Survival Log Wave Rewards: Every Band and the Rotten Meat

The short answer

What a wave pays is decided by how much health it was carrying, not by which day it arrived on. There are 7 bands. The bottom one takes any wave at all; the top one wants a wave worth 150,000 health, which nothing on the campaign calendar comes close to. Every band pays the same 3 categories, Materials, Food, Books, and the grade of the Materials entry is the only thing that tracks the climb.

Holds when: The wave came off the calendar. The scheduled hordes stop at 21,400 health, which is band 4 of 7, so on a scheduled night the band was decided before you picked a door.
What it costs: Nothing you could have spent. The item count barely moves across the table: 6, 7, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 across the 7 bands, which falls as often as it rises.
Otherwise: Throw a lure. The game's own label for these hordes is "Lured with rotten meat", and the largest of the 3 carries 33,000 health, band 5, above anything the calendar sends.

Where you are in the run The first days Running the house Endless

The first days

The early scheduled hordes sit at the bottom of the table. The lightest, Zombie Horde - Phase 1, is worth 640 health, which is band 1: scrap and one meal. Do not plan repairs around it.

Running the house

The calendar’s hardest night, Enhanced Zombie Horde, carries 21,400 health and pays band 4. That is the ceiling on the schedule. If you want the band above it, the only route in the data is a lure.

Endless

The Threat Level multiplies wave health by up to 8.2× across levels 1 to 20, which is what puts the top 3 bands within reach at all. Endless mode has how far the level actually carries a given wave.

Open the crises list Every horde the game can send, with the kinds in each attack and what the end pays. This opens on Lured Horde, the largest wave in the data outside Endless.

Every band

Every reward band, by the health the wave was carrying.
Wave health	Materials	Food	Books	Fixed items	Random draws
Any	Scrap Paper, Scrap Metal	Crackers	Newspaper	4	2
1,000+	Scrap Paper, Scrap Metal, Broken Glass	Five-Spice Beef Jerky	Newspaper	5	2
5,000+	Door Repair Kit	Seafood Noodles	Entertaining Magazine	3	3
12,000+	Door Repair Kit, All-Purpose Strengthener	Beef Noodles	Entertaining Magazine	4	3
30,000+	All-Purpose Strengthener	Instant Rice	Entertaining Magazine	3	4
50,000+	All-Purpose Strengthener, Fine Sheet Metal	Instant Spicy Hotpot	Inspirational Story	4	4
150,000+	All-Purpose Strengthener, Fine Sheet Metal, Tempered Glass	Cold Cuts	Mystery Novel	5	5

The quantity is not the ladder. The fixed set goes 4, 5, 3, 4, 3, 4, 5 across the 7 bands and the total goes 6, 7, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10, so a band above another one can hand over fewer items than the one below it. Only the random draws climb without ever falling: 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5. Bottom to top is 1.7× the items for 150× the health.

What climbs is the grade of the Materials entry. The bottom band pays and scrap metal; the top pays All-Purpose Strengthener, Fine Sheet Metal, Tempered Glass. The that arrives at band 3 is the first entry whose own description is about putting a barrier back rather than about being a crafting material.

The Food and Books entries are one item each, at every band. They get nicer rather than more plentiful, so they are a Satiety and Morale top-up rather than something to plan around. A late wave paying one meal is still one meal.

Front Door — A wave damages the barriers and the payout is graded in what fixes them, so the question a night settles is whether it funds the next one or only repays itself.

What the calendar actually reaches

The bands run to 150,000 health. The campaign schedule does not.

Every horde in the data, by the health of its heaviest wave, and the band that pays.
Horde	When it comes	Heaviest wave	Pays band	From health
Enhanced Zombie Horde	On the calendar	21,400	4	12,000
Major Zombie Horde	On the calendar	13,600	4	12,000
Zombie Horde	On the calendar	10,550	3	5,000
Zombie Horde	On the calendar	8,440	3	5,000
Zombie Horde	On the calendar	4,800	2	1,000
Zombie Horde - Phase 2	On the calendar	1,120	2	1,000
Zombie Siege	On the calendar	640	1	any
Zombie Horde - Phase 1	On the calendar	640	1	any
Lured Horde	Lured with rotten meat	1,120	2	1,000
Lured Horde	Lured with rotten meat	14,960	4	12,000
Lured Horde	Lured with rotten meat	33,000	5	30,000

3 of the 7 bands are out of reach on the calendar. The hardest scheduled night, Enhanced Zombie Horde, brings 21,400 health and stops at band 4. Nothing the schedule sends pays band 5 or above.

The lure is the mechanism

The game files 3 hordes under a trigger of their own, and its label for that trigger is Lured with rotten meat. They sit on no calendar. They arrive because you threw something out.

The lure items, and what the game says each one draws.
Item	What the game says it draws
Rotten Meat Strip	Thrown out through a door or window, its stench draws a small pack of zombies. Rotted past rotting, and inedible.
Rotten Meat Chunk	Several times the mass of a strip. The stench spreads wider and draws a full pack.
Rotten Meat Slab	A whole bone-in side of rotten meat. Its stench floods the entire street and draws the largest crowd of all.

The 3 lured hordes climb the same way, and the largest is the biggest wave in the data outside Endless: 33,000 health against 21,400 for the hardest night on the calendar. It pays band 5, which no scheduled horde reaches.

Encircled — The largest lure is the only wave outside Endless that reaches its band, and it arrives because somebody threw something out of a window.

That inverts the usual reading. A wave you were going to have to survive anyway pays what it pays, and the table is a receipt. A wave you called down is the only way to move up the table inside a campaign, and the price is that you have to hold it: the barrier that holds decides whether the payout is profit or a repair bill, and what comes through the door has what each horde actually sends.

Two other levers move wave health, and neither is a decision you make on the night. Zombie Horde Intensity is set before the run starts, and its hardest level, Very Strong, reads "Zombie damage, HP, and numbers +50%." The Endless Threat Level multiplies health by up to 8.2× on the clock rather than on demand.

How the figures on this page are worked out

A band is chosen by the health the wave carried, so a wave’s health has to be worked out first. It is the heaviest single attack a horde makes: every kind sent to every opening in that attack, multiplied by that kind’s own hit points, multiplied by the attack’s health multiplier. A horde with several attacks is filed under its heaviest one, because that is the attack whose payout is being asked about.

The item count of a band is its fixed list plus its random draws, and the growth figure is the top band’s count over the bottom band’s. The categories are the game’s own filing of each fixed item, so “every band pays Materials, Food, Books” is the intersection across all 7 bands rather than a reading of any one of them.

Where this page stops: the data names a pool the random draws come from but not what is in it, so there are no odds here for the 5 draws at the top band. The lure items and the 3 lured hordes are two ladders of 3 that both escalate, and each item’s wording says which size of crowd it brings, but the tables carry no link from one to the other, so the pairing here is the wording rather than a stated join. And nothing in the data prices a band against the barrier damage the wave did on the way in, so there is no profit figure here, only what arrives.

What to do

On a scheduled night, take what comes. The band was fixed by the horde’s own health before you picked a door.
Read the Materials entry and ignore the count. The fixed set goes 4, 5, 3, 4, 3, 4, 5 across the bands, so a bigger wave is not reliably more items.
Do not spend your whole stock of repair material before a known wave. The payout arrives after, not before.
If you want band 5, throw the largest lure and be ready for 33,000 health at the door. The equipment list has what every door and window holds against it.
Treat the fixed items as the reliable part and the 5 draws at the top band as the variable one. The game picks those from a pool it does not publish.

Quick reference

7 bands, chosen by the wave’s health, not by the day.
Bottom band: any wave, 6 items. Top band: 150,000 health, 10 items.
Item count across the bands: 6, 7, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10. It falls as often as it rises.
Every band pays Materials, Food, Books; only the grade of the Materials tracks the climb.
Hardest scheduled night: Enhanced Zombie Horde, 21,400 health, band 4.
Largest lure: 33,000 health, band 5, the only wave outside Endless that gets there.