Hunger, Thirst and Farming Rates in Zomboid
Slow or speed up hunger, thirst, fatigue and food spoilage, and tune crop growth speed and yield on your Project Zomboid server.
Hunger, thirst and tiredness set the pace of a Project Zomboid survival game, and farming decides how long a base can feed itself. The game exposes each as a sandbox rule, so you can make a server gentler for a casual group or harsher for veterans without touching anything else.
Checked against Project Zomboid Build 42.21, October 2026.
Where the rules live
All of these are sandbox rules, stored in .cache/Server/<world>_SandboxVars.lua. One, Nutrition, has a switch in the Time & world card of the Server Settings tab. The others you edit in the File Manager.
To edit the file:
- Stop the server from the Console tab.
- Open the file in the File Manager. The Game build card in Server Settings shows the world name. Manage your server files covers opening and saving files.
- Change the number after the
=on the line you want, then save. - Start the server.
To start from a ready-made difficulty instead, pick a recipe on the Recipes card of Server Settings. Project Zomboid server and sandbox settings explains each one.
Hunger, thirst and fatigue
StatsDecrease sets how fast a player's hunger, thirst and fatigue go down. The default is Normal.
StatsDecrease = 4,Related rules sit beside it:
EndRegenis how quickly a player recovers from being tired after actions. It uses the same 1 to 5 scale, Very Fast to Very Slow, and the default is Normal.FoodRotSpeedis how fast food spoils, inside or outside a fridge. The scale runs 1 Very Fast to 5 Very Slow, and the default is Normal.- Nutrition is a switch in the Time & world card. With it on, the nutritional value of food affects the player's condition. Turn it off and players stop gaining or losing weight. It is on by default.
Farming
For faster crops, raise FarmingSpeedNew, for example FarmingSpeedNew = 2.0,. Turning PlantGrowingSeasons off takes the planting seasons out of play.
The game warns against changing PlaceDirtAboveground (default false). It lets dirt be placed and farmed on levels above the ground, and the game says changing it can cause performance issues.
When the changes apply
Sandbox rules always need a restart. Start the server and wait for Your server is online in the Console. Use your server console explains the console.
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