DayZ Badlands serverSet up Nasdara, understand Update 1.30, check your mods

Published on November 1, 2026

What Badlands and Update 1.30 are

Two things came out on the same day and are often lumped together. Badlands is the paid expansion with the new map Nasdara. Update 1.30, on the other hand, is the free game update that every server needs - even if it stays on Chernarus, Livonia or Sakhal.

For you, that means the change affects you even if you never want to move to Nasdara. Players on the new client can only join servers on the matching version, and mods have to fit the new version. The content of 1.30, such as the motorbikes, also arrives on the existing maps.

The Nasdara map at a glance

At 267 km², Nasdara is the largest map Bohemia has built for DayZ so far, and it plays very differently from the forests of Chernarus. Here, the enemy is heat rather than cold:

• Heat, drought and sandstorms: heatstroke and silicosis are new conditions. Water becomes the most important resource, because you also need it to cool down and to rinse your eyes after a sandstorm. Plan your trips around water sources.
• Rebuilding: houses, wells and entrances to irrigation tunnels can be repaired. Their condition can differ from server to server, so your server develops a character of its own.
• Underground locations: holes in the terrain lead into irrigation and road tunnels as well as bunkers.
• Radio signals: Morse code transmissions carry coordinates and access codes.
• New wildlife: mouflons, desert monitors and territorial dogs, plus new weapons and clothing.

Switch your server to Nasdara

The mission is installed with the server. You do not have to upload anything, you only need to choose the map:

1. Make a backup. Backups are self-service with us, via WebFTP or SFTP.
2. Stop the server. DayZ reads the configuration at startup.
3. Enter the map. In serverDZ.cfg, set the template entry in the Missions block.
4. Start the server and check in the console that the mission has loaded.

class Missions
{
    class DayZ
    {
        template = "dayzOffline.nasdara";
    };
};

The name has to match the folder under mpmissions/ exactly, including upper and lower case. As with any map change, a new world begins: the old state stays in the folder of its mission and is back when you switch back. Characters do not move along, so everyone starts fresh on Nasdara.

Do players need the Badlands DLC?

Plan on it. For Sakhal, Bohemia clearly stated that every player must own the Frostline DLC. We do not have an equally explicit statement for Nasdara so far, but you should assume the same rule.

So talk the switch over with your group first. For a fixed group, this is usually settled quickly, while an open server may lose some of its players. If you want to avoid that, stay on Chernarus or Livonia and still get the free content from Update 1.30.

What Update 1.30 changes on all maps

These changes also affect servers that do not run Nasdara:

• Motorbikes: the Jana moped and an enduro arrive on all maps. Each bike carries one rider and has no inventory slots. You control how often they appear in the same way as other vehicles, through the Central Economy files of the mission.
• Digital code lock: it is available on all maps and changes base building. Check how it fits your raiding rules.
• Infected: their attacks now depend on head height.

If you have customised your loot files, compare them with the new default files after the update. Otherwise, new items are missing from your own types.xml. Also take a look at cfggameplay.json in the mission folder so that you know which values are active on your server.

Mods and community maps after 1.30

Update 1.30 is one of those updates that noticeably affect modded servers. Two points stand out:

• Animations: Bohemia changed the animation systems and itself warns of problems with mods that touch animations.
• Community maps: the navmesh file is now in a new version without backward compatibility. Maps such as Namalsk or Deer Isle have to be regenerated by their author. As long as the Workshop page shows no 1.30 build, treat the map as not ready.

Update in the usual order: back up first, then update all mods and transfer the .bikey files again. Temporarily take mods without an update out of the load list. Also test any code lock mod, because there is now an official lock as well. If you use DayZ Expansion, check that its modules are ready for 1.30 before you switch.

Existing traders, spawns and safe zones do not move across on their own either. They depend on the coordinates of a specific map and have to be set up again on Nasdara.

Which plan for Nasdara?

Bohemia has published no hardware recommendation of its own for Nasdara. So size the map like a large game world, not like a lean vanilla server: area, player count and above all mods determine what you need. A small group without mods gets by with less than a community with a long mod list.

The plans and how they fit are covered in How much does a DayZ server cost? and the DayZ buying guide. If the memory is no longer enough later on, you move to the next plan with an upgrade in the customer interface, and your world and configuration are kept.

Frequently asked questions