Hardcore

Three rules define this server

There is no tech tree. None. Every blueprint you own, you found, or you found the item and researched it. Loot matters, monuments matter, and the player who got lucky in a locked crate on day two is genuinely ahead of you.

There is no safe zone. No Outpost, no Bandit Camp, no Ranch. The vendors live at Large Barn, out in the open, and the walk there is part of the cost.

The pressure never stops, and it grows. Zombies are not an event here, they are the weather. Day 30 is not day 1 with better gear. Day 30 is worse.

Every death posts a guard on your loot

This is the thing nobody warns you about. Every time you die, a zombie rises from your corpse. It stands guard right where you fell, and it stays there a long time.

It is not a jump scare. It is a guard posted on your own bag, and it does not care what time of day it is. Do not die, and if you die, think carefully about going back.

Zombies are three different threats

The horde is always there, and it grows through the wipe. Each one begins as a single walker and builds over time, so a horde you walk past and ignore is a bigger horde when you come back.

Night zombies do not scatter across the island. They spawn near players, they find you, and they attack sleepers. Logging out in a field is a decision with consequences.

Raiding zombies come to your base with satchels. Satchels beat wood and lose to stone. They carry no C4, so your stone walls are safe and your wooden ones are not.

The NPC ladder

Scientists here are dangerous rather than spongy. Each tier holds fire beyond a set range and advances on you instead, so cover works and monuments play like fights.

The exception is the L96 nests at Launch Site, Water Treatment, Trainyard, Airfield and both Oil Rigs. Those are accurate and have no range cap at all. If you are caught in the open near one, you have already lost.

Progression without a tech tree

Your gear comes from three places only: you find the item and research it, you find the blueprint, or you buy a Heli Signal and take what falls out.

Locked crates are the best thing on the island and your first AK is an event you will remember. Components come mostly from NPC corpses, not crates, so killing scientists is how you build.

Your best gun is a consumable

Eight weapons are permanently unrepairable: L96, M39, M4 Shotgun, SPAS-12, M249, Minigun, M92 Pistol and Prototype 17. When they wear out, they are gone.

Use them for the fight that matters, not for clearing roadside scientists. This is the hardest thing for players coming from other servers to internalise.

The Gold Coin economy

Coins are a physical item. No balance command, no transfers. Every locked crate pays out, which anchors the whole economy, and nothing sells you a coin.

Everything is at Large Barn. Heli Signals ladder from Easy up to a Multi Nightmare, and the crash site is always guarded, heavily so at the top. Cargo charters and a one-way Money Changer are there too.

Raidable Bases are bought with Blueprint Fragments instead, and the tiers are gated by wipe age. Nightmare bases simply do not exist in the opening stretch of a wipe.

A deliberately lean world

Free loot on the ground is rare. Loot comes from things that shoot back.

Before you play

The in-game team feature caps at four, which limits shared map markers and the team UI rather than who you are allowed to play alongside. Larger groups still work, they just lose those conveniences. Building in caves is not allowed.

The five things new players get wrong: fighting zombies on day one, building with wood, going straight back for their loot, burning a top-tier weapon on trash, and being outside at night without a plan.