Try this sandbox change and you will love your day 1

Set day length to at least 2 hours and set start hour to 12 AM, this way you will have a looong looting day 1, also as an extra you can get another fishing tv program right as you start as you might lose day 1 18h one.

You will wonder what does this change? You can start in a different town and gather strategic resources before moving to your first base town. Story time...

My best day 1 till now is, starting in Muldraugh getting to bookstore finding gen magazine and some other useful books placing all the good ones close to the back exit, finding a car in the parking lot behind extract a bit of gas from another car nearby get some snacks/beberages in the minimart and place all the loot in the car.

Then I went south from the bookstore aggroing all the parking lot + video store front zombies while riding my car very slowly and leaving the car in front of the video store, then moved all the zombies to the main road and went north with them back to the bookstore then I crossed through it and left by the back door, closing it behind...

Then I went fast to the video shop picked all the skill videos starting from the back then when nearing the front I started watching cooking and carpentry ones that I will not take with me, this way I can max cooking and carpentry and just have to care about 18h tv programs the next days.

After looting the videos went south till I reached the traffic jam I saw no zombies so I decided to check the cars that were in a good state and took gas from them, I filled my tank to the brim and went to ovo farm in Echo Creek. At this point in Muldraugh if you are an axe character you can choose to go to the trainyard and get railway spikes for later on as well, it is very easy to get them you don't even need to kill the zombies, you can aggro all of the ones in the 3 red buildings take them north then pick all the loot in an hour or 2 top.

I went to ovo farms and there were only 3 zombies, some other times there were like 20, and I found a lucky egg trailer so my plan of placing all the eggs into the freezer/cooler changed into taking all the eggs with me, once I got all I went north towards Riverside and in the way stopped way passed the gas station close to coalfield cause many mobs and got a freezer from there as I had some car space for it.

When I reached Riverside I drove directly to right between the police and fire station not too far inside took the car key and ran towards the left side where a container is, killed the 4 zombies that were around and then cleared the pier north and just like this I went to sleep inside the river patrol building with a car full of eggs, nice books, videos and gen magazine and snacks for days.

This is what a loooooong day 1 can get you in normal difficulties, Irvington is a nice place to start as well and you can get a trailer 100% in your way out in front of Brott Cattle farm, I have also tried starting in Riverside trailers south west of Riverside move towards the storage units carrying a TV and leaving it near the main road then go to the factory warehouse avoiding zombies get a van there, pick some tools and go to the storage units after picking the tv and loot everything there in a couple of days while watching the programs then I was ready to start my looting in Riverside with generator and many books... xD

Day 1 is the best day!

Extra tip: Heli day can be productive as well, this is my plan for that day, I am listening to the radio every morning still not sure if It starts at 7 or 8am I listen to both... The day the message comes I will pick my already ready car with my trailer and move south to the north part of Rosewood and loot all the produce warehouses there, in the way back I might visit Jamieton Army Surplus depending if I have time after heli or not. Heli days can be used for far away farming like ovo farms if you did not get it in your game.

All this is useless in low drop custom games or wilderness games, but it seriously is a gamechanger for newer players in normal difficulties that need a good start so their game have more chances to last longer. Have fun!