How to make a rain collector in Project Zomboid

Establishing a long-term base of operations (or a few of them) is a crucial aspect of long-term survival in Project Zomboid, not in the least because it lets you stock up on resources. Making these bases self-sufficient is important, and water collectors are a key pillar of this objective.

If you survive long enough in Project Zomboid, both the water and the electricity get turned off at some point in time, months after the initial Knox Country outbreak. This means you’ve got a somewhat limited amount of time to make yourself as self-sufficient as possible, with generators and rain collectors aplenty. While electricity does get complicated, rain collectors are thankfully a far simpler invention, and it shouldn’t take long at all before you get more than enough water for all of your needs in Project Zomboid. Here’s how to make them!

Creating the rain collector in Project Zomboid

Rain collectors are precisely what it says on the (wooden) tin: open boxes that rain can fall into and be contained for future use. This water, of course, subsequently needs to be boiled for it to be drinkable, but it can safely be used to wash clothing and your Project Zomboid avatar, as well as for watering plants.

There are two types of rain collectors in Project Zomboid: the regular wooden crate that’s been opened on one of its sides and an actual barrel. Both of them are very simple and easy to build, though you do need to rank up your Carpentry up to level 4 and 7, respectively, to unlock their blueprints. I hope you got that “Fast Learner” Trait handy now!

To create a rain collector, you need:

• a hammer of any sort
• 4 Planks
• 4 Nails
• 4 Garbage Bags

Once you’ve got all of the prerequisites sorted out, right-click to open your context menu, choose the “Carpentry” sub-menu, and then go to “Furniture” and choose the rain collector you wish to build. From that point onwards, you can set it up wherever you feel is most appropriate and go ham. Or, rather, wait for the rain to fall before going ham. That is, after all, how a rain collector works. Be sure to place them somewhere accessible without the risk of zombies approaching, preferably a roof of some sort or a totally enclosed courtyard.

There are some notable differences between the crate-shaped and the barrel-shaped water collectors, of course. The simpler and more accessible crate collector holds 160 total units of water at most, which equals 8 water bottles’ worth of liquid. The barrel, on the other hand, holds 400 units of water, which will fill 20 bottles of water in total.

How to find a rain collector in Project Zomboid?

Something worth considering is that you may well come across pre-existing rain collectors while exploring Project Zomboid‘s Knox Country. Obviously, I do recommend grabbing them wherever possible if you’ve got the room to lug them around.

You may also come across metal drums, which can also be picked up and placed to serve as impromptu rain collectors without any further complications. Metal drums hold up to a whopping 800 units of water, making them the most effective type of rain collector in Project Zomboid.

Metal drums are located around the Louisville campsites, and their usefulness is only really hampered by the fact that they cannot be crafted as of Build 41 without resorting to mods. Which isn’t a bad idea in and of itself, I’d say.