After Updating: Check Your Existing Save

Start with your situation

Equipment or work · Zombie capacity · Supplies and output · Quest state

Equipment and the next job

• If a zombie is idle, open its equipment. Check the working tool separately from the combat weapon, then match the tool and mastery to the next queued recipe. A weapon in the weapon slot does not satisfy a missing work tool.
• For a save from before 1.008, inspect the result of the old hand-slot transfer. It moves a weapon that is not a tool only when the weapon slot is empty; an occupied weapon slot is not overwritten. Do not replace the worker just because you expected every item to move.
• If equipment matches but work still stops, check the next batch’s ingredients and finished output before changing the assignment. Use the equipment rules and idle-worker checks for the separate eligibility and pickup conditions.

equipment rules · idle-worker checks

PR and population

• If the excessive-zombie penalty remains, compare the current zombie count with the effective capacity and inspect whether the PR run is active or has ended. A temporary capacity increase can still leave your population over the limit.
• The pre-1.008 save update resets a negative PR duration counter to zero. That is not a new active run. Its population-penalty refresh requires completion of Gunter’s Hypno-device sermon quest; that particular refresh does not run before the quest is complete.
• Check the machine level and the selected recipe before bringing newspapers or starting another run. PR recipe and capacity checks distinguish ingredients, temporary capacity and renewal. A population penalty alone does not explain every idle worker.

PR recipe and capacity checks

Supplies, pickup and dropped items

• If the next batch does not start, find the exact requested ingredient in eligible storage in the same area. Local Suppliers now choose a source inventory containing that item; a nearby empty chest or stock carried elsewhere does not supply the station.
• Check input delivery, crafting eligibility, finished-product pickup and destination space separately. Use the storage and transport checks for the operation you are performing; Supplier deliveries, Porter routes and conveyor connections have different requirements.
• When updating an older save, inspect an affected conveyor and its worker: in some older saves, the update can return a conveyor transporter with no valid attachment to the world. Check the actual worker and nearby drops before assigning it again. This recovery does not establish that every farm, path or missing item is repaired.

storage and transport checks

Continue from the journal state

• If the central fight will not start, check both earlier clearing quests in the journal, then distinguish a waiting, prepared, running or won fight. Finish the missing prerequisite rather than repeating a completed clearing quest.
• Use the battle progression checks for the specific older-save and milestone branches. Their task and stage conditions matter; loading the update does not rerun every old repair or pay old battle rewards again.
• After a quest changes state, check the journal and its next objective before repeating an action. Keep later encounter names and reward details folded unless you want to inspect them.

battle progression checks

If the checks do not explain the problem

• Record the platform, displayed game version, affected task or station, current journal/status message and what you tried. Keep a screenshot of the visible state for a bug report. A patch announcement does not establish the outcome for your particular save.
• Choose the matching topic in the troubleshooting directory. If only a crafting requirement has changed, compare it with the mastery planner. For delivery rewards and trader allowance, use the separate orders and trading reference.

troubleshooting directory · mastery planner · orders and trading reference

What changed in 1.009

The official patch is named 1.009; the files reviewed here display 1.009.1. Fishing now recognizes suitable bait inside bags. Son of a butcher now applies to organ operations and taking items from a corpse’s pocket: its per-work-tick modifiers are -2 to the energy cost and -0.1 to the insanity change, rather than giving a bonus to every kind of crafting. The sauna expiry effect no longer subtracts from the food-energy bonus.

Repair the kitchen oven before looking for Oven II. An old purchase hidden by the update is restored when the repair reveals that technology, without paying again. Gathering workers now handle delivery before starting another craft, and a gardener can abandon repeatedly failed harvesting for you to finish manually. Conditional save fixes also address an attic quest branch and a stuck conversation with an absent Plague Doctor; they do not reset every quest. The sermon fix concerns finishing the sequence: the 58 configured sermon rewards remain unchanged from 1.008.

Fishing preparation · Oven II requirements · Official 1.009 patch announcement