Ark:SA GameUserSettings.ini Generator

Ark:SA GameUserSettings.ini Generator

⚙️ Core Server Gameplay Options (under [ServerSettings])

ARK: Survival Ascended server config Control who can join your ARK SA server by setting a password. No password = public server. Great for private games, friends-only worlds, or avoiding randos named “420DankRex.” 🛡️ Tip: Leave this blank to allow open access, or set a strong password to keep things locked down.
Server Admin Password – ARK: Survival Ascended INI setting This password gives players access to admin commands like spawning dinos, enabling god mode, or wiping the map. It’s your master key—don’t hand it out unless you like chaos. 🔐 Tip: Choose a unique, hard-to-guess password. If this gets leaked, your server is toast.
Enable RCON for Remote Admin Access – ARK: Survival Ascended server setting Toggle Remote Console (RCON) support to allow external tools to connect and manage your server. Essential for serious admins who want to monitor or control things without logging in-game. 🖧 Tip: RCON only works if you also set a port and password. Useful for automation and server tracking tools.
Set a spectator-only password in your ARK ASA server settings to allow players to join and observe without participating. Great for tournaments, builders, or stream moderators who want to fly around without affecting the game world. 🎥 Tip: Use a different password than your admin or server password to keep roles separate.
Controls how many characters of game log data are buffered and made available to RCON-connected tools. A higher value helps remote log readers catch more event detail (like player deaths, chat, and commands), but may use slightly more memory. 📜 Tip: Default is 600. Only increase if you’re missing log events via RCON—don’t go overboard unless you’re running log-intensive mods or servers.
Define the list of active ARK ASA mods by entering their Steam Workshop IDs, separated by commas. This setting tells the server which mods to load on startup. Load order matters—especially for mods that override core systems or stack with others. 🧩 Tip: You can find mod IDs in the URL on the Steam Workshop (e.g., ?id=1234567890). Place total conversion mods last in the list if used.
Enables or disables logging of admin commands in your ARK server logs. When set to True, any use of cheats or admin-level commands is recorded—useful for accountability on public or multi-admin servers. 📋 Tip: Turn it on if you want a paper trail of admin actions. Leave off for private servers where you trust yourself (or don’t want to know what you did after midnight).
Allows players on PvE servers to use the gamma command to adjust brightness. Super helpful for dark caves, nighttime taming, or players without night vision monitors. 🌒 Tip: Great for PvE or casual ARK servers. In PvP, it’s often disabled to keep nighttime gameplay challenging and fair.
Makes diseases like Swamp Fever non-permanent—players will lose the infection upon death. Useful for ARK: Survival Ascended PvE servers or casual setups where players don’t want to stay infected forever. 🦠 Tip: Great for servers with new players or noob-friendly rulesets. Keeps disease mechanics in play without punishing folks for life.
Completely disables diseases like Swamp Fever on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. No infections, no transmission—just clean survivors and sneeze-free gameplay. 🧼 Tip: Perfect for PvE, casual, or family-friendly servers where players don’t want to deal with parasite mechanics at all.
Allows raidable tames (like turrets dinos during base defense) to continue eating during offline raid protection cooldowns or stasis. Helps keep base-defense dinos from starving while they’re technically still on raid status. 🍖 Tip: Especially useful on PvP ARK: Survival Ascended servers with ORP (Offline Raid Protection) or long raid timers enabled.
Applies ARK’s single-player balance modifiers even when hosting a multiplayer server. These settings boost XP gain, taming speed, resource harvest, and dino stamina—meant to make solo play more manageable. 🎮 Tip: Use this on private or lightly populated ARK: Survival Ascended servers where players want a faster-paced, less grindy experience without tweaking every setting manually.
Lets players place structures on platform saddles and rafts, even if the game or mods normally block certain placements. Useful for customizing mobile bases or bypassing structure restrictions in ARK: Survival Ascended. 🚫 Tip: Be careful—overriding these limits can cause unintended issues with dino movement or unbalanced PvP builds. Test before going wild.
Removes placement restrictions so players can build structures closer together or clip them into terrain, trees, and other objects. Great for creative freedom on ARK: Survival Ascended servers—especially PvE or custom map setups. 🧱 Tip: Perfect for clean base layouts, tight building spaces, and modded servers. Just don’t blame this setting when someone builds a turret inside a rock.
Re-enables movement speed leveling on flyers like Argentavis, Pteranodons, and Wyverns. Disabled by default in official ARK, but perfect for private or modded ARK: Survival Ascended servers where mobility matters. 🦅 Tip: Great for PvE, big maps, or classic ARK fans who miss their supersonic birds. Just expect chaos if used in competitive PvP.
Enables floating damage numbers when players or dinos deal damage—great for tracking hits, testing builds, or just feeling awesome when you smack something. 🔢 Tip: Popular on PvE and PvP ARK: Survival Ascended servers alike. Helps with balancing dino stats or checking if that upgraded sword actually does anything.
Allows players to use the gamma command in PvP mode to adjust screen brightness. Useful for night vision during raids, travel, or sneaky night taming on competitive ARK: Survival Ascended servers. 🌌 Tip: Adds convenience, but can reduce the challenge of nighttime PvP. Use wisely if you want darkness to matter.
Disables player-vs-player combat while a tribe is offline. Helps protect bases and tames from being raided when no one’s around to defend. Essential for fair-play PvP ARK: Survival Ascended servers with small tribes or casual players. 🛡️ Tip: This setting doesn’t stop wild dino attacks—just other players. Pair it with ORP mods or structure decay rules for balanced raid protection. 🌌 Tip: Adds convenience, but can reduce the challenge of nighttime PvP. Use wisely if you want darkness to matter.
Sets the delay (in seconds) after a player or tribe logs out before Offline PvP protection activates. Useful for balancing fair play with tactical raids on ARK: Survival Ascended PvP servers. ⏱️ Tip: Gives tribes a brief window to still be raided if they log off mid-fight—so it’s not a get-out-of-raid-free card.
Sets the maximum number of structures allowed within a certain radius on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. This prevents overly dense building, which can help reduce lag and keep base sprawl in check—especially on busy PvE maps or cluster servers. 🏗️ Tip: Useful for avoiding lag-box megabases or troll structures clogging up key zones. Keep it balanced so players can still build cool stuff without frying your server.
Sets the total number of tamed dinos allowed on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. This is a global cap — once it’s hit, no more taming until some creatures are cryo’d or deleted. 🧬 Tip: Keep it high enough for big tribes, but low enough to avoid lag zoos and abandoned pet hoarding. Combine with MaxPersonalTamedDinos to prevent one player from taming everything that moves.
Limits how many tamed dinos a single player can own on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. This helps prevent one player from eating up the entire server’s tame budget. 🧢 Tip: Crucial for balanced PvE clusters and PvP servers alike—especially when Steve thinks he needs 72 rexes “just in case.”
Sets how many entries the tribe log will keep for each tribe on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Useful for tracking dino deaths, structure destruction, and player activity. 📝 Tip: Bump it up if players constantly ask, “What happened to my stuff?” — or leave it low if nobody reads logs anyway.
Changes how many items can be stacked together in a single inventory slot. This ARK ASA server setting applies globally — including player, dino, and structure inventories. Great for QoL boosts or running a high-rate cluster where vanilla stacks are laughable. 📦 Tip: Higher values reduce clutter and lag from thousands of stacks. Just don’t go so high that players carry an entire vault in their pants.
Specifies a remote text file that contains a list of banned Steam64 IDs for your ARK: Survival Ascended server. This is useful for auto-enforcing bans across multiple servers or clusters. ☠️ Tip: Use one Steam64 ID per line. This setting is mostly used by larger communities or hosts—if you’re solo running your server, you can ignore it.
When enabled, this ARK ASA setting prevents spoil timers from stacking or extending in unintended ways across inventories. It ensures items spoil consistently, no matter where they’re stored — stopping exploits like infinite fridges in dino butts. 🧊 Tip: Leave this off if you like juggling spoil timers like a circus act. Turn it on for a fairer (and slightly more frustrating) survival experience.
Toggles whether resource harvest damage is capped for consistency across tools and dinos. If True, it prevents overpowered harvesters from getting exponentially more resources just because they deal massive damage. This ARK ASA setting helps balance gathering on high-rate or PvP servers. ⛏️ Tip: Want to nerf that chainsaw-happy tribe from draining the entire redwoods in 10 seconds? This is your throttle switch.
When enabled, this setting optimizes how resource nodes calculate their health based on server rates. It helps prevent harvesting glitches and improves performance on boosted servers. A behind-the-scenes ARK ASA setting — but a smart one for custom servers. 🧠 Tip: Turning this on won’t magically make your rates better, but it will stop some weird bugs when you’re using high HarvestAmount values.
Toggles visual hit markers when damaging enemies or objects. This ARK: Survival Ascended setting helps players confirm their attacks are landing — especially useful in PvP or when aiming through lag. 🎯 Tip: Leave this on if you like feedback when you shoot. Turn it off if you enjoy guessing whether your arrow hit the tree… or their face.
Toggles the on-screen crosshair for your ARK: Survival Ascended server. When disabled, players have to rely on iron sights or luck to aim projectiles and ranged weapons. 🎯 Tip: Leave it on for PvE or casual servers. Turn it off for a hardcore or immersive experience—just prepare for a lot more arrows in trees.
Lets PvE players build structures inside caves, which are normally off-limits. Use this ARK: Survival Ascended server setting if you want to allow underground bases or explorer note checkpoint builds in PvE mode. 🏔️ Tip: Great for immersive or story-driven servers. Just beware of blocking artifacts or spawns in major caves.
Forces the entire HUD (hotbar, health/stamina, notifications, etc.) off for all players on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Players cannot re-enable it client-side. Ideal for hardcore survivalists or cinematic recording. 🧠 Tip: Don’t enable this unless you really want players to feel lost, blind, and afraid. Great for immersion, but expect complaints — or pure silence, because no one knows they’re starving.
Enables Tek suit abilities (like flight, super speed, and punch) on Genesis maps where they’re normally disabled. This ARK ASA setting gives players full Tek freedom — even in maps designed to limit them. ⚡ Tip: Turn this on if you want players zooming around like Iron Man. Leave it off if you enjoy watching them struggle like plebs in a space station.
Toggles the availability of the Hexagon Store on Genesis maps. When set to True, players can’t access the store to buy loot crates, resources, or gear. 🎁 Tip: Disable this if you’re running a balanced or progression-focused ARK: Survival Ascended server and don’t want players farming missions for OP gear by day 2.
Adjusts how many Hexagons players earn from missions and daily rewards on Genesis maps. Higher values = more currency per activity. 💰 Tip: Increase this if you want missions to be a viable source of gear or resources. Lower it if players are turning your store into a loot casino.
Sets the maximum number of Hexagons a player can hold at one time. Helps control hoarding and limits how much players can spam the store. 🧮 Tip: Good for clusters where balance matters. Set it low to encourage spending or high to let players go wild.

🧬 Player & Dino Multipliers

Adjusts how quickly players earn experience on your ARK ASA server. This multiplier affects all XP sources—crafting, combat, harvesting, etc. Crank it up for faster leveling or dial it down for a grindy, old-school survival feel. 📈 Tip: Default is 1.0. Set it to 2.0 or higher if you want quicker progression for casual players or test servers.
Controls how fast creatures are tamed on your server. A higher value means dinos tame quicker—perfect for servers where nobody has 4 hours to babysit a Bronto. 🍖 Tip: Default is 1.0. 3.0–5.0 is common for balanced-but-faster play. Just don’t set it to 100 unless you want dinos hopping into your tribe before you even finish the kibble.
Sets how much resource is gathered per action on your ARK ASA server. Higher values give more wood, stone, meat—you name it—per hit. Great for cutting down the grind without turning the game into creative mode. 🪓 Tip: Default is 1.0. Most community servers run between 2.0 and 5.0 for quality-of-life. Just remember: too high and you’ll be drowning in berries faster than a dodo in deep water.
Controls how much “health” resource nodes have—higher values mean rocks, trees, and bushes take more hits before breaking, allowing more materials per node. Great for immersion or making resources last longer in shared areas. 🌳 Tip: Use this to control how fast the world gets stripped bare by a tribe of chainsaw maniacs.
Controls how long it takes for harvested resources—like rocks, trees, and bushes—to respawn. Higher values mean slower respawns, while lower values make the world regrow faster. ♻️ Tip: Useful for tuning how fast the map regenerates after farming sprees. Adjust to match your server’s player count and resource intensity.
Sets the overall dino population density on the map. Higher values = more wild dinos roaming, flying, and lurking behind every tree. 🦖 Tip: Be careful—too many dinos can tank server performance or cause constant chaos. Unless chaos is the goal. In that case… full send.
Controls how much damage wild and tamed dinos deal to everything—players, structures, and other dinos. 🩸 Tip: Want deadlier dinos or gentler fights? This slider’s your best friend (or worst nightmare).
Controls how much damage your tamed dinos deal — separate from wild dinos. Use this ARK: Survival Ascended setting to balance PvE progression or PvP raid power without nerfing the wild ecosystem. 🦖 Tip: Boost this on PvE to make tames feel more heroic. Tone it down in PvP if players are melting bases with angry beavers.
Determines how much damage players deal with melee, ranged, and mounted attacks. Affects PvE dino fights and PvP shootouts alike. 🎯 Tip: Buff it for power-fantasy servers, or tone it down if everyone’s one-shotting like it’s dodgeball with grenades.
Controls how much damage structures take from all sources—dinos, players, explosives, you name it. 🏚️ Tip: Want longer-lasting bases or glass-cannon chaos? This sets the tone for raids, accidents, and explosive fun.
Adjust how much damage players receive on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Lower values make players tankier, higher values make them squishier—great for customizing PvP fights, survival difficulty, or boss battles. 🛡️ Tip: Pair with PlayerDamageMultiplier= to fine-tune how deadly (or forgiving) your custom ARK ASA experience feels.
Controls how much damage wild and tamed dinos take on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Lower values make dinos tougher, while higher values make them easier to kill. Useful for balancing PvE dino fights or tweaking raid meta in PvP servers. 🦕 Tip: Combine with DinoDamageMultiplier= to create brutal boss fights or peaceful petting zoos—your server, your rules.
Adjusts how much damage tamed dinos take. Lower values = tougher tames. Higher values = squishier companions. This ARK: Survival Ascended server setting is key for balancing late-game boss fights, raid defense, or PvE survival pacing. 🛡️ Tip: Great for PvE servers where dinos are family—or PvP servers where players cry less if their Giga doesn’t fold in 5 seconds.
Sets how much damage structures take on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Lower values make bases sturdier and raid-proof, while higher values mean easier destruction during PvP sieges or dino rampages. 🏰 Tip: Great for balancing raid difficulty or protecting casual players on PvE ARK ASA maps without removing the threat completely.
Adjusts how much a player’s swim speed increases per point put into the Oxygen stat. Great for underwater-focused ARK: Survival Ascended servers or custom maps with ocean-heavy gameplay. 🌊 Tip: Useful for servers that want to make the ocean biome more viable—or just let players channel their inner dolphin.
Controls how quickly players lose hydration on your ARK server. Lower values make water last longer; higher values mean players get thirsty fast. 💧 Tip: Handy for hot climates, desert maps, or adjusting survival difficulty in PvP or PvE.
Adjusts how fast a player’s food stat drains over time. Useful for fine-tuning hunger mechanics on ARK: Survival Ascended servers, especially when paired with stamina or taming tweaks. 🍗 Tip: Keep this in check unless you want your players speed-eating 600 berries between fights.
Controls how quickly player stamina is consumed when running, jumping, or attacking. Crucial for balancing ARK PvP movement or tuning server challenge levels. ⚡ Tip: PvP servers often reduce this to keep combat flowing. PvE? It’s your cardio call.
Sets how fast players regenerate health over time. Tweak this to balance PvP healing, PvE survival, or post-combat downtime in your ARK server. 🩹 Tip: Faster regen = less campfire sitting. Great for keeping gameplay moving without sacrificing challenge.
Changes how fast tamed and wild dinos burn stamina. Useful for balancing mount stamina usage, especially for flyers and battle tames in ARK: Survival Ascended. 🦖 Tip: Flyers burning out mid-air? Might want to dial this one back.
Adjusts how quickly dinos recover health. Important for taming recovery, boss fights, or healing up after PvP raids on your ARK server. 🧬 Tip: Combine with healing items or dinos like Daeodons for full effect. Useful in PvE and PvP balance alike.
Controls how fast dinos get hungry. Impacts taming times, passive food use, and how often you need to feed your army of tames. 🥩 Tip: Lower values slow down hunger loss, which helps with managing food consumption in large dino stables.
Adjusts how effective player-made recipes are when consumed. This ARK server setting influences how much health, stamina, or other stats are restored by crafted food or brews. Crank it up to make culinary creations actually worth the trouble. 🥘 Tip: Custom recipes are often slept on. A boosted value here can turn a soup into a combat stim — or just give your PvE tribe chef a reason to exist.
Controls how much the Crafting Skill stat affects the potency of custom recipes. Higher values make invested crafters produce significantly stronger food and brews. This ARK ASA INI setting helps reward the tribe’s culinary nerd. 🧪 Tip: Buff this if you want Crafting Skill to matter. Or leave it at 1.0 and crush the dreams of every player who dumped 100 levels into gourmet ambition.
Enables any player to cuddle and imprint on baby dinos — not just the original breeder. Perfect for tribe-based raising or servers where players raise creatures as a team. A must-have ARK ASA setting for co-op breeders or casual-friendly clusters. 🍼 Tip: Great for avoiding imprint tantrums when someone’s offline. Just be aware: griefers can “help” too, if you’re not locking it down.
Lets players see a green beacon marking their last death location. Makes corpse runs easier—especially on large or modded ARK: Survival Ascended maps. 💀 Tip: Great for PvE and new players. Turn it off if you want dying to feel like actual punishment.

🕒 Time & Difficulty Settings

Adjusts the baseline dino level range and overall game difficulty on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Combined with OverrideOfficialDifficulty=, this setting controls what wild creature levels can spawn and how dangerous the world feels. ☠️ Tip: Use this to raise or lower your server’s wild creature intensity—great for balancing challenge without messing with XP or damage values.
Sets the max wild dino level on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. This works with DifficultyOffset to determine spawn level caps. If you want level 150 wild dinos (like official servers), set this to 5.0. 🧠 Tip: Use OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5.0 + DifficultyOffset=1.0 for standard max-level wild spawns. Higher values make creatures stronger and taming more intense — fun or fatal, your call.
Controls how fast the full day/night cycle passes on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Lower values mean longer days and nights, while higher values speed things up. Perfect for tuning immersion or gameplay pacing on custom ARK servers. 🌞 Tip: Stretch out daylight for building sessions or shorten nights if players keep walking into raptors in the dark.
Sets how fast nighttime passes on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Increasing the value shortens the night, making it easier for players who hate running blind—or just want less time being eaten by glowing eyes in the dark. 🌚 Tip: Great for PvE servers or casual ARK ASA gameplay where pitch-black wandering isn’t part of the fun.
Controls how fast daytime passes on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. A higher value shortens daylight hours, while a lower value gives players more time to gather, build, and explore before nightfall. 🌤️ Tip: Extend daylight for better visibility and more relaxed gameplay—especially helpful on PvE ARK ASA servers or new-player-friendly maps.
Sets how long a transferred survivor (uploaded via obelisk or terminal) is stored before being automatically deleted. Useful for ARK ASA cluster servers that want to manage player data bloat or enforce stricter transfer limits. 📦 Tip: This value is in seconds. 604800 = 7 days. 0 = never expires. Don’t forget — forgotten uploads don’t just vanish unless you tell them to.
Controls how long uploaded items (via terminal or obelisk) stay available before being deleted. This ARK ASA INI setting helps prevent cluttered tribute data across cluster servers and keeps hoarders in check. 🎁 Tip: If players rage-quit and forget their loot in the cloud, this is your server’s silent cleaner. Just remember: 0 means items live forever… even if the players don’t.
Sets how long uploaded creatures (via obelisk or transmitter) remain in cloud storage before they’re permanently deleted. This ARK: Survival Ascended setting is crucial for keeping your cluster tidy and free of forgotten dino dumps. 🦖 Tip: Players will swear their Giga vanished unfairly. You’ll know it died in the void of admin-set timeouts. Use with caution — or ruthless glee.

🏗 Building & Structure

Lets players build multiple stacked floors on platform saddles. Great for creative builders who want to turn a Bronto into a mobile fortress, or just cram more junk on their walking house. 🦖 Tip: More floors = more fun… and more lag. Use with caution on performance-conscious servers.
Enables flyers to pick up players and creatures in PvE mode. Super useful for moving tribe members, relocating tames, or just air-dropping dodos into the ocean for science. 🦅 Tip: This setting helps with quality-of-life and logistics—especially on PvE servers with no griefing
Lets players build inside caves while in PvE mode. Perfect for tribes that want to live dangerously, create hidden bases, or take over artifact spots for style points. 🕳️ Tip: Be careful—enabling this can block cave resources or artifacts if players get greedy with their foundations.
Prevents PvE structures from automatically decaying over time. This keeps bases intact even if the player goes inactive—handy for relaxed servers or builders who log in once a week. 🛠️ Tip: Be mindful—disabling decay can lead to cluttered maps filled with abandoned structures.
Prevents tamed dinos from decaying and auto-deleting due to inactivity on PvE servers. Ideal for casual players or long-term servers where folks come and go but don’t want to lose their favorite tames. 🦖 Tip: Helpful for avoiding the heartbreak of vanished dinos—but keep an eye out for clutter from abandoned creatures.
Allows players on your Ark Servers to pick up placed structures at any time, not just within the short default pickup window. Great for creative building, fixing placement mistakes, or reclaiming materials on-the-fly. 🔧 Tip: Awesome for PvE and builder-friendly servers—just make sure it’s not being abused in PvP to instantly remove key defenses.
Sets how long (in seconds) players can pick up structures after placing them on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Useful for adjusting the default pickup window on PvE or custom ARK server setups where building precision matters. ⏳ Tip: A longer window gives players more flexibility when placing walls, floors, and crafting stations—especially helpful on modded or builder-friendly servers.
Controls how long a player must hold the interact button to pick up a structure on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. This affects the “hold to pickup” delay and can be tweaked for faster or slower pickup interactions during gameplay. 🖱️ Tip: Lower values speed up building edits—perfect for creative or PvE ARK servers where players move stuff around often.
Adjust how fast abandoned or unused structures auto-decay on your ARK server. This multiplier controls the delay before structures without nearby activity are automatically destroyed. Great for cleaning up clutter without babysitting every abandoned base. 🧹 Tip: Lower values = faster cleanup. Set it higher if you want to preserve builds longer for returning players.
Toggle whether only unsnapped core structures (like random pillars or foundations not connected to a full base) will decay over time. This helps prevent spam structures while preserving full player builds. 🧱 Tip: Set to True to clean up stray spam without affecting legit bases. Leave False if you want all abandoned pieces gone equally.
Toggles whether only core building pieces (like foundations and pillars) get auto-destroyed after decay. Use this ARK ASA server setting if you want to remove abandoned bases without turning the world into a graveyard of floating walls. 🛠️ Tip: Pair with OnlyDecayUnsnappedCoreStructures=True to reduce spammy builds but keep legit bases intact — or set both to False and enjoy the nuclear option.
Speeds up the decay timer for unsnapped core structures like lone foundations or pillars not attached to a full base. Use this ARK: Survival Ascended server setting to clear spam builds faster and keep the map clean for active players. 🧨 Tip: Perfect for dealing with players who “mark their territory” with random foundations.
Enables extra no-build zones in specific areas of the map, usually around obelisks, caves, or critical resource spots. This ARK ASA setting is useful for preventing griefing or blocking off key zones in PvP and PvE servers alike. 🚫 Tip: Turn this on if your server’s turning into a real estate warzone around spawn points. Turn it off if you enjoy watching players wall off half the map out of spite.
Enables special no-build zones unique to the Genesis maps, helping preserve mission areas, spawn zones, and other critical locations. This ARK ASA setting prevents players from building where they really shouldn’t — unless you enjoy structures inside boss fights. 🚧 Tip: Leave this on unless you’re actively trying to break mission areas or let players build Costco on a glitch terminal.
Toggles whether Cryo Sickness (the stun debuff from throwing out cryopodded dinos too quickly) is enabled on PvE servers. This ARK: Survival Ascended setting is often disabled in PvE to allow quick deployment of tames without punishment. 🥶 Tip: Cryo Sickness in PvE is like grounding someone for having fun — most servers turn this off unless they enjoy watching players cryopop and flop.
Enables the cryopod nerf, which temporarily reduces a dino’s damage output after being released from a cryopod. This ARK ASA setting is mainly used to prevent players from surprise-deploying boss killers mid-fight without penalty. 🐾 Tip: If you run PvP or boss events, this is your anti-“Pokéball nuke” setting. If you run chill PvE, it just annoys people trying to pop out a Giga for a berry run.
Sets how long the cryopod nerf lasts after a dino is released — reducing its damage output for the specified time. This ARK ASA setting is critical for balancing combat and preventing instant deploy-and-destroy tactics. ⏱️ Tip: Duration is in seconds. Shorten it for PvE or fast-paced PvP, or crank it if your server has a problem with surprise Giga grenades.
Controls how much damage a dino does while under the cryopod nerf debuff. Lower values make freshly deployed dinos hit like wet noodles. Use this ARK ASA setting to prevent cryo-spam in PvP or boss cheese tactics. 💢 Tip: A value of 0.5 cuts damage in half — enough to ruin an ambush. Want to be extra cruel? Try 0.1 and watch panic set in.
Controls how much extra incoming damage a dino takes while affected by the cryopod nerf. This ARK ASA setting punishes fresh cryo deploys by making them glass cannons for a short time. 🛡️ Tip: Value is in percent — 100 = normal damage, 200 = double damage taken. Great for stopping “surprise Giga” abuse. Or just to spice up dino roulette.
Adjusts how many structures can be built on saddles or rafts (platforms). Increasing this multiplier allows bigger mobile bases, turret barges, or full-blown floating castles — if that’s your style. A must-tweak ARK ASA setting for creative or PvP-heavy servers. 🛳️ Tip: Boost this if you want players to actually use mobile bases. Keep it low if you’d rather not see a Bronto dragging an entire fortress through the ocean.
Controls the buildable area size on platform saddles. Increasing this value expands how far out from the platform you can place structures — great for oversized mobile bases or sky barges. A favorite ARK ASA setting for players who want to turn a Quetz into a flying hotel. 🦕 Tip: Be careful with extreme values — too large and you’ll get weird clipping, lag, or build errors. But hey, go big or go base-less.
Sets the structure weight cost for building on a player’s personally tamed dino saddle. Higher values reduce how many pieces can be placed by increasing their “cost.” Use this ARK: Survival Ascended setting to fine-tune mobile base limits without changing platform size. 🎯 Tip: Want to stealth-nerf one player’s flying fortress? This lets you tighten the build cap without banning the whole idea.
Sets the hard cap on how many structures can be built on a platform saddle (regardless of size or weight multipliers). This ARK server setting overrides the default limit and gives you full control over how massive — or modest — mobile bases can get. 🔧 Tip: This value is absolute. It doesn’t care how big or wide your platform is — once you hit the number, that’s it. Choose wisely… or hilariously.
Sets the maximum number of gate frames allowed on a platform saddle. This ARK ASA server setting is mainly used to prevent players from exploiting oversized dino gates for massive mobile base walls or trap wagons. 🚪 Tip: Players love to abuse gates for budget armor plating. Cap it low unless you enjoy Brontos dressed like medieval siege towers.

👥 Tribe / PvP / Notifications

Enables global join notifications when a player connects to your ARK server. Everyone online will see a message in chat, making it easier to track who’s joining—great for community-focused or lightly moderated ARK: Survival Ascended servers. 📢 Tip: Useful for PvE servers or small private tribes. For PvP, consider disabling if stealth is part of the experience.
Displays a global message when a player disconnects from your ARK server. Adds transparency to player activity—especially useful on smaller PvE or community ARK: Survival Ascended servers where people like to keep track of who’s online. 👋 Tip: Great for casual or roleplay servers. On competitive PvP servers, though, it might give away when bases are undefended.
Enables third-person view for players on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Great for immersion, cinematic gameplay, or just seeing what your survivor’s armor actually looks like. 🎮 Tip: Many ARK PvE and creative servers turn this on for comfort and fun. In competitive PvP, it can be a visibility advantage—so use with intention.
Controls whether players can see their own location marker on the in-game map. Enabling this makes navigation easier—especially helpful on PvE ARK: Survival Ascended servers or for new players learning the terrain. 🗺️ Tip: Turn it off for hardcore survival servers where getting lost is part of the fun—or the frustration.
Toggles PvE mode on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. When enabled, players can’t damage each other or their structures—ideal for cooperative gameplay, creative building, or peaceful dino hoarding. 🕊️ Tip: Great for casual, family-friendly, or builder-focused ARK servers. Just remember: dinos and the world still want you dead.
Enables Hardcore mode on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. When a player dies, their character is wiped—no respawn, no recovery. This is the ultimate survival challenge for players who laugh at danger (until they fall off a cliff). 💀 Tip: Best suited for niche PvE survival servers or private groups looking for serious tension. Not recommended for casual players or public servers unless you enjoy angry quitters.
Disables the ability to download survivors, items, and dinos via obelisks or supply drops. Use this on ARK: Survival Ascended servers where you want a closed-world experience without outside characters or overpowered imports. 🛑 Tip: Essential for preventing transfers from other maps or clusters—especially if you’re running a balanced or progression-focused ARK server.
Enables proximity-based voice chat on your ARK server, so players can only hear each other when nearby. Great for immersive gameplay, roleplay servers, or creating tense encounters in Survival Ascended. 🎤 Tip: Encourages in-world communication and stealth—just make sure your players know how to use push-to-talk or it’s hot mic city.
Disables tribe alliances on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Use this to keep PvP politics simple or to prevent mega-alliances from dominating your map with zerg armies. ⚔️ Tip: Ideal for solo/duo servers, hardcore PvP setups, or anyone tired of 12 tribes pretending they’re not one giant empire.
Logs destroyed enemy structures in the tribe log. Useful on ARK servers where players want a record of what they’ve wrecked—especially in PvP or structured raid environments. 📜 Tip: Great for raid accountability, PvP bragging rights, or just figuring out where all those “mysterious explosions” came from.
Sets the cooldown in seconds between tribe name changes on your ARK: Survival Ascended server. Prevents spamming name swaps to dodge accountability or confuse enemies. 🏷️ Tip: 15 seconds is fine for most setups, but you can bump this up if you’ve got trolls renaming every time they steal a dodo.

🛰️ Network / Performance

Sets the main game port for your ARK: Survival Ascended server. This is the port players connect through when joining your server directly. 🌐 Tip: If you’re running multiple ARK servers on the same machine, each one needs a unique port. Make sure it’s forwarded correctly in your router/firewall.
Sets the port used for remote console (RCON) access to your ARK ASA server. This allows external tools or scripts to send commands to the server in real time—great for admins running bots, dashboards, or remote monitoring tools. 🛠️ Tip: Default is 27020. Change only if you have a port conflict or are running multiple servers on the same machine.
Sets the port used by Steam to query and list your ARK: Survival Ascended server in the server browser. This is how players see your server online and how tools like BattleMetrics or remote RCON tools find it. 📡 Tip: Must be forwarded in your router alongside your main game port. If you’re running multiple servers, each one needs its own unique query port.
Sets the name of your ARK: Survival Ascended server as it appears in the server browser and Steam list. This is how players find and recognize your server. 🧭 Tip: Include your map name, rates, or mod style in the title (e.g., “Valguero 5x PvE Cluster”) to stand out and attract the right crowd.
Used to bind your ARK server to a specific IP address when the host machine has multiple network interfaces or IPs. Most single-IP setups can ignore this or leave it as False. 🖧 Tip: Only use this if you know what you’re doing or you’re running multiple ARK: Survival Ascended servers on the same dedicated machine with multiple IPs.
Sets the maximum number of players that can connect to your ARK: Survival Ascended server at once. Controls server population cap for both PvP and PvE modes. 👥 Tip: Higher numbers require better hardware and more bandwidth. For stability, match this with your server’s actual performance limits—not just your hopes and dreams.

🦕 Dino Upload/Download Control

Blocks players from uploading their survivor characters to the ARK cloud or other maps in a cluster. Use this to lock players into a single server or map in ARK: Survival Ascended. 🚫 Tip: Ideal for standalone servers or tightly controlled progression clusters where you want to stop character hopping.
Prevents uploading of items to the cloud or across maps. Stops players from bringing gear between ARK ASA maps—great for maintaining progression balance in your server cluster. 📦 Tip: Use this to enforce map-specific economies or to avoid transfer exploits between maps.
Disables uploading of dinos to other maps or servers. Prevents powerful tames from being moved across your ARK ASA cluster. 🦖 Tip: Critical for servers that want each map to have its own tame progression or dino rarity.
Blocks players from downloading survivor characters onto the server. Great for fresh-wipe servers or when you want everyone to start clean. 👤 Tip: Useful when launching new ARK maps or enforcing server-specific characters per world.
Prevents players from downloading items from other maps or the cloud. Helps keep ARK ASA maps balanced and progression locked to local gameplay. 🧰 Tip: A must for avoiding cross-map gear dumps or cluster inflation.
Stops dinos from being downloaded into the server from other ARK maps. Ideal for maintaining regional dino availability and preventing overpowered imports. 🦕 Tip: Best used in custom clusters, PvP setups, or progression servers where balance matters.
Controls whether dinos from other ARK clusters can be downloaded into this server. Essential for managing dino transfers across a CrossARK setup. Useful if you want to allow foreign tames, or block out-of-cluster OP monsters. 🌍 Tip: Leave it off if you don’t want players dragging broken boss-killers from some boosted nightmare cluster into your carefully balanced world.

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