How to Increase Animal Spawns on Your DayZ Console Nitrado Server

How to Increase Animal Spawns on Your DayZ Console Nitrado Server

One of the most requested customizations for DayZ community servers is increasing the amount of wildlife. More animals mean more hunting opportunities, more survival realism, and more activity across the map. If you are running your DayZ server on Nitrado for PlayStation or Xbox, you can easily configure animal spawns by editing a few key files. In this guide, we will walk through the entire process step by step and explain how to adjust both the global animal cap and the specific animal types.

Accessing Your Nitrado Files

To begin, log in to your Nitrado dashboard. From there, follow these steps:

1. Go to Tools in your Nitrado control panel.
2. Select File Browser.
3. Open the folder named dayz(ps)(xb)_missions.
4. Depending on your map, select the correct mission folder:
   • dayzOffline.chernarusplus for Chernarus
   • dayzOffline.enoch for Livonia
   • dayzOffline.sakhal for Sakhal
5. Inside this folder, you will see multiple configuration files. The two files you need are globals.xml and events.xml.

These two files work together to control how many animals spawn on your server and which types appear.

Editing globals.xml

The globals.xml file sets the maximum number of animals that can exist on your server at one time. Look for the following line:

<var name="AnimalMaxCount" type="0" value="200"/>

On Chernarus the default value is already set to 200. This number is the global cap, meaning that even if you set higher numbers for individual animals in events.xml, your server will not exceed 200 total animals alive at once unless you increase this value.

If you want more than the default, you can raise the number. For example:

<var name="AnimalMaxCount" type="0" value="300"/>

This would allow the server to spawn up to 300 animals across the entire map. Be cautious, as increasing this number too high can negatively impact performance, especially on console servers. A good practice is to increase gradually, test server stability, and adjust as needed.

Editing events.xml

The events.xml file controls the spawn behavior of each type of animal. This is where you decide how many wolves, deer, cows, bears, and other wildlife can spawn. Each animal is defined in its own <event> block with values such as nominal, min, and max.

Here’s an example of a bear event (default values):

<event name="AnimalBear">
    <nominal>0</nominal>
    <min>2</min>
    <max>2</max>
    <lifetime>180</lifetime>
    <restock>0</restock>
    <saferadius>200</saferadius>
    <distanceradius>0</distanceradius>
    <cleanupradius>0</cleanupradius>
    <flags deletable="0" init_random="0" remove_damaged="1"/>
    <position>fixed</position>
    <limit>custom</limit>
    <active>1</active>
    <children>
        <child lootmax="0" lootmin="0" max="1" min="1" type="Animal_UrsusArctos"/>
    </children>
</event>

Updated Example – Increased Bear Spawns

If you want more bears on your server, you can increase the nominal and max values. For example:

<event name="AnimalBear">
    <nominal>5</nominal>
    <min>2</min>
    <max>8</max>
    <lifetime>180</lifetime>
    <restock>0</restock>
    <saferadius>200</saferadius>
    <distanceradius>0</distanceradius>
    <cleanupradius>0</cleanupradius>
    <flags deletable="0" init_random="0" remove_damaged="1"/>
    <position>fixed</position>
    <limit>custom</limit>
    <active>1</active>
    <children>
        <child lootmax="0" lootmin="0" max="1" min="1" type="Animal_UrsusArctos"/>
    </children>
</event>

Key Values Explained

• Nominal: The target number the server tries to maintain.
• Min: The guaranteed minimum number alive.
• Max: The maximum number that can exist for that specific event.
• Lifetime: How long the animal exists before despawning if not interacted with.
• Restock: How quickly the server replaces despawned animals.
• Children: The specific animal type or variants that can spawn in this event.

If you want more bears on your server, increasing nominal to 5 and max to 8 (as shown above) would allow more bears to roam the map, provided your AnimalMaxCount in globals.xml is set high enough.

Balancing Your Animal Spawns

When customizing your spawns, balance is important. Here are some suggestions:

• Increase food animals like cows, deer, pigs, goats, and sheep so players have more reliable hunting options.
• Keep predators like wolves and bears at reasonable levels to avoid overwhelming players.
• Boost smaller animals for easy food sources with little server performance impact.
• Always make sure your total nominal counts across all events do not exceed your global AnimalMaxCount.

Testing and Performance

Every server has different player counts and activity levels, so performance can vary. After making changes:

1. Save your edits in both files.
2. Restart your server from the Nitrado dashboard.
3. Test spawns in-game and monitor stability.

If you notice lag, crashes, or desync, consider lowering either the AnimalMaxCount or the nominal values in events.xml.

Final Thoughts

Editing globals.xml and events.xml gives you complete control over how much wildlife populates your DayZ server. By carefully raising the AnimalMaxCount and adjusting nominal values for each species, you can create a world rich with hunting opportunities while still keeping the server stable for all players.

With some testing and fine tuning, you can strike the perfect balance between survival challenge and server performance.

Join Our Community

If you want to expand your server even further, including access to additional globals.xml and events.xml configurations ready to copy and paste, join the Project Alcatraz Discord. Our community shares tips, files, and advice for optimizing your DayZ console server to make it more immersive and fun for all players.

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