Project Zomboid build 42 marks a huge transformation for The Indie Stone's undead opus. Alongside sweeping changes to central mechanics, we've also got new lighting, the addition of high-rise buildings, new crafting systems, wild animals, and even extra maps. But Zomboid's developer is far from finished with unstable 42. It's a tough world in the survival genre, and to keep Zomboid performing at its very best – and ahead of rivals like State of Decay 2 and DayZ – The Indie Stone has already dropped a new update to tweak and improve build 42's combat.
The biggest killer in survival game is yourself.
Well, that and gun jamming. If you've been spending a lot of time in Zomboid since build 42 was released, you might have noticed your weapons locking up a lot more often. This isn't like Far Cry 2 where a jam just means an extra animation, and a couple more seconds before you can shoot again. In Zomboid, if your gun freezes up, you need to go into your inventory and manually rack it, and in that time you will probably die.
Thankfully, the new Project Zomboid update "significantly" reduces jam rates. Similarly, weapons with a zero base rate will no longer jam when you rack them. Your chances of surviving in combat have also been increased thanks to a couple more balance changes. Hit percentage penalties caused by moodles – like when you're 'panicked,' and your accuracy suddenly drops – have been cut in half. Also, if you're shooting at point-blank range, various modifiers for hit percentage that weren't working correctly before have been remedied and implemented properly.
As for what Project Zomboid considers point-blank range, it's now set at 3.5 movement tiles – get within that range of an infected and, in of damage and accuracy modifiers, you're as close as you need to be. You can see the full Project Zomboid hotfix 42.0.2 notes below:
Project Zomboid hotfit 42.0.2 notes
- Added sandbox multipliers for jamming, weather, and moodle effects on hit chance
- Added boolean sandbox option to disable headgear vision penalties on hit chance
- Significantly reduced jamming rates
- Adjusted point blank distance to 3.5 tiles
- Some hit chance modifiers that were not properly impacted by point blank distance are now taken into . These include moodles, weather, lighting, and headgear
- Reduced moodle hit chance penalties by half
- Set default sandbox jam multiplier to zero
- Fixed weapons with zero base rate from jamming on rack
- Fixed tutorial shotgun from potentially jamming
- Fixed tutorial running to the outhouse step from being broken
Meanwhile, The Indie Stone has issued a statement about the alleged use of AI-created artwork in build 42.
If you're a big Zomboid fan, you might want to try some of the other best zombie games of all time.
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