Setup Slow Burn

Slow-Burn Long-Term World

For worlds meant to last months. The first weeks feel like a gentle Casual world, then the apocalypse tightens in steps: hordes every 10 days, blood moons from day 30, hungry zombies from day 60, and zombies that break, build, and climb from day 100 onward. Full strength arrives on day 201.

Read Before You Start if this is your first guide.

Commands

Run these in order:

/za preset casual
/za scaling startday 0
/za scaling maxday 200
/za scaling steps 10
/za scaling extrazombies 6
/za scaling speed 0.25
/za scaling health 20
/za scaling armorchance 0.5
/za scaling weaponchance 0.35
/za events interval 10
/za events chance 1
/za events duration 10
/za bloodmoon startday 30
/za hunt on
/za hunt startday 60
/za breaking on
/za breaking startday 100
/za placing on
/za placing startday 120
/za towering on
/za towering startday 150

• preset casual gives the gentle start: small waves, a 10-day daylight grace, no baby zombies, and scaling from day 10.
• The scaling lines stretch difficulty over 200 days, raise it in steps every 10 days, and set higher end-game bonuses than Casual. startday 0 replaces Casual's day-10 start so the first step lands right after the first horde.
• The events lines make every 10th day a full-night horde, so the steps line up: each horde is followed the next morning by a strength step.
• hunt, breaking, placing, and towering turn on now but wait for their start days.

Config File

Edit with the server stopped. Start from the Casual values listed in Casual Co-op, then change these:

# [scaling]
scalingStartDay = 0
maxScalingDay = 200
scalingStepDays = 10
maxExtraZombiesPerWave = 6
maxSpeedBoost = 0.25
maxHealthBoost = 20
maxArmorChance = 0.5
maxWeaponChance = 0.35
# [horde]
hordeIntervalDays = 10
hordeStartChance = 1.0
hordeDurationMinutes = 10
# [bloodmoon]
bloodMoonStartDay = 30
# [nightspawning]
maxNightZombiesPerPlayer = 0
# [animalhunting]
enableAnimalHunting = true
huntStartDay = 60
# [blockbreaking]
enableZombieBlockBreaking = true
zombieBlockBreakingStartDay = 100
# [blockplacing]
enableZombieBlockPlacing = true
zombieBlockPlacingStartDay = 120
# [towering]
enableZombieTowering = true
zombieToweringStartDay = 150

What To Expect

Day	What changes
0 to 9	Single zombies at night only. Lit areas are safe.
10	Daytime waves begin. First horde at dusk.
11, 21, 31, ...	Zombies get a little faster, tougher, and better equipped, and waves a little bigger, the morning after each horde.
30	Random blood moons become possible (5% of nights).
60	Zombies start hunting animals and growing stronger by eating. Fence and light your farms.
100	Zombies break weak blocks (dirt, glass, wood, doors) to reach players.
120	Zombies place cobblestone steps and fill gaps.
150	Zombies stack on each other to climb walls.
201	Full strength: +25% speed, +20 health (10 hearts), half of all zombies armored, 35% armed, and 6 extra zombies per wave.

Hordes stay mild Casual hordes (twice the chance, 3 zombies per wave, checked every 1.5 seconds), but the extra zombies from scaling make them bigger over time. The cap of 30 zombie-class mobs around each player still applies.

Keeping A Long World Healthy

• Do not use vanilla /time set. It resets the day counter to 0 and the whole progression with it. Use /time add <ticks>. If it happens, /za day set <day> puts the day back without moving the clock.
• Check progress with /za day and /za scaling.
• Updating the mod keeps your settings. They live in the config file, and settings added by a new version arrive with their defaults. Read the Release Notes first.
• Back up before day 100, when zombies start changing blocks.

Tuning

To make it...	Run
Progress twice as fast	/za scaling maxday 100, then halve every start day above
Progress slower	/za scaling maxday 365
Keep getting harder after day 201	/za scaling endless 1 (+1% strength per day, forever)
Keep blocks safe forever	/za breaking off and /za placing off
Sieges on horde nights before the start days	/za breaking events on (same for placing and towering)
Make later hordes count more	/za events amount 6
More blood moons later on	/za bloodmoon chance 0.15 when the time comes
Let tower zombies stand	/za towering pose stand
Zombie horses after hunts	/za hunt zombifyhorses on and /za hunt ridehorses on
Modded armor in the late tiers	Hold the item and run /za gear add 4, then /za gear preview 4
Test day 150 on a copy of the world	/za day set 150

Undo

/za preset casual (or standard) restores the wave, event, and scaling base values, including the blood moon start day. Then:

/za scaling steps 0
/za scaling extrazombies 0
/za scaling endless 0
/za hunt off
/za breaking off
/za placing off
/za towering off