Every 7 Days to Die dedicated server is controlled by a single file called serverconfig.xml — it holds your server name, difficulty, day length, Blood Moon cadence, loot and XP multipliers, PvP rules, land-claim protection, and dozens of other knobs. On a 7 Days to Die server you host with Loafhosts, you do not have to open that file by hand or worry about a stray angle bracket breaking the whole server. The Config Editor reads serverconfig.xml, lays every setting out as a clean, grouped form with a one-line tip under each one, lets you search the whole file instantly, and gives you five one-click presets that retune the server for you. This guide explains exactly what the 7 Days to Die Config Editor does, how to open it, what each group of settings covers, how the presets work, why some keys are locked, and when a change needs a restart, a recreate, or a brand-new world.
What the 7 Days to Die Config Editor Does
The Config Editor is a form-based editor for one file: serverconfig.xml, the dedicated-server config 7 Days to Die reads when it boots. Instead of a wall of <property name="X" value="Y"/> lines, it shows you a labelled control for each setting — a text box, a number field, a slider, a dropdown, or an on/off toggle, depending on what the setting expects — with a short explanation of what it does. The file’s comments, attribute order, and formatting are preserved when you save, so the editor only ever changes the values you actually changed and leaves the rest of the file untouched.
Two things make it safe to use without knowing XML. First, the panel owns the round-trip: it parses the file, applies just your edits, and writes it back cleanly. Second, your input is validated before anything is written — numbers must be whole and inside the allowed range, dropdown values must be one of the listed options, and toggles are written as true or false. If a value is out of range or the wrong type, the save is rejected with a message and the on-disk file is left exactly as it was.
Note: The Config Editor edits serverconfig.xml only — the main dedicated-server settings file.
Note: Comments and formatting in the file are preserved; only the values you change are written.
Note: Values are checked against an allowed range or list before saving, so a bad entry is caught before it reaches the server.
Opening the Config Editor
The editor appears automatically on 7 Days to Die servers. Open your server in the Loafhosts panel and look in the left sidebar under the Game section — you will see a Server Config item. Click it to open the Config Editor page, titled “7 Days to Die Config Editor”. The page loads over your normal server view, so your sidebar and the live status header at the top stay in place while you work.
The item only shows up on a 7 Days to Die server; on a Minecraft, Rust, or other server it is hidden, because the editor understands serverconfig.xml specifically. If your server has only just been created and has never started, serverconfig.xml may not exist on disk yet — the editor will tell you to start the server once so the game can generate the file, then come back.
Tip: The Server Config item lives in the Game section of the server sidebar, near Change Game.
Tip: If the editor says no settings were found, start the server once to generate serverconfig.xml, then reopen the editor.
How the Settings Are Grouped
The form splits serverconfig.xml into themed groups so you can find a setting without scrolling the whole file. The groups are:
- Identity — how your server appears in the in-game browser: ServerName, ServerDescription, ServerWebsiteURL, ServerPassword, a login-confirmation message, Region, Language, and the maximum player count.
- World — the keys that define the actual map: GameWorld (Navezgane or a random-gen world), WorldGenSeed, WorldGenSize, and GameName. These are the keys that decide which world the server loads.
- Gameplay & Difficulty — the core feel: GameDifficulty (Scavenger through Insane), block-damage multipliers, day and night length, zombie spawn toggle, zombie movement speeds for day, night, feral, and Blood Moon, the spawned-zombie cap, view distance, and the new-player safe zone.
- Blood Moon — the horde-night cadence: BloodMoonFrequency (how many days between hordes), BloodMoonRange (random variation so the horde day is not perfectly predictable), the warning lead-time, and the per-player horde size.
- Multipliers, Loot, Airdrops & Party — pacing and reward dials: XPMultiplier, LootAbundance, LootRespawnDays, airdrop frequency and marker, party kill-share range, the daily quest limit, and what players drop on death or on quit.
- PvP & Land Claim — your PvP posture and base protection: PlayerKillingMode, land-claim count and size, the dead-zone spacing between claims, claim expiry, and the online/offline durability modifiers that decide whether bases can be raided while their owner is offline.
- Admin, Network & Performance — the technical keys: ports, telnet, the web dashboard, EAC (anti-cheat), map rendering, and a few performance limits. Most of these are managed by the panel and shown read-only.
Each setting carries a one-line tip explaining what it does — for example, the tip on MaxSpawnedZombies notes that it is the single biggest performance lever, and the tip on EACEnabled notes that you must turn anti-cheat off for code mods or it will kick everyone. Read the tip before you change a setting you are not sure about.
Tip: A short explanation sits under every setting’s label — the tips are written to help you decide, not just describe the key.
Tip: Use the search box at the top of the editor to jump straight to a setting by name — type “bloodmoon”, “loot”, or “claim” and the form filters as you type.
Universal Search
Above the form is a “Search settings…” box. Type into it and the editor filters the form in real time, hiding every row that does not match and collapsing any group that ends up empty. The search looks at the setting names and their tips, so you can search by what a setting is called or by what it does. Clearing the box brings the whole form back. The search filter is applied without reloading the form, so it never interrupts anything you were typing in a field.
One-Click Presets
If you would rather not tune two dozen settings by hand, the editor offers five presets at the top of the page. Each one retunes a curated set of gameplay settings in a single save:
- Default-Vanilla — a factory reset back to the stock 7 Days to Die defaults.
- Casual PvE — the recommended, forgiving setup: easier difficulty, higher XP and loot, softer nights, PvP off, and no offline raiding.
- Hardcore Survival — punishing: feral enemies, scarce loot, brutal Blood Moon nights, and bigger hordes.
- PvP (raid-focused) — full PvP with offline raiding enabled and faster claim decay.
- Builder / Creative-lean — fast progression, abundant loot, and no Blood Moon, for building-focused servers.
Clicking a preset does not apply it blindly. It opens a confirmation window that lists exactly which settings will change and shows the old value next to the new value for each one, so you can see the full diff before committing. If every setting in the preset already matches your server, the editor tells you there is nothing to change. When you confirm, the editor writes all of the preset’s settings in one save.
None of the presets touch the world keys (GameWorld, WorldGenSeed, WorldGenSize, GameName), so applying a preset is always safe on an existing world — your map, player progress, and bases are never affected. As with any change, you restart the server afterwards to bring the new settings into play.
Note: A preset shows you the exact list of settings it will change, old value to new value, before it saves anything.
Note: No preset changes the world keys, so applying one never resets your map or player progress.
Tip: Casual PvE is the friendliest starting point for a public server; you can fine-tune individual settings afterwards.
Locked Settings and Why They Are Read-Only
Some settings in the Admin, Network & Performance group — and a couple elsewhere — are shown with an orange Locked tag and cannot be edited here. These are the keys the panel manages for you from the server’s allocation and the Startup settings: the server port, server visibility, the telnet port, password, and enabled flag, the web dashboard port, and the admin-permissions filename, among others.
They are locked for a good reason. Their values are tied to the IP and ports your server was assigned, or they are secrets the panel sets and rotates. Editing them in the file would either be ignored or silently overwritten the next time the server starts, so the editor surfaces them read-only and points you at the right place to change them. The lock is enforced, not just a hint — the editor will not write a locked key under any circumstances.
Note: Locked settings (orange tag) are managed by the panel’s allocation and Startup settings, not edited in this file.
Note: Ports, telnet, the web dashboard, and visibility are locked because they are tied to your server’s assigned IP and ports or are managed secrets.
Field Badges: Recreate, New World, and Sensitive
Alongside the Locked tag, the editor flags a few settings with colored badges so you know what a change really costs before you make it:
- A blue Recreate badge (for example on the maximum player count and game difficulty) means the change applies only after the container is recreated — a stop followed by a start, not a plain restart.
- A red Regen badge marks the world keys. Changing one of these does not retune the existing world; it requires a brand-new world, and the current save is left behind. If you change a world key and save, the editor warns you and asks you to confirm first.
- A red Danger badge marks sensitive settings — such as MaxSpawnedZombies, the per-player Blood Moon count, EACEnabled, the web dashboard, and BuildCreate — where the tip is worth reading carefully before you change anything. For instance, the spawned-zombie cap is the number-one way to overload a shared node, and turning on the creative menu hands every player dev tools.
Tip: Read the badge before you change a flagged setting — Recreate, Regen, and Danger each mean something specific about how the change behaves.
How Changes Apply: Restart, Recreate, New World
After you make changes, click Save changes. The editor writes only the settings you changed to serverconfig.xml and confirms how many it saved. Because 7 Days to Die reads serverconfig.xml at boot, your changes are not live until the server reads the file again — how you bring them in depends on what you changed:
- Most settings — gameplay, loot, XP, Blood Moon, PvP, land claim, and the like — apply on a plain restart.
- The two Recreate-badged settings — the maximum player count (ServerMaxPlayerCount) and game difficulty (GameDifficulty) — need a recreate: stop the server, then start it, rather than a quick restart. (Ports and telnet are not edited in this form at all; they are locked.)
- World keys (GameWorld, WorldGenSeed, WorldGenSize, GameName) need a brand-new world. Changing one strands your current save — player progress and bases — because the server will load a different world. The editor warns you and asks for confirmation before saving any world key.
The save itself only changes the file. Nothing is applied until you restart, so you can make several edits, save, and then do a single restart to bring them all in at once.
Note: Saving writes the file but does not apply the change — restart the server to load the new settings.
Note: Changing a world key needs a fresh world and leaves the current save behind; the editor confirms this with you before saving.
Passwords
The server password (ServerPassword) is editable like any other field, but it is masked on screen so it is not exposed. You change it by typing a new password into the box and saving — the editor does not display the existing value back to you. The telnet password, by contrast, is a locked, panel-managed secret and stays read-only.
Tip: Leave ServerPassword blank for a public server; set it the moment you want the server private.
Putting It Together
The 7 Days to Die Config Editor turns serverconfig.xml from a file you are afraid to touch into a guided form: grouped settings with plain-English tips, instant search, five presets that show their full diff before they save, validation that stops bad values before they reach disk, and clear flags for the few changes that need more than a restart. Pick a preset to get a sensible baseline, fine-tune the individual settings your community cares about, save, restart, and your 7 Days to Die server is running exactly the way you want — no hand-edited XML required.