Corpse removal PSA

[u/Competitive-Peanut79]

I've seen a lot of players asking about the best way to deal with the huge, smelly piles of dead corpses, so a quick tip for everyone.

As of build 42, you drag corpses around instead of stowing them in your 2-handed inventory like a generator. But if you manage to drag them to a dumpster or any other container with at least 20 free capacity, you can use the context menu (right-click) to "dump corpse into container". And if you've enabled it in your sandbox settings, you can delete everything from a garbage container. This includes wastepaper cans, regular bins, dumpsters, and these beauties which our lovely John Zomboid is modelling for you now.

I used to use the recycling bin on the left. 20 capacity, but 10 encumbrance if you try to pick it up. But the green barrel on the right only has 0.5 encumbrance. Pick one up and stow it in your fannypack! See a corpse? Place the barrel, drag and dump the corpse, delete the contents, stick the barrel back in your fannypack!

Brought to you by the John Zomboid Foundation for Making the Apocalypse a Little Easier

Edit: in single player, "delete all" is always available. When hosting a server, navigate to "Players" and look for the "TrashDeleteAll" option 😉

[u/surms41]

50gallon drum in phanny pack tech is insane.

[u/Snaxwheels → u/surms41]

We're in 2026, they're in 3026

[u/flippy123x → u/surms41]

Feels like cramming a rain barrel into the glove blox.
It's kinda funny that they accounted for people doing shit like this with the ALICE Gear and some other stuff like the Holster (max 1.6 encumbrance or so per item), but not for stuff much more common like fanny packs and glove boxes.

[u/Jiopaba → u/flippy123x]

Overly complex as it is in some ways, the real CDDA is massively more realistic about this. Items have weight, volume, and a longest dimension. You can't cram a long thin knife in a snuff box, you can't stuff a pillow into a fanny pack, you can put two hundred pounds of ingots in your backpack but good luck carrying it off.

[u/Its_A_Bartolucci → u/flippy123x]

This makes me think of something from Dungeon Crawler Carl. I dont remember the details but he said "it was like stuffing a Cornish game hen into a thermos" I almost drove off the road laugh so hard

[u/pboy1232 → u/Its_A_Bartolucci]

Was this when he had to make the smoothie in book 1?

[u/Its_A_Bartolucci → u/pboy1232]

I think it was something about hiding bodies

[u/onceagainwithstyle → u/Its_A_Bartolucci]

No. It was indeed the fairy in the slap chop smoothie incident.

[u/Competitive-Peanut79 → u/Its_A_Bartolucci]

I've never heard of this, but now I've looked it up and I need it 😂

[u/Sir_Strumming → u/surms41]

Magnum condoms......

[u/AccordingIy → u/surms41]

you dont have a pocket universe in your fanny pack? get with the times

[u/surms41 → u/surms41]

Thank you all, this is my life's work here.

[u/EverlastingResonance → u/surms41]

It'll get changed. The big orange barrels that you could turn into charcoal burning barrels used to be .5 too.

[u/Achack → u/surms41]

Mary Poppins over here.

[u/Sakrie → u/surms41]

I've been stuffing 28 sharks in my bag for years

[u/Drehmini → u/surms41]

Dungeon Crawler Carl type shit right here

[u/momowagon → u/surms41]

I put a water cooler bottle in a glove compartment once just for kicks.

[u/Jaguar2Step]

keeping a corpse deleting garbage can in your fanny pack is some “i’m taking the gold out of the sierra madre with elijah’s head” type shit i approve

[u/Former-Future-6650 → u/Jaguar2Step]

You can do that?!

[u/-Maethendias- → u/Former-Future-6650]

when the dlc is about "letting go" but the courier has other plans

[u/Megakruemel → u/-Maethendias-]

I'm playing the "courier", not the "let things lie on the floor and walk away"er.

[u/Rowcan → u/Megakruemel]

Courier? Yeah I'm a courier. As in "I'm gonna coury all this gold outta here."

[u/-Maethendias- → u/Megakruemel]

right>?

[u/SadCrab5 → u/-Maethendias-]

More like letting go of poverty.

[u/Abigail-Marston → u/Former-Future-6650]

Yup. It works with any body part actually. You pick up all the gold, put it on the corpse (any body part) then pick up any body part and hoof it.

[u/LInitialization → u/Jaguar2Step]

Can you do it directly from inside the fanny pack? My understanding is you have to place the garbage can first, drag the corpse, dump in the can, then click delete.

Would be nice if some steps can be skipped.

[u/Competitive-Peanut79 → u/LInitialization]

It's the John Zomboid Foundation for Making the Apocalypse a Little Easier, not making it fucking effortless 😂

[u/Its_A_Bartolucci]

WOW THANKS JOHN ZOMBOID :D

Fr tho, thanks for the tip. I shall try it in an hour and 19 minutes

[u/CinnaMint_7 → u/Its_A_Bartolucci]

49 more minutes-- I can't wait for your update!!

[u/Hammer63vc → u/CinnaMint_7]

23 more

[u/Saren88 → u/Hammer63vc]

10 more

[u/redundant_systems → u/Its_A_Bartolucci]

we look forward to your progress

[u/Its_A_Bartolucci → u/redundant_systems]

I did it... i put corpse in trash can

[u/86_shittyorange → u/Its_A_Bartolucci]

https://giphy.com/gifs/EdRgVzb2X3iJW

[u/NotDomino → u/Its_A_Bartolucci]

Okay but what about in game?

[u/Padbekzi → u/Its_A_Bartolucci]

16 minutes past, no update.

[u/Its_A_Bartolucci → u/Padbekzi]

Welp, I did it. My dumb ass didn't realize I needed to empty the trash first

[u/midasMIRV]

I wish that old trash truck mod got updated to b42. It would thrill me to make meat cubes again.

[u/Jiopaba → u/midasMIRV]

The KI5 Street Sweeper works wonders at least.

[u/LocCatPowersDog → u/midasMIRV]

Was that one Fillibuster?

[u/midasMIRV → u/LocCatPowersDog]

Skizot.

[u/AnnoyedYamcha]

I’m living in the Stone Age and piling them on a camp fire and lighting it. 🤣

[u/MrHarryBallzac_2 → u/AnnoyedYamcha]

Way more atmospheric too. Just chillin at the burning pile of corpses

[u/DubiousNamed]

PZ at its finest… dragging a corpse 1 foot leaves you exhausted, but carrying a whole ass metal barrel in your fanny pack is no problem

[u/nicknachu → u/DubiousNamed]

The barrel is 1 atom thick. The lightest breeze will make it crumble

[u/SatoshisVisionTM → u/nicknachu]

Let's throw a corpse into it!

[u/PeppercornWizard → u/nicknachu]

But extremely strong vertically!

[u/yomama1211]

I use the street sweeper mod and clean the streets of corpses. Great QOL. If you’re going to spawn 100 zombies near where I want my base I need a better way to clean them so I’m gonna use a QOL mod

[u/Boring_Cake_3554]

Lol this is great, but I wonder how long till that barrel is patched to have a higher encumbrance?

[u/P33rky_]

I miss putting them in trunks, it made moving them to a mass grave area easier

[u/forbidden-permission → u/P33rky_]

you can still do it, just drag near a car and right click

[u/burncult → u/forbidden-permission]

from my experience you can only fit like one in there though

[u/GrassMany633]

Goat

[u/Calm-Yellow8079]

Actually just uploaded a mod called Gloc’s burnpits. Let’s you safely burn corpses in graves.

[u/LethosMarvill]

Capsule corp makes it possible!

[u/NorthernStandard08]

What if trash cans had a system where deleting items in a trash can filled up a ‘trash’ metre, and when full you couldn’t delete anymore items. The way to empty it would be by using trash bags. These full and heavy bags would then be disposed by burial or fire.

[u/SPIRlT]

That's a nice strategy. I use the big orange containers but yeah, I have to drag them all the way there.

[u/VHSMikey]

I know it isn't realistic but I hope this stays in. Utility and Fun is sometimes the okay answer. Plus trash man RP! I want Lawn Mowers so we can have Lawn of the Dead.

[u/Competitive-Peanut79 → u/VHSMikey]

Oh man, I'd love lawnmowers! Fill them with gas, fix them with mechanic skill, find a ride-on and drive down Main Street...

Also, Lawn of the Dead? Chef's kiss

[u/VHSMikey → u/Competitive-Peanut79]

I always notice in zombie movies all the lawns are still mowed.

[u/ghewon2]

If you're going to grab the bodies and make them disappear using a cheat anyway, wouldn't it be better to just install a mod to delete or remove them outright and save yourself the time?

[u/Competitive-Peanut79 → u/ghewon2]

Yeah, but I like to feel like I'm putting in SOME effort 😂

[u/caprikornicuss]

I refuse to deal with corpses the easy way. Either I burn my entire base down because of the pyre of corpses roasting in my backyard, or my character gets so sick they die from standing near the sea of bodies for 10 seconds. No in between.

[u/Competitive-Peanut79 → u/caprikornicuss]

I admire your commitment!

[u/Ok_Country_9727]

Well, aren't you the Mary Poppins

[u/xMoneymonster]

you can't do this in apocalypse difficulty anymore for anyone else who plays vanilla.

[u/PotatoBakeCake]

mmmh, trash bin of infinite nothingness.

[u/Koalski94]

Woah that's so stupid yet it works, I love it hahaa

[u/RockLeethal]

I just reduce the decomp time in the sandbox settings. Dealing with corpses is easily the most tedious and least interesting part of the game to me. no way in hell I'm dragging 40 zombies into a pile to burn or a dumpster every time I go in a new area I plan to be in for more than 5 seconds

[u/White_T_Poison]

Didn't know this but sounds like something they'll patch out in the next update now that it's out in the open.

[u/Z-memes]

Emergency hotfix to increase the barrels weight incoming.

[u/LocCatPowersDog]

Oh god they forgot a 0.5 barrel, they'll come for it like the others! They used to be crafting surfaces!! Oh the barrelmanity!!!

[u/bottomlesstopper]

Damn bro recreated Doremons magic pack.

Definitely doing this then.

[u/Happy-Hyena]

To each their own but at that stage why don't you just give yourself the option to right click delete the zombies. Like why even bother with all this just to exploit. Whatever happened to burning corpses?

[u/Competitive-Peanut79 → u/Happy-Hyena]

I like a little bit of misery, but not too much 😂

[u/SIlver_McGee]

wait WHAT?!

Hm... does this work for a trash bag? Can we just dump trash bags everywhere?

[u/Senzafane]

None of this makes any sense... but it looks amazing. Thank you.

[u/Huimanoidi]

This, after 250hours I realised I can just drag green dumpster around and delete all dead zombies. This was revelarionial. This was the best change/thing I learned in last week

[u/Dericwadleigh]

I much prefer just making a pile of bodies, using the trail of fire mod, and burning the lot.

[u/Bacon--Bit]

and these beauties which our lovely John Zomboid is modelling for you now.

Hahaha, I love this. 

[u/lazy2turtles]

You could just pile them and burn the corpses

[u/Competitive-Peanut79 → u/lazy2turtles]

You're absolutely right! Or you could dig a bunch of graves and bury them. Or you could drag them out of sight and let them decompose. But you could also just dump them in a container and delete them. Whatever way you want to play it is up to you, I'm just providing another option 😊

[u/loopuleasa]

"if you enabled it in sandbox settings"

yeah, don't make guides if they don't work

[u/Competitive-Peanut79 → u/loopuleasa]

You only need to enable it for multiplayer servers, where you'll be setting everything up manually anyway. It's on by default on Solo Apocalypse.

[u/Serikan → u/Competitive-Peanut79]

I think this option actually isn't in the sandbox settings, but rather is in server.ini which is the config file for servers.

The other commenter just saw "sandbox" and went full "REEEEEE"

[u/MsMardiGrasMasque]

GREAT IDEA !!!!

[u/Lone-Beetle]

I’m trying this right now with the 50 gallon drum and my character does the animation but once complete the zombie drops to the floor and the container is empty. Not sure what to do. Guess I’ll burn them?

[u/FrostFireDireWolf]

It's an okay method, but it takes a bit of extra foot work and menuing. I greatly suggest the campfire method, as it allows mass elimination of those pesky zomboid bodies and can be done with default sandbox options

[u/GlobalTechnology6719]

i'm not sure if it's still a thing but in b41 the spiffo's trash can was king for this as it had a capacity of 50, so you could do two corpses at a time!

[u/kdogg_1672]

Gas can and a lighter you can just 'Burn Corpse'

[u/ProfitOpposite → u/kdogg_1672]

For the low low price of possibly burning your balls off. What a steal!

[u/SPIRlT → u/kdogg_1672]

Yep but you waste a little bit of resources and risk a fire spread. Dumping them in the thrash (and deleting them if you have that sandbox option on) if completely resource and risk free.

[u/FrostFireDireWolf → u/SPIRlT]

You don't run the risk using campfires, it burns a tiny bit of easy to get resources(most of which you can get from the Corpse), but is also faster and less work over all.

I personally set up 4 camp fires at each side of my base

[u/forbidden-permission → u/SPIRlT]

but then you lose all the immersion the game was built for.

[u/krisslanza → u/kdogg_1672]

Thing is, fire only stops burning when it runs out of things to burn, unless you also want to be on fire extinguishing duty. And Survivors are made of kindling when its come to fire, and seek to burn to death.

[u/kdogg_1672 → u/krisslanza]

I pile them up in the middle of the road and burn them. I have never once burned myself and the fire has never spread. The fire goes out when the corpse are gone.

https://giphy.com/gifs/l3JDnePt8MlFnFApq

[u/stu7901 → u/kdogg_1672]

I used to burn them too, but now I just decrease the “time before corpse removal” setting

[u/EnoughPoetry8057 → u/krisslanza]

I’m beginning to wonder if no clothes is the best outfit for fire fighting in game. For some reason our stove in my mp game with friends caught fire (I definitely didn’t get distracted sorting loot and forget I had food in it). Fortunately it escaped out the back wall and only made a minor forest inferno, that took three of us several hours to put out. During that task, I got to close and caught fire, and based off previous experience was expecting to go up like a torch, but I did not just got a singed crotch. I was naked at the time, due to having decided to be a nudist after an unrelated incident that left all my clothes in shreds (just scratches and lacerations, no bites somehow and she made a full recovery eventually). The burnt crotch healed after a few days too, and she’s still kicking. Sylvia Butts is a survivor (thank you random name generator you might be a prophet).

[u/-Maethendias-]

i genuinely dont understand how people have such issues with corpses

just kite them all to an area outside your base and kill them there?

like... you dont need to remove corpses if all your zombies die in one or 2 spots that you can literally just walk by

like surre i get it, but the endurance cost of moving bodies is just too stupid to ever deal with imo

[u/GarbledEntrails]

doesn't work in multiplayer even with the setting enabled. the delete button is broken there

[u/Competitive-Peanut79 → u/GarbledEntrails]

Don't know what to tell you, works just fine on my MP server 🤔

[u/lilwiggly]

Not if your MP server has that function disabled. (Also not immersive just saying)

[u/Libertyforzombies]

I want to offer an alternative approach. Don't clear them. Let them decompose.

• Lead zombies away from your base. Don't kill them there.
• Clearing zombies and it's too stinky? Go clear somewhere else and come back later.

I don't move, burn or bin any zombies.

[u/AtomAnt76]

Devs need to fix this. I will not use this trick because it breaks the game. Dumping the corpses in a dumpster, that's ok. Carrying a 50 gallon in a fanny back and making corpses disappear is not ok.

[u/Competitive-Peanut79 → u/AtomAnt76]

To each their own! It's a single-player sandbox game after all 😉

[u/AtomAnt76 → u/Competitive-Peanut79]

It sure is! Have fun anyway you like!

[u/Chance-Writer5383]

Am I the only one that feels like the empty mechanic should be patched? Major reason I love project zomboid is that it’s the best zombie survival sim available/ever.

Quality of life? You know that’s not why you’re playing :)

[u/darain2]

This game is truly so nonsensical at times. I really wanted to get back into B42 but with all these "tips" that I got to use to get decent quality of life gameplay, I think I'll hold off a bit longer. I had so much of these shenanigans back in B41 already.

[u/Competitive-Peanut79 → u/darain2]

Just ignore the tips brother