Blood moons are the heartbeat of 7 Days to Die, and in V3.0 (Dead Hot Summer) every setting that controls them lives in one place: your world's Sandbox Code. This guide walks through each blood moon setting, how often the horde arrives, how many zombies it brings, when the warning shows, and how tough it gets, plus how to apply your changes and how to switch blood moons off entirely.
Where blood moon settings live in V3.0
Older guides tell you to edit BloodMoonFrequency and friends in serverconfig.xml. That is out of date. Since V3.0, 7 Days to Die folded difficulty, XP, loot, zombie speed, and every blood moon rule into a single value called the Sandbox Code. serverconfig.xml still exists for identity, world generation, PvP, and performance, but the blood moon dials are no longer in it.
To change them, build a code with our free 7 Days to Die Sandbox Code generator, then open the Config tab in your DoomHosting panel and paste the result into the SandboxCode field. A value of A means every setting is at its default. You can also copy a code straight from the in-game Sandbox Options menu.
Blood Moon Frequency: how often the horde arrives
Blood Moon Frequency sets the number of in-game days between hordes. The default is 7, which gives you the classic day 7, day 14, day 21 rhythm. You can set it anywhere from every 1 day (brutal) to every 30 days (relaxed), and Disabled turns blood moons off completely.
Shorter frequencies mean more frequent hordes and constant progression pressure. Longer frequencies give players more time to build and gear up between events.
Blood Moon Range: randomize the day
By default the horde lands on an exact day, so players always know when it is coming. Blood Moon Range adds a random window on top of the frequency. With Frequency 7 and Range 4, the blood moon can strike any time between day 7 and day 11, so nobody can perfectly plan around it. Set Range to 0 for the predictable, fixed-day behaviour.
Blood Moon Count: how many zombies per player
Blood Moon Count (BloodMoonEnemyCount) is the maximum number of zombies alive per player during the horde. The default is 8, and it goes up to 64. This is the single biggest performance lever on the whole server: nearby players share a group cap of about 30 zombies, and the effective world cap scales to roughly 1.9x your MaxSpawnedZombies value, so raising it past 12 gets expensive fast.
If you want a bigger horde, nudge it to 10 or 12. If your server already struggles on horde night, keep it at 6 to 8. We cover this in depth in our guide to fixing blood moon lag.
Blood Moon Warning: when players get the heads-up
Blood Moon Warning controls when the on-screen warning appears and the day counter turns red. Morning, the default, warns players at the start of the horde day. Evening warns them later, closer to nightfall, for more tension. Disabled removes the warning entirely, so the horde arrives with no HUD notice.
Blood moon difficulty and intensity
7 Days to Die does not have a single blood moon difficulty slider. How dangerous the horde feels is the product of a few Sandbox Code settings:
- Global Game Stage: scales enemy types, difficulty, loot quality, and blood moon intensity together. Higher means tougher hordes with nastier zombies sooner.
- Max Enemy Tier: the highest zombie tier that can spawn, from Normals up through Ferals, Radiated, and Elites. Lower it for a gentler horde.
- Zombie BM Speed (
ZombieBMMove): how fast blood moon zombies move, from Walk to Nightmare. The default is Sprint. Dropping it to Run or Jog makes the horde easier and lighter on the CPU. - BM Block Damage: how hard blood moon zombies hit your base. Raise it to threaten stronger builds, lower it to protect fragile ones.
How to turn blood moons off
If you want a pure building or PvP server with no horde nights, set Blood Moon Frequency to Disabled in the Sandbox Code. That switches the event off entirely while leaving normal night spawns intact. There is no separate blood-moons-off toggle in serverconfig.xml in V3.0, it is all handled by the frequency setting.
Applying your changes
After you paste a new Sandbox Code into the Config tab and save, restart the server so it loads the new ruleset. A few things to know:
- Most Sandbox Code changes apply to the running world on the next restart. You do not need a fresh save to change blood moon frequency, count, or warning.
- If a change does not seem to take, confirm you pasted the full code and that the server actually restarted, not just reloaded the tab.
- The global
MaxSpawnedZombiescap still lives in serverconfig.xml, under Performance in the Config tab. It hard-caps how many zombies can exist at once, so it interacts with your Blood Moon Count.
If you are behind on updates, these settings require the current build, so follow our V3.0 update guide first.
Frequently asked questions
How do I change how often the blood moon happens? Set Blood Moon Frequency in your Sandbox Code. The default of 7 means every seventh day. Lower it for more frequent hordes, raise it for fewer, or set Disabled to turn them off.
Can I disable blood moons completely? Yes. Set Blood Moon Frequency to Disabled. Normal wandering zombies still spawn, but the horde event never triggers.
Do blood moon changes affect my current save? Frequency, count, range, and warning apply to your existing world on the next restart. You do not need to start a new map.
What is the default blood moon day? Day 7, then every 7 days after, with the warning shown in the morning and 8 zombies per player.
I changed the setting but nothing happened. Make sure you pasted the complete Sandbox Code into the SandboxCode field, saved, and restarted the server. A tab reload alone will not reload the world ruleset.
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