Field Manual

A Complete Guide to Living with the Fellows of Knox County

· · · ✚ · · ·

Living Fellows — Project Zomboid Build 42.21.0 Edition

Release 0.26.28 — First Edition, Fourth Printing — You won't die... alone.

Part I

First Steps

Nobody hands you a manual when the world ends. Here is one anyway: how to install the fellows, find the first of them, and tell them what you need.

Chapter 1: Before You BeginDay One ↑ Contents

Living Fellows turns the survivors you meet into persistent people. They are native human actors with real inventories, injuries, skills and permanent death, and they make their own survival decisions when you are not giving orders. That depth needs a small native bridge beside the usual Lua, which is why installing it takes one step more than an ordinary mod.

The mod targets Project Zomboid Build 42.21.0 and is single-player only. Multiplayer and user-added split-screen players are refused. The one exception is the experimental expedition, which may briefly put its own companion leader in a second local view to load the mission area.

Two Ways In

ZombieBuddy loads approved Java mods outside the game's Lua sandbox. Review its installation preview, and approve Living Fellows only if you trust the repository and the Workshop item.

The standalone installer finds Steam on its own. If Windows refuses access to the game folder, run it as Administrator. For a game in another Steam library, point it there:

It installs the mod under %USERPROFILE%\Zomboid\mods\SurvivorCompanion, keeps its bridge under %LOCALAPPDATA%\LivingFellows, and backs up ProjectZomboid64.json before changing it. It never edits projectzomboid.jar. Uninstall.bat, run from the same folder, removes everything and restores the original launcher settings.

Back Up Your Save

Companions, households, relationships, contracts, bases and production orders are saved with the world, so they outlive your character. That also means the mod is woven into the save. Before installing or updating:

1. Close the game.
2. Copy your save folder from %USERPROFILE%\Zomboid\Saves somewhere safe.
3. Keep at least one backup from before your first Living Fellows session.

Chapter 2: The First Five MinutesDay One ↑ Contents

Knox County was never crowded, and it is less crowded now. The people who are left keep to themselves. None of them falls in behind you because you happened to walk past; every one of them has to be asked.

1. Load a single-player save.
2. Press Home to open the companion panel, or click the small LF launcher when the panel is collapsed.
3. Explore until you meet a survivor. Survivors never join automatically.
4. Select the survivor in the panel and press Recruit when it is offered.
5. Open Orders and pick a main order.
6. Hold Keypad 1 to peek through the selected companion's position; let go to return to your character. Press Keypad 2, or right-click a nearby companion and choose Watch, for a view that stays.
7. Hold Keypad 3 to steer that companion toward the cursor; let go to hand them back to their own judgement.
8. If something looks wrong, open More → Support for runtime health and a copyable report.

What a New Recruit Starts With

Each survivor arrives with a profession, a trait, a personality, a history, a keepsake, a preferred camp role and a personal goal. You can read most of it in More → Journal. A team holds up to 16 companions by default; the sandbox page sets the limit (Appendix B).

Chapter 3: The Companion PanelDay One ↑ Contents

The panel is translucent so the world stays visible behind it. Dock it left or right, collapse it to the LF launcher, or toggle it with Home. The key can be rebound under Living Fellows in the game's key bindings, and the background opacity is a sandbox option.

Talking

Use the Talk button above the tabs, or right-click a nearby companion and choose Talk to [name]. Pick a topic and a line, and the companion walks into speaking distance before it answers. The talk view keeps recent dialogue and says so when something interrupts. Every line you can choose, and what it does, is in Chapter 9b. The same right-click menu offers Follow, Stay, Regroup and Retreat, and a link to the full Orders panel.

Peek and Watch

Select a companion in the roster and hold Keypad 1 to ease the camera toward them; let go to ease home. Keypad 2 starts or stops a Watch view that stays on them. With the mouse, right-click a nearby companion and choose Watch; while watching, right-click anywhere and choose Stop watching. Both work with the panel collapsed, on the same floor within 16 tiles, and alongside the game's right-click aim lean. All three keypad keys can be rebound under Options, Key bindings, Living Fellows.

Steer

Hold Keypad 3 (separately rebindable) and point at loaded ground to walk the selected companion toward the cursor. Hold Peek and Steer together for a scout-and-direct view. Steering goes through the same action supervisor as work and survival: it can interrupt lower-priority activity, can't pull a companion out of a protected native action, and gives way at once to a combat rescue or survival movement. Let go of the key and the companion's own judgement resumes.

On-Screen Helpers

• First-name labels above companions you can see (a sandbox option).
• Minimap markers for your companions.
• The base layout overlay, toggled with Insert (Chapter 11).
• The Support page under More → Support: runtime health, leaked-action counters, and a report you can copy into a bug report.

Chapter 3b: Status and LoadoutDay One ↑ Contents

Two tabs answer most questions about one companion: Status says what they are doing and how they are, and Loadout says what they carry and what hurts.

Status

A Companion's Request

Now and then a bored companion asks for something at the top of Status, most often "We should plan another supply run." (Chapter 9f). Four answers are offered: We will go soon, Come with me now, Not now and We cannot spare the risk.

Loadout

	Wound state	What to do
	Bleeding	Bandage now; it comes first
	Fractured	A splint, once the bleeding is dressed
	Dirty bandage	Change it; they will in downtime if they carry a clean one
	Bitten	See Chapter 8

Chapter 4: Giving OrdersDay One ↑ Contents

An order tells a companion what you want, not how to move every limb. Between orders, they look after themselves: they eat, rest, read, repair, scavenge and keep watch, and they fight or flee when they must. A good order sets the frame and lets them fill it in.

The Main Order

World Orders

Right-click the world for the Living Fellows menu. The selected companion gets Move here plus one action for whatever you clicked: open or close a door, barricade, remove a barricade, dismantle, or Check room for an indoor room. Target actions, care, squad signals, base work and households sit in submenus.

• Target actions → Guard here anchors the selected companion to that square.
• Focus on this zombie makes them strongly prefer it. Leave this zombie alone lowers its priority for twelve seconds.
• Focus the same zombie again within four seconds to push the order.

Assigned Objectives

Right-click a recruited companion and choose Assign objective to set a concrete priority: medical supplies, reading material, gear, shelter, or a proper meal. Their own personal goal is kept and comes back once your objective is met (Chapter 9d).

Standing Settings

Dismissing a Companion

Dismissal asks for confirmation by name, from the Squad view or the context menu, so a changed roster selection can't send the wrong person away. Confirm, and the companion leaves the group and walks away from you. Their base duty and work end with it.

A dismissal is a player order, and it outranks routine life. A companion pausing between actions, eating, reading or busy with a camp job stops and goes. Two things still come first. A companion fighting or escaping for its life keeps its claim, and so does one partway through an action that can't safely be stopped, such as the game's own timed actions or work that is committing its result. The dismissal is refused until that is over; try again a moment later.

Your First Week at a Glance ↑ Contents

There is no right order to any of this, but a first week with the fellows tends to run like this:

Part II

Life on the Road

The county is the same county, only quieter and hungrier. These chapters cover how the fellows walk it with you: how they move, fight, forage, heal, talk, and remember.

Chapter 5: Moving TogetherSettling In ↑ Contents

Followers keep their place instead of stacking on your heels. By default a team you lead walks in single file along your path. Turn on Team fans out while following (Orders, Combat; it applies to the whole team) and on clear open ground they spread into fireteam slots instead: a close fighter at point, firearm support in the middle, and a cautious survivor at the rear. Doors, windows, fences, stairs and narrow streets put them back in file, one at a time, and they spread out again on the other side. An expedition squad always uses the fireteam shape.

On the move they check blind corners, climb fences and walls with the player's own actions, route around vehicles, furniture and crowds, and remember the way back outside. When danger closes in they back off or strafe on safe ground, and they turn and run when they are overrun.

What They Can See

In clear conditions a companion spots zombies up to 24 tiles away, but each one has to see the target for itself. Walls, closed doors and other floors block sight. Noise behind a wall produces only an uncertain warning, never a confident callout.

Stairs

Stairs are the hardest ground a companion walks. If a follower can't cross floors by the direct path, it surveys the loaded stairs nearby, walks to a verified entrance and climbs from there. A staircase it can't reach, behind a wall or a locked door, is dropped after twenty seconds of trying without getting closer, and the next loaded staircase is tried. Time spent fighting or holding position doesn't count against those twenty seconds.

Vehicles

With Ride with player on, companions take free passenger seats and get out when you do. When the car is full, the extra followers wait safely on foot. No one leaves a moving vehicle: getting out waits until it has stopped. Seats, statuses and shooting from a car are in Chapter 5c.

Chapter 5b: Squads and SignalsSettling In ↑ Contents

One companion follows your voice. Six need a system. The Squad tab splits the team into groups, gives each group its orders, and lets you steer everyone at once with a whistle or a hand sign.

Groups

Select a companion and choose a Group: None, Alpha, Bravo or Charlie. The same tab shows the companion's place in the fireteam, for example CQB role: Point — column 1 of 4 (Chapter 5). A group is also the squad you send on an expedition.

The Group orders apply to everyone in the selected companion's group:

The Whistle and the Hand Signs

Signals are given by your character, in the world: you whistle or make the gesture, and companions answer. The difference is who hears it. The whistle reaches every companion on Follow, seen or not, but it is loud: it carries about 24 tiles, and zombies hear it too. A hand sign is silent, but only companions who can see you respond. Each one that obeys answers with an OK sign of its own.

	Signal	What they do
	Whistle: regroup followers	Regroup
	Hand sign: follow	Follow
	Hand sign: hold	Stay
	Hand sign: regroup	Regroup
	Hand sign: follow cautiously	Follow, with movement set to Sneak and scavenging switched on
	Hand sign: move out	Follow
	Hand sign: fall back to me	Retreat
	Hand sign: cease fire	Hold fire on
	Hand sign: fire	Hold fire off

The Squad tab lists every signal under Squad movement signals and Squad fire signals. The quickest ones (whistle, hold, fall back, cease fire and fire) are also in the world right-click menu under Living Fellows → Squad.

Follow Distance

Orders offers five follow distances: Stay close, 2, 3, 5 or 8 tiles. Close spacing suits buildings and doorways; wide spacing suits open roads, where a long column is less likely to bunch up behind you at a fence.

Chapter 5c: Riding TogetherSettling In ↑ Contents

With Ride with the player when a seat is available switched on (it is, for every new recruit), followers climb into your vehicle when you drive off and get out when you do. Seats are planned, not scrambled for: each rider is assigned a free passenger seat, and the plan is rebuilt if someone else takes a seat first.

Getting Out

Nobody steps out of a moving vehicle. A companion who needs out waits until it stops; then Exit vehicle now appears on Loadout and in the companion's right-click menu if you want them out before you.

Shooting from a Vehicle

Expedition squads always travel on foot.

Chapter 6: Combat and the Rules of EngagementSettling In ↑ Contents

Companions fight with the game's own attack animations and weapon timings. Before every swing or shot they weigh their wounds, stamina, panic, pain, morale, skill and weapon condition against the support around them and the routes out. They split targets, avoid friendly fire, shove when it is safe, finish zombies on the ground, and cover a retreat.

The Four Doctrines

The Rules of Engagement are set on Orders, for one companion or the whole team. A team doctrine applies to every recruited companion, including recruits who join later. Friendly-fire and survival checks stay active under all four.

When They Say No

A companion who decides a fight is too dangerous says why. It names the reason that actually decided it, such as exhaustion, encirclement, wounds, bad footing, no escape, or an empty weapon, instead of refusing in silence or shouting a generic retreat.

One line per reason shown; each reason has several, in every voice. A refusal gets first claim on a companion's chance to speak, so you hear it before small talk.

Calling It Out

Each companion calls out the zombies it sees, the walkers it hears and the noises worth a word, and the size of the call grows with the threat, from one walker to a horde. That holds even while it is busy reading, eating, working or pausing between actions. Combat calls make real noise. Under Stealth, a companion uses a silent hand signal when it can, and a busy one keeps a quiet warning to itself rather than shouting it.

Shared barks are remembered across the squad, so three companions in one room won't echo the same line. The kill lines run deep, and a brave companion may allow itself some gallows humour after a confirmed kill, but only once the encounter is genuinely clear.

Bites and Pins

Zombies hunt companions the way they hunt you. Bites can infect and turn them. A swarm can pull a companion to the ground and pin it there unless you thin the pile in time. A pinned companion always cries for help.

Distractions

A companion who finds itself surrounded may yell a deadpan fake distraction at the zombies. It doesn't work on them. It sometimes works on morale.

Chapter 7: Scavenging and GearSettling In ↑ Contents

A scavenger chooses a container from the outside, the way you would: how far away it is, and what room it stands in. It doesn't know what is inside until it opens it. Once it has, it keeps taking what it needs from that container rather than walking to the next one for one more item. Every transfer plays the rummage animation through and is checked. Empty containers are skipped for a while.

Always Worth Carrying Home

Some things run short at every camp, so whoever is short of what, scavengers always carry these home: nails, planks, and thread, tape, scrap and batteries. Walls, barricades and repairs all start with them.

Scavengers also search containers you have already opened, so a house you went through first is still worth their time.

Inside the Camp

Inside your base it works the other way round. Companions use the storage you have marked, of any category, for scavenging and for meals, down to any reserve you set, and leave every unmarked container to you. Memorial storage keeps its keepsakes. See Chapter 11 for marking storage.

Gear and Upkeep

• Companions use backpacks, keep supplies suited to their role, and drop dead weight outside combat.
• They loot dead zombies when it is safe, and upgrade their clothing and armour.
• They wash themselves and their gear near clean water. In downtime they wash dirty dressings for reuse and make splints from clean strips and wood.
• After dark, and in an unlit room at any hour, a companion carrying a flashlight holds it in its off hand and switches it on. It puts it out when there is light again, and swaps in a spare battery when the torch runs flat. A two-handed weapon leaves no hand for a torch.

Studying the Dead

Now and then, when a spot has been quiet for a while, a companion crouches over a dead zombie nearby and talks through what it sees: the clothes, what the infection did to the person, and what Knox Knews and the radio said back in July 1993. Each does it in its own voice: a quiet word, a civil-defence joke, something about Kentucky. Doctors, nurses, police and other hands-on professions are more curious. Cautious companions keep their distance, a badly stressed one never looks, and each body gets one look.

Sometimes a companion stops at a body for a different reason. It crouches and says a few quiet words. If the dead carried a keepsake such as a photo or a locket, it mentions it and leaves it where it lies. Caring companions do this most, and more often right after a fight. A friend nearby may say something back.

Chapter 8: Needs, Medicine and DeathSettling In ↑ Contents

Companions get hungry, thirsty and tired on the game's own needs. By default hunger and thirst rise at half the player's rate; the sandbox page can set anything from off to twice the player's rate. They eat, drink, fetch from camp storage, and look after themselves, but they can only use what the world gives them.

When They Speak Up

A companion says something once when a need crosses a threshold, and again only if it gets worse. It waits out danger and the usual speech cooldowns, and can raise the same need again only after it has improved and come back. Asking about their status in Talk still gets a direct answer.

	Need	Noticed	Serious	Urgent
	Thirst	48%	62%	75%
	Hunger	55%	70%	82%
	Tiredness	50%	68%	82%

Percentages are of the game's own need scale, as the mod reads it.

Water and Food

A companion drinks only clean water: a carried bottle, a safe source nearby such as a working sink, or water fetched from camp storage. Tainted or poisoned water is not drunk. At camp, a clean tap or well within six tiles on the same floor comes before their own bottles, which they save for the road, and a source on a connected camp floor will do; a source that fails is left alone for a short while. Thirst comes first, but no water never stops a companion eating. One that is thirsty and hungry with no clean water in reach eats its food and keeps looking for water.

Wounds and Treatment

• Companions tear cloth into bandages, or use a dirty rag when nothing clean is left, and treat their own wounds.
• When it is safe they approach and treat you: your bleeding wounds first, then other treatable wounds and unsplinted limbs, with the game's own first-aid animations. A splint is used up only after the animation and your body state both succeed.
• If you start bandaging or splinting yourself, they step back at once and leave your supplies alone.
• They treat each other. A rescuer picks the most urgent casualty it can actually treat, so a patient who needs a splint the helper doesn't carry won't hide another who is bleeding.
• A helper pinned down by nearby threats doesn't keep choosing an unsafe rescue, and a failed treatment says what stopped it.

	Supply	Use
	Bandage	Stops bleeding on a cut, scratch or bite
	Sheets and clothing	Torn into strips when bandages run out
	Splint	Braces a fracture; made in downtime from clean strips and wood

Bites and the Knox Infection

A bite changes everything, and the fellows know it. A known bite can lead to concealment, confession, quarantine, exile, or a farewell. Those who learn of it walk over and talk it through face to face. A bitten companion may first confide in the one it trusts most, which might be you, and a protective friend might keep the secret for a while.

Near the end the infection shows. From 90% verified Knox progress a living companion walks with a worsening shamble, the game's own heavy limp, and settled on a bed it now and then lets out a short, zombie-like groan. Other illnesses never cause either, and real leg wounds still show as they are.

When Someone Is Bitten

A bitten companion makes the first choice: to conceal the bite, to confess it, or to leave on its own before anyone has to decide. Which it picks depends on who it is. Once others know, the camp has an infection crisis, listed in More → Base → Infection crises with the bitten companion's name, the stage of the crisis and how far the infection has gone.

Everyone who knows for certain weighs in, each by temperament: protective, compassionate, pragmatic, fearful or authoritarian. How far the fever has spread matters too. While the infection is under about half, the group leans toward watching and quarantine; past about four-fifths, toward exile or mercy. Without a marked Quarantine area (Chapter 11), quarantine is hard to argue for. When their deliberation runs out, the companions decide among themselves. You can choose before that, or overrule them after, and your choice stands until an irreversible act has been authorized.

Your option	What follows
Argue for watch and wait	They stay among you, watched, and take no base jobs
Argue for quarantine	They walk to the quarantine area and stay there, and take no base jobs
Order exile	They walk out of the camp and are not allowed back
Propose mercy killing	Only once the bite is confirmed to you. A companion who knows carries it out, and only after your final authorization, which a short safety delay holds back
Offer bleach (their choice)	Only for a companion, once the bite is confirmed to you and the infection has reached 90%. A bottle of bleach must be in their pack, or in yours while you stand within three tiles, and it is handed over. They may refuse, and then you choose another way. If they accept, they drink it themselves with the game's own drink action, after the same safety delay and your final authorization
End crisis and return to normal duty	Lifts the restriction and gives them their ordinary duties back

Death

Death is permanent, and it follows the game's own rules for corpses and reanimation. A dying companion may have last words, shaped by how it is dying and how close you were. A diary keeper's book stays with the body (Chapter 10), and a fallen companion found by the gravekeeper gets a grave with a cross and its name (Chapter 16).

Chapter 9: Voices, Moods and BondsSettling In ↑ Contents

Every survivor has a profession, a trait, a personality, a history, a keepsake, a preferred camp role and a personal goal (Chapter 9c). Trust, bonds, morale, stress, memories, grief and relationships all persist (Chapter 9d), and what they say reacts to what actually happened.

Four Voices

Each companion speaks in one of four voices. The voice colours every pool of lines, from a warning to a joke at camp.

Moods

On top of the voice sits a speaking mood: stressed at stress 65 or more, low at morale 28 or less, hopeful at morale 72 or more, and otherwise steady. (The Journal shows a finer mood of its own, Chapter 9d.) Steady companions answer routine work and waiting with dry understatement. Low spirits colour rain, fog, dawn and dusk with sparse observations. Hopeful survivors read abandoned notices and familiar buildings with an obsolete civil-defence confidence. Stressed companions have short, sharp lines of their own.

Stress can show as venting, pacing, arguments, withdrawal or a breakdown; good morale gives small boosts. Native stress and panic can show in what they say: a companion may react to a frightening sound that did not affect you, talk through the onset or end of a panic, or ask for cigarettes when a smoker's withdrawal rises. A deaf survivor doesn't react to sounds it can't hear. All of this is flavour: it never changes a decision. Danger interrupts all of it.

Talk Around the Fire, and on the Road

• At camp, two idle companions may turn toward each other for a short exchange. Followers count, and so does anyone standing in the camp's logging, farm, burial or pyre areas.
• On the road, one nearby follower says something about every two minutes while you walk.
• Standing still for a few minutes earns a joke.
• Busy hands: a companion at work or in downtime makes the odd remark.
• New places: the first walk into a notable building, such as a police station, church, bar, hospital or gun store, earns a remark. Former police officers, doctors, nurses and others have lines of their own for places like their old workplaces.
• Strangers: a companion who meets a calm, non-hostile survivor says hello and gives them room to answer.

There is more to say during routine work, while following you, and when one or two zombies come at you: Kentucky references, dry post-apocalypse humour, and stressed, low or hopeful lines depending on mood. Conversation is spaced out so it never becomes a chorus, and danger interrupts it.

Tall Tales

Companions remember their best fights. Four kills in one fight, or a kill after being pulled down, becomes a story. The companion tells it later, when things are calm at the base or you have stood still for a minute. Every retelling grows the numbers and the title, from "that thing at the gas station" to "the Legend of the Gas Station". A companion who was there may correct it. The teller never backs down.

Body Language

Companions yawn late at night, and the yawn spreads to whoever stands nearby. They stretch after sitting and first thing in the morning at base, sneeze in dusty storerooms and cough in the cold. They stay seated while reading or writing, prefer usable furniture when tired, and can rest on the floor when no seat or bed is free. A companion who rests on a bed, cot or the floor with a book or its diary to hand reads or writes there before getting up. Athletic companions do a short morning workout at base, and others sometimes join them. All of it is animation only, with no sound and no effect on stats.

Chapter 9b: Talking with the FellowsSettling In ↑ Contents

Every word in the Talk view is a real conversation. You choose what to say, the companion walks over until it is close enough to speak, and then it answers in its own voice from what is true right now: its body, its mood, its memories of you. Some answers only tell you something. Others change how they feel.

Check In

Get to Know

Support

Support lines change how a companion feels, and only work on recruited companions.

When a Conversation Fails

Chapter 9c: Who They AreSettling In ↑ Contents

Every survivor is rolled once, when you first meet them, and stays that person through every save and reload: the same trade, the same nerves, the same habit of humming while they work. Two pages show what you know about them: More → Character for the body and skills, and More → Journal for the person.

The Character Page

Four Measures of a Person

Personality is four scores from 0 to 100: Courage, Caution, Compassion and Practicality. One of them is always strong. Profession and background trait nudge the rest. The highest of the four becomes their voice, Brave, Cautious, Caring or Practical (Chapter 9), and the scores lean their decisions:

Professions

The 25 professions are the game's own, with the game's starting skill boosts. Each points toward a natural camp role (Builder is the Carpenter job, Chapter 14) and offers a short list of background traits; a companion gets one of them.

A profession also colours what they choose to do: which goals they pick, which camp jobs they drift toward, how they read a fight. Former police, doctors, nurses and others have lines of their own for places like their old workplaces.

Background Traits

A Life Before

Beyond the trade, every survivor has a past they tell you a piece at a time (Chapter 9d): a short history, a home town, something they value, something they fear, and a habit.

Keepsakes and Rituals

Every survivor carries a keepsake, something personal they won't explain until they trust you. If it is ever lost, getting it back becomes their goal.

Some companions also keep a small, harmless personal ritual, and the Journal shows it once you've noticed it, with how often they've done it:

Ritual
Salutes Spiffo signs	A smart salute to the raccoon
Blesses Kentucky bourbon	Even when there's none to pour
Apologizes to mannequins	Just in case
Reports to garden-gnome command	Chain of command is chain of command
Gives the old team a pep talk	Season's not over
Worships the Rubber Duck	The duck is a relic, and its keeper notices if it goes missing

A ritual may surface at a graveside too, where a gravekeeper with the habit closes the grave its own way.

The Journal

Chapter 9d: Trust, Bonds and GoalsSettling In ↑ Contents

A companion's feelings about you rest on two numbers, each from 0 to 100. Trust is whether they believe you'll do right by them. Bond is how much they care. Beside them run morale (55 to start) and stress (12 to start). None of it is shown as a bar; you hear it in how they talk and read it in the Journal.

The Five Tiers

The relationship tier comes from a score that weighs trust slightly above bond: trust × 0.55 + bond × 0.45.

What Builds It

Almost everything that counts happens close: within 8 tiles, on the same floor. Each moment is noticed on its own, with a short wait before the same kind counts again.

When You Hit Them

A swing or a shot that lands on a companion is remembered. If zombies or hostile people are on them at that moment, it is an accident in a melee: they complain and nothing is counted. A hit in a quiet moment is a strike.

A companion fighting you stops once your health falls to 25% or below: one ceasefire, "You're hurt enough. I'm done fighting." Strike them after that and the fight goes on to the end, accident or not.

Trust Opens the Past

"Tell me about yourself" gives one new detail each time, but only as far as their trust (not the tier score) allows:

Detail	Needs trust
Occupation	any
Past	10
Home	25
What they value	40
What they fear	55
A habit	70
Their keepsake	80

Their current goal opens up earlier: from trust 10, they'll tell you when you ask what they're hoping for.

Mood in the Journal

Checked top to bottom: a loyal companion who is also shaken shows as shaken.

Personal Goals

Each companion chases one goal of its own at a time, picked from six by personality and profession: compassion leans toward medicine and meals, caution toward reading, practicality toward gear and shelter, and a nurse, cook or carpenter leans toward their trade. They avoid repeating a goal they've just finished, and a lost keepsake always comes first.

	Goal	Done when
	Keep clean bandages ready	They carry two clean bandages
	Find something worth reading	They carry something they haven't read yet
	Put our gear in order	They carry a weapon in at least 80% condition, or finish a repair
	Improve this shelter	They finish barricade work
	Share a proper meal	They eat with you close by
	Recover the personal keepsake	The keepsake is back in their pocket

A finished goal lifts morale, adds bond if they'd told you about it, and is followed by a breather of about six in-game hours before the next.

Assigned Objectives

Right-click a recruited companion and choose Assign objective to set one of the first five goals yourself. An objective they've already fulfilled isn't offered, since it would complete at once for nothing. Their own goal is set aside, not lost: it comes back when your objective is done.

Chapter 9e: Downtime and Quiet HoursSettling In ↑ Contents

When nothing needs doing and nothing is coming, a companion finds something to do. There is no selector for it: they choose from their needs, personality, goals and what they did last, and any danger ends it at once.

	Activity	When and how
	Reading	Something they carry, or an unread book borrowed from marked storage and put back afterwards. A sitting covers a chapter, about a twentieth of the book; progress is kept across trips and saves, and a passenger in your car may read on the road. Skill books raise the game's own XP multiplier in ten-percent steps, for a volume they can use now. They stay seated to read, and read in bed after a rest if a book is to hand. Two companions chatting at camp sometimes talk about a book one of them is carrying.
	Writing	Diary keepers write an entry in a quiet, safe moment (Chapter 10)
	Repairs	Damaged gear they carry. Handy, Tinkerer, Sewer and Dextrous companions do more of it.
	Changing a dressing	A dirty bandage swapped for a clean one; the used one goes back in their pack
	Making splints	From a clean rag and wood, while they carry fewer than two
	Making sheet rope	For climbing out of windows
	Washing	Themselves, their gear, and dirty dressings for reuse, at reachable clean water. Protected items are left alone, and a washed dressing keeps its custom name and favourite mark.
	Rest	A bed or cot, a usable chair, or the floor when no seat or bed is free. A tired companion sleeps in a bed for 3½ to 9 game hours, longer the more tired it is, and wakes rested; a chair rest lasts 25 to 85 game minutes. Danger and a new order wake them.
	Television	A powered TV with the volume up: they take a seat that faces the screen, or stand in the same room where they can see it. At camp they may go one floor up or down to a TV that is on. Skill shows and VHS tapes give each viewer the game's usual XP and recipes, once per line, remembered across saves. They may comment, or note something worth learning.
	Radio	A powered radio within reach, or one floor away at camp: they switch it on, tune it to a station (never the squad's own channel), turn the volume up if it is off, then sit nearby and listen, remarking on what they hear. It passes the time; it teaches nothing.
	Window watching	Indoors, a short look out of a nearby window, opening a closed curtain first; they wait if someone else has the spot
	Gear check	A short look over the weapon or tool in hand. Nothing is repaired or swapped.
	Radio check	With a powered two-way radio on the Living Fellows team channel, a short call that really goes out on the air, at most every ten minutes
	Tidying	At camp, a short spell straightening a marked container in the same building. Nothing is moved: sorting is a base job.
	Cleaning	At camp, scrubbing blood or grime off a floor or wall in the same building with the game's own cleaning action. They need a mop or other cleaning tool and bleach or cleaning liquid in their pack, and the game takes its usual amount.
	Drying off	Indoors when wet or cold: a short wipe-down, using one use of a carried bath towel or dish cloth if they have one. The game handles wetness and warmth.
	Curtains	Indoors, curtains get closed at night (20:00–06:00). By day a companion now and then opens or closes one; a companion on Stealth, sneaking or holding fire only ever closes them.
	Exercise	Athletic companions work out at base in the morning, and others sometimes join them (Chapter 9)
	The dead	Studying a body, or paying respects to one (Chapter 7)

Chapter 9f: Stress, Joy and BoredomSettling In ↑ Contents

Under the voice and the mood runs a quieter ledger: what a companion is thinking about. Some thoughts come from how they are right now, others from what just happened, and together they push stress and morale up and down.

What Weighs on Them

Under Pressure

When stress builds too far, each companion reacts in its own fixed way, set by its strongest personality measure. All of it plays out in the world, and danger stops it.

Positive Momentum

Good days show too. When things go well, a companion gets a spell of momentum, again in its own fixed style:

Boredom and the Supply Run

Boredom grows while a companion waits with nothing to do and nothing threatening, and drains away when they're busy. Once it passes 45, it starts to weigh on them. A bored companion may then ask, from the top of Status, for a supply run, if two days have passed since the last one or supplies are low, and never more than once a day.

A supply run, as far as the camp is concerned, is leaving the camp with companions and coming back at least half an hour later. It counts as a bad run if anyone came home noticeably more hurt than they left.

Chapter 10: Private DiariesSettling In ↑ Contents

Some companions keep a diary. When a companion joins, the game decides once whether they are a diary keeper, about one in three by default, and remembers that choice. A keeper carries a book named after them, plus a pencil if they had nothing to write with. Now and then, in a quiet safe moment, they open the book for a few seconds and write a short entry: at most once a day, usually every day or two.

What Goes in the Book

Every entry is about something that really happened to that companion, and a companion only writes what it could know.

A hidden infection stays out of the book until they feel the fever. Each keeper has a voice of their own (plain and guarded, warm, blunt, or wry and watchful), and a later entry may quote an earlier page when their view of you has really changed. If an entry is interrupted, nothing is written.

Reading One

Right-click the book and choose Read. Reading a living companion's diary asks you to confirm first, because it is private. Reading gives no experience or reward. A book holds 60 entries.

Part III

The Living Base

A house is four walls. A camp is the people inside them, the work they share, and the rules that keep them alive while you are out. Here is how to give the fellows a home.

Chapter 11: Setting Up CampCamp Life ↑ Contents

Everything at camp starts from one tile: the camp core. Choose it inside the place you mean to hold, because the camp boundary grows out from it, seven tiles in every direction to begin with.

Drawing Zones

1. Right-click the first corner tile and choose Start zone here, then the kind of zone.
2. Move the mouse to preview the rectangle.
3. Right-click the final corner tile. That locks the rectangle, so the preview won't shift while you move through the menu.
4. Choose Finish zone here. Your character's position is never used.

Zone	What it is for	Where it may lie
Camp boundary	The camp itself; also added on its own to connected floors (Ch 12)	Around the camp core; more can be drawn inside the camp or on a connected floor
Work area	General camp work	Inside the camp
Rest area	Where residents rest	Inside the camp
Social area	Where residents gather	Inside the camp
Guard area	Where guards keep watch	Inside the camp
Rally area	Where the camp gathers	Inside the camp
Quarantine area	Somewhere to keep a bitten companion apart	Inside the camp
Lumber area	Standing trees for the woodcutter	Up to 30 tiles beyond the boundary
Farm area	Existing plots for the farmer	Up to 30 tiles beyond the boundary
Fishing bank	Dry ground beside at least two tiles of open water, for the angler (Ch 15b)	Up to 30 tiles beyond the boundary, at ground level
Burial ground	Graves	Up to 30 tiles beyond the boundary
Pyre (burn site)	Burning the dead; at most nine tiles, and it must pass a fire-safety check when drawn	Up to 30 tiles beyond the boundary

Seeing the Layout

Press Insert (rebindable under Options, Key bindings, Living Fellows), or use the right-click menu or the button in the Base tab, to show the base layout. Each zone gets a see-through floor tint and outline in its colour, registered storage gets a tile and outline in its category colour, and a legend lists what is on screen. With the layout showing, right-click a zone to remove it. A zone that is still needed says why instead.

Marking Storage

Right-click a container inside the camp, choose Mark storage as... and pick a category. Companions help themselves from marked storage and leave unmarked containers to you. You can give each marked container a reserve, and companions leave that many items in it (Chapter 14b).

	Category	What goes in it
	Food	Meals and supplies to eat
	Water	Clean drinking water
	Medical	Bandages, splints, disinfectant
	Tools	Hammers, saws, axes, shovels
	Construction	Planks, nails, logs
	Crafting	Materials for repairs and crafting
	Books & magazines	The camp library (Ch 14)
	Weapons	Spare weapons
	Ammunition	Rounds and magazines
	General source	Anything the camp may draw from
	Work output	Where finished work goes, such as a carpenter's planks
	Memorial	Keepsakes of the dead; companions leave them be
	Farming supplies	Seed, tools, compost, water cans, crop treatments

Abandoning a Camp

To move, choose Abandon camp from the camp's right-click menu or at the end of More → Base, confirm, and set a new camp core. Running camp work is stopped. Anything a companion was carrying for the camp stays with it, and residents leave duty and stay where they stand. The camp's zones, storage marks and plans are removed; buildings and stored items stay in the world.

Chapter 12: Floors, Stairs and BasementsCamp Life ↑ Contents

A camp is not flat. A complete staircase inside the camp area automatically extends the camp to the connected floor, above or below, including a basement. You don't have to draw anything: once the stair and its landing tiles are loaded, the next floor joins the camp.

• This also happens after you build stairs, once the stair and landing tiles are loaded.
• The generated area follows the current camp rectangle and covers only tiles with a real floor. Use Insert to inspect it.
• A camp made in a basement extends up to the ground floor at the top of its stairs, and a ground-floor camp extends down into the cellar.
• Residents use marked storage on a connected floor normally. Mark upper-floor storage the same way as any other.
• A woodcutter can work a lumber area outside camp and carry logs up or down the stairs to storage on a connected floor.
• Camp life uses every connected floor. Residents go up or down for a bed, a seat, a TV or radio, water to drink or wash with, the library and downtime chores, and the Chef finds fridges, stoves, sinks and tables on any camp floor.

Chapter 13: Building from BlueprintsCamp Life ↑ Contents

Companions build what you plan. Planned work appears as a blueprint ghost, and residents on duty build it in stages with materials from camp storage.

Managing a Plan

Right-click a planned tile and open the plan's submenu:

The Base view can show or hide the blueprints.

What the Work Needs

Builders draw tools and materials from camp storage, so mark a Construction and a Tools container. A companion sent to build, barricade or take a barricade down without the right tool or material says exactly what is missing:

	Missing	What they'll tell you
	Hammer	"I need an unbroken hammer."
	Planks	"I need a plank."
	Nails	"I need two nails."
	Saw	"I need an unbroken saw."
	Screwdriver	"I need an unbroken screwdriver."
	Pry tool	"I need a tool that can remove barricades."

When a Plan Is Refused

Chapter 14: Base Duty and JobsCamp Life ↑ Contents

A companion on base duty lives at the camp and works for it. Give Stay or Guard inside the camp area, or choose a job in More → Base, and they are on duty. Residents sort storage, repair gear, craft supplies, keep watch, patrol, maintain barricades, and build queued construction. A guard on shift keeps watch around its post instead of taking general chores.

Jobs Are Roles

A resident's base job is its camp role. Each companion arrives with a natural role from its profession (Generalist, Guard, Builder, Quartermaster, Medic or Farmer), and the job you choose replaces it. The job list adds five more: Woodcutter, Gravekeeper, Maintainer, Chef and Angler. The Carpenter job is the Builder role.

Choosing a Base Job

Select a companion in More → Base and pick one job from the dropdown near the top. That puts them on base duty; No base job (follow me) brings them back. The job survives a save and reload. You don't set quantities, areas, destinations or workers for each order: the marked areas and storage tell them where, and the scheduler gives them time between survival and other work.

	Base job	You need	What happens
	Woodcutter	A lumber area, an axe, and marked construction, general or output storage	Scans a few loaded tiles at a time, chops one standing tree with the game's own action, and hauls the logs to storage. Makes small logging orders when stored logs are low.
	Carpenter	Logs in marked storage, a saw, and a second marked container for planks	Takes one log, saws it into three planks with the vanilla recipe, and stores them. Finished output is recovered after a pause or reload.
	Gravekeeper	A burial ground and shovel, or a safe pyre with lighter and petrol	Finds a body in the camp or lumber areas, drags it to the burial ground or pyre, then buries or burns it (Ch 16).
	Farmer	A farm area over existing plots and marked farming supplies	Waters, tends and harvests what the field audit finds (Ch 15).
	Maintainer	Marked maintenance targets	Repairs damaged barricades that need planks.
	Chef	A powered camp fridge, ingredients and cookware in camp storage	Keeps safe meals in the fridge, and cooks one for you on request (Ch 15b).
	Angler	A fishing bank, a rod and bait	Fishes the bank and stores the catch in marked Food storage (Ch 15b).

Quartermasters, medics, guards and generalists use the ordinary base chores. How much of that work they take on, and who keeps watch, is set by the base policies (Chapter 14b).

Safety Rules for Camp Work

• Chopping is loud. No tree is started while danger is visible nearby, winded residents rest, and a chop that gets stuck is abandoned after three minutes.
• Nights indoors. From 21:00 to 06:00 outdoor camp work pauses: workers head to an indoor camp square, outdoor jobs wait for daylight, and indoor chores carry on. A farm job already under way is finished, and a Chef stays by a pot on a lit fire. Switch on Work outside at night in the base policies (Ch 14b) to keep everyone working. Beyond the boundary, nobody starts a new tree or fetches a body at night either way.
• Sleep first. A resident who is more than half tired sleeps in a bed before claiming its next job, and keeps the bed until rested. A job already in hand is finished first.
• Loot is yours. Bodies still carrying items are left for you to loot.
• Dragging. A resident dragging a body takes no fences, windows or stairs, and drops it at once when danger shows up. The body stays where it fell.
• Blocked work shows its reason and tries again on its own, waiting longer each time; a job that keeps failing ends up under Stalled jobs (Ch 14b).
• Missing tools. A worker blocked for want of a tool may walk over and tell you what it needs, if you are on the same floor within 16 tiles and nothing is threatening. It doesn't follow you about: it gives up after half a minute, or once it finds the tool.

The Camp Library

Residents put spare carried books and magazines into nearby Books & magazines storage, even when they aren't overloaded, and keep them if no library is marked. In a quiet spell they may borrow an unread book or magazine, read it a chapter at a time (Ch 9e), and put that exact item back. Storage reserves, private diaries, favourites and other protected belongings are left alone. Immediate danger interrupts reading and returns a borrowed book.

Chapter 14b: Running the CampCamp Life ↑ Contents

More → Base is the camp's ledger. It reads top to bottom like a morning report: how the camp stands, what it's short of, who's on watch, and what work is waiting.

Camp Status

The first lines sum the camp up: its name, zones, marked stores, residents and how many are on duty; then jobs pending, active and blocked; then a readiness percentage, the stock lines and any alerts. If some marked storage is outside the loaded world, the view says so, and its contents aren't counted.

Stock targets

The camp measures five stocks against targets that grow with the camp:

	Stock	Target
	Food	3 per resident
	Water	2 per resident
	Medical	1 per resident
	Construction	2 per resident
	Ammunition	6 per guard

Each line reads Ready, Low or Unconfigured. Unconfigured means no storage of that category is marked at all.

Operational readiness

Readiness averages two things: how full each stock is against its target, and whether the roles a camp of this size needs are covered.

Base Policies

Three switches sit beside them, each with its name and an On/Off button. Allow safe routines and downtime turns residents' downtime and routines on or off. Automatically maintain and sort the base covers sorting and barricade maintenance; with it off, only a resident with the Maintainer job still repairs barricades. Work outside at night, off by default, lets outdoor camp work carry on from 21:00 to 06:00 (Ch 14).

Staffing and Shifts

Every resident is listed with their job and state: on watch, available or off duty. Select one to set their base job or start base duty (Chapter 14).

The Work Queue

The status lines count jobs pending, active and blocked, and planned construction is listed with its state and what it is blocked by (Ch 13). A blocked job tries again on its own, waiting twice as long after each failure: 10 seconds, then 20, 40 and so on, up to ten minutes.

After six failures in a row a job stops trying and appears under Stalled jobs, with its worker, the reason, and two buttons: Retry blocked job gives it a fresh run, and Cancel job removes it after a confirmation. Gathering and production jobs follow their own order's controls instead.

Zones, Storage and Maintenance

• Zone management lists every zone with its corners and floor. Removing one asks first and never deletes anything in the world. The last camp boundary is protected; add another before removing it.
• Storage management lets you change a container's category, set its reserve (0, 1, 2, 5 or 10 items that companions won't take), or unmark it. Its items stay where they are.
• Maintenance targets are the barricades you've marked for upkeep. Each can be enabled, disabled or removed.

Chapter 14c: Base WatchExperimental ↑ Contents

A camp lives only while the game has it loaded. Travel far enough and it unloads, and the camp's work stops with it. Base Watch keeps the camp loaded while you travel: one indoor resident holds it in a second local view, the way an expedition leader does, and the other residents carry on working around them.

• The watcher must be on base duty, indoors, and not in the middle of an outdoor job.
• Base Watch and an expedition share the one companion view, so only one of them runs at a time.
• Until you leave, End Base Watch closes it again.

While You're Away

• The watcher stays indoors. Outdoor jobs and fishing are dropped for them, and now and then they walk over to another indoor resident for a word.
• Residents beyond the watcher's loaded area may wait until it streams in again.
• From afar, the panel refuses camp changes and direct orders to residents: "While away, camp policy changes require a confirmed radio exchange."
• With a powered two-way radio equipped on you and on the watcher, on the same channel, the Base tab offers Request camp status and the three defence policies (Ch 14b). A change happens only when the watcher's reply comes back over the air.

Handing Over

• If the watcher steps outdoors or out of camp for more than four seconds, an indoor resident on the same floor within 16 tiles takes over the view. With nobody to take over, the panel says coverage was lost and waits for a return.
• If the watcher dies, the next eligible resident takes over once the body has settled. With nobody left, the watch ends.
• Saving and loading while away keeps the watch: the camp is loaded back in first, then the view is handed to the saved watcher.

Come back into camp within 16 tiles of the watcher and the second view closes on its own, once your own map covers the camp.

Chapter 15: FarmingCamp Life ↑ Contents

Draw one or more Farm areas over existing vanilla plots. Companions never turn untouched ground into fields; dig the plots first, and they will keep them. A bounded audit rotates across every marked farm area and queues the most urgent work it finds, with ties broken in a stable order.

	Rule	Detail
	Who tends	Any resident on duty; the Farmer role is preferred and completes farm actions 40% faster. Real Farming skill still sets the yield, and disease treatment needs Farming 3.
	Seed	Enough seed is kept for every plot that doesn't regrow, plus two spares. If the reserve is short, they wait for a seed stage.
	Fertiliser	Compost, not chemical fertiliser.
	Water	From the camp or the active farm area. Rain or tainted water first; clean water only in an emergency.
	Hours	Routine work is daylight only. A remote farm area gets no travel or work at night; a plot inside the camp may still be harvested or emergency-watered.

Residents borrow and return exact supplies, and route crops and seeds to marked storage. Mark a Farming supplies container for seed, tools, compost, water cans and crop treatments. Farmers comment now and then when preparing ground, sowing, watering, harvesting, treating or losing a crop, or finding the tools unusable. Those remarks never hold up the work.

Chapter 15b: The Kitchen and the WaterCamp Life ↑ Contents

Two base jobs feed the camp. Neither makes food out of nothing: the Chef cooks what the camp holds with the game's own recipes, and the Angler pulls real fish out of real water.

The Chef

Give a resident the Chef job. On duty, the Chef keeps one safe, prepared dish per resident on duty in a powered camp fridge, and cooks another when the stock runs short. With no powered fridge, the stock cooking waits.

	Dish	Needs
	Salad	A bowl and a safe salad ingredient
	Sandwich	Bread slices, or a loaf and a knife to slice it, and a safe filling
	Soup	A pot, two bowls, clean water from a reachable sink, and heat
	Fish soup, fish stew	As soup, with fish fillets; a whole fish and a sharp knife will do
	Venison stew, venison sandwich	As soup, or as a sandwich, with venison; raw venison for a sandwich is cooked first
	Stir fry	A frying pan, a suitable vegetable or other stir-fry ingredient, and heat. It stays in its pan until eaten.
	Pasta	Dry pasta, a pot holding 1.5 L of clean water, two bowls, a topping, and heat

• The automatic job rotates through the dishes and skips one whose meat or equipment is missing.
• Heat is a powered oven, or a campfire that is already lit. The Chef never lights or feeds a fire, and cooks on one only while outdoor work is allowed.
• Pot dishes are divided into two bowls with the game's own recipe, and the empty pot goes back to camp storage. Handcraft steps happen at a camp table.
• Fridges, stoves, sinks and tables count on any camp floor, and the Chef keeps what it found for the whole recipe. Finished food goes to a marked Food fridge first, then any other powered camp fridge.
• The Chef draws on marked storage first and respects its reserves. Nothing rotten, burnt or poisoned is used, and nothing is served until it is confirmed cooked and safe. Frozen fish or venison is carried out of the freezer and left to thaw first.
• Spare bread slices and a borrowed knife stay in the Chef's pack for the next meal.

The Angler

Draw a Fishing bank zone on dry ground at ground level, beside at least two tiles of open water (Ch 11), and give a resident the Angler job, a fishing rod and bait or a lure.

• The Angler fixes the bait with the game's own action, walks to a free spot on the bank and casts. Bites come from Build 42's own fish schools, weather and Fishing skill. A hooked fish can still slip the line, and that costs the bait as it would for you.
• After three catches, or when the load gets heavy, the Angler carries the fish to marked Food storage.
• Fishing waits at night unless outdoor work is allowed, and a tired angler sleeps before casting again.
• Without a rod or bait, the Angler asks you for one (Ch 14) and does ordinary chores meanwhile. Without a fishing bank, it does chores too.

Fishing also works as an expedition task (Ch 17).

Chapter 16: Laying the Dead to RestCamp Life ↑ Contents

The dead pile up around any camp worth holding. A Gravekeeper looks for bodies inside the camp and lumber areas and carries them to a marked burial ground or a safe pyre. Burial digs and fills a grave as needed.

The Burial Ground

Every closed grave gets a few words: a short prayer or a line of bleak gallows humour, depending on who holds the shovel, and a salute. Sometimes a friend nearby adds an "Amen".

The Pyre

A pyre needs a lighter and petrol, and fire is real. Lighting one may earn a "Burn, baby, burn!" or "Disco inferno!", and a burned-out pyre gets its own prayer or gallows line.

One of Our Own

A fallen companion found by the gravekeeper gets a grave of their own, always with a cross, and the grave keeps their name. Their grave closes with their name instead of a joke. Fallen companions are never burned. A body whose identity is uncertain is treated as a stranger, and your own body is never touched.

Part IV

Beyond the Fence

Past the camp there are roads, other people, and the long walk home. Some of it is still being tested; all of it is worth knowing before you send anyone out.

Chapter 17: ExpeditionsExperimental ↑ Contents

An expedition sends a squad out on its own while you stay behind. The squad's actual leader appears in a second local view while the team moves, and the other members follow that leader. Base Watch uses the same view, so the two never run at once.

Planning a Trip

1. On Squad, assign one to four companions to a squad.
2. Open Expeditions and choose the squad's leader.
3. Choose the mission: Scout, Search or Fish nearby water. Search also lets you request a supply type and quantity, including Everything useful for supplies across categories.
4. Choose a location within 200 tiles (32 per page), or a fishing bank for a fishing trip.
5. Choose how to travel, how long before they turn home, and the combat style.
6. Review the plan and select Send squad.

Mission Options

A place marked Map location; the building has not been confirmed from inside comes from map data rather than a visit. The sandbox option Expedition destination choices can limit the list to buildings whose interiors you've seen (Appendix B). The review shows the route length and which roads it takes, and warns about any long stretch off-road at the start or end. Street junctions stay provisional until the leader sees the ground.

Fish nearby water

Set how many fish to bring home, and the planner lists fishing banks instead of buildings: confirmed shores in the loaded world, and possible shores further out from the map's water, which the leader checks on arrival. Paging through the list reuses one scan; Refresh looks again. The leader must carry a rod and bait to set out. Other members with their own gear fish too, and the rest stand guard. Only fish caught near the chosen bank count. The squad heads home with the catch, after about two hours at the water, or at the turn-home time, and earlier if the bank has no usable water or the bait runs out.

Two Ways to Travel

While They're Away

Once the squad is out of sight, the panel stops guessing: Away. Current progress is unknown until you see the team or hear a report. If you both carry working walkie-talkies, the leader calls in when something goes wrong.

Calling Them Home

The team can leave without radios. To order an immediate return while they are away:

1. Equip a powered walkie-talkie on your character and on the squad leader.
2. Tune both to the same channel.
3. Right-click your equipped radio and choose Return immediately.

The time you choose decides when the team turns home; it doesn't promise when they arrive. A returning Search squad finishes its trip once everyone has reached you, including when you're standing on a staircase. An intact squad says one of twenty homecoming lines once its leader view is released.

Chapter 18: Households, Trade and BanditsStrangers ↑ Contents

Not everyone left alive wants to join you. Households of one to three survivors occupy real houses, barricade them, warn strangers off, and defend their ground. They remember theft, damage, help and murder, and they treat you accordingly. What you learn about each appears in More → Factions: its name, location and nearest street, standing, members, character, supplies, routine and any crisis it is going through.

New households start appearing from day seven: a daily chance (8% by default) once a week has passed since the last, 35 to 90 tiles from you and well apart from one another, up to three by default. The sandbox page sets the chance and the cap (Appendix B).

Approaching a Household

A household warns you twice: once at about 18 tiles, and again, more sharply, at about 10. Walking on past that is trespass. Pointing a weapon at them is worse. Don't take anything from a container on their ground: the household notices, and the theft is pinned on the exact item that went into your pockets.

Standing

Each household holds you somewhere between −100 and +100. A new household starts Wary, at −20.

Restitution

Once the waiting time has passed, the household's page shows the value of goods it wants for every unforgiven offence together. Select items worth at least that much and choose Offer selected items as restitution. Relations reopen, at Wary.

Talking to the Representative

Each household sends a representative to the entrance to talk. Meet them there, then ask:

• how the household is doing, and what they need;
• about the people living there, what they'll trade, and local dangers;
• for rumours, or whether they've heard anything useful.

Rumours point 45 to 120 tiles away, to a supply cache, a horde, a water source or a shelter. They are honest but imperfect; the page counts how many of the household's rumours you've heard. You can also Speak privately with the resident, up close, away from the others.

Access and Safe Rest

Ask for permission to enter, with your weapon lowered; aim at them and you'll be told to put it down first. A household lets you in as a guest for twelve hours if you are Trusted, or Tolerated and either have kept a promise to them or are dealing with an unusually open household. Safe rest inside comes only after you've kept at least one promise.

Sometimes one resident objects while the others invite you. You can respect the objection, which they remember kindly, or ask the household to honour its invitation.

Barter

A household opens barter after you have delivered what it asked for. Trading needs you within six tiles of them, in sight, with no danger nearby. You choose what to offer from your unprotected items and what you want from their surplus; the quote shows what you offer against what they require, and a short offer comes back with an explicit counteroffer. The exchange happens all at once or not at all.

• Goods are valued by contents and condition. Broken tools, rotten food and empty bottles are worth little, and heavy junk earns no premium.
• Requested goods must be fit for use: clean water, not tainted or poisoned; food that isn't rotten or burnt; tools that aren't broken.
• Every household holds some reserves back, and some categories aren't for sale at all. A Militarized household won't part with weapons or ammunition.

Six Kinds of Household

Households live their own lives. Their members are family, friends, partners, strangers or rivals to one another. A household can fall into a supply collapse, an illness or an internal dispute, and it mourns its dead. Several households also hear of each other, and the Factions page passes on their news.

Bandits

Bandit camps are rare and always hostile. They appear from day four, at most one by default (up to three), 55 to 90 tiles from you, with at least ten days between new camps. Bandits guard their camp and patrol around it every couple of hours. They challenge first, need line of sight to target you, chase up to about 24 tiles, and fight zombies too. They never trade and never recruit.

Chapter 18b: Contracts, Quests and RecruitmentStrangers ↑ Contents

A household doesn't hand out trust. You earn it one promise at a time, and every promise is written down: kept, broken, or kept badly.

Making a Promise

1. Ask the representative what they need. They won't take a promise from someone who hasn't asked.
2. Read the offer on the household's page: its title and terms.
3. Choose Promise to help. You have 48 hours.
4. Choose Deliver help or report the area secure when you've done it.

	Kind	What they ask
	Supply	A delivery of goods; the page counts what you have against what's required
	Medical	A delivery of medicine
	Local threat	Secure an area near their house: a set number of confirmed kills there, with no threats left. The area has to be loaded to check.
	Quest: retrieve an item	Bring back something from a house 28 to 85 tiles away
	Quest: clear a horde	Destroy a group of 8 to 14 zombies at a marked place

When a Promise Is Kept

Keeping a promise makes you a guest for twelve hours, and the household counts it toward your record. Not every ending is clean:

• A diverted delivery: a resident hid part of what you brought, and tension inside the household rises.
• A rival's objection: one resident objects to your being invited in (Chapter 18).
• An unpaid reward: the household couldn't honour its full promise, and now owes you. Its page shows the debt.

When a Promise Is Broken

If you can't keep it, say so: Admit that you cannot keep the promise, then press again within eight seconds to confirm. A broken promise costs 12 standing, closes their door to you, and is remembered. The household offers nothing new for 24 hours.

Quests

A quest opens in its own window: a short account of the job, the objective, the location and coordinates, and the rewards. Accept or decline. Accepted quests are marked on the world map. Come back when the objective is done and choose COMPLETE QUEST.

You can pick the reward when you accept, or after the work is done. Rewards are set aside for you when you accept, and released again if you give up.

Recruiting from a Household

Eventually one resident may try out as your companion. It takes a separate conversation and a real field trial, not a purchase.

1. Keep at least two promises to the household, while residents are at home.
2. Choose Ask whether anyone would consider a field trial. If someone would, they are named.
3. Choose Invite the named survivor on a field trial. They travel with you as a companion on trial.
4. After at least six hours together, choose Ask for a decision.

What they decide comes from the whole trial: how many promises you've kept, your standing with the household, the hours you spent together, how they came to trust you and feel about you, and how you looked after them, from treatments and meals to rescues. Family and close ties back home pull the other way, and a household's leader is the hardest to win.

Appendices

Reference

Keys, options, and what to do when the fellows misbehave.

Appendix A

Keys and Menus ↑ Contents

Appendix B

Sandbox Options ↑ Contents

The Living Fellows sandbox page controls:

Appendix C

Troubleshooting ↑ Contents

The panel is missing

Press Home once, then look for the small LF launcher at the edge of the screen. Confirm Living Fellows is enabled for the current save. Workshop players also need ZombieBuddy enabled and current. Standalone players should rerun Install.bat after a game update and check More → Support.

A companion is only a moving shadow

The native actor bridge didn't load, or failed its health check. Open More → Support and copy its report.

A companion is stuck

Wait a moment for automatic recovery, then use Regroup. If it stays stuck, note what is in the way (door, gate, fence, vehicle, stairs or furniture) and the current order and movement setting, and send the Support report, logs, and a screenshot or short video.

Workshop and standalone copies conflict

Remove one copy. Keep only one SurvivorCompanion mod folder, restart the game, and enable the remaining copy for the save.

Standalone uninstall can't restore the launcher

Close Project Zomboid and rerun Uninstall.bat from the same release folder. Its backup lives under %LOCALAPPDATA%\LivingFellows; don't delete that folder until the uninstall succeeds.

Mods that may conflict

Mods that replace player actor construction, animation ownership, pathfinding, vehicle passenger state, UI key bindings, or the same launcher mainClass may conflict. If another mod uses Home, Insert or the keypad keys, rebind them under Living Fellows.

Playing alongside Project A-Life

Project A-Life's NPCs are zombie-shaped game objects. Living Fellows recognises A-Life's own ownership mark, so its NPCs are never counted as zombies: companions don't target them, count them as spawn danger or offer zombie actions on them, and still treat them as people in the way. A neutral A-Life NPC is protected from friendly fire like any bystander. One that A-Life itself reports as hostile to you, and that a companion can see, becomes a human threat, and a truce clears it. Zombies that A-Life's horde control is holding are left alone until it lets go.

Reading the Support Page

More → Support is the first place to look when something is wrong, and the report it copies is the most useful thing to attach to a bug report.

Appendix D

Reporting a Problem ↑ Contents

Use the bug report form on the project's GitHub page. Include:

• Living Fellows version and installation method
• The exact Project Zomboid version
• New or existing save
• Other enabled mods
• What you expected and what happened
• Steps to reproduce, if known
• Screenshots or a short video for visual or pathing problems
• The relevant logs, and the More → Support report

Appendix E

Picture Credits ↑ Contents

Item and moodle icons and Plates 1, 2, 4–10 come from PZwiki, the Project Zomboid community wiki (pzwiki.net). The game art shown in them belongs to The Indie Stone. The cover banner and Plate 3 are Living Fellows project art.

Living Fellows is an unofficial mod, not affiliated with or endorsed by The Indie Stone.

Appendix F

Quick Reference Card ↑ Contents

The whole manual on two printed pages. Each panel points to the chapter with the detail. Open the printable card on its own page.

Keys

Home	Open or close the panel; LF when collapsed
Keypad 1 held	Peek at the selected companion; Keypad 2 toggles Watch
Keypad 3 held	Steer them toward the cursor
Insert	Show or hide the base layout
Rotate building	The game's key; turns a blueprint
Right-click	A companion: Talk, Watch, quick orders, Assign objective. The world: the Living Fellows menu.

Ch 3, Appendix A

Orders

• Follow · Stay · Guard. Inside camp, Stay or Guard means base duty.
• Regroup · Retreat are emergencies.
• Focus on this zombie; twice within 4 s is a push. Leave this zombie alone lasts 12 s.
• Follow distance: close, 2, 3, 5 or 8 tiles. Movement: Copy player, Walk, Sneak, Run.
• New recruits: Follow, Copy player, Ride with player, Scavenge when safe.
• Dismiss is confirmed by name; it waits only for a fight for their life or an action that can't be stopped.

Ch 4

Rules of engagement

Stealth	Avoid contact; quiet force; hand signals; never shoots from a vehicle
Close Defense	Clear threats near the team; no chasing
Ranged Support	Firearms at distance; may fire from a car window at safe speed
Weapons Free	Engage visible threats; brief pursuit
Hold fire	Blocks ordinary shots under any doctrine

Ch 6. A refusal always says why.

Squads and signals

• Whistle: every follower regroups, seen or not. Loud: about 24 tiles, and zombies hear it.
• Hand signs are silent and need sight: follow, hold, regroup, follow cautiously (sneak and scavenge), move out, fall back, cease fire, fire.
• Groups Alpha · Bravo · Charlie with group orders; a group is an expedition squad.

Ch 5b

Talk

Check in	What are you doing? · How are you? · Do you need anything? · What are you hoping for?
Get to know	Talk about memories · Tell me about yourself · What do you think? · How are we doing?
Support	Reassure them: stress −12, morale +8, bond +1, every 2 min when needed. You did well: bond +3, morale +6, once per moment.

Ch 9b

Trust

Score = trust × 0.55 + bond × 0.45: Cautious <10 · Ally 10 · Trusted 30 · Close 55 · Family 80.

Builds when close (8 tiles, same floor): patched up +5 trust / +4 bond · eating or drinking +3/+2 · escaping together +2/+4 · danger to you passing +2/+5.

Their past opens at trust 10 past · 25 home · 40 value · 55 fear · 70 habit · 80 keepsake.

Hitting them: a strike in a quiet moment; at two they keep away, at four they fight. Strikes fade after 6 quiet game hours.

Ch 9d

Needs and medicine

	Noticed	Serious	Urgent
Thirst	48%	62%	75%
Hunger	55%	70%	82%
Tired	50%	68%	82%

• Clean water only; they eat if no water is in reach.
• They treat you when it's safe: bleeding first, then wounds, then splints.
• A bite: conceal, confess or leave; the group votes; you decide. Mercy and bleach wait for your authorization.

Ch 8

Setting up camp

1. Right-click → Living Fellows → Base life → Set camp core here (seven tiles each way).
2. Start zone here, right-click the far corner, Finish zone here.
3. Mark storage as...: food, water, medical, tools, construction, and more.
4. More → Base: give each resident a base job.

Lumber, farm, fishing, burial and pyre areas may lie 30 tiles out. Stairs extend the camp up or down, basements included. Blueprints: Queue construction.

Ch 11–13

Base jobs

Woodcutter	Lumber area, axe, storage for logs
Carpenter	Logs, a saw, a second container for planks
Gravekeeper	Burial ground and shovel, or a pyre, lighter and petrol
Farmer	Farm area over existing plots; farming supplies
Maintainer	Barricades marked for upkeep
Chef	Powered fridge, food and cookware in storage
Angler	Fishing bank, rod and bait

Outdoor work pauses 21:00–06:00 unless allowed. Tired residents sleep before the next job.

Ch 14, 15, 15b, 16

Running the camp

Stock per resident: food 3 · water 2 · medical 1 · construction 2 · ammunition 6 per guard.

Roles needed: guard and builder (Carpenter) at 2 residents · medic at 3 · quartermaster at 4 · farmer with a farm area.

Defence: Rotating watch · Role based · All hands. Workload: Essential · Balanced · Continuous.

Stalled jobs: six failures in a row, then Retry or Cancel. Base Watch keeps camp loaded while you travel.

Ch 14b, 14c

Households

Standing: Hostile ≤ −60 · Wary < 0 (new ones start at −20) · Tolerated 0–39 · Trusted 40+.

Offences: trespass −12 · aiming −28 · theft −40 · barricade −45 · damage −55 · murder −100, never forgiven.

Help: a delivered request +30 and opens barter · a broken promise −12 · recruit after 2 kept promises, a field trial of 6+ hours, then a decision.

Ch 18, 18b

Expeditions Experimental

1. Put 1–4 companions in a group on Squad.
2. Expeditions: leader, Scout, Search or Fish, a place or fishing bank within 200 tiles, route, 1/2/4/8 h, combat style.
3. Send squad, on a disposable save.

Recall: powered walkie-talkies on you and the leader, same channel → right-click your radio → Return immediately.

Ch 17

When something's wrong

Panel missing	Press Home, look for LF, check the mod is enabled for the save (and ZombieBuddy, on Workshop)
A moving shadow	The bridge failed: More → Support, copy the report, and stop playing that save
Stuck	Wait a moment, then Regroup; note what's in the way
Ignoring you	Read Last action problem on Status
Reporting	Support report, console.txt, logs.zip, and a screenshot or video

Appendix C, D