What are the preferred settings and needed mods for a server in your opinion?

[Jericoshost]

I am trying to set up a fun server for weekly play with friends and others over Discord and am curious about peoples opinions on the 'best' settings and mods for long term entertainment and challenge/engagement.

 

We are planning on doing a weekly run game experience. So those who join would log in during the time we all schedule. We don't have a proper server to run so keeping that in mind is best.

 

The settings I'm thinking of are: (Only those changed are listed)

PVP on, Safety and Show On.

SafetyToggleTimer 5

SafetyCooldownTimer 10

PVPMelee +15 PVPFirearm +30

 

Player Safehouses

Allow Trespass, Loot and Respawn. Removed after 240 hours (Weekly play after all)

 

Sleep Disabled and MinutesPerPage is 0.1 which should be much faster

 

Electricity Shutoff 20

Darkness at Night: Dark

Initial Gas Station Amount: High

 

NATURE:

Temp: Very Cold

Rain: Very Rainy

Plant Resilience: Very High

Max Fog and Rain Intensity: Low (For server stability)

 

AI Director:

Helicopter: Sometimes (If Extended Heli, Never to keep from conflict)

Meta: Often

 

META TAB:

Randomized-

House: Sometimes

Vehicles: Very Often

Zone: Often

Annotated Map: Often

Corpse removal 80

Corpse Health Impact: High

Blood Low (Again for Server Stability)

 

LOOT

Fresh Food: Rare

Canned: Extremely Rare

Melee: Normal

Ranged: Rare

Ammo: Abundant

Medical, Survival Essentials, Mechanics, Literature: Normal

Other: Abundant

 

Character:

XP Mult: 3.0-5.0

Stats Decrease: Slow

Endurance Regen: Fast

Player Built Const: Very High

Injury Severity: High

Clothing Degradation: Slow

Rear Vuln: Medium

 

Vehicles:

Spawn Rate: High

Damage On Impact: Very High

Siren Shutoff: 8.0

Damage to player: Normal

 

Zomboid Lore:

Shamblers

Strength/Toughness: Random

Transmission: Saliva

Cognition: Random

Crawl: Very Oftyen

Memory Long

Hearing Pinpoint

Enviro attacks: yes

Zombie Alarm Trigger: Yes

 

I'm thinking of reducing the population to enforce server stability, and reduce lag for players and server load from zomboids.

 

Population:

Start: 0.5

Regular: 0.7

Peak: 1.0

Respawn Multiplier: 0.4

Redistribute: 60 in game hours

 

Rally Group Size 10

Separation 10

Radius 5

 

Creepy Sounds Mod

hour 0-23

chance: 0.18

 

Here They Come Mod

Cooldown: 3000

Min Start Hour 6

Max Start Hour 7

Min Hour Progress 100

Max Hour Progress 100

Threshold: 1000 (Approx 10 hours till horde event)

First Day: Day 5

Min Zombies per batch: 5

Min per wave: 10

Max per wave 50

Add per horde: 5

Heads up time : 30

Horde Angle Spread: 230

 

So let me know with the poll what you think of the settings I'm thinking of, and suggest settings you like.

 

And any mods you feel you can't live without let me know, I really want to make a fun but still solid challenge experience.

 

And if you do chime in, do you run a server yourself?

[MopS]

 

Interesting poll, but I'll tell you from my experience of managing a server for three years. There are no "ideal" settings. Everything should be adjusted to the game, the number of players and so on.

 

I would also like to note that when creating a server, one should start from the opinion of the target audience, and not from the players in general. There are newcomers who are not at all eager to meet zombies. There are pvp players who, at least 500 zombies per person, will still be bored and uninterested. There are Rambos who only know how to scatter hundreds of zombies, and if there are suddenly few of them, they will immediately leave.

Before starting, determine at least a comfortable level for yourself and develop based on this. 
Managing a server that you don't like can get boring very quickly.

 

result.
Determine your comfortable settings.
Create an approximate image of the people you want to see in your place.
Navigate between "hard" and "easy" in the sandbox settings

[LLcraigJ]

Keep in mind that I'm relatively new to the game. That being said, 3-5 times xp gains seems like a lot, unless you're expecting players to die frequently. Also, I may have just missed it, but I don't believe you mentioned how many players you're planning on having. If you're worried about the server lagging, you could stress test it prior with higher settings and dial it back from there. I've not played long enough to use mods, but I'd imagine there are mapping and communication mods that would improve the server experience.