The October Opti Update, 11 October 2026: Gearworks, ZA-Z's own guns, the Road Train and the safehouse terminal

The October Opti Update went live with the restart on 11 October 2026, Day 168 in Knox County. It is the biggest update ZA-Z has had, and a tidy-up under the hood at the same time. Three of ZA-Z's own mods are brand new: ZA-Z's Gearworks gives the server's own guns real fire modes, three-round bursts, suppressors that matter and magazines shared by calibre; ZA-Z's Road Train arrives with the W900 semi; and the boss zombies move into ZA-Z's Bosses, which only comes on for events. Vanilla Weapons PLUS and its Gunworks framework leave, and ZA-Z's own guns take over everything they did, so nothing you own is lost. ZA-Z's Gear and Clothing adds the UMP-26 and the battery-driven XM214 Microgun, quietens the OB-15 and lets any gun shoot out lights. ZA-Z's Essentials turns safehouse computers into a terminal that fetches what you stored, puts a seat in the back of every bakkie, keeps walkies working on your belt and plugs radios into the power. The downloads got lighter too: ZA-Z FM's music is about a third smaller and Essentials went from about 57 MB to 20 MB. Everything downloads by itself when you join.

#What is Gearworks?

ZA-Z's Gearworks is the rulebook ZA-Z's own guns now run on. You never pick it up or craft with it, and it adds no items of its own: it is what makes the guns of ZA-Z's Gear and Clothing, and ZA-Z's Tracers, behave the way they do. Vanilla guns are not touched. Its Workshop page: ZA-Z's Gearworks on Steam.

• 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, hold R for the firearm radial, or use the right-click menu. A three-round burst is a real burst: one pull, three rounds.
• Suppressors that matter. 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.
• Mixed rounds. A calibre can hold several round types, ball and tracer among them. Mix them in one magazine and they fire in the order you loaded them, and unload as the rounds they were. Press O for the loader window: drop in a gun or a magazine, pick the round type and 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.

If O clashes with a key you already use, change it under Options > Mods > ZA-Z's Gearworks. The whole rulebook is on ZA-Z's Gearworks.

#Which magazines fit my gun?

Any magazine of the right calibre. ZA-Z's guns no longer insist on a magazine of their own:

• The 7.62x51mm rifles feed from the ordinary M1A magazine and the other 7.62x51mm magazines.
• The 5.56 guns take M16 magazines in every size.
• Calibres nothing else fed (.45 ACP for submachine guns, .30-30, .50 BMG and 12 gauge drums) get magazines named by calibre and capacity, such as the 30-round .45 ACP magazine.

Reload picks the fullest magazine you carry, and the radial lets you choose a specific one. Every gun's description says what it fires and what feeds it. Your old per-gun magazines are not wasted: they still fit, and they turn into the matching calibre magazine in your pack by themselves.

#Vanilla Weapons PLUS and Gunworks are gone: our own guns take over

Vanilla Weapons PLUS and the Gunworks framework under it left the server with this restart. Seven of its guns carry on as ZA-Z's own, redrawn, under the same names, so every one already out there keeps working: the Glock 17, the M93R (three-round burst), the M16A3, the M4 Carbine, the AK-47, the MP5 and the MP5SD. The AK-47 now fires 7.62x51mm, the game's .308, from M1A magazines at 650 rounds a minute.

Everything else from that mod turns into its nearest twin the moment you carry it: the SR-25 becomes a SCAR-H, the JS-556 a JS-14, the JS5 an MP5, the side by side a double barrel. 7.62x39mm rounds, boxes and tracers become 7.62x51mm, and the old magazines, silencers and bayonet fold into their ZA-Z or vanilla twins. The whole list: what happened to my Vanilla Weapons PLUS guns.

#ZA-Z's Gear and Clothing 1.12

Two new guns, a stealthier OB-15, and a new use for every gun you own.

#The UMP-26

A compact submachine gun in .45 ACP with a built-in box optic. It hits harder than the P90 per round but carries fewer, and every round stops in the first zombie it hits.

• Fire: full auto at 700 rounds a minute, or single shot.
• Ammo: ordinary .45 ACP rounds from any .45 ACP magazine. The 30-round .45 ACP magazine turns up on its own wherever rifle magazines do.
• Suppressor: the .45 Suppressor screws onto the muzzle. With it fitted, zombies hear the shots from a third of the distance.
• Under the handguard: a laser sight or a gun light, one at a time.
• Where to look: police and military gun lockers, where assault rifles turn up. The magazine and the suppressor turn up apart from the gun.

More on the Gear page.

#The XM214 Microgun

The M134's little brother: a hand-held six-barrel 5.56 that weighs 5 instead of 9 and fires about a quarter faster, but hits softer. The catch is power. It only spins while a charged battery sits in its pack, so a flat battery turns it into a very expensive club.

• Ammo: plain 5.56 rounds. No magazine: it holds 100 and tops itself up from the 5.56 you carry anywhere on you.
• Power: a charged battery inside the XM214 Hybrid Pack on your back. No pack or no charge means no spin and no shots. A fresh battery lasts about 2,250 rounds, or 75 real minutes of holding the gun up and spinning (about 10 in-game hours). Carry a spare.
• Hits: damage 0.5 to 0.8, so a standard zombie takes at least two rounds head-on. Each round passes through up to 2 zombies, out to 26 tiles. It comes up to aim quickly and never jams.
• Noise: 250 tiles while it fires.
• Hybrid pack: holds 22 of anything and makes it 75 % lighter. Each pack comes in one of four looks, settled when it is found.
• Holder: with the pack on, the gun gets its own hotbar slot, the XM214 Holder, and hangs upright on the pack's left side to leave your hands free. Your back slot stays free, so a rifle can still ride on the right.
• Where: world loot on a roll of its own, 1 in 10,000 each time the game fills a container, with the gun, the pack and a battery together. How container rolls work: Loot.

Everything else is on the Gear page.

#The OB-15

The bullpup rifle with the built-in suppressor and optic is now built for moving through the dark unheard:

• Semi-automatic only.
• Subsonic rounds: zombies hear a shot only within 10 tiles (5 indoors). Other players hear a soft clack of the bolt, nothing like a gunshot, from up to 20 tiles.
• No muzzle flash.
• Magazines: any .30-30 magazine, 20 or 40 rounds, found wherever rifle magazines turn up. An older OB-15 Magazine turns into the 40-round one in your pack.

More on the Gear page.

#Can I shoot out lights?

Yes, with any gun, vanilla or modded. Put your cursor on a lamp and fire: the bulb pops and the lamp goes dark. The gunshot is as loud as ever, so pick your moment.

• What breaks: lamps that take a light bulb, such as porch and wall lamps, table and floor lamps, ceiling lamps you could pick up, neon and lit shop signs. Room lights run from a wall switch have no bulb you can hit.
• Range: the lamp must sit inside your gun's range, plus a tile and a half.
• Clear shot: walls, closed doors and windows stop it, and a zombie or player on the line takes the bullet instead. Aim at the lamp itself, not the wall behind it.
• Spared: lamps inside someone else's safehouse, and inside safe zones such as Rosewood.
• Lights back on: right-click the dark lamp and choose Add Light Bulb with a bulb in your inventory. It works again at once, as long as it has power.

The details: shoot out lights.

#Also in Gear 1.12

• Shooting from a vehicle: the M134 Minigun and the XM214 Microgun fire at their full rate from a seat with the window down, the same as on foot.
• M134 Minigun: firing it now roots you. You can still shuffle, but only at a crawl until a moment after the last shot.

#ZA-Z's Essentials 1.11

Five new ways to make life easier. Each one but the bakkie seat has its own switch under Options > Mods.

#What does the safehouse terminal do?

Any computer inside your safehouse becomes a 1993 green-screen terminal that knows everything stored there, tells you where each thing is, and fetches it for you.

1. Carry a computer into your safehouse (any office computer works) and give it power; a running generator in range will do.
2. Right-click it and pick Safehouse Management Terminal.
3. Search, or pick a section along the top. Pick an item, choose how many, and press TAKE.

• Fetching takes time: one second for every unit of weight. A box of nails is quick; something weighing 40 takes 40 seconds. Stay at the terminal, because walking away cancels it and nothing moves.
• What it finds: furniture and shelves, things on the floor, bags inside those, and the trunks and seats of vehicles parked in the safehouse. Not what other players carry.
• Too heavy: your inventory holds up to 50. Anything past that is set down on the floor next to the terminal.
• Books and tapes: every skill book volume and VHS episode the safehouse holds, with the ones you have already read or watched shaded.
• Members: only the owner and members can use it. The owner can add and remove members from it, even players who already own or belong to another safehouse (see Safehouses).

The switch is Use safehouse computers as terminals. All of it: the safehouse terminal.

#Ride in the back of a bakkie

Every open pickup now has a seat in the bed: the plain pickups and the '88 Toyota Hilux. Stand next to the truck, press the seat key (Z) and pick the bed seat. You sit on the bed floor with your back against the cab, facing the tailgate, and you can shoot at whatever follows you. Zombies that reach the bed can bite, and E at the tailgate still just opens the bed. The bed seat was removed on 18 October 2026.

#Inventory windows

The Category column is gone from every inventory and loot window, so item names get the full width. Under Options > Mods you can also make the windows see-through and pick your own text colours. More: inventory windows.

#Radios on the belt

In the plain game a radio switches itself off the moment it leaves your hands. Now a walkie-talkie (or any radio) on a belt, webbing or holster slot keeps working as if you held it: it stays on, hears and sends on its channel, and its battery runs down as normal.

• Set the channel and volume while you hold it, then attach it or drag it onto the hotbar. To change them later, right-click it and pick Device Options.
• Incoming lines show above your head and in the Radio chat tab, with a short squelch click. A belt radio plays no static hum.
• A radio inside a bag is still off the air.
• Tune it to ZA-Z FM on 100.0 and it plays from your belt.

The switch is Radios keep working on the belt. More: walkies on the belt.

#Plug a radio in

A radio's window gets a new slot next to the battery. Drag a power bar (the multi-plug) into it and the radio runs off the power where it stands, no battery needed: inside a building with electricity, or in range of a running generator.

• Every radio takes a plug: table radios, walkie-talkies, ham radios and the CD player.
• A battery left inside keeps its charge; unplug the radio and it runs on that battery again.
• On a generator, a plugged radio draws a third of what a TV does.
• Power bars turn up in kitchens, closets, school labs, spa counters and workshops.

The switch is Plug radios in. Step by step: plug a radio in.

#Boss zombies: a third boss and new rules

ZA-Z's boss zombies now live in their own mod, ZA-Z's Bosses, and they still only turn up at events: the server switches the mod on with a warned restart before a boss event, and your game downloads it the next time you join. A Knox Heavy Helm you already own keeps working without it. This update adds a third boss and reworks the other two. All of it is on Boss Zombies.

#The Abomination

Two heads, three arms, a bloated body a head taller than any zombie and a mouth split ear to ear.

Count on about 25 rifle rounds: a 5.56x45mm round lands about 2 on average. A shove buys you a second, and a car buys you more. The full write-up: the Abomination.

#Knox Heavy

• Health 35, about 17 normal zombies' worth, but no hit does more than 5, so it takes at least 7 hits whatever you use. Critical hits never land, and melee does only 15 % of normal.
• Nothing moves him: no knockback, stagger, knockdown or shove, not even from a car, and he cannot be turned into a crawler.
• His wounds on you do 4 times the normal damage.
• A fast walk: he keeps pace with a walking survivor and loses a running one. The first shot that hits him makes him turn and come for whoever fired, so run, open a gap, then turn and shoot.

#Patient Zero

She is now the Tall Woman: gaunt, a head taller than any zombie, long black hair over her face, a hospital gown torn into strips.

• Health 12, about six normal zombies' worth, and she takes hits the normal way: critical hits, knockdowns and staggers all work.
• Speed: 1.6 times a normal sprinter.
• Scream: when she sees you, then every 45 seconds while she can see a player. It pulls every zombie within 150 tiles toward her and sends every survivor within 30 tiles (up to 3 floors up or down) into full panic. Desensitized survivors shrug it off.
• Second wind: her first death is not final. She plays dead, and once she has lain at least 6 seconds, the first survivor to come within 4 tiles wakes her at full health. The second death is final. Killed on stairs, she stays down the first time.

#ZA-Z's Road Train

The W900 semi joins the server with ZA-Z's own add-on. Weld a War Plough onto the front and the truck shoves zombies and parked cars out of its way; eleven more armour parts dress it like a war rig. The cistern becomes a crew trailer with hatches, gun ports and a turret cab, the new Mobile Base trailer is a camp on wheels (hidden crew, cargo hold, a generator for your camp and a car on its back), and the car trailer keeps every part and item of the cars it carries. Hitch trailers from the driver's seat. All of it: ZA-Z's Road Train.

#ZA-Z FM and ZA-Z's Tracers

• ZA-Z's Tunes 1.4: a radio tuned to 100.0 MHz no longer shows static captions over ZA-Z FM. Just the music.
• ZA-Z's Tracers now runs on Gearworks. The rounds look and fire the same, and you can mix them with ball rounds through the Gearworks loader (O). The 7.62x39 tracers become 7.62x51mm tracers of the same colour, so ZA-Z's Tracers now come in seven calibres.

#Vanilla Foods Expanded and Vanilla Clothing Expansion are gone

Vanilla Foods Expanded left the server with this restart, and its foods and drinks went with it. Any you carried or stored have vanished, and a bottle or can that held one of its drinks is now empty. Everything else you own is untouched.

Vanilla Clothing Expansion left too. Clothes that wore one of its extra colours switch to one of the game's own colours. Nothing is lost.

Read more: ZA-Z's Gearworks, ZA-Z's Gear and Clothing, ZA-Z's Essentials, ZA-Z's Road Train, Boss Zombies and Loot.