Quick Start

Welcome to The Collective! This article contains tidbits of info regarding getting started on our server. **For more information on general survival, visit the Survival Guide on the official PZwiki.**

If you haven't already signed up, make sure to visit Joining the Server for information on how to do that. After reading the information here, it's also recommended to view the FAQ and Common Controls article for more in-depth explanations of some of our server's features.

## Getting Started

Our Quick Start guide is fairly barebones and contains mostly MP-related features. If you're new to to the game you should read through the official Survival Guide first to learn how to survive your first few days.

### Choosing a Spawn Location

For players who are brand new to Project Zomboid and still working on just staying alive, it's recommended you spawn at one of our designated "HQ" locations:

* **HQ: Ed's Auto Salvage** is central to Knox county and closer to the smaller cities and towns on the map.
* **HQ: McCoy's Bunker** is sandwiched between Valley Station and LV, making it ideal for players looking to reach the big city early on.
* **HQ: Xonic's Mega Mall** is across the street from Monmouth County to the east and is filled with stores to loot at the start.

These are fortified places well removed from any populated areas and they often come with generator power, running water, a working vehicle or two and enough supplies to keep you alive for a few days.

To the seasoned players, random spawn includes spawn points all over the map (including LV). All town spawns are unmodded and work as they do in vanilla.

### Choosing a Safehouse

Once you've found a structure suitable for a good base (that isn't a spawn point), clear it out of all zombies, corpses, vehicles, and other players. Enter the building, right-click inside and select "Claim Safehouse".

**Tip:** If you're having issues with the building being "occupied", make sure you're checking every nook and cranny in and around the building for anything that could trip it up. Keep in mind that each player can have only one safehouse!

#### Adding Additional Members to your Safehouse

To add friends and strangers alike to your Safehouse and allow them to respawn there (and access the storage containers inside), simply bring up your Safehouse panel by:

* Clicking the round "Client" button on your toolbar.
* Select Safehouse, then "Add Player".

**Tip:** Players who are already in a Safehouse cannot be added to another, and will not show up in the list. They'll need to use "Release Safehouse" in the panel to leave their current one to join yours.

#### Respawning at your Safehouse

Go into your Safehouse panel, and make sure "Respawn in Safehouse" is checked!

### Saving Your Progress

Save your progress by writing in your bound journal. You'll need an Empty Notebook or Journal, Thread, Leather Strips, and Glue/Wood Glue. Use the recipe "Bind Journal" in your Crafting menu.

Once the Bound Journal is in your inventory, use a pen or pencil to "Transcribe Journal" by right-clicking it. Depending on how many skills were leveled up before transcribing, it can take some time. **Do be sure to keep this journal in a safe place** so you can transcribe to it again later, or read it on a new character to regain some skills after your previous character dies. Feel free to make more than one journal as well - one for the road, one for HQ, or however you want to do it!

**Important Note:** Bound Journals only save progress that is transcribed to them. They don't continue save further progress until you transcribe into the journal again, so do this early and often!

## Other Important Articles

* FAQ and Common Controls
* Joining the Server
* Rules and Guidelines