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Project Zomboid

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Psychology Skill (B41)
   
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2.303 MB
2 Sep @ 10:17pm
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Psychology Skill (B41)

In 1 collection by WindLother
Enhance Your Apocalypse – Mods by WindLother
3 items
Description
Psychology Skill — Mental Resilience (B41/B42 WIP)

An overhaul that introduces the Psychology skill: survivors become more resistant to stress, panic, and unhappiness as they level up.
Progression comes from encounters with zombies, practicing breathing, and studying books/workbooks.
Nicotine and Alcohol dependencies are now fully simulated, with sandbox options for balance.




What’s new in this version
  • New Psychology skill that reduces panic, stress, and unhappiness gains per level.
  • Practice Breathing self-action: lowers stress and grants XP (cooldown configurable).
  • Skill Books (1–5) with proper XP multipliers, vanilla-style progression and tooltips.
  • CBT Workbook (Drainable): perform therapeutic exercises to gain XP instantly.
  • Special Guides: Quit Smoking Guide & Alcohol Sobriety Guide reduce dependence.
  • Addiction system: survivors can become dependent on Nicotine and Alcohol even without traits.
  • Full Sandbox page to configure every parameter with tooltips (SP/MP/Admin).




Highlights
  • Zombie exposure XP: facing the undead toughens the mind.
  • Stress/Panic scaling: higher levels drastically reduce emotional penalties.
  • Addiction system: dependence builds with use, withdrawal causes stress/unhappiness.
  • Guides allow survivors to fight addiction through study.
  • Sandbox options for stress, panic, unhappiness multipliers and addiction mechanics.
  • Visual panel (Psychology Panel) shows mental state, dependencies, and XP progression.




Config (SP / Host / Dedicated)
Singleplayer / Host: when creating a world, open the Psychology tab in Sandbox Options and adjust.

Dedicated server: edit the save’s Sandbox (or create a preset) and set:
SandboxVars.PSY = { StressGainMultByLevel = 0.98, PanicGainMultByLevel = 0.985, UnhappyGainMultByLevel = 0.985, StressDecayBonusPerLvl = 0.0015, NicoGain = 0.5, NicoDecay = 1, NicoMinInt = 120, NicoStrMin = 0.002, NicoUnhMin = 0.2, NicoGuide = 20, AlcGain = 5, AlcDecay = 1, AlcMinInt = 360, AlcStrMin = 0.003, AlcUnhMin = 0.3, AlcGuide = 20, }




Server IDs
Workshop ID: 3561213456 Mod ID: psychology_skill




Compatibility
  • Made for Build 41 (Build 42 update is WIP).
  • High compatibility (no vanilla file overrides).
  • Works in Singleplayer and Multiplayer.
  • Addiction system integrates with Psychology skill (XP mitigates withdrawal).




Languages
English, Portuguese (Brazil).
If you see raw keys like Sandbox_PSY_StressGainMultByLevel, switch the game language to EN/PT-BR and restart (or update the mod).




Support & Feedback
If you enjoy this mod and want to keep seeing my work, please consider supporting me:
☕ Support me on Ko-fi[ko-fi.com]

Feedback is very welcome! Please share your suggestions and ideas for improvements in the comments.




Train your mind, survive the apocalypse. 🧠🧟‍♂️
15 Comments
WindLother  [author] 15 Sep @ 1:55pm 
@Nimarae I'll look into that, I'm having a problem with the new UI that is giving me a hard time, but I'll be sure to look after what you reported
Nimarae 15 Sep @ 12:53pm 
Cool mod, but the nicotine addiction level resets every time I reload my game, so it kinda blows all of my efforts (started both time on a multiplayer server with the smoker trait so it resets every time at 30, and I never fully cured the addiction because I never played long enouth so I don't know if it reapeares once at 0)
Gojita 14 Sep @ 9:08am 
@WindLother: Waiting... not patiently, haha.
WindLother  [author] 12 Sep @ 2:24pm 
I'm finishing the update along with the new UI, soon will be posted, had to work on some other things and could not attend this mod, by the end of this week the mod will be updated
Hex: Autism 9 Sep @ 8:29am 
A what now book.
WindLother  [author] 5 Sep @ 7:39pm 
@bay harbor

Thanks for checking out the mod! Glad you like it.

About the Desensitized trait it still works exactly as in vanilla, like, it prevents panic from zombie encounters. My mod doesn’t override that.

What you’re experiencing (severe depression / nervous wreck) likely comes from the addiction system (Nicotine/Alcohol) or from very high stress/unhappiness multipliers if Sandbox settings are left on default. By design the Psychology skill starts weak, so early levels won’t protect you much, and it takes progression (books, breathing, zombie encounters) before you feel resilient.

If it feels too punishing, you can adjust it in Sandbox Options

By lowering the multipliers for stress/panic/unhappiness.

Or Tweaking addiction gain/decay to make it less harsh.

So Desensitized still blocks panic, but depression/unhappiness come from other mechanics in the mod.
Autarch 5 Sep @ 3:29pm 
hey really cool mod, i did want to ask/check about the desensitized trait and whether that has any effects. I got severely depressed and nervous wreck every like 2 minutes or so
Gojita 4 Sep @ 1:36pm 
@WindLother: Try download & install "Killcount" and "Antibodies" mods, see what you can learn from it, I'm no modder so... Those mod do pretty good at adding a tab into the Character Info Panel, maybe you can learn something from it.
WindLother  [author] 4 Sep @ 1:10pm 
That's a good feedback, I'm really horrible in UI sutff and need directions about these things. I wanted to work more on the UI side and that brings new things to work on. Next update will come this Saturday along with the mind category
Gojita 4 Sep @ 12:21pm 
Some feedback from my server members and myself: the mechanics are fairly in-depth and add a nice layer of realism, but the presentation could be more user-friendly. Placing it in a dedicated tab within the Character Info Panel (similar to Killcount or Antibodies) would make it far more intuitive and easier to access than having it buried in the context menu. It might also help to remove unnecessary elements like the EXP bar, since that information is already shown in the Skills tab.