How to change zombie population, respawn and loot respawn on your Project Zomboid server

Three rows under Settings, then Game Settings control how many zombies there are, whether new ones appear, and when looted containers fill up again: Zombie Population, Zombie Respawn and Loot Respawn (hours). Change them there and restart. They are not in the Sandbox Settings editor, because the panel writes them into the sandbox file at every start.

Change them

1. Open your server in the panel, click Settings, then Game Settings.

2. Change a row:

   • Zombie Population: Insane, Very High, High, Normal, Low or None. New servers start on Normal.
   • Zombie Respawn: how often new zombies are added over time: High, Normal, Low or None. New servers start on None.
   • Loot Respawn (hours): after this many in-game hours, containers that were looted at least once restock. A number from 0 to 8760. 0 means loot never respawns, and it is the default.
3. Click Restart now in the bar that says Saved. The server must restart before these take effect.

Good to know

• The Console prints [playnhost] PVP=... ZombiePopulation=... ZombieRespawn=... LootRespawnHours=... at each start, with the values the panel applied.
• A change to these lines made by hand in the sandbox file is lost at the next start.
• Zombies and loot already in a world are not removed by these rows. If you want the new values from the very start, start a new world: How to delete a Project Zomboid world or start fresh.
• The speed, strength and senses of zombies are in the sandbox editor: How to change the zombie settings of your Project Zomboid server.
• A preset tells you the matching values for these three rows: How to choose a sandbox preset for your Project Zomboid server.