7 Days to Die

Difficulty, world settings, mods and why a long-running world gets heavy.

Everything in Your panel applies. These are the 7 Days to Die specifics.

Startup parameters

• Max Players
• Game Difficulty
• Telnet Password — for external admin tools

Everything else — world size, day length, loot abundance, zombie behaviour, airdrops — lives in the server configuration file, which you edit in the file manager. There are a lot of options; change a few at a time.

Mods

Mods are folders you drop into the game's Mods directory through the file manager or SFTP, then restart.

Many mods must also be installed by every player, and versions have to match on both sides — check what the mod author says before inviting people in. Take a backup first, because larger overhaul mods usually expect a fresh world.

Memory

Plans start at 6 GB. Memory use grows with three things: the number of players, how much of the map has been explored and built on, and the size of your mod list.

A world that is comfortable in week one and struggling in week eight is normal for this game — it generates and stores terrain as players travel. Moving up a plan keeps the world.

Updates

You control when the server updates, so you can wait until your players and mods are ready rather than being pushed onto a new build. Bigger version jumps in this game have historically required a fresh world; check the patch notes before committing.

Restarts

A nightly scheduled restart helps a lot here. 7 Days to Die accumulates memory over long sessions, and a daily restart keeps performance steady.