ZA-Z runs Project Zomboid Build 42 with 3-hour days, about 8 times a default world's zombies (10 % sprinters, no zombie respawn), 3x XP, loot refills every 30 in-game days, the power grid on, mains water until Day 150, PvP with the safety toggle, protected safehouses and a nightly restart at 00:00 SAST. Below is every setting a player will feel, with its real value, read from the live server files. Anything not listed is the game's default.
#How long is a day on ZA-Z?
| Setting | ZA-Z | What it means |
|---|
| Day length | 3 real hours | 1 in-game hour is 7.5 real minutes; a real day holds 8 in-game days |
| Start | 9 July 1993, 9 AM | Day 1 of the outbreak; the server name counts days from here |
| Night length | Short | More daylight than a default game |
| Night darkness | Normal | |
| Clock when the server is empty | Stopped | The world waits for you: no time passes with nobody online |
| Sleep | Optional | Your survivor never gets tired. If every player online sleeps at once, time runs about 240x (8 game hours in roughly 15 real seconds) |
| Temperature, rain, fog | Normal | Snow settles on the ground in winter |
| Erosion | Normal (100 days) | Grass, vines and saplings take over in about 100 in-game days |
| Farming speed and yield | Normal | Crops grown indoors die; seasons matter |
#Zombies
The population is set to the highest the game allows, and it reached its peak on Day 28, so the whole world is now at full density.
| Setting | ZA-Z | What it means |
|---|
| Population | 4.0 x peak 2.0 = 8.0 | About 8 times a default Normal world (0.975 at its peak) |
| Distribution | Urban focused | Towns are packed; forests and farmland are lighter |
| Speed | Random, 10 % sprinters | One zombie in ten runs flat out |
| Toughness | Random | Some drop fast, some soak up a beating |
| Strength | Normal | |
| Sight and hearing | Normal | Sharper than a default game, which mixes Normal and Poor |
| Memory | Normal | |
| Cognition | Basic navigation | Zombies never open doors |
| Respawn | Off | No new zombies are ever added |
| Migration | Every 12 in-game hours | The survivors of a cull wander into cleared parts of the same area, so emptied streets slowly refill |
| Groups | About 20 (10 to 30) | Idle zombies gather into hordes |
| Drag-downs | On | A crowd can pull you down and kill you outright |
| Fence lunge | On | A zombie climbing a fence or window can lunge if you stand too close |
| Attacks from behind | High bite chance | |
| Fake dead | World zombies | Some bodies lying in the world are not dead |
| Crawling under cars | Often | |
| House alarms | Zombies do not set them off | |
| Armour on zombies | 2x, capped at 85 % | Helmets and vests on the dead really do stop blows |
| Weapons stuck in zombies | 6 % | Check the bodies |
| Tall fences | 25 zombies before one takes damage | Player walls and barricades can be broken |
| Corpses | Removed after 72 in-game hours (9 real hours) | Rotting bodies nearby still hurt your mood and health |
| Infection | Blood and saliva, death in 2 to 3 in-game days (6 to 9 real hours) | The dead rise within a minute. See Knox Antidote and Immune System |
| Multi-hit | On | Some melee weapons hit several zombies per swing |
#Loot
| Setting | ZA-Z | What it means |
|---|
| Loot, every category | 1.0 | Above the game's defaults (0.4 to 0.8 per category) |
| Guns and attachments | 1.2 | The richest category |
| Loot respawn | Every 30 in-game days (720 hours) | About 90 real hours with players online. See the rules below |
| Buildings already looted | Up to 25 %, reached by Day 90 | Rural buildings half as often |
| Locked doors | Very often | Bring a crowbar or learn to climb in windows |
| House alarms | Sometimes | |
| Generators in the world | Normal | |
| Annotated maps | Sometimes | Notes from dead survivors pointing at stashes |
| Survivor houses, road and zone stories | Rare | |
| Basements | Sometimes | |
| Dropped hats, glasses and maggots | Removed after 24 in-game hours | Only these three item types are cleaned up |
| Rotten food | Removed after 7 in-game days | |
| Our own mythic gear | About 1 container in 10,000 | See ZA-Z's Gear and Clothing |
| Tracer rounds | About 1 in 10 of ammo finds | See ZA-Z's Tracers |
#When does loot respawn?
Loot comes back in a server-wide wave every 30 in-game days, not on a per-container timer. A container refills only when all of these are true:
- It sits in a town or trailer park.
- Someone has looted it before, and it now holds fewer than 5 items (junk counts).
- Nobody was in that part of town in the last 12 in-game hours (90 real minutes). A town someone lives in rarely refills.
- The building has no player construction or barricades, and it is not a safehouse.
The refill is one normal roll of the game's own loot tables, on top of whatever is still there. More on Loot.
#Character and XP
| Setting | ZA-Z | What it means |
|---|
| XP | 3x on every skill | |
| Reading a skill book | 0.05 in-game minutes a page | 40 times faster than default: a book reads in moments |
| Rereading magazines and other literature | After 14 in-game days | Default is 45 |
| TV and VHS XP | Stops at skill level 3 | |
| Free trait points | 0 | No penalty for stacking negative traits |
| Starter kit | Off | |
| Hunger, thirst | Normal | Nutrition and weight are on |
| Tiredness | Off | See Sleep above |
| Broken bones | On | |
| Injury severity | Normal | Wound infections can hurt you |
| Muscle strain | 0.7 | |
| Climbing | Easy | No failed climbs over fences or sheet ropes |
| Clothing wear | Normal | |
| Firearms | Aim-based damage against zombies | Your aim decides the hit; noise, jams, moodles and weather at 1x |
| Recipes | Hidden until learnt | Crafting stations still show recipes you have not learnt |
| Accounts per Steam account | 5 | |
#Power, water and generators
| Setting | ZA-Z | What it means |
|---|
| Power grid | On, set to stay on | Brought back by survivors, see The Substation Restart |
| Mains water | Until 07:00 on Day 150 | 5 December 1993 in game. Fill your containers before then |
| Generator reach | 25 tiles, 3 floors up and down | Default reach is 20 tiles |
| Generator fuel use | 1.0 | Ten times Build 42's default of 0.1: stock plenty of fuel |
| Generators outdoors | Allowed | A generator outside can run fuel pumps |
| Fuel in station pumps | 0 to 80 % full, 20 % start empty | They do run dry |
| Light bulbs | Lifespan 3.0 | Bulbs last longer than the default 2.0, but they still burn out |
| Fridges and food rot | Normal | |
The admins can still stage a blackout or a water cut as an event. How the grid works, and what a cut means for you, is on Power and Water.
#Vehicles
| Setting | ZA-Z | What it means |
|---|
| Cars in the world | Low | |
| Condition | Low | Expect to fix what you find |
| Fuel in found cars | Low, and few have any | |
| Locked cars | Rare | You still need a key, or hotwiring, to start one |
| Car alarms | Extremely rare | |
| Traffic jams | On | Main roads are choked with wrecks |
| Speed limit | 150 | Cars run at their true speed and the speedometer is honest. Every vehicle tops out at about 122 km/h |
| Crash damage to you | On | You can be hurt in a crash, but being hit by a car does you no damage |
| Helicopters | Up to 5 in the world | The Huey, see Vehicles and driving |
Fast driving onto ground nobody has visited can outrun the map loading. The driver's PC loads the road ahead for everyone in the car, so a slow PC at the wheel stalls the whole car. Livestock unloaded from a towed trailer can vanish (a Build 42 bug), so walk your animals.
#PvP and safety
| Setting | ZA-Z | What it means |
|---|
| PvP | On | |
| Safety system | On | Each player chooses PvP mode for themselves |
| Rosewood | No PvP | The town is a safe zone, zombie-free too: Rosewood Safe Zone |
| Who can hurt whom | At least one of you in PvP mode | Staying out of PvP mode does not protect you from someone in it |
| Factions | On | Faction mates cannot shoot each other, and only hit each other in melee if one turns on faction PvP |
| Deaths | Announced in chat | |
| World map | Faction and safehouse mates only | Nobody else shows on your map |
House rule: fight if you both want to, and do not camp spawns.
#Safehouses
| Setting | ZA-Z | What it means |
|---|
| Player safehouses | On | One per player, owner or member |
| Buildings you can claim | Any map building | Shops and offices too, not just houses. Player-built structures never qualify |
| Trespass | Off | Non-members cannot walk in, and on ZA-Z they are thrown out of cars too |
| Looting by non-members | Off | |
| Fire damage | Off | Fire cannot damage a safehouse |
| Respawn in your safehouse | Allowed | Tick it in the safehouse panel |
| Expiry | 14 real days (336 hours) | Counted from the last time an owner or member stood inside |
| Sledgehammers | Only inside your own safehouse | |
| Loot respawn inside | Never | |
The full rules are on Safehouses.
#Server: slots, saves and restarts
| Setting | ZA-Z | What it means |
|---|
| Slots | 32 | |
| Password | None | Public, no whitelist |
| Ping limit | None | Players from anywhere can join |
| World save | Every 15 minutes | A crash rolls the world back no further than the last save |
| Backups | Every 3 hours, plus a nightly copy kept off the server | |
| Nightly restart | 00:00 SAST (22:00 UTC) | Warnings at 23:50, 23:55 and 23:59; back about 2 minutes later |
| Mod update restarts | Automatic | With players on: warnings 10, 5 and 1 minute before. Never between 23:40 and 00:10 SAST |
| Idle restart | Empty server only | After 3 hours up, if someone played since the last start. Never with anyone online |
| Game updates | By hand | Usually the same day the patch lands |
| Steam VAC | On | |
| File check | On | Your game and mod files must match the server's; a changed file gets you refused |
| Speed check | Kick | Moving faster than 20 tiles a second on foot gets you kicked; driving is fine |
#Related pages
- Getting started: how to join and what to do in your first hour.
- Safehouses: claiming, members, trespass and the 14-day rule.
- FAQ: quick answers to the questions players ask most.