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ZA-Z's Gearworks: fire modes, real bursts and calibre-wide magazines

Checked | 3 min read

ZA-Z's Gearworks is the framework the server's own guns run on. You never pick it up or craft with it: it is the set of rules that make the guns of ZA-Z's Gear and Clothing (the Arsenal, and the Glock, M16A3, M4, AK-47 and MP5s that took over from Vanilla Weapons PLUS) and ZA-Z's Tracers behave the way they do. It adds no items of its own, and it arrived on 11 October 2026.

Workshop page: ZA-Z's Gearworks ships inside ZA-Z's Essentials on Steam.

#What it does for a gun

  • Fire modes. Single, Burst and Full Auto, each gun with its own rate of fire. Press Shift + X (Shift and the rack key, the game's own fire-mode key) to cycle them, or use the firearm radial (hold R) or the right-click menu. A three-round burst is a real burst: one pull, three rounds.
  • Suppressors. A fitted suppressor cuts how far zombies hear the shot and swaps in a quieter sound. Take it off and the gun is loud again.
  • Magazines. ZA-Z's guns take any magazine of their calibre: the 7.62x51mm rifles feed from the ordinary M1A magazine and the other 7.62x51mm magazines, the 5.56 guns from M16 magazines in every size, and the calibres nothing else fed (.45 ACP for submachine guns, .30-30, .50 BMG, 12 gauge drums) have magazines named by calibre and capacity. Reload picks the fullest magazine you carry; the radial lets you choose a specific one. Every gun's description says what it fires and what feeds it. Older per-gun magazines still fit and turn into the calibre ones in your pack.
  • Rounds. Calibres can hold several round types (ball, tracer and so on). You can mix them in one magazine; they fire in the order you loaded them, and unload as the rounds they were. Press O for the loader window: drop a gun or a magazine in, pick the round type, set how many, and drag the list to choose which type Reload grabs first.
  • Attachments. Scopes, lights, lasers and suppressors go on and come off the vanilla way.

The loader key lives under Options > Mods > ZA-Z's Gearworks if O clashes with something else you use.

#What happened to the guns from Vanilla Weapons PLUS?

Vanilla Weapons PLUS and its Gunworks framework left the server on 11 October 2026, and nothing you owned was lost. The Glock 17, M93R, M16A3, M4 Carbine, AK-47, MP5 and MP5SD carry on as ZA-Z's own guns. The rest turn into their nearest ZA-Z or vanilla twin the moment you carry them: the full list is on the Gear page.

Since 18 October 2026 the vanilla M16 fires three-round bursts or single shots again (no full auto), at 800 rounds a minute inside the burst, as it did under Vanilla Weapons PLUS, and every burst runs at its gun's real rate (they used to run about 12 % slow). The M93R, M16A3, M4 Carbine, AK-47, MP5, MP5SD and the vanilla M16 also have Vanilla Weapons PLUS's bloom back: each round in a long string spreads a little wider, and the spread settles when you stop firing. The AK-47 never had it before; it does now.

#How do I kneel and aim with a gun?

Crouch with any firearm in your hands and stand still: your character drops to one knee, aiming or not, instead of standing up the moment you aim. Kneeling steadies the shot while you aim:

  • +10 hit chance on the gun.
  • The aim settles 1.5 times as fast, both after you raise the gun and after each shot.

Move while crouched and aiming and you walk on bent knees with the gun up; move without aiming and it is the normal crouch walk. The bonus only counts while you kneel still, once the kneel has settled.

ZA-Z's own rifles (the P90, VHS-K2, AX-9, OB-15, UMP-26, FAD, SCAR-H, SRR-61, SG-16 and M82A1) are carried muzzle up when you run or sprint, with your hand on the gun's own grip. Every other gun keeps the game's own run.

On these guns your support hand stays on the gun's own handguard when you carry it, kneel with it, and aim while walking, strafing or crouch-walking, so it never floats off the gun mid stride.