Bases are the heart and soul of every survivor’s long day in the apocalypse. It’s a safe area to store resources, take shelter from bad weather, and generally hide from flesh-eating zombies. With so many buildings all around the world of Project Zomboid’s rendering of Knox County, it can be tough to know what your possible forever home can be, and that is what this list aims to elaborate on.
For the record, any building, big or small, can be a base for anyone. It can be as tiny as a shed in a suburb, or it can be as big as a whole hotel for yourself, choices are endless in this game. The best part about it is that the building you choose can be fortified and improved upon with Carpentry skills in your character. A simple shack can be much safer if there is wooden fencing around it, and likewise, your hotel room door can have the windows blocked to keep away from the paparazzi chasing you. Sorry, did I mean paparazzi? I meant hordes of zombies wanting to tear your limbs out. With that in mind, if you want the best for your character, and your safety (same can be said with your friends playing in a multiplayer server), these are the best areas you can take shelter in.
For this list, the list is made at the time of the game’s latest version (ver. 41.78 Steam) and is based on my experience on a friend-hosted multiplayer server, and items listed are from the vanilla version of the game, meaning no mod items are included. The list is based on which area is the best in terms of flexibility, safety, features, and possible expandability. Buildings can also be complexes in one area. Other candidate buildings and bases can be referenced in an entry for context. These overviews are from the buildings’ usable state, as they can be naturally destroyed by the game.
5. Isolated House (Muldraugh)
What’s Great About the Isolated House (Muldraugh)?
Despite being a singular house, the Isolated House provides a lot of space for extensions and more. Also, since it is just one house, it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to secure the perimeter before you start redecorating and fortifying. This place is filled with benefits that will extend your chances of survival with what it offers down below.
- Security – The Isolated House is surrounded by high fences
- Single entry point – The area can only be entered through one entry point
- Resources for building – Outside the area are trees that can be cut down for planks
- Immediate spawn – You can spawn here by chance if you decide to spawn in Muldraugh
- Space – The area provides a fair amount of space for either gardening or extensions
Given the fact that this place is a spawn point, let’s say you get lucky and start right here; it gives you a head start on planning, even without the required resources. This lessens your worries about safety since you’ll be surrounded by high fences that can’t be broken by zombies.
The space in the Isolated House provides a lot of options for what you want to do with it; house too small? No worries, you can extend it yourself by chopping trees outside of the fences to be made into planks for construction or barricading. You can turn this simple starter place into your fortress of defense, should this house be your fancy. This ensures that you can get the most out of the real estate you’ve been provided by its vicinity.
The location of the Isolated House wouldn’t cause a hindrance for looting as it is close to town, and the road it follows leads towards the main highway, which is filled with commercial buildings like the Large Warehouse, Storage Building, Car Repair Shop and more. It may be a bit farther away from town, but this area is an introvert’s best friend in-game.
4. Rosewood Fire Station
What’s Great About Rosewood Fire Station?
All the firefighters have most likely turned into flesh eating zombies now which means that this building is free real estate. It’s a building that’s not just spacious but also provides a hefty amount of benefits, which will be listed below.
- Spacious – The Fire Station offers a lot of space for extensions and parking
- Police Station – Rosewood Fire Station is neighbors with the Police Station
- Essentials – The Fire Station is a good place to find loot like Axes and Sledgehammers
- Housing – Plenty of rooms to be renovated for you and your friends
- Security – A fair amount of high wall fences surrounds the building
What makes this particular building one of the best places to build a base is that it has a great mix of space, security, and accessibility at a glance. Not to mention that if you’re lucky enough, you’ll find invaluable tools for your group once you set foot inside its walls, the Rosewood Fire Station is definitely worth turning into a fortress.
When it comes to looting, the Rosewood Fire Station isn’t just a good place to start; since its neighbor is the Rosewood Police Station also doubles its importance as a base twice as much, once you turn the Fire Station into a proper base, you can start raiding the Police Station for guns and ammo much faster and safer.
For the spacing it provides, you can guarantee that you can maximize every bit of land the Fire Station has to offer, it has a parking lot out front and an indoor garage, which can obviously be used for housing your group’s vehicles, while the grasslands it provides make a great farming plot for players who specialize in taking care of crops for fresh vegetation.
Securing the perimeter would pose inconveniences as there would be small groups of infected posted around it once you start your playthrough, but that is nothing but a short hindrance for the shelter it can give.
3. Riverside Bar
What’s Great about Riverside Bar?
Riverside Bar is not only great for the alcoholics of the group (assuming you’re roleplaying as one) but for your resident carpenters and farmers as well. Spacious and in a good strategic location, seize this building under your control and enjoy the offerings of this place as listed.
- Location – Riverside Bar is just a drive away from the town and the river for water supply
- Plentiful space – You can maximize the lot’s wide vicinity to your content
- Resources – Being near woodland provides a lot of trees for planks to be used
- Looting – Riverside Bar’s neighbors are a General Store and Food Market which are rich in food supply and more
- Nearby scrapyard – In front of the bar is a scrapyard that’s good for Mechanics and Metalworkers
The amount of space around the bar’s perimeter will make creative minds blush as they have so much room for improvement that’s limited only by their imagination, based on my experience this area is a fun place to set up a base. Need wood for barricades or a second-floor extension? No problem, the trees around the grasslands will provide a hefty amount of logs just waiting to be cut and turned into planks, need metal sheet? The scrapyard in front of it is just a few steps away.
The neighboring Food Market and General Store will provide food supply in an instant once you step foot and begin turning this place into a fortress; minimizing the time needed to stock up on edibles, which helps your group get a head start on building your very own safe haven in these end times. Once you’re all set up and are short when it comes to water, the Ohio River is just a drive away that will provide an endless supply of hydration for you and your friends, provided you need to heat and purify it first before using it for consumption.
Being a commercial area and near said scrapyard, you can bet that there will be vehicles just waiting to be used for your band of survivors for traversing around the streets of Kentucky, if not to be driven, they can also be used for levelling up your Mechanic skills or for your resident Mechanic to ensure that transportation won’t be an issue.
2. Twiggy’s
What’s Great About Twiggy’s?
An unexpected choice for sure in this list, this large bar is intended to house liquor, but it has a hidden use of stashing survivors. Located at the upper right part of West Point, this big drinking place is high on happiness, and equally high on benefits below.
- Gun shop – The gun shop makes this bar stand out
- Isolated area – The bar is a bit further away from other establishments
- Flexible roads – Easy road access to other highways out of town
- Resources – Being near woodland provides a lot of trees for planks to be used
- Fencing perimeter – The perimeter can be fenced for added protection
While many bars like this exist in the game, such as the one in Riverside, Twiggy’s has the clear distinction of having a gun shop on a separate building above it, making the gun shop a key point of interest. Being adjacent to Twiggy’s makes for a two in one special on building usability and base flexibility. You can leave the shop alone after raiding it or you can make it an annex to the bar as a gun storage place, perfect for item management. If that storage isn’t enough for you, the second floor of the bar is mostly barren, with the likelihood of a massive storage place being a possibility if you happen to have a lot more people in your server.
For the creature comforts of exploration, being located at the far end of the relatively small town of West Point, heading down the road will lead you to many possible travel options, with the road going south going to the gas station, with that leading to Muldraugh and heading east leads you to the military checkpoint, and further up from there, Louisville.
Safety is still going to be your priority at the end of the day, and as it is, it’s very open, with the forest above you acting as a soft barrier for mob control. To ensure your safety, and space allocation for cars and vehicles, try making a square or rectangular fence to your desired size, utilizing one corner of the bar as a start connecting to another corner, minimizing resource allocation. Once you are protected, you can start thinking of hitting the counter, smashing up all the alcohol inside, and wasting yourself without any possible zombies wasting you.
1. Triple House Manor
What’s Great About the Triple House Manor?
The biggest answer is choice, and choices a plenty indeed. This isn’t exactly a single house that you can waltz in an create a solo base for, though that can also be true, but rather, a combo of three houses that can vary in use if ever you want to convert the unused houses into something. Such a free, wide-open space will naturally give you some advantages for your survival, such as the following below.
- Already fenced – Perimeter is fenced allowing zombies to be kept out
- Single entry point – The area can only be entered through one side of the complex
- Plentiful space – You can allot the wide space to building or parking vehicles
- Space – The existing houses are fairly large with many rooms and a garage
- Nearby lake – Lake near one of the houses is an unlimited water source
This makes for the best, safest, and most obvious choice for those moving to Louisville and wanting to ensure their safety. Just one look at the entrance and the perimeter can tell you a lot about your survival rate. Assuming the random generation of the game hasn’t burned one of the houses down, you have three perfectly usable houses to use, each with their own garages, kitchen, and rooms to boot.
With such a large area, there happens to be a lake here, making it no problem for any thirsty individual to drink from, after boiling said water, that is. This allows you to prioritize electricity more, as three generators, one for each house, can power up everything there as is, with any extra generators gathered to be used for any number of fridges you may consider getting for food storage. No matter how many you are in the server, this can accommodate a small army of survivors (you and your friends) and not have to feel the virtually awkward cramming scuffle that is sharing a room.
You can make many more entrances if you dare choose to, but one wrong modification to the fence will kill any safety the building complex offers, so apart from any additional gate that you can put for the narrow entrance, you’re able to build, create, and fix up everything inside the gate, making this large manor your mansion for the living, and the last place on the game to sleep peacefully from the dead.
