In Project Zomboid you will be constantly faced with injury and illness. Managing your character’s health is one of the hardest parts of playing the game. Anything can and will happen in Project Zomboid. Perhaps you will be scratched by one of the undead whilst going on a run for supplies. Maybe you will be carried away running and fall and scrape your leg. Being able to fix any health issues in integral to keeping your character going. Being able to craft bandages is integral to surviving injuries.
This guide will show you how to craft you own bandages so your can wrap up your injuries.
Using Ripped Sheets as a Bandage
One of the first things you’ll realize when bit is that you have to treat the injury and fast. The quicker you get on top of injuries the less chance they will become infected and better chance you will have at survival. The item that we will look at crafting to use as a bandage is the Ripped Sheet. You can use these ripped sheets as a makeshift bandage. There are also actual bandages that can be found in the game to help you heal faster, but we can craft them at all.
How to Craft Bandages in Project Zomboid
To craft bandages (ripped sheets) all you have to do is tear apart eligible clothing. Anything made of cloth can be torn apart into ripped sheets to use as a bandage. First, pick up any spare clothing items you find lying around. You can right-click on the item in your inventory to see some more actions for it. Now you want to select the option which reads Rip Clothing. You will then destroy the piece of clothing and get some ripped sheets.
The amount of ripped sheets you get depend on the clothing that you are ripping up. Socks will net you 1 ripped sheet but something like a large jacket will get you more. Now you will have some ripped sheets to use as bandages!
How to Apply a Bandage to Your Character
Now that you’ve managed to craft yourself some makeshift bandages, let’s put them to use! You can only apply bandages to your character if they currently have an injury. When you apply a bandage this will stop any bleeding that is happening. You can apply a bandage using either of these two methods:
- Right-click the ripped sheet in your inventory and select the option Apply Bandage. You can then select the body part you wish to apply the bandage to
- Open up your character’s health menu. (The heart symbol on the top left). You can then right-click a body part with an injury and select the bandage here.
There is no difference to using either of these methods. They will both yield the same result. There are some other things that you can do with bandages to make the healing process go faster. That is, to disinfect or clean bandages that have become dirty.
Cleaning and Disinfecting Bandages – Infections on Injuries
If you’ve had a bandage on a bleeding injury for quite a while in Project Zomboid it will eventually become dirty or bloody and need to be changed. Just as in real life you will have to take the bandage off, clean the wound and reapply a new bandage. This will make the injury heal even faster and help prevent infections. The longer you leave a dirty bandage on, the greater your chances of getting an infection. Another thing you can do to help the injury get better fast is disinfection the bandages.
Cleaning Dirty Bandages
Eventually when you are wearing a bandage it will get dirty. You should try to remove and clean dirty bandages as soon as possible as the longer they are left on, the more likely you are to get an infection. Trust me when I say you really do not want to get an infection in Project Zomboid. They are quite difficult to recover from.
To clean a bandage follow these steps:
- Open up your Health Tab
- Right-click the body part with the dirty bandage and select Remove Bandage
- Move to a water source such as a tap, shower or lake
- Right click the water source and choose the option Clean Rag
- Your character will clean the dirty bandage and you will have one more ‘ripped sheet’ in your inventory again
Disinfection Bandages
The absolute best way to get over an injury fast is to apply a disinfected bandage to the injury. These will last longer than regular bandages and you will lower the rate at which you get an infection. If you have some disinfectant around, it is recommended you use it every time you want to cover up an injury.
To disinfect a bandage, you can open the inventory and right-click on either the ripped sheets that you wish to disinfect, or the bottle of disinfectant. If you choose the disinfectant, you can disinfect multiple rags at once. Once you disinfect a bandage it will stay disinfected until it becomes dirty. Don’t worry, there isn’t a time limit on how long it stays disinfected for.
You can also apply disinfectant directly to your wounds as long as there are no bandages currently on the wound. To do this, right-click on the injured body part in the health menu and select the option to disinfect the area. Keeping a body part clean will help prevent infection. Unless of course you have been bitten…
Either I’m blind or there is no single word about disinfecting bandages with boiling water. Disinfectant bottle is a lootable only resource and also finite. Boiled water, instead, is infinite, widely available and allows preparing disinfected bandages en mass.
Also worth mentioning is an aspect of bandage power: according to pzwiki, fabricated “bandages” have twice more power compared to ripped sheets, in both sterilized and non-sterilized comparison. That’s why you probably want to keep them when they got dirty instead of dropping them on the way.