Dismantling metal items you find in PZ is a great way to both level your skills and gain various materials. If you want to speed the process up, you can spawn items with various mods like Necroforge. Spending time gathering materials is pretty slow otherwise.
Crafting is pretty complicated in this game, and it’s only going to get harder until you learn the ropes. The amount of items you’re going to make in PZ is insane. But for the purposes of this guide, there’s one item that seems to be confusing to new players. Unusable Metal in Project Zomboid is an item you might find when breaking things down, and none of the basic crafting recipes use it. Here’s what you need to know about it.
What to Do With Unusable Metal in Project Zomboid
The answer for the base game is pretty simple. Unusable Metal in Project Zomboid is a useless junk item. You cannot find it as part of the normal loot tables, but you will get some anytime you disassemble some metal appliances, such as metal doors and dumpsters.
So since it has no use, you should figure out a way to deal with the trash. If you’ve enabled debug mode, you can use the delete tool to get rid of any trash items you don’t want. Just drop them into a container and delete them once they pile up.
To turn on debug mode, find and locate Project Zomboid in your Steam library, then right-click on it and select “Properties”.
Next, type “-debug” in the box under the text “Advanced users may choose to enter modifications to their launch options”, then close the window and open the game.
Otherwise, just drop them into a dumpster or other out-of-the-way container and move on.
However, by installing mods, you can use it as a material for a recipe, making it more valuable. There are many different mods that you can find on the Steam Workshop
When using mods, things can get complicated. You may alter things in ways you don’t expect, adding a bunch of new crafting recipes that you’ll need to manage. For one example, after installing the mod Rome’s Reusable Metal, you’ll get to scrap the metal into usable parts with a Propane Torch. Once you’ve subscribed to the mod on Steam, open Project Zomboid and enable this mod in the “Mods” menu. Now, when you find Unusable Metal in Project Zomboid, you can make it useful.
