ARK: Survival Ascended Server Configuration Guide

ARK: Survival Ascended Server Configuration Tutorial – Introduction

Playing with friends on your ARK: Survival Ascended dedicated server can lead everyone on an amazing and thrilling adventure. There’ll be many areas to explore, endless creatures to conquer, and bases to build. However, you and others alike might want to tweak some settings for a more personalized experience. This is entirely doable and we got the ARK: Survival Ascended server configuration tutorial ready for you! Our Nitrado web-interface allows you to quickly make changes to the configuration files.

Whether you want to increase the taming limit or toggle join notifications, there’s endless possibilities. At a moment’s notice, editing the level caps, difficulties, multipliers, or anything else can be done. Controlling these settings means you can make a customized ARK: SA server to enjoy with others. Unfortunately, getting started can be challenging for newcomers to the hosting scene. Due to this, we’ve created this complete configuration guide for ARK: Survival Ascended to help you make changes to the gameplay.

ARK: Survival Ascended Server Configuration Settings

As previously mentioned above, there’s many settings and configurations for your ARK: SA server. With this in mind, we’ve created an easy way to access them directly from the web-interface panel. The most important and common options are available for you to edit. However, there’s another way to do this that reveals more settings. This involves accessing the main config files containing everything, which is also made convenient for you. The subsections below will help you learn about each method to get started with editing your ARK: SA server.

Nitrado Server Panel

After purchasing ARK: SA servers from Nitrado, if you haven’t already, exclusive editing tools are available for you to use. These allow you to modify and save settings, which comes in handy when personalizing your gameplay experience. Additionally, we offer an “Expert Mode” for those looking to have extra options. When you’re ready, follow the instructions below to begin learning how to edit your ARK: SA server.

• Head towards your Nitrado server panel and press the Stop button if you see it.
• Afterward, click General under Settings on the left-hand side.
  
• Locate your desired option(s) on this page, then continue to edit them accordingly.

• Once you’re finished, press Save Changes at the bottom and Restart the server.

File Browser Method

In cases where you prefer making direct changes to your ARK: SA server, consider using our built-in file editing tool. This provides you with the ability to access critical files containing all possible options, with the majority of them only accessible through this method. The following instructions teach you how to do this properly on your Nitrado server panel.

• Head towards your ARK: SA server panel and press the Stop button if you see it.
• Afterward, click File Browser under the Tools category on the left-hand side.
  
• While in this area, navigate to the this directory:
  …/arksa/ShooterGame/Saved/Config/WindowsServer
• Once there, locate and select either the GameUserSettings.ini or Game.ini files.
  
• Make any necessary changes in the editor, then click Save Changes.
  
• Return to the main panel and Restart the server to apply the edits.

ARK: SA GameUserSettings.ini Guide

There’s lots of compact information inside the GameUserSettings.ini file for your ARK: SA server. Due to this, we’ve created a detailed explanation of the important options. This hopefully brings you peace of mind when attempting to edit anything.

• Password Protection
  • ServerAdminPassword | Implements an Admin password that a player can use to gain Admin access on the ARK: SA server.
  • ServerPassword | Adds a required password to the ARK: SA server, allowing only players with that password to be able to join.
• Server Difficulty
  • DifficultyOffset | Can be set between 0.01 to 1.0 and is used with the OverrideOfficialDifficulty option as a multiplier.
  • OverrideOfficialDifficulty | Not contained within the file by default, this setting should be added below the DifficultyOffset option. The value of this option is multiplied by 30 when the DifficultyOffset is set to 1.0 to determine creature’s maximum levels on your server. As an example, setting DifficultyOffset to 1.0 and OverrideOfficialDifficulty to 5 would set the maximum creature level to 150.
• PvP and PvE
  • ServerPVE | False by default, when set to true this option will enable PvE gameplay when playing on your ARK: SA server.
• Multiplier Settings | By default, these settings will not be present in the file. You can follow the steps to edit these settings in the Nitrado Web Interface, or add these settings directly into the GameUserSettings.ini under the [ServerSettings] section to edit them.
  • DinoDamageMultiplier | Increases or decreases the damage dealt by dinosaurs.
  • XPMultiplier | Changing this option scales how much XP is earned while playing. The higher the multiplier is, the more XP your players will earn!
  • TamingSpeedMultiplier | When set to a higher value, will increase the speed at which taming occurs on your ARK: Survival Ascended server.
  • HarvestAmountMultiplier and HarvestHealthMultiplier | HarvestAmountMultiplier increases how much you’ll earn from harvesting and HarvestHealthMultiplier determines how long it takes to harvest, where a lower value will make harvesting faster. It is recommended to keep the values of these settings between a multiplied sum of 16 or less.
  • StructureResistanceMultiplier | The higher the value of this option, the weaker your structures in-game will be to other players and creature attacks.
• Other Important Options:
  • MaxTamedDinos | Set the maximum number of tamed dinosaurs a player can have while on your server.
  • GlobalVoiceChat and ProximityVoiceChat | Change the global option to true to enable in-game voice chat across the entire server or use the proximity option instead to enable voice chat when close to another player inside the game.

ARK: SA Game.ini Guide

Note: At the moment, the game.ini will appear blank when you first start your server. Thankfully, there is a way to fix this to edit these options. To fix your Game.ini file:

• To begin, start ARK: Survival Ascended in single-player.
• Afterward, quit the game and head back to your Steam game library.
• Right-click on ARK: SA, click “Properties…“, “Installed Files“, and “Browse…“.
  
• In your local files, go to “ShooterGame“, “Saved“, “Config“, “and “Windows”.
• Then, open and edit the “Game.ini” file that you see there.
  
• Copy everything in that file and then head to your ASA server webinterface.
  
• To the left of your webinterface, press “Config Files” and edit your “Game.ini“.
  
• Paste everything from that file into your server’s “Game.ini“.
  
• Lastly, edit the file to your liking, save, and restart your server!

Other options are stored in the Game.ini file of your ARK: SA server, mostly containing multiplier settings. These can determine how quickly players progress in-game, making it a popular choice for owners to edit. Review the information below to gain a better understanding of them.

• Multiplier Settings
  • EggHatchSpeedMultiplier | When increased, this will increase how fast a creature’s egg will hatch.
  • BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier | Determines how fast a baby creature will mature into an adult on your server.
  • Kill, Harvest, Craft, Generic, and Special XP Multipliers | Determines the amount of XP players will earn for each of the various activities performed on the ARK: SA server.

Extra Game.ini Information

There’s lots of specific values and variables to consider when changing the Game.ini file, so we’ve put together some basic instructions that will help you. These can help you level up much quicker in-game, along with other aspects. Follow along below when you’re ready to begin.

• Scroll to the bottom of the Game.ini ARK: SA settings file and then add the following line which will activate the ability to add additional levels/experience ramping:LevelExperienceRampOverrides=
• Next, add this line under that which will start the first level and initial XP required, and the comma at the end is used so that you can add further levels:(ExperiencePointsForLevel[1]=16,
• Continue this for each level you’d like added. This is an example of adding five levels and then closing off those levels:LevelExperienceRampOverrides=

(ExperiencePointsForLevel[1]=25,ExperiencePointsForLevel[2]=50,ExperiencePointsForLevel[3]=100,ExperiencePointsForLevel[4]=250,ExperiencePointsForLevel[5]=500)

• If you were looking to add 150 levels as an example, this is how that would appear for those final entries in the Game.ini:ExperiencePointsForLevel[148]=32000,ExperiencePointsForLevel[149]=34000,ExperiencePointsForLevel[150]=38000)
• Once you have added each level and the required XP for each level and ensured the levels are closed with parenthesis, press “Save changes” at the bottom of this page and then restart the server to ensure those new levels are added!

Using Mods to Configure ARK: SA

Some server owners might be unsatisfied with their changes, primarily because of the lack of features. Fortunately, you can configure ARK: SA with mods to introduce new aspects. Whether you want new mythical creatures, structures, or custom maps, there’s many possibilities. We highly encourage you to review our ARK: SA mod guide to learn more about that.

ARK: Survival Ascended Server Configuration FAQ

Server will not start after changing server settings

When editing your server settings, certain options do have a limit on how much you can increase or decrease those settings, and when set too high or low, this can result in an ARK: SA server refusing to start. Testing can often be required to find these limits.

When changing your server settings, we recommend that you always remember and track what has been changed. That way if the server does refuse to start afterward, you can reverse those changes to fix your server.

I can’t find an ARK:SA server setting I need to edit

Due to the way that ARK: Survival Ascended’s server files are formatted when first starting a server, not every setting will be contained within the GameUserSettings and Game.ini file.

You can use Nitrado’s built-in Web Interface setting editor to locate most missing settings and additionally, you are able to add these settings directly into these files and then save them to implement those options!

The ARK setting changes are not working

ARK: SA server settings often have limits and may break the setting if you increase or decrease that option beyond its limits. These setting limits are often not clear and may require testing to see if a particular change will work.

If a setting does break, it will go back to the default value it was prior to being edited. When this occurs, changing the setting to a more understanding value will help to fix this. Once you have made adjustments, you can continue to test to ensure that the setting is perfect for your server players!

Customize Your ARK: SA Server Today!

It’s incredibly important to customize your ARK: SA server, as this allows you to make it your own. Whether you want an intense or casual experience with friends and family, there’s always an opportunity to change the gameplay. With our easy-to-use Nitrado server panel, you’re given many tools to make necessary tweaks. We strongly recommend checking them all out when you have time, especially if you plan on installing mods. Besides this, we hope this guide helped you learn how to configure an ARK: SA dedicated server!

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