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ZA-Z update, 19 October 2026: vehicle armour, a GPS on the map, the game's own walls and floors, backup generators and night vision

Released | 3 min read

Another ZA-Z's Essentials update went live just before midnight on 18 October 2026, and it downloads by itself the next time you join. Weld armour onto any vanilla car, plot a route on the map with the GPS, and build the brick, stone and siding walls and floors you see in town. A connected generator now starts itself when the power goes out, cars flatten bushes, and pistols get a proper silencer. Night vision goggles, a black ops kit and a fur puffer jacket join the rare loot. Vehicle salvage is back, with a new rule: your own safehouse only.

#Armour for your car

Every vanilla car, truck and van can take a steel bullbar, armour over its windscreens and side windows, and a steel guard on each wheel. Armour soaks the hits meant for the part behind it, and a shut armoured window stops bullets reaching whoever sits behind it. A shot tyre behind a guard is put back to full. Worn armour welds back up in the Mechanics window. The four recipes are in the Road Armour Magazine, found where metalworking and mechanics magazines are. Everything about it: Vehicle Armour.

#Vehicle salvage: your own safehouse only

Salvage is back on, with a new rule. Salvage Vehicle now only works on a vehicle inside a safehouse you own or belong to, and only once every door and the hood are off. The tooltip lists what is still missing. It no longer works on any vehicle out in the open. Wrecks are unchanged: Dismantle Car Wreck still works anywhere. See vehicle salvage.

#GPS routes and your safehouse on the map

Right-click the map or minimap and pick Route here: a line shows the way by road, shrinks as you drive and works out a new way after a wrong turn. In a vehicle everyone sees everyone's route, each in their seat colour. No item needed. Your safehouse now shows on the big map as a green box with its name, so you can see where your claim ends. See GPS route planner and your safehouse on the map.

#Walls and floors from the map

Four new build menu tabs: Exterior Walls, Interior Walls, Low Walls and Floors. Brick, block, stone, siding and log outside; painted, papered and tiled walls inside; garden walls; carpets, tiles, pavers and wooden floors. Most styles come with a matching window frame and door frame, and they cost what the game's own walls of that material cost. See walls and floors.

#Padlocks on the map's own doors

Padlocks and combination padlocks now go on the outside doors that came with the map, not just the doors you build. Locks keep people out, not in: from inside the building any door opens. A door between two rooms can't take one. See padlocks.

#Backup generators

Right-click a generator, pick Connect Generator and leave it off with fuel in: when the power goes out in its range it starts by itself, and when the power comes back it stops. Careful indoors: a backup generator in a building fills it with fumes when it starts. See backup generators.

#Cars flatten bushes

Drive over bushes, ferns, small plants or the smallest young trees at 15 km/h or more and they go under the wheels, leaving twigs and branches behind. Grown trees still stop you, and nothing is flattened in someone else's safehouse or a no-PvP zone. See flatten bushes.

#A quiet pistol silencer

The pistol silencer is now a short can that fits the Glock 17, M93R, M9, M1911 and Desert Eagle. Zombies hear a silenced shot from a third of the distance, other players hear only a click of the slide within about 20 tiles, and there is no muzzle flash. Silencers you have keep working. See the pistol silencer.

#New rare loot

  • Night vision goggles, two-tube and quad, flip down from the hold-F light menu and run 18 in-game hours on one battery. See night vision.
  • The black ops kit: plate carrier, ballistic helmet, bite-proof neck guard, chest rig, assault pack and more, one piece at a time. See black ops kit.
  • Both turn up only in army, police, gun shop and prison storage and gun lockers, about 1 container in 10,000.
  • The Fur Hood Puffer Jacket, as warm as clothing gets, 1 in 10,000 in any container. See Loot.

#Smaller changes

  • Bulletproof cistern. Gunfire no longer damages the W900 cistern trailer, its tyres or its windows. See the War Rig.
  • M9 bayonet no longer turns up as loot; ones you have keep working.
  • Gun cases hold ZA-Z's own guns half as often as before.