big deal and one of a kind for it's use case. Do what you must.

14. Nails

i usually carry two boxes of nails with me most of the time, comes handy with doors, securing the place and getting sheet ropes up for escape.

Edited: After many hours of gameplay, i don't really enjoy short trips to my storage room each time im doing something. In this game you're gonna build a lot of stuff, will stay at places you don't want to and if each time you're making a trip to that nail box supply that's upto you.

15. WoodGlue/Duct tape

For early game try to only use wood glue for wood axes because you need to chop trees and it's rare to find wood axes. Mostly use em to repair my weapons if i'm desperate.

Edited: Here's a main reason why im a fan of wood glues, one being wood axes which spawn a lot less than your other axes(chops down trees much faster than your normal axes), so i like to repair em when i can. But why carry it?


Machete's, it's a rare weapon that you will find in-game. You'll love em, but since it's rare you will break more before you level up your long-blade category. Once a machete is at the minimum durability, attach it to a spear with duct tape. Once attached, repair your machete-spear and then reclaim your machete. Not only it resets the repair count on your machete but when it's machete-spear, its considered a wood type weapon so wood glues can be used which offer much better repair than anything else.

16. Fanny Pack

It's really helpful when it comes to organising items such as medicine, cigs, lighter, lemongrass, needle etc. If you find two then you can wear em both front and back.

Note: Someone suggested two fanny packs is not necessary but that's just my build, you can carry one if that's what suits you.

17. Beer

This one's specially for characters with claustrophobic trait in order for you to sleep at night, don't let them walls bend you into submission. Drink 1/4th only to get the same benefits and save some for future celebrations. Not only it helps to sleep but helps with pain, panic. Shoutout to lemdiaz29 for this wonderful suggestion.

Note: Don't mix sleeping pills and alcohol, one of the million ways to die.

Honourable Mentions

Usually throw these ones in the vehicle if you are gonna be travelling

Wrench(for vehicles)
Gas Can(for siphoning gas)

Add to favourites

Usually during the course of your run you'd often find yourself dropping a bunch of items, changing backpacks here and there and then again it becomes difficult to keep track of these items again and again. Make these items as favourties that way you can't drop em by mistake and be sure to have em when you need anything.

on a second note, another great use of favourite is when you unloading items you can just use transfer everything option from UI it makes sure that favourite items still stay in your backpack or inventory and rest everything is transferred. It saves you a hassle of selecting each loot item to transfer.

Conclusion

If you want you can be experimental with the this idea and add things/rules of your own. This is not the only way to be effective but one that i know.


Thank you for reading this guide, i'm open to feedback or if there's anything i missed. Please upvote so it can reach others as well. Keep grinding.

If anyone's wondering how much space it'll cover, again be experimental with this build you don't have to follow word to word if you like my reasoning behind it go ahead otherwise strip that item from the list. I tried to keep it more general for everyone.

Inventory:

All clothing slots are filled to maximum which also adds upto 2 unit of inventory space from what i know.


Backpack:

if you'd like to checkout my other guides:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2997471577
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2916478006
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3006109377
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3017428637

checkout my mods:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3030571779
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3011333569
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3019317764

[Desert_Ranger51]

Not even a Spiffo plush?

[Cirrus]

I personally always carry a cooking pot, its probably saved my more than my backup food has due to just the pure utility it provides when you carry a handaxe and can make a campfire.

[alphaBEE]

@Dbroussa, thanks for sharing that will have to try it out myself when I'm in game.

[Dbroussa]

regarding the beer tip, I actually did one better: you don't even need to drink 1/4th. You can hit "drink 1/4th" then hit "esc" or "escape" to cancel. This causes you to drink less than 1/4th, but at the same time also remove your panic.

[Uncle Ollie]

[it is not_Nolan]

[Shadow the Hedgehog]

all I carry is ammo, 5 cans of open food, 5 waters, a fire axe, M4A1, Shotgun, and 2 D-E's.

[fudgeyy.face]

you forgot the ice pack

[alphaBEE]

@Beltneck, this is for the looting run. For new camp there's a different variables at play and then stuff won't fit in your backpack. You'd prolly be talking in terms of trunk. Maybe you don't need food but i like to keep it on me during fights or anything or even to get temporary boost in storage space when transferring bags from looting spot to car or something( don't want to be slow or something being heavy). You can ofc walk the whole map without weapons but that's just a preference to how you play game, infact the best thing about project zomboid is you can play it however you want to. Love my axes and machetes so i like to keep glue and duct tape around. Ofc you don't need clothes, why would you have a layer of protection between zombies and you? What if you survive accidentally, where's the fun in that?

[steellll]

i play with common sense so i dont need a can opener