In Project Zomboid your character has a wide variety of skills that determine how good they are at actions in the game. One of these skills is the mechanics skill. This guide will show you some of the best ways that you can level mechanics in Project Zomboid, (specifically Build 41) and how you can become a mechanics master.
This will include some basic information on what the skill actually does, some traits and Professions when creating your character that will help and some of the items that will help with raising the skill.
You can use the Contents section below to jump straight to any part of the page that you are interested in. If you want a quick answer, jump straight to that section!
Contents:
What Does the Mechanics Skill Actually Do?
Raising Mechanics Skill and Spam Limits
Tolls For Mechanical Skill
Leveling Up Mechanics Fast
Skill Books and Auto Manuals
Traits and Character Build to Boost Mechanics
What Does the Mechanics Skill Do in Project Zomboid?
Mechanics is just one of the skills that you can grow in your playthrough of Project Zomboid. Mechanics, deals with anything that has to do with vehicles. In the game there are a wide variety of different cars. These also have a pretty in-depth mechanics system where you are able to swap and remove parts from different cars. You have the ability to remove radios, light and even entire gas tanks. By leveling up your mechanics skill, you will unlock the ability to change more advanced parts of the car and lower your chances of damaging parts when removing them.
Some mechanical jobs will be locked behind a certain mechanics level. For example if you wish to repair an engine using engine parts, you will need to have a mechanics skill level of at least 6. As you can probably tell, you are goint to have to start small and eventually build your level up.
How to Raise the Mechanics Skill Level
In general, every action you make related to vehicle mechanics is going to give you a little bit of experience in the mechanics skill. Every time you change a tire, remove a lightbulb and try to repair an engine you will gain a bit of experience. That being said, you cannot just install and uninstall the same part on the same car over and over again.
In Project Zomboid there is a soft limit on gaining experience on the same action for mechanics. You can’t do the exact same actions with the exact same parts too close together. What this means is that you can gain experience for the first time that you uninstall and install the same part, but after that you will have to wait exactly 24 hours to do it again and gain experience.
This means that if you want to level up mechanics quickly, you are probably going to want to find a few practice cars to work on at the same time.
So, we are going to need a few vehicles and a few different tools in order to get the most experience quickly.
Gathering Mechanic’s Tools
In order to remove parts we are going to have to find some tools. One of the easiest things you can do to start your mechanics career is to find yourself a screwdriver. With the screwdriver, we are able to install/uninstall the Battery, Lights and Radio.
If you really want to get some experience fast, you’ll want to find yourself a wrench as well, as most of the other parts will require a wrench in order to take them apart.
If you can manage to find a Jack and Lug Wrench you will also have the ability to change tires of any vehicle you find. This will be essential early on when trying to scrape as much experience as you can. You can generally find these in Gas Stations, in the back of Vehicles/Trunks and in Auto Repair shops.
The Best Way to Get Mechanics Experience Fast
If you’re looking to raise that skill level all the way up then you’ve come to the right place. As aforementioned you want to grab yourself a screwdriver to begin with.
All of the parts listed above are the easiest to remove as they don’t require any knowledge of mechanics at all in the game. What you want to do to level your mechanics skill is:
- Locate the “Mechanics for Beginners/Intermediates” books and read them. These will give you a boost in learning mechanics for a short time
- Find a bunch of different vehicles
- Right-click the vehicles and select the Vehicle Mechanics option
- Install and Uninstall the Radio, Battery and 4 lights on every vehicle
- Work your way through every car you can find
- Wait 24 hours and start the process over again
Once you have your mechanics to around level 2 or 3 you can move on to larger operations. Find yourself a wrench and start to take of the doors and windows of each of the cars and replace them again. The more advanced the mechanical job, the more mechanics experience your character will gain.
Once you get to around mechanics level 4 there will be almost no point removing headlights as the gain is so little at that point you may as well be removing seats and replacing them again.
Skill Books and Auto Manuals
There are a bunch of skill books that you can find in Project Zomboid. Just like any skill, that will boost the amount of experience you gain for a limited time. If your character reads these books on the right level, they will gain a multiplier for all of the experience they learn within that time.
Once you have read the correct book, you will see a series of arrows next to the skill in your characters Skills panel. Check the image below to see what I mean.
These arrows next to the mechanics skill indicate that the character is learning the skill at an increased rate. Reading books is essential for boosting your mechanics skill as quick as possible.
Without these you are just missing out on free experience and wasting your time. You can find these books in any place where literature items can be found, such as gas stations and in houses in bookcases.
Laines Auto Manuals
Another type of book related to mechanics is the Auto manual. These auto manuals will give your character the ability to work on specific mechanic parts on a car. There are three different types of auto manuals which will allow your player to access the mechanics of different types of cars in the game. These three are:
- Laines Auto Manual Commercial Models: Allows the player to learn intermediate mechanics which allows them to work on commercial type vehicles such as vans and emergency vehicles
- Laines Auto Manual Performance Models: Teaches advanced mechanics and allows the player to work on performance type vehicles
- Laines Auto Manual Standard Models: Teaches basic mechanics and allows the player to work on smaller sedans and family cars
Building a Mechanics Character
One of the best things you can do to raise your mechanics ability is something you can do from the very start. When first creating your character, you can choose a profession for them and a bunch of traits as well. Some of these will give you a head-start in the mechanics skill.
There is even a profession of Mechanic which will give your character 3 starting points in Mechanics and the prior knowledge to work on cars, which means you won’t have to search out the Laines Auto Manuals so start tinkering with your favorite van.
The mechanic profession will also give your character a boosted rate at which they gain mechanics skill. They will gain Mechanics experience at a much faster rate than other characters.
There is a typo
“By leveling up your mechanics skill,m you…”
Thankyou!
Not sure if it’s still true, but as of b40 there was a trick with gaining xp by performing cartesian product of your parts set to your cars set, i.e for every single part do replace (install-remove) this part on every single car you have. This was especially useful w/ light bulbs, which is easy to loot dozens just by removing them from every lamps and cars you see.
Hey Fedya,
Yes you should be able to do this to get some easy xp. The thing is you can only add and remove it once per car. So you will have to find a new car every time. This timer resets after 24 in-game hours though so you can make the same run every day.
Still possible? Cool, bulbs are still abundant and cars — with towing mechanics can be abundant too)
Didn’t know that it’s possible to repeat operation every day — very good point, thanks Jeff)