Build 42 Moodles — Every New Status Icon, What Triggers It, and How to Clear It

📖 4 min read · Updated 2026-08-04 · Fact-checked against community wiki & Steam discussions

Build 42's status bar grew: six moodles that didn't exist in Build 41 now police your temperature, your back, and your nerves — while two familiar icons quietly vanished. Thermal management is the biggest behavioral change, because hypothermia can now kill you outright and July heat makes hyperthermia a real day-one concern. Every trigger and counter below comes from PZwiki's Moodle page as current for 42.20. Checked 2026-08-04.

The six new moodles

Hyperthermia (overheating)

Causes: hot weather, physical exertion, insulated clothing, and zombie infection. The four levels and their body-temperature triggers:

Level	Body temp	Effects
Unpleasantly Hot	>37.5 °C	Thirst and tiredness rates rise
Overheated	>39 °C	−33% combat and run speed, +20% discomfort
Sunstruck	>40 °C	−66% speeds, +30% discomfort, interrupts sleep
Hyperthermic	>41 °C	−90% combat, no running, reduced vision, doubled endurance drain; slow health loss (capped) if the air is above 37 °C

Counters: shed layers before chopping wood or sprinting in July, rest indoors, keep water on you. If hyperthermia arrives with no heat source, treat it as a possible infection signal.

Hypothermia (freezing)

Causes: cold weather, inadequate clothing, being wet. This is no longer a flavor debuff:

Level	Body temp	Effects
Chilly	<36.5 °C	+10% discomfort, natural healing stops, higher cold risk
Cold	<35 °C	−33% combat and run speed, +20% discomfort
Freezing	<30 °C	−66% speeds, +30% discomfort
Hypothermic	<25 °C	−90% combat, no running; below 0 °C air, health drains down to 1%

Counters: dry clothes immediately after rain (the Wet moodle feeds straight into this), layer up before winter trips, build fires for outdoor work. Note the Chilly level: a cold character stops healing wounds overnight — warmth is medical care.

Windchill

Appears outdoors during blizzards and cold storms. It lowers your perceived outside temperature and raises hypothermia risk as long as you stay outside a building.

Counter: it's a "go inside now" icon. Time winter scavenging between storms, not during them.

Heavy load

The overencumbrance ladder, keyed to percentage of carrying capacity:

Level	Threshold	Key penalties
Fairly Heavy	>100%	−19% move speed, −7% attack speed
Heavy	>125%	−37% move, sprint disabled, +26% trip chance
Very Heavy	>150%	−56% move, running disabled, endurance drains while moving
Extremely Heavy	>175%	−75% walk; overload damage costs up to 25% of your health

Carrying generators (40 encumbrance, ValuTech 30) trips it instantly. Counter: drop or transfer items, use equipped bags, split hauls into vehicle trunks — see vehicle hauling.

Stressed

B42's stress meter. Verified sources: fear of Knox infection (the Sick moodle), zombies banging on doors/windows/fences, fear-of-blood triggers, night terrors, meta events, clothing and sleep discomfort, and smoker nicotine withdrawal. Nicotine stress tracks separately (capped at 51%), while total stress can climb to 150%. Accumulated stress hurts combat ability; chronic stress slides into Unhappiness.

Counters: cigarettes for smokers, calming consumables, and addressing root causes — a stress spiral starting from a scratch deserves immediate wound care and honest decision-making about bite risk.

Pain

Triggers: injuries of any kind, and currently also exercise fatigue. Effects: gradually decreasing combat ability; high pain prevents sleep. It dissipates as wounds heal.

Counters: painkillers or alcohol for temporary control; actual treatment for the cure. Pain blocking sleep before a big run is a legitimate reason to medicate.

New to know, even if not new

Moodle	Why it matters more in B42
Discomfort	Wearing too many clothes raises discomfort, which feeds unhappiness — the max-armor meta is dead (combat details)
Noxious smell	Two types: corpse sickness near rotting corpses (feeds Sick) and toxic fumes from indoor generators (up to 5% health damage); gas masks and SCBA gear reduce or prevent it (corpse sickness guide)
Sick	Infection, poisoning, rotten food, or corpse proximity; lemongrass helps non-fatal sickness; reduced carry capacity, higher temperature, slower healing
Restricted movement	No sprint — barefoot, leg wounds, overload, heavy clothes, or other speed moodles
Has a cold	From staying wet/cold too long; sneezes and coughs attract zombies; cure = indoors, fed, hydrated, rested

Removed moodles

Angry — disabled because its only source was NPC interactions; expected to return when NPCs ship in Build 43. Debug mode can still trigger it, but it does nothing.
Hungover — currently unobtainable (it used to follow sleeping off intoxication outdoors).
Fear — listed among future/unfinished moodles on the wiki's own navbox.

Practical read order in a fight

The fastest triage when icons stack: Heavy load (drop weight) → Endurance (back off, breathe) → Pain (medicate if it blocks your swings) → Hyperthermia/Hypothermia (fix clothing or disengage) → Stressed (after the fight). Combat in B42 punishes ignoring any of these — see our combat guide for how muscle strain stacks on top.

Verified on 42.20 · Last checked 2026-08-04

Moodle triggers, effects, and counters come from PZwiki's Moodle page and its per-moodle articles as current for 42.20. The Fear/Morale/Sanity future-work status is the wiki navbox's own classification. Exact severity thresholds per level (e.g., temperature values) are not published — treat the four-stage icon severity as directional.

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