Generate a ARK: Survival Evolved GameUserSettings.ini

Survival Evolved divides its settings between two files, and editing the wrong one is the most frequent reason a change seems to be ignored.

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.

HarvestAmountMultiplier

Resources gathered per action.

DifficultyOffset

Scales wild creature levels, but only within the official cap — pair it with OverrideOfficialDifficulty to go higher.

OverrideOfficialDifficulty

The setting that actually raises the wild level cap. 5 gives max level 150.

AllowThirdPersonPlayer

Third-person camera.

ShowMapPlayerLocation

Shows players their own coordinates.

World

DayCycleSpeedScale

Overall day length.

NightTimeSpeedScale

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

StructureResistanceMultiplier

How much damage structures resist.

bDisableStructurePlacementCollision

Allows building through terrain clipping. Near-universal on private servers.

TheMaxStructuresInRange

Structure limit per area — the practical cap on how heavy the server can get.

Players & Access

MaxPlayers

Slot limit.

ServerPassword

Join password. Blank means public.

ServerAdminPassword

Required for admin commands. Change it before the server goes public.

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 SE
MaxPlayers=70
ServerPassword=
ServerAdminPassword=changeme123
ServerPVE=False
XPMultiplier=2
TamingSpeedMultiplier=5
HarvestAmountMultiplier=3
DifficultyOffset=1
OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5
AllowThirdPersonPlayer=True
ShowMapPlayerLocation=True
DayCycleSpeedScale=1
NightTimeSpeedScale=1
StructureResistanceMultiplier=1
bDisableStructurePlacementCollision=True
TheMaxStructuresInRange=10500
KickIdlePlayersPeriod=3600
RCONEnabled=False
RCONPort=27020

The GameUserSettings.ini format

GameUserSettings.ini is a sectioned INI file, and the header each line sits under carries real weight — a setting filed under the wrong one is dropped silently. Booleans take capitals, True and False, and multipliers should be written as decimals rather than whole numbers.

The mistake that wastes an evening

Quite a few rate settings are only read from Game.ini, never from this file, and nothing tells you when one is in the wrong place. If a multiplier makes no difference and the syntax is sound, find out which file it really lives in before changing anything else.

Where the files are

Both files live in ShooterGame/Saved/Config/, in a LinuxServer or WindowsServer folder depending on the platform. GameUserSettings.ini holds most server settings under [ServerSettings], along with ActiveMods for Workshop mods. Game.ini holds the deeper tables, such as experience per level and engram settings, and may not exist until you create it.

Edit only while the server is stopped

ARK writes its configuration back to disk when it shuts down. Edit GameUserSettings.ini while the server runs and the change is gone after the next stop, which looks exactly like the server ignoring it. Stop the server, make sure the process has exited, edit, then start. Settings passed on the launch line as ?Key=Value sit outside the file, so check the launch line too when a change seems to have no effect.

Workshop mods

Mods go in ActiveMods under [ServerSettings], as a comma-separated list of Workshop IDs. Started with -automanagedmods on the launch line, the server downloads and updates them itself at startup, which saves keeping a copy of every mod in step by hand.

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