Generate a ARK: Survival Ascended GameUserSettings.ini

ARK spreads its settings over two files with confusingly similar names, and a setting in the wrong file is the usual reason an edit seems to have no effect.

Start from a preset

Visual Settings

ini Format

Identity

SessionName

Name shown in the server browser.

Gameplay

ServerPVE

Disables player-versus-player damage server-wide.

XPMultiplier

Experience rate.

TamingSpeedMultiplier

Taming speed. Higher is faster — one of the two settings every private server changes.

HarvestAmountMultiplier

Resources per harvest action. The other one.

DifficultyOffset

Scales wild creature levels. Works with OverrideOfficialDifficulty, which is the setting that actually raises the level cap.

OverrideOfficialDifficulty

Sets the real difficulty value. 5 gives max wild level 150; this is the one to change, not DifficultyOffset alone.

AllowThirdPersonPlayer

Third-person camera.

ShowMapPlayerLocation

Shows players their own coordinates on the map.

ServerCrosshair

Displays a crosshair.

World

DayCycleSpeedScale

Overall day length.

NightTimeSpeedScale

Night length specifically. Most servers shorten nights rather than whole days.

StructureResistanceMultiplier

How much damage structures resist. Higher means tougher buildings.

bDisableStructurePlacementCollision

Allows building through terrain clipping. Almost universally enabled on private servers.

TheMaxStructuresInRange

Structure limit per area. This is the practical cap on how heavy a server can get — raising it is how servers end up running out of memory.

Players & Access

MaxPlayers

Slot limit. ARK memory grows with what tribes build far more than with slots.

ServerPassword

Join password. Blank means public.

ServerAdminPassword

Required for admin commands. Change it — the default is the first thing anyone tries.

KickIdlePlayersPeriod

Seconds before an idle player is kicked.

RCON & Query

RCONEnabled

Remote console access.

RCONPort

RCON port. Keep it off the public internet.

GameUserSettings.ini

[ServerSettings]
SessionName=My ARK SA
MaxPlayers=70
ServerPassword=
ServerAdminPassword=changeme123
ServerPVE=False
XPMultiplier=3
TamingSpeedMultiplier=10
HarvestAmountMultiplier=3
DifficultyOffset=1
OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5
AllowThirdPersonPlayer=True
ShowMapPlayerLocation=True
ServerCrosshair=True
DayCycleSpeedScale=1
NightTimeSpeedScale=1
StructureResistanceMultiplier=1
bDisableStructurePlacementCollision=True
TheMaxStructuresInRange=10500
KickIdlePlayersPeriod=3600
RCONEnabled=False
RCONPort=27020

The GameUserSettings.ini format

GameUserSettings.ini is an INI file split into sections, and the section a line sits under matters — put a setting beneath the wrong header and it is ignored without comment. Booleans take capitals, True and False. Multipliers are floating point: write 2.0, not 2, because some values are read strictly enough that a whole number gets thrown away.

The mistake that wastes an evening

Certain settings only work in Game.ini rather than GameUserSettings.ini, and the game gives no hint which ones. If a rate change does nothing and the syntax is fine, the line is probably in the wrong file. Ascended and Survival Evolved also differ on this, so do not start from a config copied off an older server.

Where the files are

Both files live in ShooterGame/Saved/Config/WindowsServer/ inside the server install. GameUserSettings.ini holds most server settings under the [ServerSettings] header; Game.ini holds the deeper gameplay tables, such as per-level experience and engram settings. GameUserSettings.ini appears after the server's first start; Game.ini is often absent until you create it yourself, and the server reads it if it is there.

Edit only while the server is stopped

ARK writes its configuration back to disk when it shuts down. Change GameUserSettings.ini while the server is running and your edits vanish the next time it stops, which looks exactly like the server ignoring them. Stop the server, make sure the process has exited, edit, then start it again. If a file still resets after that, look for a syntax error that made the server discard it.

Settings on the launch line

Some options are passed on the launch line instead, as ?Key=Value after the map name, and ports belong there rather than in the INI. When a setting appears in both places and an INI change seems to do nothing, check the launch line before anything else.

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