7 Days to Die co-op server settings: blood moons, loot, difficulty

The first blood moon on day 7 is the moment a 7 Days to Die server with friends succeeds or fails. If the horde is too heavy, half the group quits; if it is too light, the tension is gone. Everything that decides this lives in one file on the server: serverconfig.xml. It controls difficulty, the length of day and night, how often and how hard the horde arrives, how much loot there is, how fast zombies move and who may shoot whom. This article goes through the settings that make the difference for a co-op server, with defaults and the choices that work well in practice.

First the basics: name, password and visibility

ServerName is what players see in the server browser, ServerPassword keeps strangers out and ServerVisibility decides whether the server is public (2), friends only (1) or unlisted (0). For a fixed group, set a password and visibility 1 or 0; then random players cannot empty your base. ServerMaxPlayerCount defaults to 8, which is exactly right for most groups of friends. Every extra player costs CPU and RAM, so keep the number honest.

GameDifficulty and the five levels

GameDifficulty runs from 0 (Scavenger) to 5 (Insane), with 2 (Nomad) as the default. The level sets how much damage you deal and take, not how many zombies there are. For a mixed group Nomad or Warrior (3) is the best start: challenging enough to force teamwork, but a lone player can still survive a night. If you want it harder later, raise the level without resetting the world.

Day, night and the blood moon

DayNightLength is the number of real minutes per in-game day; default 60. DayLightLength is the number of in-game hours of daylight, default 18. For a group that plays two hours in the evening, 60 minutes is pleasant: every session sees two days and at least one night. BloodMoonFrequency is 7, so every seventh day; with BloodMoonRange you randomise it within a margin, which raises the tension because nobody knows exactly when the horde comes. BloodMoonWarning sets the hour from which the warning appears. BloodMoonEnemyCount is the number of zombies per player during the horde; 8 is the default, 12 to 16 makes it a real siege for a well-prepared group.

Zombies: count and speed

The speed settings are the knobs players feel most. ZombieMove (daytime), ZombieMoveNight, ZombieFeralMove and ZombieBMMove (during the blood moon) go from 0 (walk) to 4 (nightmare). The default is walk by day and run at night and during the horde. If you want the pace of the classic Romero zombie, set everything to 0 or 1 and compensate with more zombies. MaxSpawnedZombies (default 64) is the global cap and at the same time the setting with the biggest impact on performance: double it and you double the work for the CPU. MaxSpawnedAnimals does the same for animals.

Loot, XP and how fast you progress

LootAbundance (100%) scales how much lies in containers; LootRespawnDays (7) sets after how many days a searched container refills. For a large group that loots through the world quickly, a respawn of 5 days or an abundance of 125% is reasonable; for a slow survival game set respawn to 14 or higher. XPMultiplier speeds up or slows down levelling; 100% is the default, 150% is pleasant for people who only play one evening a week. AirDropFrequency (in in-game hours) and AirDropMarker control air drops, a fun reason to head out together.

Land claims: who may build where

LandClaimCount (1), LandClaimSize and LandClaimExpiryTime determine how many claim blocks a player may place, how large the protected area is and after how many days of absence the claim expires. The two modifiers LandClaimOnlineDurabilityModifier and LandClaimOfflineDurabilityModifier multiply the hardness of blocks inside a claim; 0 means indestructible. On a friends-only server set the offline modifier to 0 so nobody loses a base while asleep, and leave the online modifier high so zombies can still break something during the horde.

PvP, death and what you lose

PlayerKillingMode controls who may kill whom: 0 off, 1 allies only, 2 strangers only, 3 everyone (default). For co-op set 0 or 1, otherwise a misclick with a rifle ends in an argument. DropOnDeath sets what you lose on death: nothing, toolbelt only, backpack, or everything. "Everything" is the most exciting but also the quickest way to lose beginners; "backpack" is a good compromise, especially combined with a sensible DropOnQuit.

World, seed and size

GameWorld is Navezgane (the hand-made map) or RWG (Random World Generation). With WorldGenSeed and WorldGenSize you set the layout and size of a generated world; 6144 is a good size for eight players, 8192 is large and costs more memory and generation time. Always generate a new world when nobody is playing and make a backup right after, so you have a clean start if an experiment fails.

Administration: telnet and the dashboard

TelnetEnabled is on by default and gives you a console for commands like kicking, teleporting and viewing settings; WebDashboardEnabled turns on a web interface. Both belong behind a strong password and reachable only from your own IP. At MC-Node you manage the console through the panel, so you do not have to expose telnet to the internet. How to adjust the settings in our panel is in the knowledge base: changing 7 Days to Die server settings.

Common mistakes

Three things almost always go wrong on new servers. Changing settings while the server is running: serverconfig.xml is only read at start-up, so your change seems to vanish. Doubling MaxSpawnedZombies for a heavier horde: that mainly raises CPU load all day, while BloodMoonEnemyCount does exactly what you want. And backing up the world only after a week: generate, back up immediately, and only then let players in, so a failed seed or a corrupt chunk does not send you back to day one.

A starting profile for a group of 4 to 8

• Difficulty 2 (Nomad), DayNightLength 60, BloodMoonFrequency 7 with BloodMoonRange 1
• BloodMoonEnemyCount 10, zombies walk by day (0), jog at night (1), run during the horde (2)
• LootAbundance 100, LootRespawnDays 7, XPMultiplier 125
• LandClaimOfflineDurabilityModifier 0, PlayerKillingMode 0, DropOnDeath backpack
• MaxSpawnedZombies 64, MaxPlayers 8, password on, visibility 1
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With this profile the first blood moon is tense but doable, the group progresses at a normal pace and nobody loses a base. If you run a 7 Days to Die server at MC-Node, you can set these values directly in the panel and adjust after the first horde based on how it went.