Dino Depot is one of the most configurable mods on ARK: Survival Ascended — 227 documented settings in one [DinoDepot] block, maintained by the mod team in an official config sheet. Here’s every one of them in plain English with its default: Dinoball behavior, capture and release rules, Depot Terminal automation, eggs and incubation, passive production, and death auto-capture.
[DinoDepot] block, the Dino Depot config generator gives you toggles for all 227 settings, warns you when a black/whitelist is set without its enforcement toggle (the mod’s #1 footgun), and outputs only what you changed — header included.These keys govern how a stored creature spends its time inside a Dinoball — whether it grows up, earns XP, keeps imprinting, holds onto buffs, and how gestation and mating timers behave in there. Tune them to determine if the ball outperforms a cryopod or merely reenacts one.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| BabiesImprintInDinoBall | Governs whether imprinting progress continues for a baby sitting inside a Dinoball. Disable it on servers where bonding with a creature is supposed to mean being physically present, not parenting from inside a sphere. | TRUE | — |
| BabiesAgeInDinoball | Determines whether the growth clock keeps running on babies held in a Dinoball. Disabled, a ball freezes a baby at its current age — useful when you want storage to stop working as a hands-free raising shortcut. | TRUE | — |
| DinosGainExperienceInDinoball | The master switch for passive XP on creatures in storage; the actual rate is governed by ExperienceGainInDinoballMultiplier. Switch it off if you'd rather levels be earned in the field than accrued inside a ball. | TRUE | — |
| ExperienceGainInDinoballMultiplier | A rate control on the passive experience stored creatures earn — anything above 1.0 means the ball pays out better than standing around outside it. It only applies while DinosGainExperienceInDinoball is enabled; with that toggle off, this number does nothing. | 1.1 | — |
| MatingCooldownMode | Decides what a Dinoball does to a creature's breeding cooldown. Mode 0 is strictly hands-off — the mod neither adds nor clears one — while 1 wipes any existing cooldown, 2 refreshes a cooldown only when the creature already carries one, 3 applies one only where none exists (the cryopod treatment), and 4 puts a fresh cooldown on every time. | 0 | — |
| ImprintAssignMode | Determines how Dinoballs handle imprint ownership on release. In mode 0 the mod steps in only for bred creatures that lack an imprinter; mode 1 transfers the imprint to whoever throws the ball, no questions asked. | 0 | — |
| DinoballPersistsBuffs | Determines whether active buffs on a creature survive the round trip through capture and release. Disabling it means every ball trip strips the creature clean — a deliberate reset lever, if that's the economy you're running. | TRUE | — |
| GestationPausesInDinoball | Sets whether a pregnant creature's gestation timer freezes during storage. Disabled, pregnancies keep advancing inside the ball — gestation on autopilot, essentially — while enabled means the countdown resumes only after release. | TRUE | — |
| ImprintGainInDinoballCap | Sets an optional ceiling on the imprint progress a baby racks up while stored inside a Dinoball. Trim it when ball-time should cover only part of the bar, with the rest earned through old-fashioned hands-on care. | 1 | — |
| DinoballPersistsBehaviour | Controls whether a creature's configured behaviours ride along inside the ball and are reapplied on release. Switch it off and every un-balling comes with a fresh round of behaviour housekeeping, which few owners would call an upgrade. | TRUE | — |
| DinoballPersistsCuddleFood | Governs whether a baby's requested cuddle food survives its stay inside a Dinoball. With persistence on, capture won't scramble the imprint order you were already prepared to fill. | TRUE | — |
| AllowMatingCooldownInDinoball | Whether time spent inside a Dinoball counts against a creature's mating cooldown. When disabled, the timer freezes for the duration of storage — pocketing a breeder no longer doubles as waiting out the clock. | TRUE | — |
| BabyAgeInDinoballCap | The maturation value at which a Dinoball stops growing a stored baby, on ARK's 0-to-1 scale — left at 1, there is no cutoff and the ball will carry a baby clear through to adulthood. Set it partway to let the ball absorb the early babysitting while the final stretch of the raise stays in the player's hands. | 1 | — |
| DinoballObeysNonPersistentBuffs | Decides whether Dinoballs respect a buff's own non-persistence flag when a dino enters storage. Enabled, flagged buffs are dropped as their designers intended; disabled, the ball carries every buff through regardless of what the buff declared about itself. | TRUE | — |
| DinoballBabyGrowthMultiplier | A growth-rate modifier applied to babies while they sit in a Dinoball, stacked on top of whatever rates your server already runs — values above 1 push maturation past the server norm, values below 1 drag it under. At exactly 1, the ball adds nothing either way. | 1 | — |
| DinoballBuffBlacklist | The comma-separated roll call of buff classes that must never survive a dino's trip into a Dinoball. It's half of a pair — nothing on this list takes effect until UseBuffBlacklist is enabled. | (empty) | — |
| DinoballBuffWhitelist | Comma-separated buff classes guaranteed to ride along when a creature goes into Dinoball storage. The mod won't read this field at all until UseBuffWhitelist is turned on, so set the two together. | (empty) | — |
| UseBuffWhitelist | The activation switch for whitelist-based buff handling — once enabled, Dinoballs preserve every buff class named in DinoballBuffWhitelist through storage. Until then, that list is furniture. | FALSE | — |
| UseBuffBlacklist | Puts DinoballBuffBlacklist into force, so any buff class it names gets stripped when a creature enters storage. A carefully written blacklist paired with this toggle left off is the failure mode to watch for. | FALSE | — |
| AbortingRefundsMatingCooldown | Determines whether cancelling a gestation hands the mating cooldown back rather than burning it. Disable it to give aborted pregnancies a real price — breeders will think twice before rerolling a litter. | TRUE | — |
| OasisaurReviveAllowCooldownInBall | Whether time spent inside a Dinoball counts toward the Oasisaur's revive cooldown. Disable it and balling the creature freezes that clock, so the next revive only gets closer while the Oasisaur is deployed. | TRUE | — |
| DelayMatingBehaviourRestore | Holds back the restoration of mating and wandering for a brief window rather than flipping them on at once — the point is to stop pairs from breeding the moment those behaviours return. Turn it off and everything comes back immediately, unplanned pregnancies included. | TRUE | — |
| GigantoraptorFeatherAllowCooldownInBall | Governs whether a Gigantoraptor's feather timer keeps running while the creature is balled. Switch it off and time spent inside a Dinoball no longer counts — the cooldown freezes in storage and resumes only once the bird is released. | TRUE | — |
Each stat — health, stamina, torpor, oxygen, food, and glowpet charge — gets its own rules for what it does during storage. Note that the recovery multipliers have no floor: a negative value turns regeneration into a slow leak.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| HealthValueBehaviour | Dictates what happens to a stored creature's Health: mode 0 lets it recover gradually at the pace set by HealthRecoveryMultiplier, mode 1 disables regeneration outright, and mode 2 sends the creature out at full Health every time. | 0 | — |
| StaminaValueBehaviour | Governs Stamina handling during storage — regenerate it over time paced by StaminaRecoveryMultiplier (mode 0), block recovery entirely (mode 1), or return the creature with a topped-off bar (mode 2). | 0 | — |
| TorpidityValueBehaviour | Selects the handling rule applied to a stored creature's Torpidity. Mode 0 ticks the stat over time at whatever rate TorpidityRecoveryMultiplier sets, mode 1 freezes it in place, and mode 2 forces it to stay maxed — the one combination the official docs single out as unwise for this particular stat. | 0 | — |
| OxygenValueBehaviour | The per-stat handling rule for a stored creature's Oxygen: mode 0 regenerates it on a timer scaled by OxygenRecoveryMultiplier, mode 1 halts regeneration entirely, and mode 2 locks the stat at full. The mod's caution about mode 2 was written for Torpidity — Oxygen carries no such warning. | 0 | — |
| FoodValueBehaviour | Governs the Food stat for creatures held in a Dinoball: mode 0 refills it gradually at the pace FoodRecoveryMultiplier dictates, mode 1 halts any regeneration, and mode 2 keeps the stat permanently topped off. | 0 | — |
| HealthRecoveryMultiplier | The rate at which Health ticks back up for a balled creature whenever HealthValueBehaviour is in its regenerating mode. No floor or ceiling is enforced on the value — go below zero and storage becomes a slow bleed rather than a heal. | 2.5 | — |
| StaminaRecoveryMultiplier | How quickly Stamina comes back for a creature in storage, applied only while StaminaValueBehaviour is left in regenerate mode. Nothing clamps the value, so a negative entry turns the ball into a stamina drain instead of a rest stop. | 5 | — |
| TorpidityRecoveryMultiplier | Sets the per-tick rate for Torpidity when TorpidityValueBehaviour is in regenerate mode — and it's the one multiplier that ships below zero, meaning stored creatures shed torpor rather than gain it. No bounds are enforced in either direction, so a positive value here has torpor climbing while the creature sits in the ball. | -3 | — |
| OxygenRecoveryMultiplier | Scales how fast Oxygen returns for a creature in a Dinoball, applying only when OxygenValueBehaviour is in its regenerating mode. The value is unclamped by design, and dropping it below zero flips recovery into a steady loss. | 3 | — |
| FoodRecoveryMultiplier | Controls the refill speed of the Food stat during storage, relevant only while FoodValueBehaviour is set to its regenerating mode. As with the other stat multipliers there are no guardrails — a negative number means creatures burn Food in the ball instead of restoring it. | 3 | — |
| ChargeRegeneratesInDinoball | Controls whether charge pets continue topping up their charge while stored in a Dinoball. Disabled, the ball works like stasis for recovery — a pet that goes in drained comes out just as drained, and recharging has to happen out in the open. | TRUE | — |
| ChargeRegenerationMultiplier | Scales the rate at which balled charge pets regain charge, relative to normal speed. It's a dependent setting: unless ChargeRegeneratesInDinoball is enabled, there's no in-ball regeneration for this multiplier to touch. | 1 | — |
These settings define which creatures a ball will accept: sleeping targets, pregnant ones, vehicles, platform-saddle carriers, and the lone Liopleurodon that ships un-catchable. The per-species whitelist and blacklist controls sit in this group as well.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| CaptureInventoryHandlingMode | Sets the fate of whatever a creature was carrying at the moment of capture. Mode 0 transfers the items to you but stops at 70% of your maximum weight, mode 1 loads you up with no regard for what you can carry, and mode 2 skips you entirely — everything lands in a cache at the spot where the creature stood. | 0 | — |
| CapturePlatformMode | Determines the Dinoball and Digitizer's policy for creatures that have structures built on their platform saddles. Mode 0 makes the capture wait on an explicit confirmation, mode 1 refuses such captures outright, and mode 2 grabs creature and buildings together without pausing to check. | 0 | — |
| ConfirmPickupCaptureTimeoutSeconds | The confirmation window, in seconds, that a Dinoball holds open when its capture target is a platform-saddle creature carrying structures. Owners of rolling fortresses may want more deliberation time than the stock window offers before the prompt lapses. | 5 | — |
| AllowAnyoneCaptureMissionCreatures | Determines whether mission creatures are eligible for capture by the entire player base rather than being off-limits. Enable it only if you're at peace with mission spawns disappearing into somebody's pocket. | FALSE | — |
| AllowCaptureLiopleurodon | A single-species permission: whether players are allowed to capture the Liopleurodon at all. The mod hands this creature its own dedicated gate, so it stays immune to Dinoballs regardless of your other capture settings until you open it here. | FALSE | — |
| AllowCaptureUnclaimed | Whether unclaimed creatures are fair game for the Dinoball and Digitizer — going by the key's name, anyway, since the official description omits the word 'unclaimed' and only asks whether these tools can capture dinos at all. Treat the precise scope as unverified. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server. | TRUE | — |
| HurtCaptureMinDamage | The minimum damage a hit must deal before it triggers a creature's capture cooldown. Out of the box the bar sits low enough that virtually any contact starts the timer; raising the threshold keeps incidental scratches from blocking captures. | 0.1 | — |
| HurtCaptureCooldownSeconds | The duration, in seconds, of the capture lockout applied after a creature takes qualifying damage. Lengthen it when combat-fresh dinos ought to remain uncatchable for a proper breather rather than a token pause. | 5 | — |
| CaptureObeysHurtCooldown | Determines whether a dino that took damage moments ago can be captured at all — with the check active, the mod refuses the attempt until the hurt window passes. Disable it on servers that treat mid-combat capture as legitimate strategy rather than a loophole. | TRUE | — |
| CaptureObeysCryoPreventionBuffs | Ties capture rules to vanilla cryopod logic: while active, any buff that would normally block a cryopod blocks a capture on identical grounds. When inactive, the mod pays those buffs no attention and takes the dino regardless — enable this if Dinoballs should be held to cryopod standards. | FALSE | — |
| CaptureBlacklist | A comma-separated roster of creatures that Dinoballs and the Digitizer must refuse to capture. The roster carries no authority by itself — CaptureObeysBlacklist is the switch that makes the mod actually read it. | (empty) | — |
| CaptureWhitelist | Defines, comma-separated, exactly which creatures Dinoball and Digitizer capture will accept. The mod won't consult it until CaptureObeysWhitelist is active, so the two settings only make sense configured as a pair. | (empty) | — |
| CaptureObeysBlacklist | Activates blacklist screening for manual captures — every Dinoball or Digitizer attempt gets checked against CaptureBlacklist before it lands. While this stays off, that list is dead text, which explains why a populated blacklist can still enforce nothing. | FALSE | — |
| CaptureObeysWhitelist | Turns CaptureWhitelist from a suggestion into a rule: a creature must appear on that list before a Dinoball or Digitizer capture goes through. With this off, the whitelist gets consulted by no one and therefore restricts no one. | FALSE | — |
| CaptureGestatingMode | Determines what Dinoballs and Digitizers do when the target is mid-gestation: mode 0 asks before capturing, mode 1 captures with no questions asked, and mode 2 refuses entirely. Pick based on how much protection pregnant creatures deserve from a stray throw. | 0 | — |
| AllowCaptureVehicles | Extends the capture system to vehicles, which are otherwise ineligible. The official documentation never specifies which vehicle types actually qualify, so verify in-game before promising players anything specific. | FALSE | — |
| AllowCaptureSleeping | Determines whether a sleeping dino is a valid Dinoball target. Left disabled, capture attempts have to wait for the creature to wake; enable it and nap time stops being a defense. | FALSE | — |
| CaptureNearbyStructureType | The blueprint path that capture-side proximity checks match against when scanning for structures; out of the box it keys on the plain floor foundation. Mirror it with ReleaseNearbyStructureType if capture and release should be judged by the same structure class. | /Game/PrimalEarth/Structures/BuildingBases/TilesetBases/StructureBase_Floor.StructureBase_Floor | — |
| CaptureNearbyStructureMode | Defines the foundation check a Dinoball performs at the moment of capture: mode 0 skips it entirely, modes 1-3 require a nearby foundation with progressively looser ownership (tribe-only, tribe or allied, anyone's), and modes 4-5 invert the logic to block release near enemy — or enemy plus allied — foundations. The official documentation never names a starting mode, and we won't guess one on its behalf. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server. | (empty) | — |
| NearbyCaptureStructureRange | Sets how wide an area the mod scans for qualifying structures during a capture attempt. The official sheet never states the unit — foundations is the safe reading, since that's what every range it bothers to label uses — and the check itself only fires when Capture Nearby Structure Mode is set to demand structures at all. | 10 | — |
| NearbyCaptureStructureAmount | The minimum count of qualifying structures that must sit within range before a capture goes through. Raising it forces players to demonstrate actual construction nearby instead of dropping one throwaway foundation to satisfy the check. | 1 | — |
| LogCapturesInTribeLog | Controls whether tribe logs record every dino capture. Most owners keep it enabled for accountability: a written record of who balled what tends to end disputes before they start. | TRUE | — |
Everything the mod verifies before letting a creature back out — tame caps, boss arenas, cave zones, map download restrictions, overlap tests, and foundation requirements. Because a ball freezes its contents exactly as captured, these rules only get enforced the moment you release, along with any release-time buffs you've configured.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| ReleaseIgnoresPreventionVolumes | Controls whether the release check bypasses the game's protected zones — boss arenas and the Tek cave. Enabled, a Dinoball becomes a loophole for bringing creatures into spaces the game normally locks down; disable it to keep those restrictions in force. | TRUE | — |
| ReleaseIgnoresDownloadRules | Governs whether a map's creature-download restrictions are enforced when releasing from a Dinoball — Aberration being the textbook case. Disabled, the map keeps its veto over what comes out of the ball; enabled, everything gets waved through. | FALSE | — |
| ReleaseIgnoresTameCap | Decides whether the server's tame cap can block a Dinoball release. Enabling it lets stored creatures come out even on a capped server — convenient for the player holding the ball, less so for whoever watches the dino count. | FALSE | — |
| ReleaseIgnoresMissionRules | Controls whether mission rules factor into the check for releasing a stored creature. Left disabled, a Dinoball obeys the same mission restrictions as any other release; enabled, it stops asking. | FALSE | — |
| ReleaseChecksStructureOverlap | Whether the mod verifies the release point is clear of structures before letting a creature out of its ball. Disabling it trades placement safety for convenience — releases proceed even when the landing zone is the middle of someone's build. | TRUE | — |
| ReleaseChecksDinoOverlap | The dino-flavoured companion to the structure check: a release is refused when another creature already occupies the target space. High-population servers sometimes disable it, preferring occasional model clipping to releases that won't go through. | TRUE | — |
| PostReleasePlayerBuffs | Defines which buffs land on the player each time they release a dino, entered as a comma-separated list. An empty value means release grants the player no bonus at all. See PostReleaseDinoBuffs for the equivalent applied to the creature. | (empty) | — |
| PostReleaseDinoBuffs | The buffs a creature receives on being released, supplied as a comma-separated list. Left empty, dinos step out of capture with nothing extra applied. Its player-facing twin is PostReleasePlayerBuffs. | (empty) | — |
| PostReleaseBuffsMode | Governs the conditional logic behind release buffs: whether the player-buff and dino-buff lists both fire unconditionally (mode 0), or one side only fires when the other landed at least one match — mode 1 gates the dino buffs behind a player-buff match, mode 2 gates the player buffs behind a dino-buff match. None of it matters until the PostReleasePlayerBuffs and PostReleaseDinoBuffs lists actually contain entries. | 0 | — |
| ReleaseNearbyStructureRange | Sets the radius the foundation check sweeps around a release point — in a unit the official docs never pin down. This value is inert while ReleaseNearbyStructureMode remains at 0, since no scan happens at all. | 10 | — |
| ReleaseNearbyStructureAmount | The minimum number of foundations that must sit inside the scan radius for the nearby-structure check to be satisfied. Raising it keeps a single orphaned foundation from passing as a legitimate base. | 1 | — |
| ReleaseNearbyStructureMode | The master rule for where Dinoballs may release: modes 1 through 3 demand foundations nearby (tribe-owned, tribe-or-ally, or anyone's, respectively), while 4 and 5 flip the logic and forbid releasing beside enemy — or enemy and allied — structures. At 0 the check is switched off entirely; scan distance and required foundation count are drawn from ReleaseNearbyStructureRange and ReleaseNearbyStructureAmount. | 0 | — |
| ReleaseIgnoresCaveVolumes | Governs whether cave volumes constrain where a Dinoball can release its occupant. Fair warning: the key name reads as 'caves are ignored' while the official line asks if release should be blocked by caves, and nothing in the docs settles which direction TRUE actually points — verify on your own hardware before trusting it. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server. | TRUE | — |
| ReleaseNearbyStructureType | Defines which structure class the release-side proximity check scans for, supplied as a blueprint path — the stock value targets ordinary floor foundations. It does nothing unless ReleaseNearbyStructureMode has the nearby-structure check enabled, so configure that setting first. | /Game/PrimalEarth/Structures/BuildingBases/TilesetBases/StructureBase_Floor.StructureBase_Floor | — |
| ReleaseObeysWhitelist | The enforcement switch for whitelist checks on release — until you enable it, whatever you've entered in RelaseWhitelist has zero bearing on which dinos can exit their Dinoballs. | FALSE | — |
| RelaseWhitelist | Holds the dino blueprint paths, comma-separated, that release will permit — and it only applies while ReleaseObeysWhitelist is enabled. The misspelled key name ships with the mod itself; write 'Relase' in your ini, because the corrected spelling won't be read. | (empty) | — |
| ReleaseObeysBlacklist | Turns on blacklist screening when dinos are released from Dinoballs. Without it, the entries in ReleaseBlacklist are dead weight — nothing ever consults them. | FALSE | — |
| ReleaseBlacklist | The blueprint paths of dinos that release will refuse, entered as a comma-separated list and active only while ReleaseObeysBlacklist is enabled. This one the mod managed to spell correctly — its whitelist counterpart wasn't so lucky. | (empty) | — |
| ReleaseOverlapCheckMultiplier | A scale factor applied to the collision bounds the mod tests before a dino can come out of its Dinoball. Values below 1 shrink the check so releases succeed in cramped bases; push it higher and the game demands more open ground before anything materializes. | 0.5 | — |
| LogReleasesInTribeLog | Controls whether every dino release gets an entry in the tribe log. Worth leaving on — when something large and toothy appears where it shouldn't, the log names the tribemate responsible. | TRUE | — |
Settings for the ball as inventory: throw permissions while mounted, submerged, or sprinting, auto-swap and stacking logic, weight and stack limits, and the option to burn crystal in place of an empty ball. The cryopod-to-Dinoball conversion toggle is also in this group.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| PreventDinoballUpload | Controls whether Dinoballs are barred from the upload system. The guard exists because ARK's single-player and non-dedicated modes carry a bug that knocks any dino held in an uploaded ball back down to level 1 — lift the block only if you've made peace with that risk. | TRUE | — |
| DinoballNotifiesDinoNameOnEquip | Governs the audible readout on Dinoballs — equip one and it identifies the creature it holds, name and gender both. Handy for telling identical balls apart; switch it off for quieter inventory management. | TRUE | — |
| AllowDinoballFireRiding | Whether Dinoballs can be thrown from the saddle. Switch it off and players must dismount before making a capture attempt, trading mounted convenience for a more deliberate pace. | TRUE | — |
| AllowDinoballFireSubmerged | Controls Dinoball throws made while submerged. With it off, underwater creatures can't be captured by ball until the encounter moves somewhere drier. | TRUE | — |
| AllowDinoballRadialSwap | Controls radial-swap access while a Dinoball is in hand. The Digitizer's version lives under its own key (AllowDigitizerRadialSwap), so the two tools can be permitted or blocked independently. | TRUE | — |
| DinoballAutoSwapsCapture | Whether catching a dino instantly re-arms your hand with a fresh Empty Dinoball. Turning it off makes back-to-back captures cost a manual trip through the inventory before the next throw. | TRUE | — |
| DinoballAutoSwapsRelease | Whether the mod queues up the next relevant Dinoball in your hand after each release. With it enabled, emptying a whole roster of balls flows as one continuous sequence instead of a swap-per-ball chore. | TRUE | — |
| DinoballAutoStackMode | Determines the conditions under which Empty Dinoballs combine into stacks: mode 0 stacks every time, 1 only merges into an already-existing stack, 2 merges into an existing stack or kicks in past the count set by DinoballAutoStackMinAmount, and 3 disables stacking altogether. That threshold key is read by mode 2 alone — under any other mode it sits idle. | 0 | — |
| DinoballAutoStackMinAmount | The threshold count of Empty Dinoballs that must accumulate before the auto-stacker bothers merging them. The mod only reads this value when DinoballAutoStackMode is set to 2 — under any other mode it sits in the config as dead weight. | 1 | — |
| DinoballSubmergedProjectileLifespan | The flight timer that takes over the moment a thrown Dinoball dips below the water line, cutting its travel far shorter than in open air. Extend it when aquatic captures demand throws that survive more than a brief plunge. | 0.75 | — |
| DinoballProjectileLifespan | Caps how long a Dinoball stays in flight under ordinary above-water conditions before expiring mid-air. Submerged travel is governed separately — DinoballSubmergedProjectileLifespan takes over once the ball hits water, on a far shorter fuse. | 5 | — |
| DinoballTooltipUpdateIntervalSeconds | How frequently, in seconds, a Dinoball tooltip re-polls the info it displays. The whole refresh happens client-side with zero writes to the stored creature, so treat this as a UI smoothness dial rather than anything gameplay-relevant. | 2 | — |
| DinoballStackMaxQuantity | The stack ceiling for Dinoball Stacks — how many fit in one inventory slot before spilling into the next. Purely a logistics knob: generous caps favor the hoarders, tight ones make ball management part of the game. | 500 | — |
| DinoballBaseWeight | Assigns the carry weight of Dinoballs and their Stacks. This is the lever that decides whether hauling a pocketful of captured creatures is weightless convenience or a genuine loadout tradeoff. | 0.5 | — |
| AllowConsumeCrystalAsDinoball | Decides whether raw crystal counts as valid Dinoball fuel in Terminals and Digitizers. With it enabled the capture economy piggybacks on an ordinary farmable resource; disabled, only the genuine article gets accepted. | TRUE | — |
| AllowDinoballThrowWhileRunning | Controls whether a Dinoball can be lobbed mid-sprint. Switching it off forces players to halt before attempting a capture — a little friction for servers that want grabs to feel earned. | TRUE | — |
| DinoballDragWeightMultiplier | The coefficient applied to a captured creature's drag weight when computing how heavy its occupied Dinoball becomes; the result stacks on the ball's base weight. It only matters once EnableDinoballDynamicWeight is switched on — without that, this number sits idle. | 0.25 | — |
| EnableDinoballDynamicWeight | Ties an occupied Dinoball's weight to its occupant, computed as the ball's base weight plus the captive's drag weight scaled by DinoballDragWeightMultiplier. Leave it disabled and every filled ball weighs the same whether it holds a Dodo or a Giga — convenient, if physically indefensible. | FALSE | — |
| ResourceUseMode | Selects which capture methods must consume an empty Dinoball. Under mode 0 every form of capture spends one; mode 1 waives the cost for Terminal auto-capture, mode 2 for Digitizer captures, and mode 3 exempts both. | 0 | — |
| CryosAutoConvertToDinoballs | Decides whether cryopods transform into Dinoballs the instant a player picks them up. This is the built-in path for retiring cryopods from a server: every pod that passes through an inventory gets swapped, and the old format bleeds out of circulation on its own. | FALSE | — |
Controls for the Digitizer weapon: its reach, the cooldown between shots, whether it works from dinoback, underwater, or at a sprint, and its rules for scooping up death caches it comes across.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| AllowDigitizerFireRiding | Whether mounted players can use the Digitizer without getting off first. Turning it off adds a mandatory dismount to every capture, a deliberate bit of friction for servers that find saddle-side digitizing a little too efficient. | TRUE | — |
| AllowDigitizerFireSubmerged | Governs whether the Digitizer functions beneath the surface. Shut it off and aquatic captures lose their shortcut — the tool simply won't fire until you're back above water. | TRUE | — |
| DigitizerRangeFoundations | How far the Digitizer's shot reaches, expressed in foundation lengths. Trimming it forces players to actually approach a creature rather than digitizing it from across the valley. | 35 | — |
| AllowDigitizerRadialSwap | The Digitizer-side counterpart to AllowDinoballRadialSwap: it decides whether radial swapping functions while the Digitizer is equipped. Since each tool reads only its own toggle, you're free to shut off one and keep the other. | TRUE | — |
| DigitizerPlayerCachePickupMode | Sets the ownership scope for the player death caches a Digitizer may collect, widening from your own only (0) through tribe (1) and allies (2) up to everybody's (3), with 4 blocking cache pickup outright. On a PvP server, mode 3 quietly turns the Digitizer into a corpse-looting instrument — decide whether that's a feature before your players do. | 0 | — |
| DigitizerCachePickupMode | A parallel cache-pickup permission whose tiers start at tribe level: 0 covers you and your tribe, 1 extends to allies, 2 opens it to anyone, 3 blocks pickup. The official description is a straight copy of the player-death-cache text from DigitizerPlayerCachePickupMode, so the docs never spell out which cache type this key actually covers. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server. | 0 | — |
| DigitizerCanPickupWildCache | Permits the Digitizer to collect caches dropped by wild creatures — alpha drops being the documented example. Switch it off and that loot goes back to being retrieved on foot. | TRUE | — |
| DigitizerFireDelay | Controls the pause the Digitizer enforces between shots — each trigger pull starts a timer that must expire before the next. A higher value slows the tool into something deliberate; keep it low and it behaves closer to an automatic weapon than a piece of storage equipment. | 0.2 | — |
| AllowDigitizerFireWhileRunning | The Digitizer's version of the run-and-throw question: whether it can fire while its user is moving at speed. It ships with the opposite stance to Dinoball throwing — locked until you say otherwise — so enable this if you'd rather the two capture tools play by one rule. | FALSE | — |
Core Depot Terminal settings — slot count, power requirement, health pool, decay rate, spoil-timer multipliers, insulation radius, tribute functionality, and the kill commands. Per-area placement limits round out the list, should terminal farms become a problem on your map.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| AllowTerminalInsulateInRange | Whether the Depot Terminal radiates an insulation effect into the space around it. Enable it and the footprint of that effect is governed by the companion setting, TerminalInsulationRangeFoundations. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalInsulationRangeFoundations | The reach of the Terminal's insulation effect, measured in foundation lengths. It does nothing while AllowTerminalInsulateInRange is disabled, so treat that toggle as the switch and this as the dial. | 5 | — |
| TerminalSlotCount | The inventory capacity of each Depot Terminal, counted in slots. Serious collectors scale it up; anyone who feels one structure shouldn't hold a warehouse can rein it in. | 500 | — |
| TerminalDecayMultiplier | A multiplier on how fast Depot Terminals decay, where 1 keeps them aging at the standard structure rate. Nudge it either way to make abandoned Terminals outlast or crumble ahead of the buildings around them. | 1 | — |
| TerminalIsTributeStructure | Governs whether the Depot Terminal counts as a tribute structure, filling the same role as an Obelisk or Transmitter. Disable it and that convenience disappears — tribute business goes back to the map's dedicated structures. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalRangeDisplayTimeoutSeconds | The lifespan of the Terminal's range visualization — after this many seconds the overlay shuts off on its own. Mostly a quality-of-life dial: extend it when you need more time to plan pen boundaries around the coverage area. | 20 | — |
| TerminalRequiresPower | Ties Terminal operation to an electrical hookup. Dropping the requirement suits primitive-style servers, or any admin who'd rather not wire up power before the dino-storage machinery comes alive. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalItemSpoilTimeMultiplier | Scales how quickly anything stored in a Depot Terminal spoils — values over 1 stretch the timer, values under 1 shrink it. Bear in mind the effect is tied to electricity: unless you've changed TerminalSpoilMultiplierRequiresPower, an unpowered Terminal grants no spoil adjustment at all. | 2 | — |
| TerminalConsumableSpoilTimeMultiplier | Adjusts spoil speed specifically for consumables sitting in Terminal storage — anything above 1 buys them extra shelf time, anything below 1 burns it down quicker. Reach for this when food should follow different preservation rules than the rest of what's stored. | 2 | — |
| TerminalEggSpoilTimeMultiplier | Governs how fast eggs decay while parked in a Depot Terminal: past 1 the timer stretches, under 1 it contracts. Breeding-focused servers touch this when the egg supply should outlast the standard countdown — or expire sooner, if hoarding is the problem being solved. | 2 | — |
| TerminalSpoilMultiplierRequiresPower | Gates the terminal's spoil-timer multipliers behind a power connection — no electricity, and stored perishables tick down at the standard rate. Disable it to let the multipliers apply with or without a generator in the loop. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalKillXpMultiplier | Scales the experience players earn for creature kills carried out through the terminal. Anything above 1 rewards the terminal route more generously than a field kill, so bring it back to exactly 1 if you want XP identical either way. | 1.2 | — |
| AllowKillInTerminal | Governs whether the terminal interface offers a kill option for the creatures inside it. Servers that prefer death to happen out in the world rather than via a UI button will want this switched off. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalHealthAmount | The Depot Terminal's hit-point pool. Since a single terminal can hold a tribe's whole menagerie, PvP servers may want it considerably sturdier than the base built around it. | 150000 | — |
| TerminalIncomingDamageMultiplier | A scaling factor applied to every hit the terminal absorbs — under 1 softens incoming damage, over 1 amplifies it. This gives you a second durability lever alongside TerminalHealthAmount, handy for tuning toughness without inflating the raw health number. | 1 | — |
| TerminalCanBeDamaged | The master switch for whether terminals register damage at all. Flip it off for full invulnerability — which also sidelines TerminalHealthAmount and TerminalIncomingDamageMultiplier, since no hit ever reaches them. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalVaultPhysics | Decides how a terminal reacts when its supporting foundations go: with vault-style physics enabled, the structure lands intact on the ground below; with it disabled, you get a cache drop in its place. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalKillGivesXp | Toggles the experience reward attached to the Terminal's kill and kill-all operations. Disable it when culling surplus creatures is meant to be housekeeping rather than a grind shortcut. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalKillTribeSharesXp | Determines whether XP earned through Terminal kill commands gets distributed across the tribe or lands solely on whoever pressed the button. Switch it off to make culling a solo-paid job. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalRangeDisplayHasTimeout | Governs the lifespan of the Terminal's auto-capture range indicator: left on, the visual fades away by itself; switched off, it stays on screen. Disabling it is handy during base planning, when you want the radius visible while positioning structures around the terminal. | TRUE | — |
| MaxTerminalsInRangeAmount | A placement limit on Depot Terminals within a given area, where the area's size comes from MaxTerminalsInRangeDistance. Be aware the mod's documentation never defines what 0 does here — no cap versus no Terminals at all — so treat the out-of-box behavior as unverified. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server. | 0 | — |
| MaxTerminalsInRangeDistance | Defines the radius, in foundation lengths, that the Terminal placement cap scans when counting what's already built nearby. It only matters in combination with MaxTerminalsInRangeAmount — by itself the number has no effect. | 20 | — |
| TerminalOnlyAllowsDinoballs | Restricts Depot Terminal inventories so Dinoballs are the only item players can deposit; left off, a Terminal will accept anything. Worth enabling when a shared Terminal keeps drifting into general-purpose storage instead of staying a dino facility. | FALSE | — |
The Terminal's signature trick: automatically balling any newborn that appears within its radius. This group covers scan range, batch limits, inventory handling, species filters, and the mating shutoff that kicks in once the terminal runs out of room.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| AllowTerminalAutoCaptureNewborn | Grants Depot Terminals the ability to scoop up newborn creatures automatically at birth. It's the difference between a nursery that files its own paperwork and one where you personally chase down every hatchling. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalAutoCaptureRangeFoundations | Sets the radius, measured in foundations, within which a Terminal sweeps up newborn creatures automatically. Size it to your breeding layout: too generous and one Terminal starts poaching from neighboring pens, too tight and outlying babies get missed. | 10 | — |
| TerminalChecksForBabiesOnActivation | Determines whether a Terminal scans its surroundings for newborns the instant it powers up. Disabled, any babies already loitering nearby when the Terminal comes online are simply skipped over. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalCapturesNewbornItems | Decides the fate of any items a newborn is carrying when a Terminal captures it: pulled into storage, or dumped where the baby stood. False means the floor gets the loot, so budget for some cleanup around the breeding pen. | TRUE | — |
| AutoCaptureBlacklist | The Terminal-side exclusion roster — creatures named here, comma-separated, are barred from Terminal auto-capture. As with its manual-capture counterpart, nothing is enforced until AutoCaptureObeysBlacklist is switched on. | (empty) | — |
| AutoCaptureWhitelist | Restricts Terminal auto-capture to the creatures spelled out here in comma-separated form. It stays inert until AutoCaptureObeysWhitelist is enabled — that companion toggle is what gives the list teeth. | (empty) | — |
| AutoCaptureObeysBlacklist | The switch that makes Terminal auto-capture respect AutoCaptureBlacklist — while active, each creature is vetted against that list before the Terminal pulls it in. Otherwise the Terminal's newborn auto-capture proceeds as though the blacklist didn't exist. | FALSE | — |
| AutoCaptureObeysWhitelist | Enforcement for AutoCaptureWhitelist: while active, a Terminal will only auto-capture creatures that appear on that list. Worth enabling when the automated intake should be selective about species instead of grabbing everything eligible. | FALSE | — |
| TerminalAutoDisablesMatingWhenFull | Governs whether a Depot Terminal that hits capacity shuts down mating and wandering for every creature within its reach, so the breeding line stops producing babies with nowhere to go. Turn it off if breeding should continue regardless and you plan to manage the pile-up yourself. | TRUE | — |
| NewbornAutoCaptureBatchSize | Sets the per-batch limit on newborn auto-capture — the number of babies the terminal will pull in a single pass. One wrinkle carries over from the mod's own documentation: it records two possible defaults (25 or 150) with no word on which applies, so the value actually running in your config is the only trustworthy answer. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server. | 25 OR 150 | — |
Settings that let stored dinos generate resources on a timer — passive production output, scheduled poop, and automatic fertilizer delivery to crop plots in range. The production rules themselves live in an external JSON file; the relevant field links to a builder tool.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| TerminalPassiveProduceIntervalSeconds | Sets the gap, in seconds, between a Terminal's passive-generation attempts for whatever creatures it holds. Shrinking the number speeds up the production loop; growing it puts the whole operation on a more leisurely cadence. | 120 | — |
| CreaturePassiveProduceIntervalMultiplier | A scaling factor applied to how often each creature passively generates inside a Terminal — anything under 1 tightens the interval, anything over 1 stretches it out. Note that it adjusts how frequently production ticks, never how much each tick yields. | 1 | — |
| PassiveProductionConfig | Points the mod at a remote JSON config for passive production, fetched via HTTP GET from whatever address you supply; leave the field empty and Dino Depot never phones out, running purely on local settings. A point-and-click builder for that JSON lives at dinodepot-editor.pages.dev, courtesy of the mod author. | (empty) | — |
| AllowTerminalPassiveProduce | The on/off gate for the entire Terminal passive-production system. Disable it and stored creatures generate nothing at all, which also renders the interval and multiplier knobs downstream of it irrelevant. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalPassiveProduceRequiresPower | Ties Terminal passive production to the power grid: while enabled, a Terminal with no electricity still holds creatures but ships zero output. Disable it to let production run whether or not a generator is in the picture. | TRUE | — |
| AllowBabyPassiveProduce | Determines whether juvenile creatures factor into a Terminal's passive-production math. Left off, only grown creatures contribute; switch it on and the babies start earning their keep before maturity. | FALSE | — |
| TerminalPoopGeneration | Governs whether Depot Terminals are allowed to produce poop at all. The interval, chance, and cap settings downstream all hang off this one — with it disabled, none of them does anything. | TRUE | — |
| PoopGenerationRequiresPower | Makes poop production conditional on the terminal having power. Switch it off and unpowered terminals keep producing — the right call for primitive-style servers where biology shouldn't need an outlet. | TRUE | — |
| BabiesGeneratePoop | Determines whether baby dinos are counted when poop generation runs. Turn it off to make output an adults-only affair — until they grow up, juveniles add nothing to production. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalPoopGenerationInterval | The timer between the terminal's poop-production attempts. An attempt is not a guarantee — each one still rolls against Poop Generation Chance before anything materializes. The official sheet omits the unit here; everywhere it does specify one, intervals run in seconds. | 300 | — |
| PoopGenerationChance | The probability that an individual dino succeeds on any given poop-generation attempt, on a 0-to-1 scale. Set it high for a steady fertilizer income, low if manure is supposed to feel earned. | 0.5 | — |
| PoopGenerationCap | A hard limit on generation output — production stops at this ceiling regardless of how many creatures a terminal holds. Its job is keeping densely stocked terminals from becoming manure wholesalers. | 15 | — |
| TerminalFertilizerDistribution | Grants Depot Terminals the ability to hand fertilizer out to crop plots in range. Together with the poop-generation settings it forms the automated end of the farming loop — the part where you stop personally couriering fertilizer around the greenhouse. | TRUE | — |
| FertilizerDistributionRequiresPower | Whether a terminal must be powered before it will deliver fertilizer. Servers running low-tech bases that never wired a grid will want this off so distribution carries on without electricity. | TRUE | — |
| FertilizerDistributionInterval | The spacing between a terminal's fertilizer delivery rounds; if crops are starving before the next pass arrives, tighten the gap. One documentation note: the official sheet attaches no unit to this value, but seconds is what every unit-labeled interval in the config uses. | 300 | — |
| FertilizerDistributionRange | The search radius, measured in foundations, within which a terminal locates crop plots to feed. Anything planted past that edge gets nothing, so match it to the real footprint of your growing operation. | 20 | — |
| AllowChildClassesInPassiveProduction | Determines whether variant and child classes participate in the passive production configured for their base type — the documented example being Aberrant snails yielding whatever standard snails yield. Switched off, a variant only produces passively if it has an entry of its own. | TRUE | — |
The egg machinery: unfertilized laying with bonuses for Oviraptors and Hespers, incubation of fertilized eggs, and automatic collection of eggs dropped near the terminal. Nearly all of it expects the terminal to be powered, though each power requirement has its own toggle.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| AllowTerminalProduceUnfertilizedEggs | The top-level switch for passive unfertilized egg production inside the terminal. Kill it and the companion settings — TerminalUnfertilizedEggIntervalSeconds and TerminalUnfertilizedEggsRequiresPower — go inert, since there's no production left for them to govern. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalUnfertilizedEggsRequiresPower | Ties unfertilized egg output to the terminal's power state — no electricity, no eggs. Switch it off and production carries on regardless of whether the terminal is wired. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalUnfertilizedEggIntervalSeconds | The clock governing egg-laying rounds inside the terminal. There's no randomness involved — when the timer fires, every eligible stored female produces an egg — so trimming the interval multiplies production across everything you have stored. | 1020 | — |
| AllowBabiesProduceUnfertilizedEggs | Controls whether babies are included when the Terminal tallies unfertilized egg production. Disabled, babies are left out of the math — biology gets a vote; enabled, every baby in the Terminal inflates the yield. | FALSE | — |
| UnfertilizedEggProductionRequiresMale | Determines whether the Terminal withholds unfertilized eggs until a male is present. The requirement is ceremonial — nothing about these eggs involves fertilization — so switching it off lets a female-only lineup produce unassisted. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalUnfertilizedEggAmountMultiplier | Scales the quantity of unfertilized eggs the Terminal produces during each lay interval. The raw figure is rounded to a whole number before anything appears, so this knob is only ever as precise as the rounding lets it be. | 1 | — |
| TerminalUnfertilizedEggOviraptorMultiplier | An additional multiplier on per-interval unfertilized egg output that engages whenever an Oviraptor is stationed in the Terminal — one is sufficient to trigger it. The final count goes through the same whole-number rounding as the base amount multiplier. | 1.66 | — |
| HesperGoldEggChance | Governs how often a Hesper's laid egg comes up golden. This single value decides whether golden eggs read as a steady side income or a genuine event worth mentioning. | 0.01 | — |
| AllowTerminalHesperGoldEggProduction | The master toggle deciding whether golden eggs from Hespers are possible in the first place — frequency belongs to HesperGoldEggChance, existence belongs here. Disable it and no roll of the dice will produce one. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalIncubationMultiplier | Sets the speed at which eggs stored in the Terminal work through their incubation. Values above 1 outpace normal incubation — and the shipped value already sits a hair above 1, so the Terminal starts with a mild edge before you touch anything. Push it higher to run hatching at industrial pace. | 1.1 | — |
| TerminalIncubationFloor | The cutoff for Terminal incubation on a 0–100 scale — eggs are brought down to this value and no further. The mod refuses anything below 0.01, and since that hard minimum is also what ships, the Terminal takes eggs about as far as it is allowed out of the box. | 0.01 | — |
| TerminalIncubationRequiresPower | Ties the Terminal's egg incubation to an active power supply. With it disabled, incubation carries on whether or not anything is actually feeding the Terminal electricity — blackout-proof hatching, if that suits your server. | TRUE | — |
| AllowTerminalIncubateFertilizedEggs | Grants or revokes the Terminal's ability to incubate fertilized eggs in the first place. Revoke it and hatching returns to the old-fashioned ritual of managed temperatures and personal supervision. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalUpdateIncubationInterval | Controls the tick rate at which the Terminal recalculates incubation progress for fertilized eggs. One documentation wrinkle: the unit is never specified officially — seconds is the sensible reading, but it is an inference rather than a stated fact. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server. | 30 | — |
| TerminalUnfertilizedEggLayChance | The probability roll deciding whether a Terminal-housed female produces an unfertilized egg. It is the dial that sets the pace of the whole operation: near 1 you get a production line, near 0 an occasional treat. | 0.15 | — |
| TerminalEggSearchIntervalSeconds | Sets the time between the Terminal's fertilized-egg scans, each of which is confined to the terminal's auto-capture radius. A longer interval just means eggs rest on the ground a little before pickup — few breeding operations are actually timed to the second. | 10 | — |
| AllowTerminalSearchNearbyEggs | The master switch for the Terminal's automatic detection and collection of fertilized eggs in its vicinity. Disable it on servers where gathering eggs by hand still counts as gameplay rather than a chore. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalEggSearchRequiresPower | Ties the Terminal's nearby-egg searching to its power state — an unpowered terminal sits idle until electricity returns. Disabling this lets collection run independent of your grid, which removes one failure mode from an unattended hatchery. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalEggSearchRequiresOviraptor | Makes an Oviraptor stored inside the terminal a prerequisite for the nearby-egg search. Switch it off and terminals collect eggs unstaffed — no resident egg specialist required. | TRUE | — |
| TerminalPickupEggPerSearchCap | The per-tick ceiling on fertilized-egg pickups — each search cycle stops collecting once it reaches this number, then waits for the next pass. Between this cap and the search interval, the throttle only bites at serious hatchery volume, so most servers never notice it exists. | 50 | — |
| AllowUnfertilizedEggSearching | Extends the fertilized egg pickup pass to collect unfertilized eggs along the way. Switch it off when the collector should stay strictly on breeding duty and leave the plain eggs where they fell. | TRUE | — |
A safety net that intercepts qualifying deaths, balls the creature, and routes it to a player or terminal within range. It ships disabled — you choose which causes of death are eligible and set the price of each rescue.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| AllowDeathAutoCapture | The gatekeeper for the entire Death Auto Capture feature — while it stays disabled, every related DeathAutoCapture option (item requirements, eligible death causes, destination for the creature) sits inert. Flip it on before expecting any of that configuration to do anything. | FALSE | — |
| DeathAutoCaptureRequiresItems | Defines which items get consumed when Death Auto Capture fires, listed as full blueprint paths separated by commas — the official docs use thatch plus element as their sample toll. Leave it empty and the rescue stays free; anything you add here needs matching amounts in DeathAutoCaptureRequiresItemQuantities. | (empty) | — |
| DeathAutoCaptureRequiresItemQuantities | Sets the per-item cost of a death capture, with each number applying to the entry at the same position in DeathAutoCaptureRequiresItems — a value of 1,5 charges one of the first material and five of the second. Because the pairing is by index, a quantities list that doesn't line up with the items list stops making sense, so edit the two together. | (empty) | — |
| DeathAutoCaptureMode | Controls the delivery destination for creatures rescued by Death Auto Capture: 0 routes to a nearby player, 1 to a nearby Terminal, while 2 and 3 try one target and fall back to the other (player-first and Terminal-first respectively). Pick a fallback mode if you want the capture to survive an empty radius. | 0 | — |
| AllowDeathAutoCaptureForReasons | Filters Death Auto Capture down to particular causes of death, supplied as a comma-separated selection from: Starved, Drowned, Burned, Poisoned, Radiated, ImpaledBySpikes, SufferedGravity, EnemyDinoAttacked, EnemyPlayerAttacked, and Other. The official example whitelists starvation and drowning — the deaths of neglect rather than combat. | (empty) | — |
| AllowDeathAutoCaptureAnyReason | A blanket switch that makes every cause of death eligible for auto-capture, equivalent to writing out all ten options in AllowDeathAutoCaptureForReasons by hand. Enable it when how the dino died shouldn't matter, only the rescue. | FALSE | — |
| DeathAutoCaptureSearchRadiusFoundations | The distance, measured in foundation lengths, that a dying creature's auto-capture scans for an inventory eligible to receive it. Nothing inside that circle means nowhere to deliver, so match the range to how your bases are actually laid out. | 10 | — |
| TerminalDeathAutoCaptureRequiresPower | Determines whether a Terminal must be powered before it can accept creatures arriving through Death Auto Capture — left on, a dead generator means the delivery bounces. Switch it off to let even a dark Terminal catch incoming dinos. | TRUE | — |
| DeathAutoCaptureRequiresEmptyDinoball | Governs whether each death capture burns an empty Dinoball, drawn from loose Empties, a Dinoball Stack, or crystal — the same consumption rules the Digitizer and Terminal follow. Disabled, the feature runs on nothing at all, which reads as either generous or exploitable depending on your server. | TRUE | — |
Configuration for the two auxiliary structures: the Storage Box that warehouses Dinoballs in bulk, and the Gene Storage used for trait work. Health, decay, slot counts, and placement caps for each are handled here.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| StorageBoxInventorySize | Determines how many inventory slots the Dinoball Storage Box offers. Shrink it if a single container quietly warehousing an entire ecosystem seems like more consolidation than one structure should get. | 500 | — |
| StorageBoxDecayMultiplier | Adjusts the auto-decay rate on the Dinoball Storage Box relative to standard speed. Values above 1 make abandoned boxes vanish sooner; values below 1 let them linger. | 1 | — |
| StorageBoxHealthAmount | The Storage Box's hit-point pool — the number a raiding party has to grind through before a stored dino collection is in play. It ships with over triple the durability of the Depot Terminal (150,000), so breaching one is a project, not a drive-by. | 500000 | — |
| StorageBoxVaultPhysics | Sets what a Storage Box does when the floor beneath it is demolished: vault behavior means it falls and lands intact, while disabling this makes it drop as an item cache instead. Off means one well-placed foundation hit converts a dino library into floor loot. | TRUE | — |
| MaxStoragesInRangeAmount | Limits how many Dinoball Storage Boxes can go up inside a single area, mirroring the equivalent Terminal cap. The documentation leaves 0 undefined — it could mean uncapped or banned outright — so verify on a test server before you build placement policy around it. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server. | 0 | — |
| MaxStoragesInRangeDistance | The radius, measured in foundations, that the Storage Box placement cap uses when tallying boxes in an area. It's the companion value to MaxStoragesInRangeAmount and accomplishes nothing without it. | 20 | — |
| GeneAlterationObeysSpeciesChecks | Toggles the species check that Gene Alteration performs before applying a trait. With it off, traits can land on species the check would otherwise refuse. | TRUE | — |
| GeneAlterationObeysBabyAgeChecks | The age-based sibling of the species check: this governs whether Gene Alteration validates a baby's age before a trait is applied. Off, trait application proceeds no matter how young the recipient is. | TRUE | — |
| GeneStorageRequiresPower | Ties the Gene Storage's operation to an electrical connection. Remove the requirement and the structure runs with no hookup at all — convenient for gene work in bases that never got around to wiring. | TRUE | — |
| GeneStorageMaxGenes | The ceiling on how many gene traits a single Gene Storage can bank — this measures stored traits, while physical inventory space is GeneStorageSlotCount's department. Breeding operations that manage to fill the archive can raise it. | 5000 | — |
| GeneStorageSlotCount | The number of physical item slots the Gene Storage offers. It has nothing to do with how many traits the unit holds — that ceiling lives in GeneStorageMaxGenes — so raising this only buys room for items. | 6 | — |
| GeneStorageDecayMultiplier | A scaling factor on the Gene Storage's decay timer, and one the official documentation leaves vague — 'affects the decay timer' is the entire spec, with no word on whether higher values slow decay or hasten it. Adjust in small steps and confirm the behaviour on your own server. ⚠ under-documented — verify on your own server. | 1 | — |
| GeneStorageStructureHealth | Governs how much damage the Gene Storage structure can soak before it breaks. It's far more fragile than the Depot Terminal (150,000 health), making it the weak point worth sheltering if anything on your server can hit buildings. | 10000 | — |
Staff-side bypasses covering most capture and release checks, plus the recovery backup system, the remote-config URL fields, and the lockout for the in-game settings menu. Any URL you supply needs to be a raw link, not a regular page.
| Setting | What it does | Default | Recommended |
|---|---|---|---|
| AdminBypassCaptureTeam | Exempts admins from the ownership check that normally blocks capturing creatures belonging to another tribe. Because this one arrives switched on, every account you promote to admin can immediately ball tames that aren't theirs — factor that into who gets the keys. | TRUE | — |
| AdminBypassCaptureAttached | Grants admins an exemption from the rule that a creature can't be captured while a character is attached to it. Enable it and an admin can ball a mount mid-ride; leave it alone and admins obey the same no-passengers restriction as everyone else. | FALSE | — |
| AdminBypassCaptureMission | An admin-only exemption from the capture check on mission-restricted creatures. It covers admins and nobody else — opening mission-creature capture to the whole server is a different switch, AllowAnyoneCaptureMissionCreatures. | FALSE | — |
| AdminBypassCaptureStructures | Lets admins ignore the attached-structure capture check — the guard that fires when a platform saddle still has buildings sitting on it. Until you flip it, an admin's capture attempt runs through the identical CapturePlatformMode logic that governs regular players. | FALSE | — |
| AdminReleaseIgnoresPreventionVolumes | An admin-scoped pass for the release checks that keep creatures out of boss rooms. It only matters on servers that have first restricted the player-facing ReleaseIgnoresPreventionVolumes, which ships enabled — until then, players and admins alike face no boss-room block to begin with. | FALSE | — |
| AdminReleaseIgnoresDownloadRules | Gives admins a pass on the download-rule checks that can veto a release — with Aberration the map where those rules classically bite. Its player-facing twin, ReleaseIgnoresDownloadRules, starts in the same restrictive posture, so neither group sidesteps download rules until you say so. | FALSE | — |
| AdminReleaseIgnoresTameCap | Governs whether an admin's release from a Dinoball is subject to the tame-cap check or waved straight through. Handy when staff need to let creatures out on a capped server; the everyone-else equivalent is ReleaseIgnoresTameCap. | FALSE | — |
| AdminReleaseIgnoresMissionRules | Controls whether mission-rule release checks still apply when the player opening the ball is an admin. Grant it when staff work means placing creatures where missions would normally object; ordinary players are covered by the separate ReleaseIgnoresMissionRules toggle. | FALSE | — |
| AdminReleaseIgnoresNearbyStructure | Exempts admin releases from the foundation rules that ReleaseNearbyStructureMode imposes on everyone else. Disable it when the people enforcing the release rules ought to be bound by them too. | TRUE | — |
| AdminReleaseIgnoresCaveVolumes | An admin-only exemption from the cave-volume restrictions on releasing creatures. Left alone, staff face the same cave rules as regular players; enabling it hands admins a pass for in-cave releases. | FALSE | — |
| AdminBypassCaptureUnclaimed | An admin exemption from the unclaimed-capture checks. Grant it and staff can ball up strays the rules would otherwise protect; without it, admin rank buys no special treatment at capture time. | FALSE | — |
| AdminBypassHurtCaptureCooldown | Exempts server admins from the hurt-capture check, letting them take a wounded dino while regular players would still be locked out. Left alone, admin status buys no shortcut here — the right call when staff should play by the same rules as everyone else. | FALSE | — |
| AdminBypassWildCapture | Extends capture rights over wild creatures to admins specifically. The mod treats this as strictly opt-in — admin rank alone never includes it — so untamed wildlife stays uncapturable until you enable this flag. | FALSE | — |
| AdminBypassCaptureSleeping | Grants admins an exemption from the sleeping-dino capture restriction, keeping moderation work independent of whether the target happens to be conscious. Naturally, it only matters while that sleeping rule is actually blocking regular players. | TRUE | — |
| AdminBypassNearbyCapture | Controls whether admins get access to a toggle that waives the nearby-structure requirement on captures. Note the mechanics: it grants the switch, not a standing exemption — each admin chooses when to flip it. Disable this and staff hunt down qualifying foundations like any other player. | TRUE | — |
| AdminRecoveryMaxDinosStored | The size of the rolling capture history the admin recovery menu retains — it only records manually captured dinos, and the documentation advises keeping the figure under 3000. Think of it as the depth of your undo stack when a capture goes sideways. | 500 | — |
| ForceCullRecoveryDataIntervalSeconds | The timer on the mod's scheduled recovery-data sweep, which trims the oldest entries whenever the stored count climbs past the maximum. It's plumbing rather than gameplay — few servers ever need to touch it. | 1200 | — |
| CaptureCullRecoveryDataAfterSeconds | The cooldown between a capture and the recovery-list cull it schedules; any further capture inside the window restarts the countdown. The effect is debouncing — a rapid string of captures produces one cleanup pass once the action stops rather than a cull per throw. | 10 | — |
| CullRecoveryDataAfterCapture | Toggles the capture-triggered cleanup of recovery data as a whole. Disable it and old entries only get cleared by the periodic sweep governed by ForceCullRecoveryDataIntervalSeconds. | TRUE | — |
| SpawnedDinoballsAreTemporary | Controls whether Dinoballs produced through admin tooling — the SpawnDinoInBall command and Admin Recovery restores alike — get flagged as temporary. Left disabled, balls an admin conjures are indistinguishable from the ones players earn honestly. | FALSE | — |
| HideAdminRecoveryInGame | Decides whether admin recovery is visible in-game at all. Enable it and the feature vanishes from player view entirely — for owners who prefer their recovery mechanism to go unadvertised. | FALSE | — |
| DigitizerFilterablesUrl | Points the mod at an external list defining which items and starting filters players receive on creature capture or when the Digitizer collects a cache. Host your own version and drop its link here to take control of the filter set server-wide. | https://pastebin.com/XD1eihLd | — |
| SpawnCommandConfigUrl | The remote source Dino Depot pulls its SpawnDinoInBall JSON configuration from. Swap in a link to your own raw JSON file to take control of the spawn-command config instead of tracking the mod author's hosted version. | https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DelilahEve/DinoDepot-RemoteConfig/main/SpawnDinoInBallDefaultConfig.json | — |
| DinoClassMappingsUrl | Feeds the mod a remote class-mapping JSON — the URL must be a raw link — that swaps a captured creature's class at the moment of release. Players see the original creature the whole time it's stored, then the mapped one walks out with zero advance notice. Blank means no remapping happens; a worked example lives in the DinoDepot-RemoteConfig repository on GitHub. | (empty) | — |
| ExtraEggStealDinos | Extends the mod's special egg-theft handling — the rules already applied to Wyverns, Drakes, and Magmasaurs — to any creature classes you list here (CSV). Add species whose eggs are acquired by theft rather than breeding, so the was-this-hatched-by-a-player check reads them correctly. | (empty) | — |
| BlockInGameSettings | An optional lock that removes the mod's in-game settings menu entirely, leaving the ini as the only place configuration can change. It does not touch the separate player preferences menu — that one stays open to every player and has no off switch. | FALSE | — |
| DinoDownloadOverrides | A comma-separated escape hatch for maps that restrict which dinos can be released — any class listed here bypasses the map-defined block, with Aberration's restrictions as the official example. An empty list means every map's rules apply unmodified. | (empty) | — |
| SkipTitanDownloadTimer | Forces the Titan download wait to be bypassed outright. Normally a Titan sits through the standard download timer like any other creature; enabling this waves it straight through. | FALSE | — |
The mod works untouched, so this is seasoning, not setup. Two changes we’d actually make on a casual server, plus the rule that saves the most support tickets.
| Setting | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| AllowDeathAutoCapture | True | A fallen dino lands in a ball, not on a body-recovery to-do list — the single most-wanted toggle. |
| TerminalRequiresPower | False | Terminals work off-grid (each automation feature also has its own RequiresPower switch). |
| CaptureObeysBlacklist | True | Only if you use CaptureBlacklist — every list ships with enforcement OFF and is ignored without it. |
GameUserSettings.ini — and here's the part that trips people up: there is no [DinoDepot] section in the file until you add one. Mod sections never ship in the stock file, so don't scroll around looking for it. Add the [DinoDepot] header line, put your changed settings under it, save, restart. Settings you don't include keep the mod's defaults.CaptureBlacklist does nothing until CaptureObeysBlacklist=True, and the same pairing applies to the whitelists, the release lists, the auto-capture lists, and the buff lists. Set the list and its toggle.BabiesAgeInDinoball and BabiesImprintInDinoBall both ship True, and there are caps and multipliers (BabyAgeInDinoballCap, ImprintGainInDinoballCap, DinoballBabyGrowthMultiplier) to tune how far that goes.TerminalRequiresPower ships True, and most automation features (passive production, incubation, egg search, spoil bonuses, death auto-capture, poop generation) additionally have their own …RequiresPower switch, so you can run some features powered and others free.