Where things are.
This is a demo, drawn from the server config files, not a real map of the game. The coastline is a rough sketch I did by hand so you know where north is. Drag to move, scroll or pinch to zoom, hover a point for details.
How the infected spawn, step by step.
The Atlas is the server's zombie spawning system. This is a small replay of its rules with the real config numbers: nodes across the map hold the herds, players walking near them wake them up, and the director places walkers out of sight inside a budget.
What is happening
The rules it follows
- 37 nodes cover the map, each with a herd sized by its density. Cities hold more, mountains almost nothing.
- A node wakes up when a player comes within 600 m and goes back to sleep only when nobody is within 780 m, so it does not flicker at the edge.
- Every 2.5 s the director plans. Players within 300 m of each other form one group and share one budget, so a squad does not multiply the walkers.
- A group's budget starts at 8 and climbs by 8 per plan up to 26. At most 3 walkers are placed per plan and 1 per node.
- Walkers are placed 100 to 200 m away, never closer than 100 m to any player and never inside anyone's view (65 degrees each side, out to 300 m).
- Safe zones plus 55 m of padding never get a spawn.
- Hard caps: 96 walkers on the server, 28 near one player. A walker more than 400 m from every player is despawned and goes back into its node.
- Bodies stay 120 s, with at most 40 at once (oldest goes first). 12 walkers within 90 m of each other count as a horde.
Simplified on purpose: in game the client also ray-tests cover, frame rate lowers the budget, and herds migrate between nodes. Players here move faster than real so you see more.
Infected spawn everywhere, these are just the areas with their own mix. Gas stations are where you can search for old fuel cans, pumps only work where a generator powers them. Recyclers turn junk into scrap and materials. Animals only spawn inside the hunting areas, never in a safe zone. World cars move around so they're not on here, and faction flags stay off the map on purpose. Loot and dead zones are not on here yet.