(Guide) Edit your sandbox settings post-creation!

[Furente7]

First of all, I wasn't sure where to put this, so if an admin wants to move this to a better fitting category, that'd be great.

 

So I, like many of you probably did, made a mistake when choosing Sandbox options for the first time for a playthrough. Maybe you didn't choose enough zombies (guilty as charged), maybe you just want to tweak a few settings. Whatever.

 

Well, on discovering that the Save Editor mod didn't work, as it was for an older build, I was slightly disappointed. My big fort would have nothing to be tested with. So I searched around and found bits of information that allowed me to finally come up with a temporary solution (temporary as in, until in- or post-game editing is added to the game, if it will be). So without further ado...

 

Step 1

Make a new game with the options you want, the character you create doesn't matter, as it's your "main" character we want.

Once you made it in game, save and exit.

 

Step 2

Navigate to your Zomboid folder. Mine is in C:\Users\*User*\Zomboid where User is your Windows User. For Macs, I'm sorry I don't know, but I'm sure there's one, you might have to Google around for it.

Go into the Sandbox folder (and be careful here) and grab the newly created world folder and your main world folder and back them up somewhere, the desktop is fine. Somewhere where you know where they are.

 

Step 3

I hope you didn't close your Zomboid folder, we still need it! Go into your main world folder and copy the map_p.bin file, it should be at the bottom if you filter by name, a-z. This is your player file.

Copy that player file to your new world you created, and replace the other map_p.bin file.

You've successfully transferred your player to a new world!

 

**Below is an optional step for replicating the world if you've interacted with it in ways you want to keep the same.**

*If all you wanted to do was transfer a character, you can stop reading and go and play with it in his/her new world!*

 

But wait, I had stuff on the ground, stuff in storage, a fort! Where is that?

Well, for that you need to do one additional option

 

Step 4

From your main world folder, you need to copy all of the map_####_###.bin files, all of the map_ files that have numbers trailing them. These are your edits to the world, whether by you, the erosion mod, zombies or whatever. Copy all of them. The best way to do it is to select all (control + a for windows) and then deselect any files that don't say map_####_### (the amount of numbers may vary, but that's how they look to me)

Copy those files to the new world you made with the new settings. Make sure if you moved your character when checking if it was in the new world that you don't start the new world up and become stuck in your fort or something (again, guilty as charged).

 

 

If you ever want to make everything the same before all of these steps, then you would navigate to those backups I told you to make, copy the map_p.bin and the map_####_### files (if applicable) and paste and replace them in said world in the Zomboid folder. If you made those backups (which you should have, because I specifically said to) you will never lose your character and world, they'll always be there if you make a mistake or wish to return immediately (obviously if you interact with the new world but then choose to go back, if you copy and paste the backup, those actions wouldn't have been done. An alternative would be to copy the map_p.bin from the new map as that would be the "latest" character.

 

This could be pretty exploitative, but it's up to you how you want to play your own game. Perhaps you want a new character to replace the old one (because of the Build 31 professions update), why not drop everything on your current character, create a new world with a new character and just copy the old map_####_### files over so you get everything your old character had? Really sandbox is just that: a sandbox which you create your own rules, your own story, your own game. Why be limited at the start?

 

Enough rambling, hope you guys have fun with your new settings, new world, refreshed zombie spawns e.c.t! I hope your fort gets tested to its full extent and you get rekt! Or whatever your new plan is for the new world!

[dangalong]

Thanks for posting this. I like having the option to do this in my single-player sandbox game, if I want to try new game settings without having to rebuild a whole new character and base from scratch. I can confirm this method still works in build 33.20. I would also add as a pointer that when you create the new save settings, you will need to set the time and date there, as well as the time since the infection began, if you want the time progress of the world to be the same or close to what you last had in the old save. And it will also reset the zombies dispersion, so you might have some new zombies to deal with inside your base in the new save, so watch out And definitely back up your old save somewhere safe first before trying this, in case you mess something up.