How to Edit types.xml and Increase Loot on Your DayZ Server

The loot you see on the coast, in military bases, and inside houses on a DayZ server isn’t placed by hand — it’s controlled by the Central Economy, and the single most important file you’ll edit is types.xml. Learn how its values work and you can make ammo rarer, spawn more high-tier weapons, or rebalance an entire server’s difficulty. This guide explains every value that matters.

Where types.xml lives

On a Chernarus server the file sits at:

mpmissions/dayzOffline.chernarusplus/db/types.xml

Livonia uses dayzOffline.enoch instead. Each item is one <type> entry. Here’s a real example for an AK-101:

<type name="AKM">
    <nominal>12</nominal>
    <lifetime>14400</lifetime>
    <restock>0</restock>
    <min>6</min>
    <quantmin>-1</quantmin>
    <quantmax>-1</quantmax>
    <cost>100</cost>
    <flags count_in_cargo="0" count_in_hoarder="0" count_in_map="1" count_in_player="0" crafted="0" deloot="0"/>
    <category name="weapons"/>
    <usage name="Military"/>
</type>

What each value actually does

• nominal — the target amount of this item the Central Economy tries to keep in the world. Raise it for more of the item; this is the value you change most often.
• min — the floor. When the live count drops to or below min, the economy prioritises respawning the item back toward nominal. Keep min below nominal (a good rule is roughly 50–70% of it).
• lifetime — how many seconds the item persists on the ground untouched before it despawns. 3600 = 1 hour, 14400 = 4 hours.
• restock — seconds before a partially-depleted spawn area refills. 0 means it restocks on the next economy cycle.
• quantmin / quantmax — for items with a quantity bar (magazines, liquids, food), the percentage range they spawn filled. -1 disables it.
• cost — spawn priority weighting (default 100). Higher = more likely to be chosen when the economy spawns from a category.
• flags — whether the live count includes items in storage, on players, or only on the map. If you want loot to keep spawning even when players are hoarding it, set count_in_cargo and count_in_hoarder to 0.
• usage — which location tags the item can spawn at (Military, Police, Town, Farm, etc.).

A worked example: more military weapons

To roughly double AKM availability, raise nominal from 12 to 24 and bump min to 12. To make them despawn slower so players actually find them, raise lifetime. To stop ammo from drying up, lower the ammo’s cost on the cheap calibres so the economy spawns them more often.

Skip the manual XML — use our editor

Hand-editing hundreds of <type> entries is slow and one typo can stop your server from booting. Our free DayZ Loot Boost Generator lets you pick a map, apply category and tier multipliers, and download a server-ready types.xml — with presets from Vanilla to PvE Casual to Hardcore. Pair it with the interactive DayZ map to plan where that loot lands.

Don’t forget to restart

Changes to types.xml only apply after a server restart, and the economy needs a fresh storage state to fully respect big changes. Always back up the file first — an invalid XML structure will prevent the mission from loading.

FAQ

Does raising nominal instantly add loot? No — the economy spawns items gradually over time toward the new nominal, not all at once.

Why is loot still rare after editing? Usually because min is too low (the economy isn’t being forced to respawn) or lifetime is short so items despawn before anyone reaches them.

Where do I edit this on a hosted server? Through the File Manager or FTP. On XGamingServer DayZ hosting you can edit types.xml directly in the panel, and our DayZ documentation walks through the full Central Economy file set.

Sources: Bohemia Interactive — DayZ Central Economy, Nitrado loot documentation.