Set the DayZ day and night cycleTime acceleration, permanent daylight and the consequences

Published on August 9, 2026 · last updated on November 8, 2026

The two values

In serverDZ.cfg, there are two acceleration factors that work together:

The second value is the interesting one: with it, you let the day run at normal speed and the night pass much faster. That keeps the nighttime atmosphere without anyone sitting in the dark for two hours.

In addition, the serverTime entry sets the time of day the server starts with after a restart - either a fixed time or the system time.

What each factor gives you

The factor states how much faster game time runs compared with real time. From that, you can calculate the length of a full game day directly: 24 divided by the factor gives the duration in real-time hours.

The night factor comes on top of that and only applies during the dark hours. The popular middle ground is therefore a moderate day factor, so that the day stays pleasantly long, plus a much higher night factor that compresses the darkness into a few minutes.

The typical mistake is turning both values up at the same time: then the day races by just like the night, weather changes and lighting jump around, and the result feels hectic rather than atmospheric. Only ever change one of the two values, restart and watch the result for a session before you adjust further.

Permanent daylight

Many community servers run permanent daylight. This is achieved by setting the server to a fixed morning time on every restart and placing the restarts so close together that it never gets dark.

• Advantage: much more accessible, especially for new players and for evening sessions.
• Disadvantage: a major part of the DayZ atmosphere is lost - flashlights, night vision devices and sneaking around in the dark lose their purpose.

A middle ground that has proven itself: a normal day cycle plus a strongly accelerated night. It gets dark, but only for a short time - and the night remains an event instead of a test of patience.

Interaction with restarts

The often overlooked point: restarts reset the server time if a fixed start time is configured. A server that restarts every four hours and always jumps to 9 a.m. will never reach the evening.

It follows that time configuration and restart rhythm have to be planned together:

• Fixed start time + frequent restarts = permanent daylight in practice.
• System time as the basis = server time follows the real clock; when it is night outside, it is night in the game too.
• Fixed start time + infrequent restarts = a full cycle, but the time of night shifts.

Restarts make sense in DayZ anyway, because they free up memory and clean up stuck objects - see also server will not start. How to schedule them automatically with warnings in advance is covered in set up admin & RCON.

What the night changes in everyday play

The decision has more far-reaching effects than two lines in the configuration suggest. You should factor this in:

• The player count often drops at night. Anyone who has an hour in the evening and lands in the dark will connect somewhere else next time. On small servers, that decides between lively and empty.
• Light sources only become relevant then. Flashlights, chemlights and night vision devices are dead inventory on a daylight-only server - if you make them more common in the Central Economy, you should also offer night.
• Raids shift. On servers with base building, players deliberately use the darkness to get to other people's bases unnoticed. Without night, this element of the game disappears.
• The timing shifts with the time zone. If server time follows system time, night falls at different times for players in other time zones - for international communities, an argument for a fixed, accelerated rhythm.

Both can be changed at any time; a restart is enough for the changed values to be read. Still make a backup of the server folder beforehand, see create backups - not because of the time cycle itself, but because a typo in the configuration file prevents the start completely.

Communicating expectations

What you choose is a matter of taste - making sure your players know beforehand is not. The time cycle shapes who stays on your server:

• Mention it in the server name or the description, for example "Daytime only" or "Fast nights".
• Do not change it in the middle of a running season - anyone who came for the nights will leave again otherwise.
• Mention the restart rhythm as well, because it helps determine the cycle.

If you are still making fundamental decisions while setting up the server, you will find the overview in renting a DayZ server: the buying guide.

Frequently asked questions