DeceasedCraft Server Hosting: An Urban Zombie Apocalypse for You and Your Friends

A DeceasedCraft server drops you into a zombie apocalypse in a huge modern city: you search apartments and offices, fight off hordes, gather weapons and machinery, and eventually head into the radioactive Wasteland to find a cure for the infection. The pack was inspired by Project Zomboid and 7 Days to Die, and it is noticeably more fun with friends than alone. Here's which version to choose, how much memory the server needs, how to install DeceasedCraft on Elysium and which setting you must not forget.

What DeceasedCraft is

DeceasedCraft is a Forge pack led by TqLxQuanZ. Its city is built by _C70_, a professional architect: the pack has more than 60 hand-crafted buildings. The city itself is procedural, generated by The Lost Cities mod and split into five districts, each with its own style. On CurseForge the pack has close to 10 million downloads.

The gameplay loop is all about scavenging and progression:

• Loot and weapons. More than 800 loot tables across the buildings, more than 100 weapons and guns, and more than 20 armor sets across four tiers.
• Zombies and hordes. More than 15 special zombies across the districts and a horde wave system based on each player's own playtime: the longer you survive, the harder the hordes get.
• Tech. Progression is built on Create and Immersive Engineering, and almost everything can be automated. Vehicles can be found abandoned in the city and restored, or built from scratch.
• Story. More than 8 NPCs with their own quests and backstory: finish a quest and they open up trading. There is a full questline and a custom quest book.
• Survival. Thirst, body-part damage, temperature and seasons. Eating a varied diet grants extra hearts. There's a skill tree, parkour and Easy, Normal and Hard difficulty. Infection is cured with a golden apple; otherwise your character turns into a zombie.

DeceasedCraft has no Nether and no End, and the authors don't plan to add them: everything happens in the city and its special districts.

Beta 5.10 or the complete 5.5.5

DeceasedCraft currently has two branches, and you need to choose before launching the server. The 5.10 branch is the open beta of the upcoming 6.0 update, a complete overhaul of the pack: new districts, a new weapon playstyle, more guns and new zombies. But the authors warn plainly that the beta can't be completed: the Wasteland and Abyss districts aren't there, which means no endgame and no high-tier gear. Compatibility of the beta with the final 6.0 isn't guaranteed either.

The complete version is 5.5.5. It came out in July 2024 and runs on Minecraft 1.18.2, while the beta runs on 1.20.1. If your group wants to finish the story, the authors recommend 5.5.5. If you're more interested in new content and don't mind updates, go with the beta. There is also a DH Edition, used to film the teasers: the authors warn that it needs a powerful PC for every player.

What a DeceasedCraft server needs

The authors have a few client-side requirements worth passing on to your friends. Don't install Optifine: the pack already includes Embeddium. Don't use the server pack as your game files, because it lacks the client optimization mods. Players should install DeceasedCraft through a proper launcher; otherwise the client configs go missing and keybinding conflicts follow.

How much RAM you need and which plan to choose

The authors' numbers for a server are 8 GB minimum and 10 GB or more recommended. In practice the DeceasedCraft city is heavier than a regular world: every building is packed with containers, zombies roam the streets and hordes arrive in waves. That's why we treat 12 GB as the baseline for two or three players. How memory relates to player count is covered in detail in how much RAM a modded server needs.

Beyond memory, CPU clock speed matters: Minecraft's main game loop runs on a single thread, and hundreds of mobs during a horde load exactly that thread. Elysium servers run on Ryzen 9 7900X at up to 5.6 GHz with NVMe drives. The data center is in Frankfurt, so ping from across Europe is low.

How to install DeceasedCraft on Elysium

DeceasedCraft is in the CurseForge modpack catalog on the order page, so there's no need to collect mods by hand.

1. Open the order page and find DeceasedCraft in the modpack list using search.
2. Pick a plan. The form suggests the minimum plan by memory and flags the ones that are too small for the pack.
3. Pay for the order: the server downloads the pack from CurseForge and installs Forge on its own.
4. Start the server from your dashboard. The first DeceasedCraft start takes noticeably longer than usual while the mods initialize and prepare the world.
5. Check that the pack version in your players' launcher matches the version on the server, then connect using the address shown in the panel.

If you already have a server, you can install DeceasedCraft from the panel in the Modpacks tab. This is a clean install: all server files, including the world, are deleted, so make a backup first. The general process for any pack is described in the guide how to install a modpack on a server.

Settings and multiplayer tips

Server files are available in the panel's file manager and over SFTP. Here's what to do after installation:

• Check the spawn point. The authors recommend starting in a medium or large Suburb Residential district. If you spawn somewhere else, consider generating a new world, as the early game may be harder. On a server, join first and look around; if the spawn is a bad one, stop the server, delete the world folder and start again while nothing has been built yet.
• Skip LAN. The authors explicitly advise against LAN because of poor performance and bugs, and recommend the server pack with a dedicated server instead.
• view-distance — 6–8 chunks. Dense city blocks full of loot and zombies are heavier than ordinary terrain.
• white-list=true — if the server is for friends, turn on the whitelist and add players with whitelist add <name> in the console.

The remaining parameters are explained in the article on configuring server.properties. Zombie balance, loot and difficulty in DeceasedCraft are set by the pack's configs, and it's best not to touch them without a reason.

Common problems

A player can't connect

Almost always it's a version mismatch. Beta 5.10 and version 5.5.5 don't even run on the same Minecraft version, and beta updates come out often. Compare each player's pack version with the one on the server, and don't add client mods that the others don't have.

Vehicles don't spawn, multiblocks won't form

Check enable-command-block in server.properties. If it's off, part of the pack's mechanics simply doesn't work.

The server won't start or crashes

Open the console in the panel: Forge reports which mod failed. If the error is about Java, remember that both branches need Java 17. You can pick it in the Versions tab, and changing only the Java version doesn't touch the server files. If the log shows the server running out of memory, it's time for a bigger plan: the authors' 8 GB minimum covers only the most modest scenario.

Lag during a horde

A zombie wave is peak load. Lower the view distance and keep spare memory. If you can, share one base instead of scattering to opposite ends of the city: that way the server doesn't have to keep several districts full of zombies and loot loaded at once.

Backups and pack updates

The DeceasedCraft beta updates often: between December 2025 and July 2026 versions 5.10.7 through 5.10.17 came out. Updating the pack through the Modpacks tab is a clean install, so make a backup first and save the world folder, then put it back after installation. Keep in mind that the authors don't promise a beta world will be compatible with the final 6.0: an older backup comes in handy if something goes wrong.

An Elysium server makes an automatic backup every night. Apex has 5 manual slots, Vanguard 6 and Titan 7, and you can buy more. Before every update or config change, make a manual copy in the panel.