Where to find Matches in DayZ
Matches is the in-game name; server files such as types.xml call it Matchbox.
On Chernarus, the economy keeps about 60 on the map and spawns more when fewer than 40 are left. Each one lasts 4 h when nobody touches it. It spawns in Town, Village and Hunting places.
On Livonia, the economy keeps about 20 on the map and spawns more when fewer than 12 are left. Each one lasts 4 h when nobody touches it. It spawns in Village and Hunting places.
On Sakhal, the economy keeps about 150 on the map and spawns more when fewer than 140 are left. Each one lasts 4 h when nobody touches it.
On Nasdara, the economy keeps about 40 on the map and spawns more when fewer than 26 are left. Each one lasts 4 h when nobody touches it. It spawns in Town and Village places.
Where to look
- Towns and cities (Town)
- Villages and small settlements (Village)
- Hunting stands and cabins (Hunting)
- Inside, it lies on shelves and tables.
types.xml values on each map
| Chernarus | Livonia | Sakhal | Nasdara | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominal how many it aims to keep |
60 | 20 | 150 | 40 |
| Min spawns more below this |
40 | 12 | 140 | 26 |
| Lifetime untouched, before it despawns |
4 h | 4 h | 4 h | 4 h |
| Restock wait before respawning |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Quantity how full it spawns |
10–90% | 10–90% | 10–90% | 10–90% |
| Places usage |
Town, Village, Hunting | Village, Hunting | – | Town, Village |
| Tiers value |
– | – | – | – |
| Spot tag |
shelves | shelves | shelves | shelves |
| Counts towards nominal |
count_in_map | count_in_map | count_in_map | count_in_map |
| Crafted | no | no | no | no |
| Event loot deloot |
no | no | no | no |
Tier1 is near the coast and Tier4 deep inland. "Counts" lists where copies count towards nominal: count_in_map means copies lying in the world, count_in_cargo in containers, count_in_hoarder in tents, barrels and stashes, count_in_player on players. Every value is explained in DayZ types.xml explained.
Random presets
Matchbox is in these named lists in cfgrandompresets.xml, which items use with preset="…": toolsHermit, toolsVillage, toolsCity, toolsHunter, mixVillage, mixHunter, toolsCommon_T1.
The vanilla types.xml entry
As in Bohemia's Chernarus file. Paste it into your own types.xml to restore the default, or change it with the free types.xml Editor.
<type name="Matchbox">
<nominal>60</nominal>
<lifetime>14400</lifetime>
<restock>0</restock>
<min>40</min>
<quantmin>10</quantmin>
<quantmax>90</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="tools"/>
<tag name="shelves"/>
<usage name="Town"/>
<usage name="Village"/>
<usage name="Hunting"/>
</type>
Change it on your server
- How much spawns and where: edit Matchbox in
types.xmlwith the types.xml Editor. - What it spawns with: build a new entry with the cfgspawnabletypes Generator.
- Where the files are: DayZ mission folders. Changes apply after a restart.
Everything else that spawns there: Chernarus loot list, Livonia loot list, Sakhal loot list and Nasdara loot list.
Values from Bohemia's public DayZ-Central-Economy files (commit f220b29, 2026-10-16). Servers can change all of them, so a community server may differ.
