Speaking of meta events... This time around, Lia had issues during the helicopter event. All my windows had curtains or sheets obstructing the view, I was staying put in one room, and yet the helicopter would not leave me alone ; when it was gone, I went outside and it was Zombie Central out there, even though I had previously cleaned up the immediate base's surroundings. I spent the next day killing the Zeds. Very strange. I thought the helicopter was only reacting to spotting me visually -
- but now I wonder whether it can hear the oven and/or the TV (even though the first time it flew above me, there was no show on) ? I know Zeds react to sound, but maybe the helicopter does too. In any case it's a good thing I was able to clear the area a second time without dying, but close call.
This time, I decided to change my plan a bit with Lia. Instead of spawning in Riverside and getting my usual Lectrolux van, I spawned in Rosewood and looked for any vehicle on the abundant parking lots in the commercial area. I even found a trailer which largely improved the scavening situation ! On Day 3 I left Rosewood and drove North to Fallas Lake, and set up camp in the gas station again. And it truly seems to be a good spot to settle in so far, my runs there are on average better.
I'm split on this as a base spot. On the one hand, I don't like leaving generators out of my sight, so I prefer to set up a base at a gas station (this largely limits where to live !). The Fallas Lake one has the same advantage as the Echo Creek one, in that there's also a private source of natural water nearby, which helps for crops and fishing. BUT ! The Fallas Lake gas station is tiiiny, and as a loot goblin the time I spend playing Storage Tetris drives me a bit crazy.
My goal was to try and expand it by building, but I didn't get that far and in fact caught myself being kinda stuck because where the hell am I supposed to store my planks and nails if there's no way to store things ?!
But Fallas Lake also has a great advantage : there is A LOT to loot nearby, while Echo Creek doesn't have much beyond the auto shop factory and Ovo Farms.
So yeah, choices.
I did briefly consider the Rosewood gas station (I *think* there's only one, in the Northern part of town ?), the size is great, the location offers a lot of scavenging opportunities, and it has 4 pumps just like the Fallas Lake gas station. But I couldn't find easy access to any kind of pond or stream there ; although maybe there's something to the East, I couldn't tell, a horde was in the way and it was, like, Day 3. But the basement is a great feature the others don't have.
...Maybe there's a mod out there to dig up a pond ?
Oh speaking of mods, a few days ago I decided to install some non-UI related ones. Not many, just adding bikes with bags, more trailers, the ability to carry more bags at once, small stuff like that. So yeah, basically stuff to fill my pockets even more XD The bath one is also nice for mood improvement, as long as there's still running water.
There's no going back to vanilla ever again :P
MUST. GET. ALL. THE. LOOT.
Honestly I've been tempted to try a run with the zombies disabled, and just me trying to loot the entire map XD
(but for now I'm still learning too much in the game to start playing with parameters like that ; maybe later when I need a fresh challenge)
Speaking of learning, one thing I need to do some research on is : how the hell do you get away from base for more than 48hrs once the electricity is gone ? Is there a magical generator that can sustain my freezers at base for more than just overnight when I travel ? There's no way I can explore the map if my generators only have 2 days in them.
For Lia's run, I ended up having 3 generators, but that ended up being no help because, well, you can't add a timer to generators.
Or can you ?
Starting a new run.
Day 1, I'm in Rosewood looking for a ride...
...and see this purple truck next to the gas station. I repeat : THE TRUCK IS PURPLE.
Once I've gotten rid of the Zeds around it, I hope I find a key because come on, it's even the best shade of purple XD
If in the future you wonder what kind of purple I mean when I talk about the perfect purple, this is it.
The second Zed had a key !!! Oh this is SO happening.
Well... I got bitten. Goodbye purple van.
However ! I found out something VERY interesting.
The North Rosewood gas station ? It's NOT the only gas station in Rosewood ! There's another one near the South of the town, a bit less close to everything (though it's still a quick drive away from the fire station), but it's next to a bus station AND a lake ! I didn't have time to investigate much, but that could be a base spot to try out :)

INSANITY BASE TOUR | Project Zomboid 2022
YouTubeI just read someone who's also a newcomer to the game explain that they didn't understand how the helicopter event works.
"I tried to get outside and make signals or something, but the helicopter never rescued me".
...My face :
For the brave people who tolerate my PZ thread despite not playing it, the helicopter meta event is a randomly timed event during which a... helicopter will fly over your area at least once (it can come back several times during the same day), trying to spot survivors. You hear the helicopter, but you never see the helicopter.
However Zeds, which are particularly sound-motivated, hear it too and will come to your location... in numbers.
The best way to handle the helicopter event is to stay hidden (masking the windows with sheets or curtains, staying in a windowless room or basement, etc.) and avoid being outside when you hear the helicopter.
The second best way to handle the helicopter event is to get in a car, and drive away so that the helicopter and hence the horde follow you away from your base location.
The third best way to handle it is to die and start over XD
So friendorino trying to get noticed by the helicopter at all cost is one of those tragic "you'll make that mistake once, then you'll learn" thing new players go through in survival games XD
Poor thing. My first helicopter event, I was looting a house and heard a sound. I wasn't sure what it was so I locked myself in a closet and waited it out XD
Also : to believe you can be saved during a zombie apocalypse is...
...
...let's go with ADORABLE.
The game says "this is how you died", not "this is how you got a fright for a few days and then were rescued and were vaccinated with a cure and lived peacefully for the rest of your life".
Me : "Things are going pretty well this time around"
Also me : *crashes the truck unto the one lamppost on the highway*
Also me : *eats burnt food and starts feeling sick*
Also me : *takes a nap in the truck and dies from indigestion in my sleep*
For this run I tried to live in the gas station/Spiffo's/clothing store area between Muldraugh and West Point. For a loot goblin such as myself, having my storage in the clothing store was great ! I got a stove and a TV from the nearby trailer park, and I also looted a cot in West Point fairly quickly, so I had a liveable home pretty fast.
However the area is really ugly, there is of course no natural body of water, and it's so far of f*cking everything, especially if you have car carcasses -
- on the highway in both directions... So my poor Spiffo's delivery van quickly got in bad shape, and of course it was only downhill from there.
I also had the hardest time finding a generator. I went to West Point looking in garages in the fancy area of town, and none of them had one. And the clock was ticking because I had a lot of food in the fridges I looted from Spiffo's and the pizza place South of West Point.
When the electricity was cut off, I STILL didn't have a generator.
As for water, well, it was cut off on day 3 or 4, or something, so I got the habit pretty early to refill my stuff wherever I went. Honestly water isn't too big of a deal if it's just for drinking ; for watering crops it could be another matter in this spot.
Overall I liked having so much room for activities, and of course access to a gas station, but not a great location otherwise.
I don't see myself trying to set up camp there again, unless I miraculously discover a mod that allows me to dig a pond.
I love how mods work in Project Zomboid. You can easily save your current modlist, which makes it easier to revert back to a previous one when a new mod messes up with your game's stability. You can easily have several saves with several modlists on a rotation. The mods don't have to load before the game launches, so you can adjust the modlist without having to reloading the game. There's a simple mod manager that allows to sort your mods automatically, or see dependencies.
#ProjectZomboid
Of course sometimes manual sorting seems to be preferable in edge cases (according to comments I've seen on the Steam Workshop ; but it hasn't been my experience so far), but for the most part it's taken care of. The game also inherently allows "sandbox" settings (I currently play Builder so I don't think I can play with those as much as others, but still), which incentivizes mod devs to create mods you can customize to your liking...
All in all, I don't know how long it took to get to this point. PZ has been in Early Access for longer than some Kpop idols have been alive afterall :P
But this is, currently, a pretty good system.
For someone used to Rimworld mods (who honestly are a pain to change because then you have to reload your entire game... no no, not the save, I said THE ENTIRE GAME), to ARK: Survival Evolved mods (which requires mods to be properly sorted BUT will not help you do that, so every time you want to ad a mod that needs, say, to be loaded first, you have to delete the entire modlist and then readd them in the new order... God I hope ASA does that even marginally better), to TS4 mods (in which you -
- are absolutely on your own to manage the files in your game folders like a f*cking peasant from the 20th century), and so on, this is quite refreshing. Perfect, not, but so much better than a lot of what I've dealt with in the past.
Today I had a weird crash that started occuring whenever my character (Louisa, if you're curious) was going to sleep. I looked around and this seems to happen fairly regularly to a lot of people, including people playing vanilla.
I was almost about to give up when I decided to try a new run with my modlist from two days ago before I added 3 new mods (don't judge, we all knew this was going to increase exponentially, and this mod allowed to put eggs in jars !), so I started over with Louisa and -
- MIRACLE OF MIRACLES, no more issues when sleeping ! Thanks to the way modlists are saved that was really easy to do, too !
So other than having to restart a new run (which was going to happen anyway, because it's not like my characters live very old !), this was totally painless experience.
What do I intend to do with the rest of my Friday evening ?
Oh nothing much. Watching videos about France mostly.
https://youtu.be/N8Artbp19KQ

Project France, A Complete Overhaul For Project Zomboid! Project France Mod Showcase!
YouTubeUh oh. My game froze/crashed again. And again, when my character went to sleep. I went over two weeks without any issue, so I genuinely thought I was good now. But I'm not, clearly.
I'm looking it up and it seems to happen to a lot of people in B42, but everyone has a different explanation for why that happens, and a different fix... It even happens to people who play vanilla. That's not good.
#ProjectZomboid
Mkay, so far it doesn't seem to happen if I sleep in my car.

The Survival Game That Always Kills You
YouTubeOh I see what this is. Youtube thinks I'm into zombies now, so all the zombie-related games are going to be recommended to me now. All of them.
https://youtu.be/GJsCFiRgPpw
#LongGone

LONG GONE [ Updated Wishlist Teaser ] PC
YouTubeOh you silly Youtube, I'm not into zombies, I'm into survival !
...games, I'm into survival games. That's what I mean.