7 Days to Die SandboxCode System Guide

What SandboxCode Is

The Sandbox Code is a single string that encodes the whole set of gameplay options 7 Days to Die used to expose as separate entries in serverconfig.xml.

What it carries: difficulty, block damage, XP multiplier, day and night length, zombie movement speed, feral sense, blood moon frequency and enemy count, loot abundance, loot respawn, air drop frequency, death penalty, drop-on-death and drop-on-quit, among others.

What it does NOT carry: anything at server level. Server Name, Server Password, Maximum Players, Server Visibility, Region, Language, EAC, world selection and world size are all still individual settings in the panel, and none of them are affected by the code you paste.

Nor does it carry Max Spawned Zombies, Max Spawned Animals, Player Killing Mode, Creative Mode, the Land Claim settings or the Dynamic Mesh settings. Those remain separate entries in Settings.

Where to Set It on GameGrid

Settings tab, World category, the field called "Sandbox Code". It is a plain text field - you paste a code into it.

Do not edit serverconfig.xml through the file manager to set it. The copy in your server's root folder is not the one the game reads; the launcher is pointed at your server's own config/serverconfig.xml, and the platform rewrites the values it owns there on every start. Settings is the supported path and the one that survives a restart.

A blank field is a real value: it means Nomad, which is normal difficulty with every sandbox option at its default. That is what a new server starts on.

Sandbox Code is restart-required. Save the setting, then use the Restart button at the top of the page.

Changing the code on a world that is already generated changes the ongoing rules. Some options only shape terrain and loot placement at generation time, so a world that has already been played will not fully reflect a large change until it is regenerated.

The Official Difficulty Codes

Paste one of these exactly. They are case-sensitive.

Scavenger (Beginner): AAAKABKACKADKARDBNB

Adventurer (Default): AAAJABJACJADJARFBNC

Nomad (Normal, all defaults): leave the field empty.

Warrior (Hard): AAAGABGACGADGARJBND

True Survivalist (Brutal): AAAEABEACEADEARKBNE

Insane: AAADABDACDADDARLBNF

Almost Creative (themed): ABEABTBBWADFN

The other themed presets - Chibi Mode, Dumpster Diver, Legacy Survival, Disaster Film, Caveman Life, Dying World, Undead Matinee, Seven Days Later, Madmole's Mayhem, Bite Club - are much longer strings. Copy them out of the in-game Sandbox Options screen rather than transcribing them.

Creating Your Own Code

The reliable way is the game itself. Start a single-player game, open Sandbox Options, set every option the way you want it, and copy the code the screen shows.

Community code generators exist online and let you build a string without launching the game. They are not run by The Fun Pimps and can lag behind a game update, so if a generated code behaves oddly, regenerate it in game.

Paste your code into the Sandbox Code field in Settings, save, restart.

The platform does not validate the string. It is written into the config as given, and the game decides what to make of it. If the server comes up with rules you did not expect, the code is the first thing to check.

When a Code Stops Matching the Game

Sandbox options are added and reorganised between 7 Days to Die releases. A code generated on an older build may not carry a newer option at all, in which case that option takes its default.

That is not an error and nothing breaks; it just means the code no longer says everything you might want it to say.

After a large game update, the safest move is to open Sandbox Options in game again, set what you want, and paste the fresh code in. Take a backup from the Backups tab first if the server is one people are playing on.